Despite of widespread poverty and illiteracy African countries are more interested in battles and genocides. If there is possibility of an Islamist group acquiring political power in a country its non-Islamic neighbour will be on the tenterhooks. The possibility of a threat from an Islamic militia was reason enough for Ethiopia to invade Somalia in December 2006.
After a year in Somalia, the Ethiopian forces are in a dilemma and cannot move away from the war fronts. This has caused the worst ever-humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa. Besides the conflicts in Somalia, the Ethiopian government is bogged down with a rebellion from the Ogaden National Liberation Front in the Somali region of Ethiopia.
The US in establishing its political hegemony in the world has walked into the African conflict by siding with the Ethiopian government. Despite official denial from the US, it is nonetheless true that the American government provided arms and ammunitions to the Ethiopian army to kill Islamist leaders in Somalia. The United States has always played double standards and had supported invasions of Islamic countries trampling the sovereignty of nations on the plea of fighting Islamic terrorists on one hand while paying lip service to the democratic idols on the other hand. It had been 16 years since Somalia had a national government. If the Ethiopian troops remain in the country, there is no possibility of the national Somalian government under President Abdullahi Yusuf controlling the country. Such preposterous activity by a poor African country in trying to control an impoverished neighbour will only accelerate Islamic terrorism world wide as we have seen happen in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In such a crisis, it is always felt whether the UN should step in. The Ethiopian government has urged the UN to bring in an international peacekeeping force in Somalia but the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has rightly put down the offer. Instead of keeping the fellow citizens of Somalia in war fatigues, it is imperative to bring the country’s Federal Government and its opposition together to a peaceful settlement.
The worst sufferers from this crisis is the ordinary people of Somalia and over 600,000 people have been rendered homeless and fighting hunger and diseases in the refuge camps. When will the African countries realize that the incessant wars are only impoverishing them further?
Source:BBC
Image:rastafari speaks
