Word: somalia
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Somali President Sheik Sharif Ahmed has described his job as the most difficult in the world, and he may be right. Now in its 19th year of civil war and without a government worthy of the name, Somalia is the world's most failed state, shattered by war and serving as a safe haven for both al-Qaeda and pirates. Sharif, a strict Islamist who nevertheless believes in dialogue with the West and who came to power in January, rules little more than a few blocks in Mogadishu, and recently even that has been threatened by a ferocious attack...
...world's most lawless country? I am confident the government will survive. Fighting in Mogadishu does not mean the government is feeble enough to be toppled. The Somali people and their government are facing the challenges seriously to stop the fighting. My hope is that wars in Somalia eventually become something for the history books. Of course, when you have to start everything from zero and the nation has to be completely reconstructed, there are incredible obstacles and a rough road ahead...
...what does Somalia receive? Around 4,800 African Union troops from Burundi and Uganda. Last month, the British ambassador to the U.N. assured reporters in the capital of neighboring Ethiopia that although U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has so far demurred on Somalia, "the question of a United Nations peacekeeping mission remains on the table...
...course, there is a situation in Somalia that has attracted global military intervention, even without the U.N.: piracy. Australia, Bahrain, Britain, Canada, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Iran, Italy, Japan, Jordan, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Russia, the Seychelles, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the U.S. and Yemen have all contributed to the effort to safeguard international sea trade. Currently that involves 25 warships, scores of surveillance planes and tens of thousands of sailors. (See pictures of Somali piracy...
...receives almost no attention while the Somali crisis that involves millions of dollars receives unprecedented military action. (Menkhaus says the pirates raised $20-$40 million in ransoms last year. They also cost the shipping industry millions more in hiked insurance premiums.) It's also true that land intervention in Somalia would be immeasurably bloodier than the sea operations underway, and the ineffectiveness of peacekeepers in Darfur, and the DRC raises big questions over whether such operations can ever be successful. It is widely acknowledged that finding a lasting fix to either piracy or the humanitarian crisis would require fixing Somalia...