In 2006, Britain and America began a proxy war in Somalia by training Ethiopian warlords to invade the country in order to destroy the government, the Islamic Courts Union—and with it any chance of socioeconomic recovery. Journalist Aidan Hartley reported that under the leadership of the Western-backed Abdullahi Yusuf, who governed Mogadishu from 2006 to 2008,
“up to a million civilians had fled the bombardments in Mogadishu: they now live in tents made of plastic and twigs ... This is a famine caused by men, not global warming.”1
A squalid camp outside Mogadishu for Somalis forced from their homes in the city.
Until the intensification of the 2011 famine, the Western media were more interested in piracy than in the slow starvation of millions of people. When the famine became a useful pretext to funnel aid to the Somaliland Police Force, the media’s interest picked up significantly.
Operation Restore Hopelessness
Rarely have a people experienced such torture as Somalis. Most Westerners know the country from the alleged “humanitarian intervention” of late 1992. “If the Americans really wanted just to feed hungry people,” Africa scholar Richard Dowden noted, “they would have come six months earlier when the famine was at its height.”2 Africa specialist, Alex de Waal, wrote that “The humanitarian garb of Operation Restore Hope was superficial from the start.” It was “Launched in December 1992 just as the famine was waning,” having “more to do with testing the newly emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ than saving Somalis.” De Waal concluded that “An independent review by the US Refugee Policy Group concluded that the operation saved between 10,000 and 25,000 lives rather than the two million initially advertised.”3
“If the Americans really wanted just to feed hungry people, they would have come six months earlier when the famine was at its height.”
| US General Anthony Zinni: “I’m not counting bodies ... I’m not interested.” |
This is a generous estimate considering that the CIA estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Somalis killed by US forces: many of the victims women and children. Commanding General Anthony Zinni said, “I’m not counting bodies ... I’m not interested.”4 The deaths resulted from the mission shift from “humanitarian intervention” to capturing the warlord Farah Aidid.
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Western capitalism at work in Somalia |
The purpose of the 1992 invasion was to wreck any chance of a stabilising government, and to secure Somalia’s oil resources, specifically by discouraging Chinese and Russian exploration deals. The country has significant reserves about which few people are aware. The Senlis Council reported that “it is argued - though the US denied allegations - that the AMOCO, CONOCO and CHEVRON contracts in Somalia were a major consideration in the US intervention.” In Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, Dowden noted the presence of Chevron-owned villas. Since early 2008, “China and Russia have been attempting to make deals with the Somali government for exploration purposes.”5
Between 1992-4, “the Americans intervened, but clashed with the [Somali] warlords. Then, after 9/11, they decided to hire some of them as bounty-hunters,” journalist Aidan Hartley reported.6 After 9/11, the US decided to work with Aidid’s son in tracking down “al-Qaeda.”7 Human Rights Watch noted, however, that “many credible security analysts have long questioned the notion that al-Qaeda could establish a major presence in Somalia, given the country’s complex inter-clan dynamics and volatility.”8 The US also decided to work with Aidid’s advisor, Abdi Hasan Awale Qeybdiid, on behalf of the Ethiopian group the Transitional Federal Government.9
Using 9/11 as a pretext, Somalia’s Al-Barakaat Bank and charity accounts were frozen in an act of gratuitous cruelty which deprived war widows, orphans, the disabled and the elderly of their meagre savings and diaspora-wired donations.
Khalid Medani wrote.
“George W. Bush’s sweeping campaign against Somali money transfer companies—on the grounds that they “finance terror”—is so broad as to defy justification.”
He continued saying that the U.S.A. Patriot Act and the International Emergency Economic Powers Act,
“provide Federal officials with the authority to freeze assets of entities and individuals identified as financing terrorist operations,” Medani continued. Within months of its initiation, Operation Green Quest had “frozen more than $34 million in global assets linked to alleged terrorist organizations and individuals.”
British Telecom is one such company complicit in the freezing of funds. 10 Despite being exonerated of any involvement in terrorism by The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), Somali’s accounts remained frozen.11 As this was going on, Britain and America were sponsoring external talks designed to carve the country up, receiving no input from the Somali people who were not invited to attend the conferences. In October 2002, America’s Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) “launched a peace process” allegedly “designed to end factional fighting in Somalia, led by the government of Kenya under the leadership of Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat,” Congress reported. “In September 2003, the parties agreed on a Transitional National Charter, which paved the way for a Transitional Federal Government.” It was at that conference that Sharia Law was adopted as the official basis of the Charter: again, with no input from Somalis.12
Despite being exonerated of any involvement in terrorism [by the US}, Somali’s accounts remained frozen.
Aid as a Weapon - "The Battleship"
In 2008, The Times (London) reported that the police in Mogadishu were responsible for crimes against humanity, including torture, and that they were being funded through the UN’s Development Programme with British tax money.
| The Ministry of Defence regularly refers to the DID as “one of the instruments of national power,” and it was referred to as “a battleship.” |
More than £10 million, including £2.5 million of British money, is being used to refurbish government buildings, cover running costs and provide technical assistance. Members of the Somali parliament, many of whom earned their seats through military muscle, receive a monthly stipend of £600. But the biggest chunk of donor cash – some £15 million, including £3.2 million from the DfID [Department for International Development (DID)] – is being spent on … police as salaries and to buy radios and vehicles.13 It was also revealed in a Select Committee hearing in 2011 that British aid to Somalia is being funnelled to the Somaliland Police Force—who govern the most stable area of the country. The Ministry of Defence regularly refers to the Department for International Development as “one of the instruments of national power,”14 and it was referred to in the Select Committee hearing as “a battleship.”
Before the current drought and famine in Somalia, the “battleship” had pledged £3.5 billion per annum of British taxpayers’ money to Somalia. The aid was not earmarked for dying Somalis. Instead, it is going towards training and arming the Somaliland Police Force for counter-piracy operations. This was let slip during the Select Committee hearing on the role of Britain’s National Security Council, which James Arbuthnot (MP) enthusiastically described as “the war cabinet.” The Development Secretary, Andrew Mitchell, told the Select Committee that “We will be training 3,000 police in Somaliland,” at which point the chairman, Arbuthnot, interrupted, saying:
James Arbuthnot: “I am sure that we will be doing some very good things.”
“I am sure that we will be doing some very good things.”15
This was confirmed in a leak to the Telegraph newspaper.16 However, several months before, the Telegraph had revealed that not all of the aid money would be going to the Somaliland Police Force, but to former Special Boat Service (UK) mercenaries to train Somalis in anti-piracy operations. “The decision to call in ex-special forces soldiers earning up to £1,500-a-day is highly controversial”17 - especially at a time when 20,000 pensioners in the UK die every year because they can’t afford to heat themselves.18
“The decision to call in ex-special forces soldiers earning up to £1,500-a-day is highly controversial”
Famine, Fishing and Pirates
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Somali "Pirates" who in reality act as the Somali Coast Guard. |
If you think that piracy is more newsworthy than the starvation of a nation, we may ask, what are its causes? A Chatham House study published in 2008 by the UK’s leading Somalia specialist, Roger Middleton, found that “The only period during which piracy virtually vanished around Somalia was during the six months of rule by the Islamic Courts Union in the second half of 2006. This indicates that a functioning government in Somalia is capable of controlling piracy.”19 A free media would keep reminding us of what happened to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).
In 2006, Western-sponsored Ethiopia warlords invaded Somalia in order to destroy the ICU. The invasion by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was aided by familiar media lies that suppressed the information concerning the TFG’s atrocities and invented stories about the ICU. “Mogadishu became relatively peaceful, and the Islamic Courts [sic] received support from the population in areas it controlled,” a US Congress report noted. “[T]he group had constituencies from multiple sub-clans and had broad support among Somali women,” waylaying media allegations of misogyny. The report continued:
There is no evidence to support the allegation that women were prohibited from working.. … [T]he assessment of the Islamic Courts by U.S. officials was that less than 5 percent of the Islamic Courts leadership can be considered extremist, according to a senior State Department official.20 In 2004, it was announced that the UK would be training the TFG: a ragtag bunch of (mostly) Ethiopian bandits cobbled together to destroy the ICU. The Senlis Council described the TFG as,
"... an incoherent body characterised by a ‘zero sum game’ mentality. … It is failing to deliver any government services, security or aid, prompting the worst humanitarian crisis since early 1990s. … Efforts to establish a government of national unity have been faced with strong resistance by those TFG members who believe that a genuine reconciliation process is not in their interest. (Emphases added).21
President Abdullahi Yusuf, Britain's favorite warlord.
"The consequences of the 2006-9 invasion were horrendous. Despite being found guilty of murdering a political opponent by Britain’s own High Court, which also found him guilty of “carrying out retaliations, including executions”22, Abdullahi Yusuf—leader of the TFG—was given a liver-transplant on Britain’s National Health Service, and was also given housing in the UK by the New Labour Party during the Blair and Brown years.
Richard Dowden quotes Abdullahi Yusuf as saying: “They gave me the liver of an IRA terrorist. Now I’m a real killer.”
Aidan Hartley reported,
“British taxpayers’ money is helping to bankroll one side of this vicious conflict and several Somali leaders who have been linked to allegations of war crimes against countless civilians are living double lives in Britain …[having] been given British citizenship, state benefits and a subsidised home in [Britain].”23
Human Rights Watch reported that,
“Since January 2007 at least 870,000 civilians have fled the chaos in Mogadishu alone—two-thirds of the city’s population ... Across south-central Somalia, 1.1 million Somalis are displaced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living in squalid camps along the Mogadishu-Afgooye road that have themselves become theaters of brutal fighting.”24
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Somali refugees arrive on a beach in Yemen. |
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A Somali mother and child on a Yemeni beach seeking survival and refuge. |
| "Somalis and Ethiopians are extorted and, if they can’t pay, often thrown overboard. Others try to make it to Kenya, where British-trained forces torture and rape the women and girls." |
Every year, tens of thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians risk life and limb to flee across the Gulf of Aden to seek refuge in Yemen, where the UK-trained Yemeni forces have committed atrocities against asylum seekers, Yemeni citizens, and Northern Zaidi Shia Huthis for years. Somalis and Ethiopians are extorted and, if they can’t pay, often thrown overboard.25 Others try to make it to Kenya, where British-trained forces torture and rape the women and girls.
HRW reported that the Kenyan government’s,
“increasing demonization of these refugees—80 percent of whom are women and children—as a national security threat has made them among the most vulnerable victims of Kenya’s notoriously corrupt and abusive police force. During the first ten weeks of 2010, hundreds, if not thousands, of Somali asylum seekers unable to pay were unlawfully sent back to Somalia.”26
With all this going on, is it any wonder that many are resorting to piracy? Furthermore, Britain has links with the Somali pirates: a fact which, like the more important ones mention above, has gone unreported. Middleton wrote,
“The fact that the pirates originate from Puntland is significant as this is also the home region of President Abdullahi Yusuf” —Britain’s favourite warlord.
Middleton continued:
"As one expert said, ‘money will go to Yusuf as a gesture of goodwill to a regional leader’– so even if the higher echelons of Somali government and clan structure are not directly involved in organizing piracy, they probably do benefit … Puntland is one of the poorest areas of Somalia, so the financial attraction of piracy is strong. Somalia’s fishing industry has collapsed in the last fifteen years and its waters are being heavily fished by European, Asian and African ships."27
"A free media would publish headlines such as:
The latter being another example of the West’s benevolence. During a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on piracy, Britain’s former Defence Minister Bob Ainsworth (who supported the invasion of Iraq, expanded the occupation of Afghanistan, and voted for the destruction of Libya), acknowledged “a moral argument that “You took our fish and therefore this is what we are doing.”” Likewise, the Chatham House specialist Dr. Sally Healy said that “the kind of issues that matter [to Somalis] would include some sort of recognition that there has been a plunder of Somali resources” by the EU. Since pirate activities began, she added, “there is a visible difference to the amount of fish that have recovered in the ocean,” which is crucial in a country starving to death, giving Somalis “fish to eat.”28 A free media would publish headlines such as “Somali pirates improve depleting fish-stocks plundered by EU.”
SOMALIA PIRATES IMPROVE DEPETING FISH STOCKS PLUNDERED BY THE EU.”
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| Donkey water carts like this are used to distribute potable water to more than 2.5 million people of Mogadishu. |
Dr. Lee Willett, a specialist of maritime studies at the Royal United Services Institute, was asked during a House of Lords hearing in 2010 whether the over-fishing of Somali waters by the European Union—which is heading the anti-piracy Operation Atalanta from UK bases—was a serious issue for Somalis. “Very much so,” he replied, adding that many said “because Western ships were coming illegally into their waters and taking their fish, they had no other choice.”29
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| Nuclear waste like the container shown above are dumped off Somali shores by European companies as a cheap solution to getting rid of toxic waste. The dangerous waste dumping and the illegal commercial fishing are targets of the Somali Coast Guard .... errr Pirates. |
The same issue arose over the EU’s dumping of foetal-deforming, cancer-causing toxic waste on Somalia’s shores, recalling the statement of then-World Bank chief Lawrence Summers (one of Obama’s economic goons) concerning “the economic logic of dumping a load of toxic waste” in the third world.30
Very little of this has been reported in the West. Instead, concern has been focused on Somali pirates, and how NATO and the US are using drones and sonic weapons to stop them—not to stop the raping, looting, and general atrocities being committed by the other pirates: the TFG and the European Union; nor to stop the slow starvation of nearly four million Somalis. This typical imperial attitude brings to mind Rabindranath Tagore’s maxim, that “Power takes as ingratitude the writhings of its victims.”
Read more on Axis of Logic:
Radioactive and hazardous waste in Somalia shall be exposed ...
14 Apr 2009 – Radioactive and hazardous waste in Somalia shall be exposed ( 0) Printer friendly page Print This. By Report: Somali Monitor. Video: Aljazeera ...
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2 Jun 2010 – The vessels of the Somali national fishing fleet were abducted and have ... nuclear and toxic waste dumping from the industrialised world pose ...
Toxic waste behind Somali piracy| World News |Axisoflogic.com
13 Apr 2009 – Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a ...
The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other ...
15 Apr 2009 – Somali Complaints and Appeals on Illegal Fishing & Hazardous Waste Dumping Another major problem closely connected with the IUUs and ...
Somali 'piracy' charges dropped but six Somali nationals remain in ...
19 Aug 2010 – Second, that the Somalis do not have the right to protect their waters and coastline from nuclear and other hazardous waste and have no ...
Amid military escalation - U.S. Navy kills three Somalis
14 Apr 2009 – Over the last several months Somali pirates have alleged that European corporations are unloading toxic waste off the coast of this Horn of ...
Why did France resort to violence off the coast of Somalia? | Africa ...
1 May 2009 – Somali pirates seized the Tanit, a 12.5 meter-long yacht, on April 4 in the Gulf ... Foreign companies have dumped tons of toxic waste there and ...
Why We Don't Condemn Our Pirates | Africa |
14 Apr 2009 – This form of piracy is now a major contributor to the Somali economy, especially in the very region that private toxic waste companies first ..
Notes
1. Aidan Hartley, The Terror of Tesco’s Finest…, Daily Mail, 23 May, 2008,
2. Richard Dowden, 2009, Africa: Altered States, Ordinary Miracles, London: Portobello.
3. Alex de Waal, US War Crimes in Somalia, New Left Review, July-August, 1998, pp. 131-144,
4. Quoted in C.G. Estabrook, Why We Kill People, CounterPunch, 13 January, 2002. Estabrook’s Ellipsis.
5. Senlis Council, Chronic Failures in the War on Terror: From Afghanistan to Somalia, May, 2008, London: Senlis Council, p.45,
6. Aidan Hartley, 2006, Hearts, Minds and Holy War: Unreported World, Channel Four Television,
7. John Pilger, 2003, The New Rulers of the World, London: Verso, p.128.
8. Human Rights Watch, Harsh War, Harsh Peace: Abuses by al-Shabaab, the Transitional Federal Government, and AMISOM in Somalia, April, 2010, London: HRW, p.18,
9. Senlis Council, Chronic Failures in the War on Terror: From Afghanistan to Somalia, May, 2008, London: Senlis Council, p.24,
10. Khaled Medani, Financing Terrorism or Survival?: Informal Finance and State Collapse in Somalia, and the US War on Terrorism, Middle East Report, No. 223, Summer, 2002, pp. 2-9,
11. US Government, 2004, 9/11 Commission Report,
12. Ted Dagne, Somalia: Current Conditions and Prospects for a Lasting Peace, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL33911, 12 March, 2007 (31 August 2011), p.15,
13. Rob Crilly, British taxpayer funds Somali police force for regime accused of war crimes, The Times, 2 June, 2008, available for free at
14. See my “Somalia Still Suffers”, Z Magazine, July-August, 2010,
15. Liam Fox, William Hague, Andrew Mitchell, and Oliver Letwin, Strategic Defence and Security Review and the National Security Strategy, Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence to be published as HC 761-ii, Select Committee Session 2010-11, House of Commons, 9 March, 2011,
16. Telegraph, Somaliland: UK Assistance to Police Special Protection Unit and Coast Guard, 4 February, 2011,
17. Jason Lewis, British mercenaries hired to take on the Somali pirates, Sunday Telegraph, 20 November, 2010,
18. Office of National Statistics cited in Help the Aged, Excess Deaths and Fuel Poverty, August, 2007, London: Help the Aged. The figure is now in excess of 30,000:
19. Roger Middleton, Piracy in Somalia: Threatening global trade, feeding local wars, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), Briefing paper, October, 2008,
20. Ted Dagne, Somalia: Current Conditions and Prospects for a Lasting Peace, Congressional Research Service, Order Code RL33911, 12 March, 2007, pp.9-15,
21. Senlis Council, Chronic Failures in the War on Terror: From Afghanistan to Somalia, May, 2008, London: Senlis Council, p. 11,
22. Duncan Campbell, Briton’s widow seeks arrest of Somali president, Guardian, 27 May, 2005,
23. Aidan Hartley, The Terror of Tesco’s Finest…, Daily Mail, 23 May, 2008,
24. Human Rights Watch, Yemen: Asylum Seekers Run Gauntlet of Abuses Tens of Thousands Face Murderous Smugglers at Sea, Abusive Policies on Land, 20 December, 2009,
25. See How US-UK Create Terrorist States, by Tim Cole, Yemen Times, 27 July, 2010, subsequently removed from website because the original publishers, Redress.cc, were found to be MI6-affiliates, archived at:
26. Human Rights Watch, “Welcome to Kenya: Police Abuse of Somali Refugees,” June, 2010, London: HRW,
27. Roger Middleton, Piracy in Somalia: Threatening global trade, feeding local wars, Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), Briefing paper, October, 2008,
28. Richard Ottaway, Bob Ainsworth, Menzies Campbell, Ann Clwyd, Rory Stewart, and Dave Watts, Piracy off the coast of Somalia, Uncorrected Transcript of Oral Evidence to be published as HC 1318-ii, Session 2010-12, House of Commons, 29 June, 2011. Because Britain believes in democracy, all trace of this has been removed from the Parliament website, but the video can be seen at Democracy Live: Foreign Affairs Committee
29. House of Lords, Combating Somali Piracy: the EU’s Naval Operation Atalanta, European Union Committee, 12th Report of Session 2009–10, HL Paper 103, 14 April, 2010, London: Stationary Office,
30. Quoted in William Blum, 2000, Rogue State, Maine: Common Courage.