Ukrainian refugees in Estonia should learn the host nation’s language, the Baltic nation’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has said. She made the remarks in an interview with the Russian-language ETV+ channel, aired on Tuesday.

“Estonian language courses are also important. We don’t want a new community in Estonia that doesn’t speak Estonian,” Kallas stated. “Even if they return [to Ukraine], and 80% of the refugees say they want to return, why not have a group of people in Ukraine who speak Estonian? There is nothing wrong with that. So, yes, that’s the course we took from the very beginning.”

The refugees fleeing the conflict between Moscow and Kiev have already put a heavy strain on the country’s economy, Kallas said. “We have some 40,000 of those who have received temporary protection status. Those who apply for temporary protection are, so to speak, our pain and our joy. These people access our benefits system and have a distinct impact on our taxpayers,” the PM noted, adding that “there are no places where they can live, no jobs, no places in schools.”

Estonia, along with other Baltic states, has been among the hardline supporters of Ukraine amid the conflict with Moscow, strongly backing the EU-wide sanctions on Russia.

Ukrainian refugees in Estonia should learn the host nation’s language, the Baltic nation’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, has said. She made the remarks in an interview with the Russian-language ETV+ channel, aired on Tuesday.

“Estonian language courses are also important. We don’t want a new community in Estonia that doesn’t speak Estonian,” Kallas stated. “Even if they return [to Ukraine], and 80% of the refugees say they want to return, why not have a group of people in Ukraine who speak Estonian? There is nothing wrong with that. So, yes, that’s the course we took from the very beginning.”

The refugees fleeing the conflict between Moscow and Kiev have already put a heavy strain on the country’s economy, Kallas said. “We have some 40,000 of those who have received temporary protection status. Those who apply for temporary protection are, so to speak, our pain and our joy. These people access our benefits system and have a distinct impact on our taxpayers,” the PM noted, adding that “there are no places where they can live, no jobs, no places in schools.”

Estonia, along with other Baltic states, has been among the hardline supporters of Ukraine amid the conflict with Moscow, strongly backing the EU-wide sanctions on Russia.

Among other things, the country’s parliament passed a bill to completely phase out Russian-language schooling earlier this month. Kallas defended the measure, which affects the Russian ethnic minority – around a quarter of the nation’s population of 1.3 million. She insisted the reform is an entirely “normal” thing for Europe.

“There are a lot of children in Europe who get schooled in a language other than their mother tongue. This is normal. Children quickly learn another language. Of course, this reform could have been carried out many years ago, but for some reason, everyone hoped that the problem would go away on its own. It did not, thus these laws had to be passed,” she said at the time.

The PM’s comments on Estonian courses for Ukrainian refugees did not escape Moscow’s attention. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova took to Telegram to respond: “Kaja, Adolf [Hitler] would be proud of you. Without you it would be much more difficult to prove the dehumanization of the collective West. Estonia for Estonians, right? Say it already, and stop palping the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with your sweaty palms.”

 

 

READ MORE:

https://www.rt.com/russia/569122-estonia-ukrainians-language-policy/

 

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BY KIT KLARENBERG AND TOM SECKER

 

A trove of intelligence files sent by Canadian peacekeepers expose CIA black ops, illegal weapon shipments, imported jihadist fighters, potential false flags, and stage-managed atrocities.

The established mythos of the Bosnian War is that Serb separatists, encouraged and directed by Slobodan Milošević and his acolytes in Belgrade, sought to forcibly seize Croat and Bosniak territory in service of creating an irredentist “Greater Serbia.” Every step of the way, they purged indigenous Muslims in a concerted, deliberate genocide, while refusing to engage in constructive peace talks.

 

This narrative was aggressively perpetuated by the mainstream media at the time, and further legitimized by the UN-created International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) once the conflict ended. It has become axiomatic and unquestionable in Western consciousness ever since, enforcing the sense that negotiation invariably amounts to appeasement, a mentality that has enabled NATO war hawks to justify multiple military interventions over subsequent years.

However, a vast trove of intelligence cables sent by Canadian peacekeeping troops in Bosnia to Ottawa’s National Defence Headquarters, first published by Canada Declassified at the start of 2022, exposes this narrative as cynical farce. 

The documents offer an unparalleled, first-hand, real-time view of the war as it developed, with the prospect of peace rapidly degrading into grinding bloodshed that ultimately caused the painful death of the multi-faith, multi-ethnic Yugoslavia.

The Canadian soldiers were part of a wider UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR) dispatched to former Yugoslavia in 1992, in the vain hope tensions wouldn’t escalate to all-out-war, and an amicable settlement could be reached by all sides. They stayed until the bitter end, long past the point their mission was reduced to miserable, life-threatening failure.

The peacekeepers’ increasingly bleak analysis of the reality on the ground provides a candid perspective of the war’s history that has been largely concealed from the public. It is a story of CIA black ops, literally explosive provocations, illegal weapon shipments, imported jihadist fighters, potential false flags, and stage-managed atrocities. 

Read the complete Canadian UNPROFOR cables here.

See key excerpts of the files referred to in this article here.

“Outside interference in the peace process”

It is a little-known but openly acknowledged fact that the US laid the foundations for war in Bosnia, sabotaging a peace deal negotiated by the European Community in early 1992. Under its auspices, the country would be a confederation, divided into three semi-autonomous regions along ethnic lines. While far from perfect, each side generally got what it wanted – in particular, self-governance – and at the least, enjoyed an outcome preferable to all-out conflict.

However, on March 28th, 1992, US Ambassador to Yugoslavia Warren Zimmerman met with Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic, a Bosniak Muslim, to reportedly offer Washington’s recognition of the country as an independent state. He further promised unconditional support in the inevitable subsequent war, if rejected the Community proposal. Hours later, Izetbegovic went on the warpath, and fighting erupted almost immediately.

Received wisdom dictates the Americans were concerned that Brussels’ leading role in negotiations would weaken Washington’s international prestige, and assist in the soon-to-be European Union emerging as an independent power bloc following the collapse of Communism.

While such concerns were no doubt held by US officials, the UNPROFOR cables expose a much darker agenda at work. Washington wanted Yugoslavia reduced to rubble, and planned to bring the Serbs violently to heel by prolonging the war as long as possible. To the US, the Serbs were the ethnic group most determined to preserve the troublesome independent republic’s existence.

These aims were very effectively served by Washington’s absolutist assistance to the Bosniaks. It was an article of faith in the Western mainstream at the time, and remains so today, that Serb intransigence in negotiations blocked the path to peace in Bosnia. Yet, the UNPROFOR cables make repeatedly clear this was not the case.

In cables sent July – September 1993, the time of a ceasefire and renewed attempt to amicably partition the country, the Canadian peacekeepers repeatedly attribute an obstinate character to Bosniaks, not Serbs. As one representative excerpt states, the “insurmountable” goal of “satisfying Muslim demands will be the primary obstacle in any peace talks.”

Various passages also refer to how “outside interference in the peace process” did “not help the situation,” and “no peace” could be achieved “if outside parties continue to encourage the Muslims to be demanding and inflexible in negotiations.”

By “outside” assistance, UNPROFOR of course meant Washington. Its unconditional support for the Bosniaks motivated them to “[negotiate] as if they had won the war,” which they had to date “lost”.

“Encouraging Izetbegovic to hold out for further concessions,” and “clear US desires to lift the arms embargo on the Muslims and to bomb the Serbs are serious obstacles to ending the fighting in the former Yugoslavia,” the peacekeepers recorded on September 7th 1993.

The next day, they reported to headquarters that “Serbs have been the most compliant with the terms of the ceasefire.” Meanwhile, Izetbegovic was basing his negotiating position on “the popular image of the Bosnian Serbs as the bad guys.” Validating this illusion had a concomitant benefit – namely, precipitating NATO airstrikes on Serb areas. This was not lost on the peacekeepers:

“Serious talks in Geneva will not occur as long as Izetbegovic believes that airstrikes will be flown against the Serbs. These airstrikes will greatly strengthen his position and likely make him less cooperative in negotiations.” 

Simultaneously, Muslim fighters were “not giving peace talks a chance, just going hell for leather,” and very much willing and able to assist in Izetbegovic’s objective. Throughout the final months of 1993, they launched countless broadsides on Serb territory throughout Bosnia, in breach of the ceasefire. 

In December, when Serb forces launched a “major attack” of their own, a cable that month asserted that since early Summer, “most of the Serb activity has been defensive or in response to Muslim provocation.”

A September 13th UNPROFOR cable noted that in Sarajevo, “Muslim forces continue to infiltrate the Mount Igman area and shell BSA [Bosnian Serb Army] positions around the city daily,” the “assessed aim” being to “increase Western sympathy by provoking an incident and blaming the Serbs.” 

Two days later, “provocation” of the Bosnian Serb Army (BSA) was continuing, although “the BSA is reported to be exercising restraint.” This area remained a key Bosniak target for some time afterwards. The July – September volume concludes with an ominous cable:

“BSA occupation of Mount Igman is not adversely affecting the situation in Sarajevo. It is simply an excuse for Izetbegovic to delay negotiations. His own troops have been the worst violators [emphasis added] of the [July 30th] ceasefire agreement.”

Enter the Mujahideen: “The Muslims are not above firing on their own people or UN areas”

Throughout the conflict, the Bosnian mujahideen worked ceaselessly to escalate the violence. Muslims from all over the world flooded into the country beginning in the latter half of 1992, waging jihad against the Croats and Serbs. Many had already gained experience on the Afghan battlefield through the 1980’s and early 90’s after arriving from CIA and MI6-infiltrated fundamentalist groups in Britain and the US. For them, Yugoslavia was the next recruitment ground.

The Mujahideen frequently arrived on “black flights”, along with an endless flow of weapons in breach of the UN embargo. This started off as a joint Iranian and Turkish operation, with the financial backing of Saudi Arabia, although as the volume of weapons increased the US took over, flying the deadly cargo to an airport in Tuzla using fleets of C-130 Hercules aircraft.

Estimates of the Bosnian mujahideen’s size vary vastly, but their pivotal contribution to the civil war seems clear. US Balkans negotiator Richard Holbrooke in 2001 declared that Bosniaks “wouldn’t have survived” without their help, and branded their role in the conflict a “pact with the devil” from which Sarajevo was yet to recover.

Mujahideen fighters are never explicitly mentioned in the UNPROFOR cables, and neither are Bosniaks – the term “the Muslims” is used liberally. Still, oblique references to the former are plentiful. 

A Winter 1993 intelligence report observed that “the weak and decentralized command and control systems” of the three opposing sides produced “widespread proliferation of weapons and the existence of various official and unofficial paramilitary groups, who often have individual and local agendas.” Among those “unofficial” groups was the Mujahideen, of course. 

More clearly, in December that year, the peacekeepers recorded how David Owen, a former British politician who served as the European Community’s lead negotiator in the former Yugoslavia, “had been condemned to death for being responsible for the deaths 0f 130,000 Muslims in Bosnia,” his sentence “passed by the ‘Honour Court of Muslims’.” It was understood that “45 people were in place all over Europe to carry out the sentence.” 

Owen certainly wasn’t responsible for the deaths of 130,000 Muslims, as nowhere near that many Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs were killed over the course of the war in total. Nor were the Bosniaks religious extremists with a network of operatives across the continent, on standby to carry out fatwas passed down by an “Honour Court.”

Subsequent to this incident, which has never previously been publicly revealed, there are reports of “the Muslims” preparing false flag provocations. In January 1994, one cable observed: 

“The Muslims are not above firing on their own people or UN areas and then claiming the Serbs are the guilty party in order to gain further Western sympathy. The Muslims often site their artillery extremely close to UN buildings and sensitive areas such as hospitals in the hope that Serb counter-bombardment fire will hit these sites under the gaze of the international media.”

Another cable records how “Muslim troops masquerading as UN forces” had been spotted wearing UNPROFOR’s blue helmets and “a combination of Norwegian and British combat clothing,” driving vehicles painted white and marked UN. The peacekeepers’ Director General feared that if such connivance was to become “widespread” or “be used for infiltration of Croat lines,” it would “greatly increase the prospects for legitimate UN forces to be targeted by the Croats.”

 

“This may be exactly what the Muslims intend, possibly to provoke further pressure for airstrikes on the Croats,” the cable adds.

That same month, UNPROFOR cables speculated “the Muslims” would target Sarajevo airport, the destination for humanitarian aid to the Bosniaks, with a false flag attack. As “the Serbs would be the obvious culprits” in such a scenario, “the Muslims would gain a great deal of propaganda value from such Serb activity,” and it was “thus very tempting for the Muslims to conduct the shelling and blame the Serbs.”

US proxy wars, then and now

Against this backdrop, cables related to the Markale Massacre take on a particularly striking character. On February 5th 1994, an explosion tore through a civilian market, causing 68 deaths and 144 casualties. 

Responsibility for the attack – and the means by which it was executed – has been hotly contested ever since, with separate official investigations yielding inconclusive results. The UN at the time was unable to make an attribution, although UNPROFOR troops have since testified they suspected the Bosniak side may have been responsible.

Accordingly, cables from this time refer to “disturbing aspects” of the event, including journalists being “directed to the scene so quickly,” and “a very visible Muslim Army presence in the area.”

“We know that the Muslims have fired on their own civilians and the airfield in the past in order to gain media attention,” one concluded. A later memo observes, “Muslim forces outside of Sarajevo have, in the past, planted high explosives in their own positions and then detonated them under the gaze of the media, claiming Serb bombardment. This has then been used as a pretext for Muslim ‘counter-fire’ and attacks on the Serbs.”

Nonetheless, in its 2003 conviction of Serb general Stanislav Galić for his role in the siege of Sarajevo, the ICTY concluded the Massacre was deliberately perpetrated by Serb forces, a ruling held up on appeal.

The authors of this article make no judgment on what did or did not happen at Markale that fateful day. However, the murkiness surrounding the event foreshadowed pivotal events that justified escalations in every subsequent Western proxy war, from Iraq to Libya to Syria to Ukraine.

Since the onset of the Ukraine proxy war this February 24th, deliberate war crimes, real incidents misleadingly framed as war crimes, and potentially staged events are virtually daily occurrences, along with accompanying volleys of claims and counterclaims of culpability. In some cases, officials on one side have even gone from celebrating and claiming credit for an attack to blaming the other within days, or simply hours. Substance and spin have become inseparable, if not symbiotic.

In years to come, who did what to whom and when could well, in the manner of the ICTY, become matters decided in international courts. There are already moves to set up a similar body once the war in Ukraine is over. 

Parliamentarians in the Netherlands have demanded that Vladimir Putin be tried in The Hague. France’s Foreign Ministry has called for a special tribunal to be created. Kiev-based NGO Truth Hounds is collecting evidence every day of purported Russian atrocities across the country, in service of such a tribunal.

There can be little doubt that both Kiev and Moscow’s forces have committed atrocities and killed civilians in this conflict, just as it’s indisputable all three sides in the Bosnian War were guilty of heinous acts, and massacres of innocent and/or defenseless people. It’s reasonable to assume the savagery will become ever-more merciless as the war in Ukraine grinds on, in the precise manner as Yugoslavia’s breakup.

Just how long the fighting will continue isn’t certain, although EU and NATO officials have forecast it could be several years, and Western powers clearly intend to keep the proxy war active for as long as possible. On October 11th, The Washington Post reported that the US privately conceded Kiev was incapable of “winning the war outright,” but had also “ruled out the idea of pushing or even nudging Ukraine to the negotiating table.”

This highlights another myth that arose as a result of the Yugoslav wars and which endures to this day. It is the widely-held notion that negotiation and attempts to secure a peaceful settlement only emboldened Serb “aggressors.” 

This dangerous myth has served as justification for all manner of destructive Western interventions. Citizens of these countries live with the consequences of those actions to this day, often as migrants after fleeing cities and towns scorched by regime change wars. 

Another toxic legacy of the Balkan wars also endures: Westerners’ concern about human life is determined by which side their governments back in a given conflict. As the Canadian UNPROFOR cables demonstrate, the US and its allies have cultivated support for their wars by concealing a reality even their own militaries documented in clinical detail.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://thegrayzone.com/2022/12/30/declassified-intelligence-files-bosnian-war/

 

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SEE ALSO: 

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43826

 

https://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/43205

 

remembering the “benevolent global hegemony.” commonly known today as the “rules-based international order”……..

 

 

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

Since the 1990s, no government has been able to control the whole of Somalia’s territory. Lurid news reports about piracy and terrorism obscure the fact that big powers like the US have repeatedly intervened in the country’s affairs and worsened its condition.

 

Western media coverage has often presented Somalia as the classic example of a failed state. For the past three decades, no government has been able to control its national territory.

But news reports about terrorism and piracy have obscured the fact that Somalia is very much a part of the world system. From the Cold War to the “war on terror,” outside intervention by the world’s most powerful states has played a major role in worsening the Somali crisis.

Elizabeth Schmidt is a professor emeritus of history at Loyola University Maryland. Her most recent book is Foreign Intervention in Africa After the Cold War. This is an edited transcript from Jacobin’s Long Reads podcast. You can listen to the episode here.

DANIEL FINN

How did the postcolonial Somali state emerge after the period of British and Italian rule, and what were the main legacies of colonial domination for Somalia?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

When Somalia got its independence in 1960, it was a very strained union of the British and Italian colonies in northern and southern Somalia. The colonial boundaries were retained after independence, which resulted in millions of ethnic Somalis being located in neighboring countries, notably Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti. As a result, ethnic Somalis waged campaigns against neighboring countries trying to bring their so-called lost populations into the independent state of Somalia. It created a lot of conflict.

The colonial boundaries were retained after independence, which resulted in millions of ethnic Somalis being located in neighboring countries. ANIEL FINN

What were the main ethnic and clan identities that could be found in Somalia at the time of independence?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

Within Somalia, most of the people were considered to be ethnic Somalis, who share a language, a culture, and a religion. You had one main ethnic group that was fairly homogenous, yet there were divisions among clans. There were different clans in the Italian and the British colonies, but also within each of those former colonies. Again, this resulted in a lot of conflict. There were also ethnic minorities, and they were heavily discriminated against in Somalia.

DANIEL FINN

How did Siad Barre come to power at the end of the 1960s, and what were the main policies that his government set about enacting?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

Mohamed Siad Barre was a general in the Somali Army, and he overthrew the previous government. Somalia’s second president was assassinated and then there was a military coup in 1969. Siad Barre announced right away that Somalia would pursue a Soviet-style scientific-socialist agenda, which began with a massive public works program.

Somalia did make significant strides in development, especially in the rural areas. There were mass literacy campaigns. Primary education was extended and became more widely available. Public health was a big achievement in the rural areas — just the basics, but still more than they had before — and economic development. These policies were considered quite progressive by leftists, while the United States worried about Somalia’s burgeoning relationship with the Soviet Union.

DANIEL FINN

What was the impact of the revolution in neighboring Ethiopia during the 1970s on Somalia’s foreign policy and its relationship with the USSR?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

The Ethiopian revolution that took place in 1974 overthrew what was essentially a feudal society. The military regime which took power in Ethiopia did not immediately declare itself to be Marxist, but it eventually embraced that label.

The United States was extremely concerned about what was happening in Ethiopia — even more concerned than it was about Somalia — so it suspended its economic aid. Ethiopia had been a close US ally under its feudal leader Haile Selassie. The Soviet Union then became the main source of Ethiopia’s military and economic assistance.

The United States was extremely concerned about what was happening in Ethiopia — even more concerned than it was about Somalia.

Meanwhile, Somalia’s relationship with the Eastern Bloc began to fray. The United States came in, hoping to use Somalia as a bulwark against the even more radical, Marxist Ethiopian government. The Soviet Union tried to have it both ways, being involved with Somalia and with Ethiopia at the same time.

But Somalia invaded Ethiopia in 1977, trying to capture the territories of the Ogaden that contained a lot of ethnic Somalis. Of course, that infuriated the Soviet Union, which had wanted to create a sort of union of socialist states in the Horn of Africa, bringing Somalia and Ethiopia together. If it had to pick between them, however, it was going to pick Ethiopia.

Somalia was widely seen as the aggressor nation. When the African colonies gained their independence, they agreed to minimize conflict by accepting the colonial boundaries, however irrational they might be. Somalia was violating this principle of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of today’s African Union. Moscow abandoned its alliance with Somalia and gave its full support to Ethiopia.

DANIEL FINN

How did the United States deal with the regime of Siad Barre at the time of the Ogaden war and afterward?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

The United States hoped to use Somalia to thwart Soviet encroachment in the Horn. But it didn’t want to be open about its support for Somalia, since most African countries considered Somalia to be the aggressor state that was violating OAU principles. The CIA hired an arms dealer that supplied US-made weapons, and other agencies coordinated the flow of weapons through third-party states. It wasn’t until after the Ogaden conflict was settled in 1978 that the United States began openly supporting Somalia, which it now did with a vengeance.

DANIEL FINN

What were the main internal challenges to Siad Barre’s rule during the 1980s?

By the mid-1980s, Somalia was in dire straits. The cost of the Ethiopian war, combined with corruption and mismanagement, had run the economy into the ground. It was in a downward spiral, and this had clearly dissipated the development achievements of the previous decade. Combined with very onerous taxes, that stimulated unrest in the rural areas.

Siad Barre imprisoned his critics, or killed them, or drafted them into the Somali army, and then collectively punished their clan members.

This is where Siad Barre’s general tactics came in when he was in crisis. He brutally repressed the protests, generating real hatred for his regime. He imprisoned his critics, or killed them, or drafted them into the Somali army, and then collectively punished their clan members. He encouraged clan rivalry — divide and rule — and his own clan increasingly dominated the regime.

In 1989, the clans that had suffered from harassment or discrimination united in their opposition to Siad Barre’s rule. There was also another force fighting against the Barre regime, the Islamists, who had been brutally repressed. These two groups — the clans that had suffered discrimination and the Islamists — united against the dictatorship.

DANIEL FINN

When the central government in Mogadishu collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, what forms of authority took its place, and how did the people of Somalia experience that period?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

The central government collapsed at the beginning of the 1990s, which was also the end of the Cold War, and that wasn’t a coincidence. With Moscow weakening politically and economically, the United States didn’t feel like it needed Somalia any more as a regional policeman in the Horn. It expressed a newfound concern about Siad Barre’s human rights abuses.

Obviously, the United States had been well aware of what Siad Barre was doing beforehand, but they chose to turn a blind eye to it because they wanted to use him as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Now that the Soviet Union was no longer there, the United States began decrying human rights abuses and suspended economic and military aid

Without the massive US support that he had been getting since the late 1970s, Siad Barre was an easy target. In January 1991, the warlords and their clan-based militias overthrew the regime and Somalia essentially collapsed into chaos. Southern Somalia fractured into fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords who clashed with the resurgent Islamist movement. State institutions disintegrated and nongovernmental actors had to provide services, to the extent that services were provided at all.

Without the massive US support that he had been getting since the late 1970s, Siad Barre was an easy target.

It was the Islamist organizations in particular that played a critical role in this regard. They restored law and order to the war zones. They reestablished basic social services like health care and education. That was very much welcomed by the Somali population.

DANIEL FINN

What impact did the US-led military intervention in that period have on Somalia?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

In 1992, the United States launched a multinational military intervention, backed by the UN. When I say “multinational,” I mean that it was dominated by the United States, with a sprinkling of troops from other countries to allow it to claim the “multinational” label. We’ve seen this pattern repeated in US policy elsewhere.

The mission of the 1992 endeavor was to ensure the delivery of humanitarian relief to the Somali people. The idea was that the disaster in Somalia was going to create instability in the Horn, and that wouldn’t be good for anybody. In 1993, another UN mission permitted US-led forces to disarm and arrest Somali warlords and militia members.

Many civilians were killed in US airstrikes, including clan leaders, religious leaders, intellectuals, and businessmen who were meeting to discuss a UN peace proposal.

This was quite different from just having armed troops line the road from the airport to allow the relief supplies to get in. But there wasn’t a lot of publicity about the change, so many people assumed that it was the same humanitarian mission as it had been the previous year. The United States and the UN favored one warlord over another, while the one they really opposed was a man by the name of Mohamed Farrah Aidid. It became their goal to arrest him, disarm him, or kill him.

Civilians were caught in the crossfire, and many were killed in US airstrikes. This included clan leaders, religious leaders, intellectuals, and businessmen who were meeting to discuss a UN peace proposal. These were clearly people who were considering joining forces with the UN, but an airstrike ended up killing them.

These massacres of Somali leaders and civilians caused a tremendous backlash in the Somali population. They began to direct their retaliatory attacks, not only against the US and UN troops, but against any foreigner. Journalists and relief workers were targeted, and many withdrew from Somalia. US troops in turn started to consider most Somali civilians to be a possible threat and treated them accordingly. The relationship between the US troops and Somali civilians was increasingly poor.

The climax of these developments came in early October 1993, when US Army Rangers and Delta Force troops, hoping to capture or kill Aidid and his top lieutenants, raided some of the known Aidid compounds in Mogadishu. Aidid’s forces shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, which crashed into children in the crowd below. As a result, angry crowds attacked the soldiers who had come to rescue the survivors. Eighteen US soldiers and hundreds of Somali men, women, and children were killed in the violence that followed.

DANIEL FINN

Following the US withdrawal from Somalia in the 1990s, there was a renewed interest in what was happening in the country after the 9/11 attacks, as the United States launched its so-called war on terror. How did the new development of US policy affect conditions in Somalia, and what factors lay behind the growth of the group Al-Shabaab?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

In 1994, having stirred up a hornets’ nest, the United States hastily withdrew its troops from Somalia. As we have seen elsewhere in the world, the United States expects to be able to engage with opponents in various conflicts, but it doesn’t think that Americans should pay the price with their lives. If too many Americans are dying, then the United States withdraws and thinks about other ways of accomplishing its goals.

However, Al-Qaeda began to emerge elsewhere in East Africa, and this gave rise to new concerns. The bomb attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 were a case in point. This was followed by the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001. This resulted in the United States increasing its collaboration with Ethiopia, Somalia’s long-term nemesis, which did not bode well for US relations with Somalia.

The United States viewed all conservative Muslims as terrorists and jihadists, which was an erroneous assumption. Very few Islamists supported violent extremism.

Meanwhile, Somali Islamist groups had gained significant popular support by providing essential social services, including schools, medical care, and courts that brought some law and order to the war zone. The United States ignored the reasons for the appeal of Islamism in Somalia.

Certainly, some of it was religious: most Somalis were Muslims, although their brand of Islam was less conservative than that of the Islamists, who believed that religion should govern all aspects of life. Somalis have historically followed a more open and tolerant brand of Islam. But the Islamists were the ones providing badly needed services, so people turned to them.

The United States viewed all conservative Muslims as terrorists and jihadists, which was an erroneous assumption. Very few Islamists supported violent extremism. Because of this mistaken perception, the United States decided to collaborate with Ethiopia and set out on a violent campaign to stamp out Islamism in Somalia. It also banded together with Somali warlords and imposed a new government on Somalia in 2004.

This corrupt regime was dominated by the clan of one warlord, and it marginalized the rival clans, including the ones that controlled Mogadishu. It purged the parliament of opposition members. This new government, which had been imposed by outsiders, only survived with the protection of Ethiopian troops. It wasn’t even able to enter Mogadishu, the capital city, and had to establish an alternative capital in the much smaller city of Baidoa.

Two years later, in 2006, the United States backed another warlord coalition to counter Islamist power. It also supported an Ethiopian invasion and an occupation that lasted until 2009. The intervention by Ethiopia precipitated a domestic insurgency. Just as we saw in Iraq, a foreign invasion stoked up an insurgency where none had existed before.

In the case of Somalia, the domestic insurgency was led by Al-Shabaab, which means “The Youth.” It originated as a youth militia that was organized to protect the Islamic courts. These were the courts that had brought law and order to the war zone: yes, they were sharia courts, but no, their practices did not include cutting off hands, which is what many in the West associate with sharia law.

They were courts based on religious principles, and Al-Shabaab had been organized to support them, but it wasn’t violent at that point. It was the foreign invasion and occupation that turned them into a militia that was organized to expel the foreign occupiers.

It was the foreign invasion backed by the United States that brought Al-Qaeda into Somalia.

We always hear about Al-Shabaab as being affiliated to Al-Qaeda. True enough, it is today, but it didn’t affiliate with Al-Qaeda until 2012, whereas the invasion had been launched in 2006. For six years, it was not affiliated with Al-Qaeda, although Al-Qaeda proclaimed its support for the insurgency. Again, it was the foreign invasion backed by the United States that brought Al-Qaeda into Somalia.

By 2007, Al-Shabaab had taken control of large parts of central and southern Somalia, and this prompted the UN, the African Union, and neighboring countries to intervene, so the foreign intervention was only getting stronger. The United States didn’t send its own troops, but it worked in the shadows, launching a campaign of low-intensity warfare against Al-Shabaab operatives, deploying private contractors — in other words, mercenaries — and special forces to train and accompany Somali and African Union troops in combat operations.

This so-called low-intensity warfare included US airstrikes and drone attacks, which targeted Al-Shabaab leaders. Those leaders were quickly replaced by others: the attacks would cut off the head of the hydra, but a new head would grow, so they did not take care of the problem. If anything, they kept up the flow of new leaders coming from the grassroots of Al-Shabaab. The group increasingly focused its attention on the West, targeting aid workers, journalists, and Somalis who worked with them.

In 2012, outside forces once again imposed a new political dispensation. Although it was mediated by the UN and backed by the international community, it was disavowed by large segments of Somali civil society, which had little input into the process. It was another case of outsiders trying to determine Somalia’s future, while not allowing Somalis to speak for themselves about what their grievances were and what kind of post-conflict society they wanted to see. None of the groups from civil society were involved in the negotiations, and none of their initiatives were taken seriously.

Al-Shabaab was driven from Mogadishu to areas further south, but as it left, it focused on new targets. Instead of targeting the outsiders in the capital, it began to target unprotected, so-called soft targets — government offices, schools, hotels, and restaurants. It launched attacks across the border into Kenya and other countries that had supplied troops to the African Union intervention forces. The conflict was expanding beyond Somalia rather than diminishing.

Today, as a result of foreign intervention, Al-Shabaab maintains its powerful foothold in Somalia in the absence of any functioning state apparatus. There was a new president elected in May 2022 after a protracted political crisis. The factors behind it were much like those behind the crises of other governments: favoritism, corruption, mismanagement. The previous president had refused to hold elections.

The security forces, like the civilian administration, are riven by clan-based factions who fight each other rather than Al-Shabaab.

The central government is still not providing basic services. There is no coherent national army, and the security forces, like the civilian administration, are riven by clan-based factions who fight each other rather than Al-Shabaab. According to polls that have been carried out, few Somalis believe that the new government will behave any differently from the succession of governments that preceded it. They expect it to go on catering to corrupt elites rather than the majority of Somali citizens, and ignoring the grievances that ignited the insurgency.

Meanwhile, the United States is continuing to wage a shadow war. The nature of the war has changed. The number of boots on the ground has decreased. It was the Obama administration that escalated the use of drone strikes to kill Al-Shabaab targets, rather than using US special forces and military contractors. The engagement of the United States in Somalia has dropped from the consciousness of most US citizens because Americans aren’t dying. They didn’t really pay attention to what the Obama administration was doing, which was creating even more hostility toward the United States.

DANIEL FINN

As things stand today, how would you assess Somalia’s long-term political and developmental prospects?

ELIZABETH SCHMIDT

I would say the situation is pretty bleak. Most Somali civilians had no input into the peace initiatives brokered by outside actors. From agricultural cooperatives to women’s groups, youth groups, and trade unions, the grassroots peace-building efforts have been sidelined by more powerful forces, and the interests of foreign governments and Somali elites have once again prevailed over those of ordinary citizens.

Unfortunately, it appears that the administration of Joe Biden is going to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors Barack Obama and Donald Trump by defaulting to the failed military policy of endless war. Until that stops, Somali citizens will continue to suffer the consequences.

 

 

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https://jacobin.com/2022/11/somalia-cold-war-war-on-terror-us-intervention-destabilization

 

 

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