The Transitional Government of Somalia is collecting tariffs these days on goods coming over the docks and through the newly re-opened Mogadishu airport. But that limited income is about all that is funding the government now that the Islamic Courts extremists have been defeated. It is not enough to pay for more than minimal expenses, according to Koshin Mohamed, special representative of President Abduallahi Yusef here in the U.S. The Yusef government cannot even afford to operate an office in Washington while it prepares for official U.S. recognition.
Somalia is no longer the dangerous location of "Black Hawk Down" fame. It's in bad shape after a generation of civil wars and anarchy, and there have been intermittent attacks by insurgents. Most of the country is peaceful. But the newly successful government needs help in reviving the economy and setting up a system that can even begin to collect taxes and fund the normal institutions of a modern country.
The oddity of the current situation cannot be over-stated. The U.S. helped the Yusef government (then headquartered in Baidoa) and soldiers from neighboring Ethiopia to defeat the Islamic Courts three months ago. We even placed a Navy carrier off the coast to keep the foreign-trained fighters from escaping.
The U.S. had good reason to fear the direction that the Islamic Courts was taking Somalia. Not only was Taliban style "justice" imposed on women who failed to wear the burkha (although wearing it is not the Somali tradition) or on anyone listening to recorded music, but the Islamic Courts crowd was getting a direct infusion of Al-Qaeda recruits from Arab states. And it was sending Somalis to train in terror states. While the US was busy in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mogadishu was becoming a new terrorist hub in East Africa.
An article in the Sunday Times (London) of February 18 describes the "hundreds of Islamist fighters (that) were flown, with Eritrean assistance, from Somalia to Syria and Libya for military training."
"Iran," the Times story continues, "supplied 125 shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, 80 of which arrived by sea in dhows and the rest by air." A United Nations report has substantiated rumors of this activity.
Many of the terrorists were killed in the early winter fighting. Some have since defected to the Transitional Government. Some others have been arrested in recent weeks.
One American, at least, was arrested for training as a terrorist in Somalia, lest we think these events are not connected to the worldwide war on terror.
But how many Americans are awake to the relevance of Somalia? Even when the Islamic Courts was in charge and left wing English reporters were covering the country and sending positive films back about the way the Courts was feeding the population, one could see in the footage of grain sacks being unloaded on the docks that they bore a US AID banner and US flags on them. One only hopes that such aid has resumed, along with new commitments from the private charities that mostly abandoned the country many months ago.
The Transitional Government is now planning a peace conference for all those factions in Somalia that want to participate in a democratic order. The US and European and UN authorities will back it. According to Koshin Mohamed, it could take place yet this spring. US recognition of the new government may have to wait until the peace conference.
But meanwhile, Somalia is in dire need of funds. If US money is being unloaded along with grain bags, it isn't evident. A collection among Somalis living in the U.S. had to be taken up as a short-term provision for the government leadership, and it cannot have amounted to much, given that Somalis are one of the newest immigrant groups in the United States.
The US Congress plainly should be taking a greater interest in this problem, as should the State Department and the National Security Council. Senators Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Norm Coleman of Minnesota are to be congratulated for introducing a bill to help Somalia. But the Administration clearly doesn’t have to wait for action on that bill to get moving. America often seems quite ready to help nationalists resist a radical take-over in various countries or to support local warriors, at least if they are opposing a group with terrorist ties. But once the fighting is over, the ways of bureaucracy seems to re-emerge. The U.S. should help now, not months from now. In Somalia, failure to pursue peace vigorously could imperil the victory the war won.
Pardon the pun, but the US needs to raise some semolians for Somalia.