Though the African economy is expected to grow by 5.6 per cent in 2007, the same pace as 2006, and with the same momentum over the past three years, it remains insufficient to achieve the MDGs, according to the UN. According to United Nations report 'World Economic Situation and Prospects 2007', most African countries have been unable to sustain sufficiently high growth rates over the medium term.

That sub-Saharan Africa has experienced high growth rates over the past few years is not in dispute, the question is; for how long will it last? For most countries, it won't, according to the World Economic Forum.

The United Nations (UN) has predicted a deceleration of the world economy this year after three straight years of growth with American economy weakening dragged down by a softening United States housing market.

The ANC has expressed hope that convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni still has an important role to play in rebuilding South Africa. The ANC’s statement followed widespread condemnation of the early release from prison on Monday of the disgraced former ANC Chief Whip. Yengeni was released on parole after completing a 20-week stint of his four-year prison term.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is today (17 January 2007) hosting the humanitarian community's annual "Programme Kick-off," an event organized in support of the Humanitarian Appeal 2007.

The United Nations security council is planning to cut its peacekeeping force which monitors the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The UN wants the military force based on the disputed border cut from 2,300 to 1,700, Vitaly Churkin, Russia's UN envoy, said on Tuesday (16 January 2007).

Kameelah Rasheed argues that we should not abandon the WSF or global civil society to the bourgeoisie and liberals who we assume are harmoniously preoccupied with talking and reform agendas. Instead, “we should work toward radical re-appropriations of this problematic space.”

For the past 3 months, I have been trying to decide whether to attend the World Social Forum in Nairobi. The World Social Forum first met in 2001 in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, as a challenge to the World Economic Forum (WEF) and 'claimed to organize an alternative to capitalist neo-liberal globalisation.' Lofty mission, right? I have been lukewarm about the forum for a few months because such transformative discourse is not always met by such transformative politics or action. Furthermore, I like to investigate a bit before I invest the 600 USD for a plane ticket plus 300 USD in associated costs. As I scoured for analysis of the World Social Forum, I came across critiques accusing the WSF of being a glorified discussion group for the emerging class of career activists and NGOs, to an incubator for the domestication of possibly explosive actors.

One paper that I found particularly interesting was Rodha D'Souza's "The WSF Revisited: Back to the Basics." D'Souza analyzes the WSF as advocating discourses that run counter to the tagline "another world is possible." D'Souza interrogates the notion of "civil society" that the WSF harps on (the World Social Forum as "an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulations of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society.")

She examines civil society within a historical context not as a democratic space for the development of counter-hegemonic activity and discourses, but as an incubator for the domestication of the possibly explosive elements of society. In examining the WSF's support of Third World debt cancellation and leading intellectuals’ examination of the Tobin Tax, she finds that the WSF does not interrogate capitalism or state power. Rather it advocates for a "more sustainable exploitation of society." In a search for compassionate capitalism and benevolent states, D'Souza finds that the WSF does not work toward "another world" but toward a reformed vision of the world that does not disrupt the fundamental structures that feed global exploitation.

Patrick Bond's "Gramsci, Polanyi and Impressions from Africa on the Social Forum Phenomenon," further frames the critiques of the WSF. Bond finds that the dichotomous reading of civil society, and by extension the WSF, are rooted in the conflicting arguments of Hungarian social scientist Karl Polanyi's construction of civil society as the "new social movement challenge to neoliberalism", and Italian political theorist Antonio Gramsci's construction of civil society as a "stabilizing, conservative force." If the WSF is a seemingly "stabilizing, conservative force," is the preoccupation with discussion just a politics of diversion to distract us from the need for discourse to be anchored to transformative action?

Before I allowed the pessimism towards the WSF to overwhelm me, I received an email that suggested that our attitude toward the WSF should be that of Gramsci's "Pessimism of the Intellect; Optimism of the Will." Irrespective of the critiques, he reminded me that we should not abandon the WSF or global civil society to the bourgeoisie and liberals who we assume are harmoniously preoccupied with talking and reform agendas. Instead, he argues that we should work toward radical re-appropriations of this problematic space. This process of building is a matter of great urgency. If we become too preoccupied with critiques of the WSF, we will find ourselves both frustrated and without the visions of the new spaces and worlds we want to build.

A lack of funds kept me away from the World Social Forum this year. However, for the lucky many that have the opportunity to participate in this event please keep in mind the words of Patrice Lumumba. Forty-five years ago, before Congolese liberation leader Patrice Lumumba was assassinated, he left a very important message in "Congo, My Country." He wrote: "It is easy enough to shout slogans, to sign manifestos, but it is quite a different matter to build, command, spend days and nights seeking the solutions of problems." While written nearly 45 years ago, this call to action is still important today as many pack our bags en route to Nairobi.

• Kameelah Rasheed is a community activist and Fulbright Scholar at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, South Africa.

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

The article ‘Somalia: The Next Afghanistan + Iraq?’ (www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/39142) by Issa Shivji is well written. It's not been as publicized in the US; what is going on in Somalia? Beyond Africa, there should also be some activity from other people of color around the world. Whether African by birth or by lineage, it is important to protect one another and unite. For the sake of what is Africa and those lives that are there, it is important to scrutinize and protest the US killing of Africans. There has been enough of that throughout history. So what do we do on this side of things?

Ethiopia’s current unilateral intervention into Somalia is a timely poignant reminder of the need to create a functional Eastern African political federation that would serve as an obstacle to the continuation of our now perennial conflicts in the Great Lakes and the Horn of Africa regions.

This invasion was triggered off by parochial national Ethiopian, Somali and Eritrean rivalries. Rivalries that would have been effectively checked by a broader regional political union, which unfortunately, in its absence, are bound to spillover this entire region with disastrous consequences.

Somalia’s condition of statelessness resulting from the misrule of the Said Barre junta has created an arena that fosters regional instability. Unfortunately Ethiopia, under the Meles Zanawi regime, has a vested interest in having either a weak puppet regime in Mogadishu or a stateless Somalia, to the extent that with the blessing of Washington, they supported the emergence of criminal Somali warlords, who held the Somali people at ransom and wreaked havoc on them.

However, the chickens did come home to roost for the Zenawi regime, with the emergence of the Somali Islamic Court Movement. Similar to the Taliban in Afganistan, and indeed drawing experiences from them, they defeated the warlords and established order and sanity in the areas they took over control of. The Islamic Courts created stability that benefited economic activity, one informed by a predictable political regime based on the Islamic Sharia code. This in turn led to their gaining widespread popular support.

And that’s the dilemma that Ethiopia is going to be faced with. For the hand-picked puppet regime that they are currently installing in Mogadishu, headed by Abdullahi Yusuf, lacks the required political support in Somalia. Indeed it would not even last a day, albeit all the support it has from the African Union and Washington, should Addis withdraw its troops.

Though disunited, the Somalis are a highly nationalistic lot when it comes to protecting their identity and country from foreign intrusion. And unless some creative political arrangement is devised, one which accommodates the Islamic Courts and other legitimate Somali political actors, the Zenawi administration is most likely going to be faced with its Waterloo - a protracted Somali guerrilla insurgency that it can ill afford. It will inevitably lose over time, especially since Meles Zenawi embarked on the Somali invasion to divert domestic attention from internal questions of his regime’s legitimacy, and given the high level of opposition the regime faces from large sways of the Amhara and Oromo elite.

The said Somali guerrilla resistance is likely to adopt a jihadist radical Islamic orientation which will unfortunately be internationalist in nature and affect the broader Eastern African region. Already the Al-Qaida leadership was reported to be inciting an insurgency along narrow religious sectarian and nationalist lines.

Uganda’s intervention into Somalia should only be based on a multilateral approach seeking a political stalemate that would create a Somali government of national unity. The current African Union and Ethiopian-backed Abdullai Yusuf administration is too discredited amongst the Somali, and should not be allowed to govern on its own. Time is of the essence and creative diplomacy is called for. Short of this, Ethiopia’s current deceptive victory is mostly likely to cause further instability in Somalia that would directly spill over into Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia itself. It may also trigger off another hot war between Asmara and Addis Ababa.

The medium to long-term solution to these destructive wars lies in the creation of a broad and viable Eastern African political federation. Indeed as events illustrate, this is a necessity, and not luxury, in our region.

Liepollo Lebohang Pheko discusses the real impact of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPA) on women and the failures of liberalization policies to examine and address the specific needs of women.

Trade liberalisation produces different results for men and women. The differential outcomes are associated with the most essential aspects of livelihoods and well-being, including food security, employment, income and access to affordable health services. Differentiated outcomes across countries and regions are based on the category of economic area and specific sector, measures, timing and sequencing of trade policies. They traverse various sectors and sub sectors of trade liberalisation: agriculture, services, clothing and textiles, and intellectual property.

Policy-makers and any groupings concerned with gender equality, poverty eradication and development-orientated economic growth must be cognisant of the massive constraints and challenges presented by the liberalisation of these sectors. In short any cultural, policy and structural constructs that ignore or exacerbate the oppression of women must be redrafted or replaced.

The Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) have not examined the cost of liberalisation on women in terms of physical resources, human resources and social capital needed to transfer resources, skills as control to effectively manage liberalisation. The liberalisation programme of EPAs need to be examined in a broader, gendered context that is mindful of the non neutrality of the market economy.

Geo-politics of EPAs

It is crucial to be mindful of the geo political agenda propelling the Economic Partnership Agreements. The agreement is being punted at a time when European markets are shrinking, production costs are making it difficult for companies to make a significant profit from Northern consumers and three successive WTO ministerial meetings have gone badly for corporate interests.

The African, Caribbean and the Pacific offer the opportunity for the European Union to find an unfettered market. Many observers thus argue that the intentions are related more to pro-North market driven interests than pro-South development ones.

This assertion is evidenced by the intensity of protectionism the EU is permitted while habitually dumping surplus produce on overseas markets. Though 90% of ACP countries’ tariffs must be removed to access EU markets, there is no mention of dismantling the Common Agricultural Policy or of stemming the anti competitive practices arising from dumping. The consensus among many progressives, NGOs and policy analysts in both the South and North is that there is great cause for concern.

EPA and women

In all this, women emerge as the double losers. THE EPAs focus on primary production and force countries to de-industrialise. As such:

• Women are locked into the lowest paid work with the least statutory protection and benefits. Even though employment may increase, the quality of that employment is poor;

• Labour rights are thus violated while factories are given tax holidays at the expense of providing real livelihoods and permanent employment to women workers;

• Women are subject to competing with poorly paid contract workers abroad as the move to ‘outsourcing’ continues as seen in the notorious Export Processing Zones [EPZs] operating in the South;

• The ability to organise and gather as unions or worker groups is minimised through threats, bullying and in extreme cases murder of vocal workers;

• Women’s reproductive rights are violated whether through forced abortions, dismissal when pregnancy is disclosed, or miscarriages through strenuous work and exposure to toxic chemicals;

• Earning an income externally to the household can lead to greater empowerment for women, both in the home and in the wider community. However, trade liberalisation can also lead to unemployment and the restructuring of labour markets – a situation that tends to affect poor and marginalised groups of women more than men. In fact, occupational and wage segregation is widening and bad working conditions are rife in many export industries. The need for flexible workers to respond to market fluctuations has led to a rise in the numbers of informal sector workers, of which a high percentage are women.

• Access to education, health care and other basic services is often truncated through trade liberalisation. As such there is often less to spend at household level so the role of social reproduction in terms of providing care, gathering fuel and food etc is brought upon the women and girls. Where choices are made about whether to send the boy or girl child to school, most communities and families favour the boy. The ‘care economy’ meanwhile remains unregulated and unsupported;

• The displacement of indigenous women farmers and artisans in favour of European tourism interests transforming the South into a huge exotic safari and often linked with increasing sex trade;

• The diminishing of women’s role as custodians of traditional knowledge and bio-diversity has been well documented and bears restating in the wake of the GMO assault and the threat to food sovereignty;

• Cheaper goods come onto national markets from overseas, affecting existing indigenous producers but also providing cheaper options for consumers, many of whom are women who manage diminishing household budgets.

Value Added Tax and Women

Value Added Tax [VAT] can be extremely unfavourable for women, not only as consumers but also relative to their reproductive role, since it is normally levied on goods for the household and labour-saving devices such as domestic appliances. This is in addition to the taxes paid on food at the point of purchase.

The theory of fiscal austerity has fundamental repercussions for expenditure on services such as health and education, which are critical particularly for women in their socially assigned task as ‘carers’. Fiscal austerity may also constrict governments’ capacity to establish social protection measures and safety nets to counteract the harmful consequences of liberalisation.

Production structures and employment

In real terms, the effects and shocks of trade are experienced by individual women, by individual men, by households, by families and by communities whenever fluctuations in price (related to availability of goods) and changes in output (the goods and services people work to produce, how they produce them and under what conditions) occur. A typical claim made by advocates of EPA policies, including some gender advocates, is that increased trade and investment liberalisation can improve economic growth, which in turn can increase women’s participation in the labour market. However, we need to examine the nature and terms of this participation.

Case Study on Production Structures - Leather sector South Africa

Rapid liberalisation of tariffs in the South African footwear and leather sub-sectors (from 41.2 per cent in 1995 to 28.9 per cent in 1999) has resulted in retrenchments and drastic changes in production processes in local factories.

Additionally, there is a correlation between company restructuring in the footwear industry and the expansion of the informal sector. Not only is this the only apparent option for the increasing number of retrenched workers, but also for factories through subcontracting to the informal sector in order to cut labour costs. South Africa’s informal sector has increased from 1,136,000 workers in 1997 to 1,907,000 in 1999. There are approximately 193,000 African women compared to 28,000 white women working in the informal sector. What this illustrates is that it is the social groups with the least power and resources who are over represented in the ‘informal’ sector (Statistics South Africa 1999 cited in ILRIG 2001: 82-83).

Investment measures

There are typically four ways in which a government can protect the national investment measures environment:

1. By prescribing and enforcing minimum local content requirements (in terms of value, volume or proportion);
2. By setting trade balancing requirements (limits on purchase or use of an imported product up to the maximum value or volume related to local production);
3. By placing restrictions on repatriation of dividends;
4. Be placing ceilings on the equity holding of foreign investors.

Several African, Caribbean, South American and Asian countries have adjusted their mercantile and investment laws to comply with bilateral investment agreements aimed at encouraging foreign direct investment (FDI). Usually the result has been to remove regulations which govern minimum local content, trade balancing, access to foreign exchange and repatriation of dividends.

Several South American and Asian countries implemented import substitution policies in the 1960s and 1970s to encourage local production of consumer goods and to maintain a balance of payments through barriers on certain imports. Under WTO agreements these would now be illegal. The gender dimensions of this are that women tend to work more in industries in which capital flight is common and that are more susceptible to foreign competition. These industries are profoundly distressed by economic downturns, which have repercussions on the job protection of the largely female workforce.

Case Study on the Investment Environment – Tomato Sector, Senegal

Some years ago, the Senegalese government reduced tariffs on food imports to comply with a trade liberalisation package. This coincided with the launch of tomato paste business by a group of Senegalese women. They had taken out micro-credit loans. Having shifted from producing subsistence crops to solely growing tomatoes tariffs dropped and cheap foreign tomatoes flooded the Senegalese market. In what seems the typical story of the South when confronted with Northern imports, co-operatives were unable to compete. The result was that they could not honour the payment of micro credit loans. This illustrates the hostility of the market towards women and less resourced business people. It also shows the importance of Southern government regulation and protectionism of women and their families. It is critical to prevent families from entering economic situations that are more invidious than before as a result of placing them in competitive environments without adequate support.

Small and medium enterprises and women entrepreneurs

Enterprise development and market access are commonly promoted as policies that enable developing countries to engage in international trade. Overall, liberalisation under the WTO rules has not significantly increased women’s access to credit, nor has it enhanced opportunities to generate domestic savings for entrepreneurial activities. Structural gender inequalities linked to property rights and ownership women have fewer assets that can serve as collateral.

Instead of introducing a framework to enable women’s access to credit and venture capital, profit-motivated liberalisation policies have propagated the discrimination against marginalised and dispossessed women by mainstream financial markets by aiming at urban areas and more lucrative economic sectors. This excludes poor women who are concentrated in the informal sector and operate mostly in small and medium enterprises. The Most Favoured Nation principal merely enforces this.

Women largely go to unregulated sources of venture capital. These are composed of specialised moneylenders, pawnbrokers, savings and credit associations, and characterised by the lack of regulation and high interest rates.

Currency devaluation

Currency devaluations have particularly insidious effects on people living on the economic margins especially women. Typically, women and girls absorb the direct consequence of price increases attributable to classic societal expectations that prescribe women as custodians of domestic well-being. This encompasses:

• Extra workloads in waged and unwaged work to outpace appreciating prices;
• Survival mechanisms to source affordable alternatives (replacing home produced food for shop bought);
• Transferring consumption rations to family members who earn the most.

The African Women Leaders in Agriculture and Environment (AWLAE) have published a case study of the devaluation of the CFA franc in Mali. The findings assert that since the devaluation, “women are participating in greater numbers in agricultural production as the number of households threatened by food insecurity increases.” Women invest more labour into crop cultivation as an incoming generating venture. This resulted in decreased child care at domestic level. In addition AWLAE’s research also exposed the irony that women’s status improved due to their ‘indispensable’ financial contributions to the household. In contrast men tended to abandon their social, community and household responsibilities as financial pressures mounted as an inverse coping strategy.

Capital controls on direct investment

Capital controls (owning physical property) or portfolio investment (investing in the stock and bond market) are pivotal in preventing speculative investment and encourage enhanced financial stability. Speculative investment often results in major economic disturbance, and swift, substantial changes in money moving into or out of a country for rapid profit. Investment controls restrict external money flows enabling countries to pursue social investment priorities such as employment creation and technology transfer. Free market proponents argue that liberal capital movement is more efficient while restrictions discourage investment. The primary concern of the free market investment environment is that investors may opt to go to countries with fewer controls.

Case study on capital controls - Asia Crisis

A major catalyst of the Asian financial crisis was the swift capital flight from Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea, following a drastic increase in speculation. (FDI doubled in South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines between 1994-1996.) Most of these had inadequate [if any] capital controls having liberalised financial markets without sufficient regulations. This inadequately protected environment enabled investors and well-off individuals to effortlessly remove money from banks, the stock market and certain businesses to more lucrative off shore markets. Inexorably financial volatility resulting from capital flight plummeted foreign exchange rates, triggered scores of bankruptcies and momentarily shattered Asian economies.

This period was characterised by escalating joblessness and prices for essential commodities. The numbers of people in extreme poverty soared in tandem with the increasingly desperate economic conditions. For example from 1997-1998, unemployment in Indonesia tripled, according to the International Labour Organisation. One immediate coping mechanism was to despatch women and girls to augment household incomes. Indonesian government figures state that there was an increase of 2.4million self-employed people and 1.3 million in unpaid workers (including family businesses like farms). It is not clear how many of new workers were female. What is well documented is that females are disproportionately over-represented in the informal sector and among unpaid family workers. Statistical data is not yet able to quantify the spectacular rise in migrant labour and prostitution among Indonesian women.

Conclusion

The EPAs will undeniably affect individuals, families and communities through their impact on prices, employment, capital flows, investment conditions and production structures. Most critics of the EPAs agree that these structural changes will have differentiated consequences on women and men, the wealthiest and the least wealthy due to their incongruent locations in the economic system. These diverse positions arise partly from various national contexts and are strengthened by nuanced social and cultural factors such as gender, ethnicity, class or race. Furthermore, the New Issues so far resisted at WTO level could make a pernicious come back through the EPAs.

In all this the power and social relations between the South and the North, between women and men, between girls and boys, between differently abled citizens, between the economically dispossessed and the wealthy, between people with different educational attainments and a plethora of other societal textures will be exacerbated. The experiences of Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes and the current struggles against the World Trade Organisation provide ample evidence of this.

The Economic Partnership Agreements have implications for job security, livelihoods, well-being and human rights. The dangers of liberalisation for women are well crystallised by the construct of social inclusion. This inherently respects and acknowledges a sense of human community in which all community interests must be considered in order for the whole to progress.

These bring human rights to life and remind us that any policy, practise or law that further removes the displaced, further excludes the marginalised and further impoverishes the most vulnerable- most of whom are women- must be redrafted, rethought and realigned to promote gender equity and authentic social transformation.

• Liepollo Lebohang Pheko Is a member of the Secretariat for the Gender & Trade Network in Africa based in Johannesburg. This paper was presented at the European Commission, Brussels, and is republished here with the kind permission of the author.

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Durban is known for its beautiful beaches and its sunny skies. Saranel Benjamin, however, argues that life in Durban in not all that rosy, especially for street children.

I’ve been walking the streets of Durban with my friend and co-researcher. We’ve been walking from the beachfront to the workshop looking for street children. We walk through alleyways with names I didn’t even know existed in a city I have lived in all my life. I see things that I have read about but never seen up close, in my life. I see things that I know a modern society like ours should not be having in its midst.

Our brief is specific. We have to find street children for our research. But they cannot be any street children – it has to be street children that survive by scavenging in refuse bins for food. I have seen tons of research done on all aspects of street children - from their survival strategies, HIV/Aids, the impact on the family system, to the psychological impact on children who live on the street. Many researchers have walked this path that we are walking. I am certain that they too felt their souls shattering as they talked to these children.

Every night I am haunted by the faces of the children I meet during the day. Their stories weigh heavy on my heart and when I close my eyes I see their hungry, pained, desperate faces. I want to hug them all, save them all. I am riddled with guilt with every spoonful of food I put into my mouth, for the roof I have over my head, and the warm bed I have every night. I panic when it starts to rain because I think of Thabo, Senzo and all the other children who are sleeping on pavements with no shelter over their heads, getting drenched to the bone - six children sharing one tattered blanket. I look at the time. It is about 5pm. I know that the children will be going out, like stealth-hunters, spreading through the shadows of the city, scavenging in bins for food.

But my sadness comes most from how, as the human race, we have failed our children. As a society, supposedly built on humanness, we have sacrificed our children. We look at the children on the street and we don’t give them a glance because we rationalize that they are not our own. We are the adults, the grown-ups, the custodians of the children of our society. We brought them into this world and gave them life. As the grown-ups we have a duty to care for them, all children, not just our own. Most of the children we spoke to were forced onto the streets because their parents had died and/or their families were so destitute that these children had to go out onto the street either to take care of themselves or to send money back home to their poverty-stricken families. When the economics and the politics of our country becomes so inhumane that our only answer to our children is to thrust them out of their homes to fend for themselves, we should know then that our time, as the humane race, is over. We have become savages amidst our country’s neglect to devise a back-up plan for this catastrophe.

Recently we met Thabo, a little boy of 12. He has been on the street for just two weeks. Both his parents died and his granny couldn’t afford to take care of him and his two sisters so she sent them out of the house. He doesn’t know where his two sisters are. They got separated on the streets. He looks like a fish out of water on that sunny yet grotty part of the Durban beachfront. He should be playing on the beach, frolicking in the water. Instead he sits outside a supermarket not knowing how to go about asking these grown-up strangers for food or money. His heart hasn’t hardened enough to allow him to make that decision to steal as yet. Nor has he been integrated into any of the other packs of street children where he would be taught the skills of surviving on the street. Instead, Thabo’s broken heart and hungry stomach forces him to stick his little, innocent hands into a garbage bin and scrummage inside it with the hope that some grown-up stranger has thrown away his or her lunch. His sad, tear-streaked face made me feel ashamed that all this time I didn’t know the extent of what lay at the foot of where I lived and that in all this time, I didn’t do anything - that I lived my life as if the world, South Africa, Durban was alright.

I know that when we come back in a few weeks, Thabo will be integrated into a pack of seasoned street children. There is a greater likelihood that he will be beaten up by some of the older boys. He will definitely be introduced to the ways in which he can ease the pinching hunger in his stomach and the splitting headache by sniffing glue and/or prostituting himself to the grown-up men in big cars with big money. He will be taught how to steal. He will inevitably spend a couple of months in a jail cell.

But there is always the hope that Thabo will find his way into a pack of street children who hold the dream of making something of their lives by living honestly. Some of the boys we spoke with hold a simple ambition of earning money for their food and shelter. They do this by washing or guarding cars they know they will never get to own, let alone drive in. Or they sell trinkets and snacks to tourists or passer-bys. In this group Thabo might be able to earn just enough to keep his little hands out of the rubbish bins, his little body safe from seedy men, and his innocent life out of prison.

But even these boys find themselves living on the fringes of a safe life. For as much as these children want to escape the reality of their shitty existence, there are those grown-ups, big people, adults, custodians of children like the police, for example, who are intent on erasing our modern city landscape of the eyesore that is street children. Some of the boys on the street have reported that at least twice a week, the “Black Jacks” (police) come around and confiscate the goods that they are selling by claiming that the street children are illegal traders and do not have permits to trade. For extra good measure, just to make sure that the kick to the hungry stomach is humiliating and lasts long enough to keep the kid on his knees, the police take away their blankets and their clothes. Some of the boys have resorted to wearing all their clothes at once so that they won’t be stolen by their custodians. Although one boy said that he regularly gets stripped down to his underpants and his clothes taken away by the “Black Jacks”.

As we walk into one of the parks in the city centre, I see a boy sitting by himself under a tree. He has a defeated look on his face. He stares blankly into space. Whilst we are talking to the other boys in the park and they are showing us the papers that show that their goods have been impounded by the police, the boy gets up and joins us. He says that his stuff was taken away by the police and he can get it back if he pays the R100 fine and an additional R100 to release his goods. He holds his head like a boxer who just received a knock-out punch. My heart breaks again. For them, and for the endless cruelty that has become our society.

So here they are: the children of a lesser god, sitting in the baking heat contemplating the day’s hunt and how to get the maximum amount of food from the city’s rubbish bins to fill their hungry stomachs. They sit on drums, buckets, on the pavement that is covered in filth and grime. They sit there in the pure irony of their situation, a parody so cruel: they wear clothes that don’t belong to them that bear the brand names (Adidas and Levis T-shirts, Von Dutch belts, Nike takkies three times the size of their little feet, Polo jeans) of big multinational clothing companies that are the beneficiaries of the very system that has given us street children. They sleep in the enclave of a shop front of a building that has a mural of a happy child having fun on the beaches of Durban.

The street children have a hard night ahead of them because they have no blankets, except for Musa. He’s been on the street for 15 years, speaks fluent English and is wise enough to strike a deal with a nearby shop owner to store his blankets in the shop owner’s premises. He gives us a toothy grin as he tells us this. We admire his street smart ways as he desperately tries to pull his Levi jeans over his tattered Adidas track pants, in preparation for what the night might bring.

• Saranel Benjamin is an independent researcher from the Advocacy, Research and Training Consultancy.

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

'' reports on the Somalia media, which has been under attack:

“Somalia Transitional Government (TG), which many regard as Ethiopia's puppet, has closed three popular Mogadishu radio stations, HornAfrik radio and television, Shabelle Media Network, Radio Voice of Holy Koran and the offices of international news station, Al Jazeera.”

The TG has since rescinded the closures following discussions with the media, including Al Jazeera. They claimed the media were biased towards the Islamic Courts and were inciting violence. It is ironic that after “liberating” Somalia from the Islamists, it is the TG, with the backing of Ethiopia and the US, that makes a decision to ban media albeit only for 24 hours.

'Soldier of Africa' is a new blog by a South African soldier serving under the AU in North Darfur, Sudan.

It is mainly a photo blog and fairly conservative but it does provide an insight to the life of an AU/UN serving soldier, including what they get up to during their R&R which in his case is in Egypt. They roam around the desert on their quad bikes, ride camels and go to the beach!

'Squatter City' is a blog that reports on squatter camps across the world. It reports on the eviction of thousands of people in the Angolan capital, Luanda. What makes this story particularly disturbing is that the church is behind the evictions.

“Among the powerful institutions implicated is the Catholic Church. In 1998 the government gave the Church the title to land it had owned prior to the country's independence. The Church, Amnesty alleges, has worked with the government to forcibly remove 2,000 squatters from a parcel where it wants to build a sanctuary. According to the report, ‘Forced evictions have been carried out apparently at the request of the Catholic Church by members of the National Police from the Fifth Division who regularly arrested, beat and used firearms against the residents, seriously injuring some.’"

'Jewels in the Jungle' comments on the December edition of the South African TV programme ‘Inside Africa’ which included Nigerian blogger, Emeka Okafor and focused on how to give Africa a positive image.

“Emeka was interviewed about building a positive image for Africa in the media and online and he pointed out the contributions that Africa’s bloggers have made over the past year.”

Emeka is also responsible for organising the Africa Ted Global Conference to be held in Tanzania later this year.

'The African Uptimist' reports on the installation of the 50th solar power for rural business at Sakora Wonoo, a small community in the Kwabre District of Ashanti in Ghana. The project is an innovative and exciting one that includes telephony and internet access for the rural community.

“Though starting up as providers of renewably-powered voice telephony and Internet access in rural communities, many of the entrepreneurs now want to grow their businesses into multi-purpose energy enterprises, capable of supplying renewable electric power for a variety of other income-generating activities. KITE is helping them prepare bankable business plans and to secure financing to make this happen.”

Zimbawean activist blogger, 'Enough is Enough' has been on a short break. In this piece, his first since returning to blogging, he reflects on his writing and makes a commitment to improve his reports on what is happening in Zimbabwe

“My writing here will from now on be motivated by an uncompromising need to enable you to access a rarely seen perspective on the Zimbabwean dilemma; that of the lay Zimbabwean, the simpleton or average man whom you would most likely run into on the concrete sidewalks of one of my country’s cities or out in the rural areas somewhere. The written word, any written word, is only a representation of some much larger truth; a ‘slice of the truth.’ The language, grammatical standards, and point of view that govern the composition of any writing are what determine who’s slice of truth that writing purports to expose. I chose in this space to deliver to you a slice of truth that represents the common man and woman in Zimbabwe.”

'http://www.blacklooks.org

• Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org

The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia has with the backing of Ethiopia and the US taken control of Somalia. Whether the TFG can maintain and extend its control over the whole country will depend on if it can reign in the warlords and how it will deal with the defeated Islamists, write Adan Abokor and Steve Kibble.

The sudden collapse, in the space of 10 days, of the Somali Islamic Courts as a governing body, and the unconventional military fighting force against the Ethiopian army and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), provides an opportunity and a threat for Somalis simultaneously.

The situation in the region and in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland is unpredictable and precarious. There is, however, continuity in that the Ethiopian intervention marks just another phase in a long line of outside interference in Somalia, internationally and regionally. The dangers of Islamist guerrillas, Somalis and non-Somalis seeking revenge for what they see as a Western/Christian plot to keep a weak and divided Somalia permanently under their control, and of a relapse into the previous warlord-controlled anarchy, remain high.

The similarities to Afghanistan or Iraq, in which a lengthy guerrilla war drains rapid military success through an expensive and dubious project are stark. Many see Ethiopia as the instrument of the USA, eager to destroy a regime it saw as linked to Al-Qaida and protecting those responsible for the 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and other atrocities.

Washington claims that the three main suspects are Comorian Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Kenyan Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Taha al-Sudani of Sudan. The Islamists deny any Al-Qaida links, alleging that these are used to justify intervention. However, Ethiopia also has interests of its own, including the need to counter enemies such as Eritrea, and its long-lasting aim of maintaining a weak client Somali state.

The US has until recently, when it disastrously armed the warlords against the Islamic courts, been wary of direct intervention, and any repeat of the ‘Black Hawk Down’ of the 1990s when it was forced to withdraw from the country after sustaining losses of US marines. However, its support for overturning the arms embargo in the recent UN resolution, its provision of intelligence and surveillance to the Ethiopians, and its unilateralist attitude concentrating only on the war against terror have dismayed European diplomats, and certainly Somalis.

In the first known direct U.S. intervention, an AC-130 plane piloted by the Special Operations Command from the U.S. counter-terrorism base in Djibouti, attacked the southern village of Hayo in the week of 8 January 2007. According to US sources, an Al-Qaida head of operations in East Africa was among the Islamists there, and may have been amongst those killed. Other strikes followed.

For six months the Islamic Courts had exercised a rough and ready rule over Mogadishu and the southern parts of the country, with some civil support, especially as they had routed the brutal and kleptocratic warlords. Although they have now either melted away or been pushed to the Kenyan border, there is still a long way to go to establish long-term stability in the country.

There is, however, a centrally-established government in control of the Somali capital for the first time since 1978, symbolised by President Abdillahi Yusuf’s first visit to Mogadishu. The President insisted that the Ethiopians were not occupiers and would leave soon. They "did not come to occupy Somalia and they will leave Somali territories as soon as regional and international forces start to deploy", he told the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Whether that government will stay in control and extend its authority throughout the country depends on four elements. First, whether it can control the warlords who previously looted and preyed upon the population. Many see the TFG as being composed of warlords itself.

Second, whether it can rein in young lawless men with weapons but no hopes of employment except by using them. To do so the government has to rein in the warlords first. Prime Minister Ali Gedi initially tried to weaken the warlords by telling all Somalia militias to disarm within three days and hand over all their weapons at collection points. However this is hardly realistic in a clan-based society which has been ruled by the gun since the fall of the Siad Barre government in 1991. Somalis think in terms of clan security and for the Hawiye clan, who are the major inhabitants of Mogadishu, to give away their arms to the TFG while the TFG forces mostly comprise Darood clan fighters, especially of the Majerteen (President Abdullahi’s sub-clan), was out of question.

Therefore the disarming issue has been delayed after demonstrations against it in Mogadishu.

Third, how to deal with the defeated Islamists - if not the leaders, at least the rank and file. Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, chair of the seven-nation regional grouping of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, is urging President Yusuf to resume the interrupted Khartoum talks with the Islamic Courts, as indeed have the European members of the Contact Group on Somalia who have been largely ignored by the unilateralism of the US. The Somali government, under external pressure, has promised an amnesty to Islamic Courts rank and file fighters, but says that those leaders who are still alive, will face prosecution.

Fourth and finally, stability will depend on the short and medium-term actions of the transitional government and the response of the international community, especially Somalia’s neighbours. There are worrying indications that the authoritarianism of the Islamic courts will be continued since a number of radio and television stations have been shut down for periods of 24 hours under state of emergency laws. The editors of HornAfrik radio and television, Shabelle Media Network, Radio Voice of Holy Koran and Al Jazeera Television were told to report to the National Security agency. Although they were able to resume broadcasting, threats to media freedom remain high.

So far aid promises to the region are minimal, far less than the cost of the bombs falling on Southern Somalia. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi says his forces will leave Somalia within weeks (rather than months) since the cost has been ‘huge’ and beyond their means. He has already asked for international assistance for his ‘operation to curb extremism in the Horn’. In Mogadishu, attacks on joint Ethiopian-Somali armed forces have begun, with soldiers in armed vehicles being killed and injured. It is expected that these hit and run tactics will continue as long as Ethiopian forces are in Mogadishu.

The intervention has had heavy political costs at home (given that the country is almost equally divided along Christian and Muslim lines) as well as abroad. Zenawi’s increasingly-repressive government faces multiple internal challenges from the civil society, and within the Ogaden (the Somali region inside Ethiopia) etc. The ONLF (Ogaden National Liberation Front) attacked an Ethiopian convoy of armed forces in Region Five of Ethiopia and the Ethiopians responded by killing and burning villages in that region.

The Arab League and the African Union (the latter reversing its support for intervention after only a day) have both called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Somalia, as has the European Union and the new UN Secretary General. Despite the bombing of one of its border posts at Har Har, the Kenyan government has so far been sympathetic to the new rulers in Mogadishu, despite its rivalry with Addis Ababa. It sealed its 700km border to fleeing Islamic Courts fighters and arrested 11 of their leaders fleeing across the border. It also called for a summit of regional leaders to discuss new developments.

Ali Gedi, maintains, however, that Ethiopian forces will be needed for some months to shore up his weak, small and inadequately trained army. It will take several months to finance, assemble, equip and deploy the 8000-strong regional peacekeeping force called for by the AU. At the moment it appears that the deployment of African forces to maintain peace in Somalia would be more generally accepted by the people than Ethiopian troops. It is very difficult to imagine the TFG controlling Somalia without the support of the Ethiopians because the former has no effective armed forces and lacks the capacity to rule a war-torn country. Nor does it appear that any peace-keeping forces from the region would be in a position to defend the TFG from local militias or the remaining supporters of the Islamists. The warlords are also returning to Mogadishu and cities like Kismaayo and Jowhar, although not officially as heads of militias but rather as members of the TFG Parliament. One of the strongest Mogadishu warlords, Suudi Yelahow, travelled through Hargeisa on his way to Mogadishu, being welcomed by the UCID party chairperson, Speaker of the Parliament and the Mayor of Hargeisa since the warlord was always sympathetic to Somaliland independence.

For Somaliland the message might be more mixed. There were signs inside the country in areas like Burco that there was some sympathy for the Islamist message (although historically there has always been such support) given the failure of Hargeisa to bring much development or prosperity (although one needs to be cautious about seeing radical Islamism as appealing just to the poor).

Suspicions remain in relation to the TFG, whose leader was the previous leader of Puntland and responsible in their eyes for much of the border instability between the two Somali entities. On the other hand, the leader of the Islamic courts Sheikh Aweys had been found guilty in absentia of planning Islamist attacks in Somaliland, and the Islamic courts movement in general was very keen to harness Somali nationalism to Islamism and very opposed to federalism in general and Somaliland’s independence in particular. In previous years foreigners were killed in Somaliland by a group linked to the radical jihadist elements in the courts, but the courts authority never extended to Somaliland which with a functioning secular legal system never established shari’a courts, unlike in the south. There has been no response from the Islamists supporters in the media or the general Somaliland public. It appears that the Somaliland authorities managed the situation in some parts of Somaliland very well before the war in the South, such as releasing the Burco Sultan who was imprisoned briefly for forming a committee to press for the application of Sharia law among the Habar Yonis sub-clan of which he was one of the sultans.

The situation is calm in Hargeisa and other regions, with the Somaliland government proclaiming neutrality in relation to the situation in the South.

Certainly the Islamists fleeing Mogadishu and other cities which the Union of Islamic Courts controlled did not attempt to take refuge in Somaliland believing it unsafe or unable to gain access by land. There will be demonstrations called for by the government to proclaim Somaliland’s independence and sovereignty.

The only significant incident was when Ali Gedi, following the Islamists defeat, declared all the Somali borders (including Somaliland) closed for flights, ships or vehicles by land. There was an immediate response from the Somaliland Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abdillahi M. Dualle, saying that Gedi’s announcement was not relevant to Somaliland since the latter is a separate state. He further declared that airports and seaports within Somaliland territory were open as normal to all commercial flights and ships.

Passenger flights and ships carrying livestock for the Hajj season continued to arrive in Somaliland without interruption. In an interview immediately after Somaliland’s response to closing the Somali borders, Gedi said that the TFG had no intention of attacking or sending forces to Somaliland – a wise move given the relative strength of forces and the fact that Ethiopia remains close to the government in Hargeisa. According to local newspaper Haatuf President Rayale will travel to Ethiopia shortly, although the aim was not stated. Somaliland – Ethiopian relations remain strong. There is constant consultation on issues of border and trade security, and the Ethiopians living in the country were not affected by the war in the South.

The other positive move for Somaliland is that the cold war between it and the autonomous region of Puntland has died down as the focus shifted to the conflict in South and Central Somalia. Puntland and its forces were defending the TFG in the South as well as defending their own territory from the Union of Islamic Courts. Therefore the Puntland militias stationed in Sool region (historically part of Somaliland) facing Somaliland armed forces have been reduced in numbers.

Whilst the threats from the Islamists have receded for Somalilanders, there remain both external and internal problems. Having brought the TFG to power, how will Ethiopia deal with Somaliland? Will they persuade the TFG to leave Somaliland alone, or persuade Somaliland to dialogue with the TFG in order to mitigate one danger facing them of the tie-up of Somali nationalism to political Islam?

The recent airstrikes and the ongoing conflict have compounded the suffering of the population in Southern Somalia, which is already experiencing drought and poverty. The existing high degree of uncertainty and instability, which for a time the rule of the Islamic Courts did something to abate, is now back. Whilst it would be unlikely for the Courts to be able to regroup for some time, the possibilities of renewed violent warfare remain high.

• Dr Adan Yusuf Abokor is Somaliland Country Representative. Dr Steve Kibble is Advocacy coordinator for Africa, Middle East and
Asia Progressio, formerly CIIR.

• Please send comments to or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Pressure is mounting on President Thabo Mbeki to establish a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of corruption in the multibillion-rand arms deal, following weekend reports that the British Serious Fraud Office is investigating kickbacks paid to a former defence ministry official.

Two lawmakers have confessed to receiving money for the purpose of removing House Speaker Edwin M. Snowe, Jr. from office. According to a statement issued in Monrovia by Representative Samuel Bondo of Bong County and Margibi's Representative, Saah Gbollie, they were given US$5,000 each with the request that they execute a resolution to remove Speaker Snowe from office.

President Mwanawasa has extended the mandate of the Task Force on Corruption indefinitely, a move that has cheered the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ).

This week we had planned a special issue of Pambazuka News, in collaboration with the Pamberi Trust, focusing on literature and poetry from Zimbabwe, with Brian Chikwava as guest editor. Then the US bombings happened in Somalia. Consequently, the content of the special issue have been moved to the Comments and Analysis section, and these are accompanied by a podcast and videocast (details below). We are sorry if our Zimbabwe colleagues feel down graded, but they can blame the neo-cons in the US for upstaging them with this invasion.

FEATURES:
- Conflict escalated in the Horn of Africa this week. Harun Hassan writes on how the Somali conflict fits into the far larger narrative of the ‘war on terror’
- Issa Shivji fears that the US will “paint our lands red with blood”

COMMENT AND ANALYSIS: SPECIAL ISSUE ON ZIMBABWEAN LITERATURE
- Brian Chikwava introduces the special issue on literature from Zimbabwe
- Stanley Makuwe looks at what it means not to have access to basic services
- Nyevero Muza relives Operation Murambatsvina
- Christopher Mlalazi explores the consequences of dissent in an intolerant society
- Chaltone Tshabangu interrogates the social role of women in traditional African marriages
- Jane Morris argues that writing in Zimbabwe seems to be experiencing an upsurge
PODCASTS: features podcasts and video of Zimbabwean poets
PAN-AFRICAN POSTCARD: Tajudeen rushes to the defence of this 10 theses on leadership
BLOG ROUNDUP: Sokari Ekine looks at African bloggers comments on Sadam Hussein's hanging
WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: Tens of thousands expected at WSF 2007
CONFLICT AND EMERGENCIES: Links to news on Somalia, Sudan, Burkina Faso and Uganda
HUMAN RIGHTS: UN raises Somalia bombing concerns
WOMEN AND GENDER: The legacy of rape
REFUGEES AND FORCED MIGRATION: Management of internal displacement in Nigeria
ELECTIONS AND GOVERNANCE: International support vital to new DRC government
DEVELOPMENT: Africa might be China’s next imperial frontier
HEALTH AND HIV/AIDS: Breastfeeding and HIV/AIDS
EDUCATION: Africa’s schools are a scandal
ENVIRONMENT: Why Lake Vic Water Levels Are Dropping
MEDIA AND FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION: What you didn't see on television...
NEWS FROM THE DIASPORA: Disaster in Iraq, Haiti, and Jamaica
PLUS: e-Newsletters and Mailings Lists; Fundraising and Useful Resources; Courses, Seminars and Workshops

- Somalia as a Military Target

- Conflict in Somalia: Islamic Courts Abandon Mogadishu as UN Warns of Humanitarian Crisis
http://www.socialistworker.org/2007-1/614/614_06_Somalia.shtml

- Somalia: Hold the applause

- Somalia Victimized by U.S., Ethiopia and Their Warlord Allies

The Somali government and its Ethiopian allies – now backed by United States military force – have won the battle for Somalia. But the war cannot end without a political settlement, says Harun Hassan in this article from

Somalia's enigmatic conflict has taken yet another dramatic turn. As 2006 ended and 2007 dawned, after six months of political stand-off and military build-up going on side-by-side, the situation exploded into full armed confrontation.

The result was a lightning victory for the Ethiopian army and its Somali allies, namely the Baidoa-based transitional federal government (TFG) and the "freelance" warlords supporting it. Their adversaries, the militias of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), were defeated and scattered (and, from 7 January 2007, subjected to heavy bombardment by the United States air force). In the space of ten days, Somalia's political prospects have been reversed in the most unpredictable circumstances.

A conflict that grew from small, local beginnings has now exploded onto the front pages and television screens of the world's media, reflecting the sudden "global" reappropriation of the Somali conflict into the far larger narrative of the United States's "war on terror" (or "long war").

The latest developments on the ground, and comments by United States officials, confirm Somalia's new status as a third "theatre" in this war (after Iraq and Afghanistan). US planes launched a further wave of air strikes in southern Somalia on 10 January, following bombing raids targeting (according to these officials) al-Qaida leaders who allegedly have found refuge among elements of the ICU forces in the area. In a significant move, the European Union and the United Nations have criticised the US's tactics.

The US has named three men, whom they accuse of involvement in the August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which claimed 250 lives: Fazul Abdullah Mohamed (from the Comoros Islands); Abu Talha al-Sudani (a Sudanese) and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan (a Kenyan). There has been no confirmed sighting of the three men in Somalia, though reports suggest that Fazul Abdullah Mohamed was killed in the latest raid; in any case, the anarchy in the country and the lack of strong central government have exposed its borders (air, sea and land) to all kinds of abuse for a long time.

The area the US planes are bombing is a large jungle stretching for about 200 kilometres along the Somalia-Kenya border where the ICU militias are putting up stiff resistance. The US's main military objective is to crush the remnants of the ICU to a point of no return. The ICU here may still have more than 2,000 men in arms and ready to fight. The Somali media report that Ethiopian troops on the ground took heavy casualties on 7-8 January and hence asked for the US bombardment. Ethiopian MIG jets themselves had been bombing this area for about ten days but are unlikely to have the capacity for the pinpoint strikes that the US's superior technology can guarantee.

In all this military escalation, it is too easy to forget that innocent civilians - including those already displaced by and fleeing from the war - are being killed, perhaps in considerable numbers. Some farmers of the region are also losing the animals that are the foundation of their livelihood. This situation has the ingredients of a humanitarian disaster that compounds Somalia's already endemic human insecurity.

Dispersal and retreat

The war for Somalia, then, has entered a decisive new phase. Even less than a month ago, the current situation would have seemed an astonishing outcome. On 12 December 2006, the commander of the then-confident Islamic Courts Union militias in Somalia gave the Ethiopian troops supporting the Somali government a week's ultimatum to leave the country or face being ousted by force. But even as he made the announcement, Ethiopia had (amid scornful denials of any such activity in Addis Ababa) deployed several mechanised brigades inside Somalia and prepared them for war.

On 20 December, a day after the ICU deadline passed, gunfire crackled at the frontline between the two sides near the Somali government's temporary base at Baidoa. A new phase of the war had begun. Eight days later, the Ethiopian army had (with their Somali allies) captured the Somali capital Mogadishu and other major urban centres previously controlled by the ICU. The militants of a crumbling ICU, losing one town after the other, were forced to flee further south into the jungle-ridden region bordering Kenya.

There were two crucial factors in the unexpected good fortune of the Somali government, which had been at the receiving end of a fierce onslaught just before the final conflict. The first was the ICU's underestimation of the power of the Ethiopian army. Between 8,000 and 10,000 Ethiopian troops were reportedly involved in the fighting, armed with US-made helicopter gunships and tanks, jet fighters and heavy artillery. This force, aided by 3,000 government militias, was almost twice as large as the ICU militias, armed only with AK-47s, machineguns and bazookas.

The second factor was that the ICU's tactical plan - to capture Baidoa and turn the battle into urban and street warfare (which most of its fighters are familiar with) - went disastrously wrong, as they were forced to take on a conventional army in an open frontline. Even so, for seven days neither side had made any significant territorial gains until the ICU's defences in the central regions of Somalia collapsed.

At that point, the Ethiopian and Somali government forces took the initiative and forced the ICU militias to retreat from Baidoa. Soon, one town after another fell and the ICU was never given a chance to regroup. On 27 December the Ethiopians and their Somali allies marched into the capital unopposed. ICU fighters had been expected to fight in Mogadishu and the southerly town of Kismayo; instead they opted to retreat, and perhaps for a guerrilla war from the bush.

On 28 December 2006, Somalia entered a new era.

Victors and vanquished

Three winners and three losers emerge from the latest battle for Somalia.
The first winner is Somalia's transitional federal government itself. This body is now expected to relocate to Mogadishu (for the first time since its formation in Kenya in 2004) to fill the political vacuum, backed by a contingent of African Union troops to be deployed in the country soon.

The second victor is the Ethiopian government, which executed a decisive political and military strategy by crushing the potential for the emergence of a powerful, hostile neighbour. At the least, Ethiopia has averted (perhaps for several years) the arrival of a Somali government led by individuals combining strong religious beliefs with nationalistic tendencies.

The third winner is the United States, which has for the time being won its proxy war against Somalia's Islamic leaders whom it accuses of having links with al-Qaeda and harbouring wanted terrorists (claims yet to be substantiated).

The first of the three losers in this conflict is the Islamic Courts Union. The ICU has paid the price of its political immaturity and rash decisions. The very strength of its militias compared to the forces of the TFG, and the huge territory it came to control in the course of 2006, proved a double-edged sword in terms of its capacity for flexibility and compromise (see "Somalia's new Islamic leadership", 13 June 2006).

The second vanquished element is Eritrea, which has lost a key ally in its proxy tussle with Ethiopia for regional influence. It has, however, been learned that Eritrea had no military personnel in Somalia (against UN claims that as many as 2,000 Eritrean troops were present).

The third loser is international diplomacy, which has lost ground to violence and the preference for military action. Somalia's latest armed confrontation could have been avoided if there had been honest and firm diplomacy at crucial moments. This failure casts shame on the international community as well as the immediate combatants.

The involvement of an Islamist group helped give Somalia's latest conflict an international dimension. Yet for months, the United Nations, United States, European Union, African Union and the Arab League chose to look on as the trouble escalated towards armed confrontation. These agencies may have had conflicting interests, and doubts about Ethiopia's deployment of its army across the border "in defence of the national interest" - but they chose silence or consent. Their attitude is a green light to similar "pre-emptive invasions".

Ethiopia and Somalia

This conflict has been depicted as a regional, proxy or even (in ideological terms) a global conflict. The deeper if less headline-friendly truth is that it is yet another round of the long history of conflict between the two societies of Ethiopia and Somalia.

Ethiopia's main daily papers have used the term "mission accomplished" after their forces entered the Somali capital. Likewise, many Somali media outlets have described 28 December 2006 as a dark day in Somalia's history. This gives us an indication why these two countries may be the biggest losers in this conflict.

There is a long history of tension between these lands. Ethiopia's ancient kingdoms - from the 2nd-century CE kingdom of Aksum - invaded and ruled many parts of Somalia. The Somalis (or "black Berbers" as they were then known) were pushed towards coastal areas where they enjoyed close, trade-based relations with the ancient Egyptians. Somali dynasties and sultanates thus experienced torrid contacts with their Ethiopian equivalents; but tension worsened even further when Islam reached Somalia in the 9th century.

In the early 16th century, one of the most catastrophic wars took place. A Somali warrior with a desire to expand the rule of Islam, Imam Ahmed Gurey (or Ahmed Gran), was aided by the Ottoman empire to invade Ethiopia and defeat the army of its emperor Lebna Dengel. Along the way he captured vast lands and slaughtered many people who refused to convert to Islam. But the Ethiopians regrouped and (with the help of Portugal) counter-attacked, defeated and killed Gurey.

Four centuries later - in the wake of the imperial "scramble for Africa" at the beginning of the 20th century - another Somali warrior, Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, took up arms against the British who then occupied parts of Somalia. To stay on good terms with the European colonialists, the Ethiopian emperor Menelik II joined the campaign against the Somali leader in support of Britain by invading Somalia's Ogaden region.

In an early stage in its own era of imperial retreat, Britain in 1948 granted the Ogaden to Ethiopia and asked the UN to consider other parts of Somalia for independence. Somalia launched military operations in 1964 and 1977 to regain this region, but failed.

It is this history which overshadows the current predicament and Ethiopia's presence in Somalia. It is a past that haunts many people from the two countries.

In practice, this may not be a war between two governments, because the internationally recognised Somali government is at present in a mutually supportive relationship with the Ethiopians. But theoretically and ideologically, it is also war between the two societies.

In this light, the political soundbites and the international dimension of the current situation are less important than this latest black spot in the relationship between the two neighbouring societies. The reason for this is that history will not recall Ethiopia's triumphant operation in Somalia as the work of two allied governments, but rather as one of the greatest military success against the rise of political Islam in Africa - if not the whole world.

War and politics

Somalia's president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, says that this moment is a new beginning for Somalia and a chance for the international community to help. The US, EU and the AU have responded. It is now official that AU troops will be sent in - perhaps as early as the end of January - although their mission's mandate has not been specified.

Ethiopia's leader Meles Zenawi says it intends to keep its troops in Somalia for only a few weeks, and to leave once the AU troops arrive - a position supported by the US and British government. But the victorious Somali prime minister, as he returned to the capital, says the Ethiopians will stay as long as the Somali government needs them to stay. This very sensitive option is a real possibility. Could it also turn victory into defeat?

There are two reasons to think so. The first is that the Ethiopian intervention is a diplomatic nightmare for the international community. When the east African regional states initially proposed - after long and painful two-year negotiations - sending troops to Somalia in support of the Somali government, they were careful to exclude countries bordering Somalia (Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti) - as all three had conflicting interests over Somalia as well as large ethnic Somali populations.

This view was echoed after the formation of the Somali government in 2004, when the transitional parliament approved the deployment of African troops but specifically excluded the same neighbouring countries. In December 2006 too, when the United Nations adopted a resolution allowing the deployment of 8,000 African forces in Somalia, these same three nations were again excluded. All this makes a strong case that the Ethiopian entry into Somalia violated international norms and legality.

Second, the three engaged governments - Somali, Ethiopian and American - will find it hard to change the perception of Somalis towards the Ethiopian forces, considering the circumstances of their entry, specifically if the situation on the ground becomes unfavourable to the latter (if, for instance, the TFG fails to deliver and insecurity continues to reign, and/or the ICU re-emerges from the bush).

There have already been anti-Ethiopian demonstrations in Mogadishu in protest at attempts to collect arms. The Somali government has now delayed the arms-collection policy indefinitely. Meanwhile, tension is rising in the central town of Beletweyne after the Ethiopians detained a high-ranking commander of the Somali government forces after he pardoned and refused to hand over the local chairman of the Islamic Courts to the Ethiopians.

The problem for the government with regard to the defeated ICU is that the latter carries no political stigma other than the allegation by the US and Ethiopia of links with terrorists. Thus, if it survives the current onslaught, it will not be surprising if some ICU officials reappear in major towns in a few months.

Present and future

This makes a diplomatic option continually relevant. The prospective deployment of African Union troops will also need new and creative political initiatives in order to reach a solution. The Somali government will have to act in a reconciliatory manner and avoid vengeance and scapegoating; militias and clans will have to be disarmed across the country on equal terms and in return be given guarantees of justice and security; the government will have to avoid disunity while trying to perform miracles of delivery.

The Somali government and its Ethiopian allies have occupied places where the ICU has ruled for several months with a substantial record of achievement: it implemented law and order, opened all the ports (along the longest coastline in Africa), rebuilt major government institutions (the presidential palace, Mogadishu's international airport, the high court, the prison, and the foreign- and information-ministry blocks) - and disarmed all the warlords. It is a tall order for the government, but even half of what ICU has managed in the same period would be seen by many Somalis as a significant step.

The military success of the Somali government and the Ethiopians, and the post-war deployment of troops, will count for nothing if no solution is found to the politics of one of Africa's most complicated conflicts. Any failure here will haunt African Union's military commanders who will have to deal with the political fallout, and the Somali people will continue to suffer.

Somalia, Ethiopia (and the US) have already made one major political error, by installing four warlords (none even members of the Somali government) to govern areas they ruled before the ICU ejected them.

This raises in sharp form the question of whether the ICU could make a comeback. Somalia's political process has been stagnant for most of the past sixteen years - dominated by the same warlords and clan leaders. The dramatic turn of early summer 2006 brought the ICU to a commanding position, which they went on to lose after six months. The present stage will see two major deployments of foreign troops within a short period. The chances of yet more surprises are real. Will one of them be the return of the ICU through guerrilla war, or in the form of another resistance group.

Two scenarios could contribute to the return of the Islamic Courts Union. The first is that the transitional federal government continues to rely on foreign support - from Ethiopia or other African troops, or both - but does not earn the trust of ordinary Somalis. The second is that the TFG does not find a political mechanism either to accommodate or to expunge the freelance warlords, thus making the restoration of security very difficult. The longer these warlords stay outside the government the more opposition groups are likely to increase.

The battle has been won, at least for the moment. Yet there is no sign that the war will end soon. Somalia remains at the crossroads.

• This article by Harun Hassan was originally published on openDemocracy.net under a Creative Commons Licence. If you enjoyed this article, visit openDemocracy.net for more. Original article link: [email protected] or comment online at www.pambazuka.org

Religious leaders, the Law Society of Kenya and Kabete MP Paul Muite have added fire to demands that President Kibaki consults widely before appointing 19 new commissioners to the Electoral Commission of Kenya (ECK).