05 August, 2009

Daily Nation:Somalia a disaster waiting to happen

Somalia a disaster waiting to happen
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's seven-nation trip to Africa was partly meant to send a message that the continent still ranks high in American foreign policy agenda.

It follows President Barack Obama's recent visit to Ghana.

Ours is a country reeling from the post-election violence whose instigators and perpetrators remain at large.

Barely a month ago, Kenya was ranked East Africa's most corrupt nation by Transparency International.

Almost seven years after former President Moi left office, Kenyans remain angry at the political class, and they frown at the direction the country is taking, with new corruption, nepotism and tribal hatred becoming worse.

Even so, what was hot on Secretary Clinton's agenda is the deteriorating security at the Horn (of Africa).

This week, the BBC carried reports about Australian police foiling a suicide attack that would have been debilitating.

Among those arrested were young Australian citizens of Lebanese and Somali descent with links to the Islamist radicals, el-Shabaab.

This confirms our fears of a growing role of the hard line Islamists, who in barely a year, have expanded the ground they control in Somalia by marketing themselves as a viable alternative to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), attracting fighters from Europe, South Asia and, according to recent reports, some states in US itself.

The TFG holds on to tenuous power only due to the 4,300-strong AU peacekeeping mission, and unless something is done, it is only a matter of time before el-Shabaab overthrows it and starts running the show in Somalia.

Instability at the Horn goes back a long way – from when Italians and Britons divided the country.

Even during dictator Siad Barre's reign, he was considered to be a mere ''mayor'' of Mogadishu; he could not control the whole of Somalia.

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