THE BBC HAS A DISTURBING REPORT on Somali Islamofascists, "Somali Islamists maintain aid ban and deny famine". Somalia's al-Shabab Islamists have denied lifting their 2009 ban on Western aid agencies and say UN reports of famine are "sheer propaganda".
The UN on Wednesday said that parts of Somalia were suffering a famine after the worst drought in 60 years.
Sounds like something Stalin would have done, considering what happened to the poor Ukrainians. Ironically, this is a product of the "Kalashnikov Scourge", the carpeting of the world with freedom-fighting AK-47's and RPG's by the Soviets and Chinese.
Most Western aid agencies quit Somalia in 2009 following al-Shabab's threats.
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) was one of those banned.
It says it is planning to airlift food into the capital, Mogadishu, in the coming days to help the thousands of malnourished children who face starvation in the country.
Some 10 million people are said to need food aid across East Africa but Somalia is by far the worst affected country, as there is no national government to co-ordinate aid after two decades of fighting.
4 comments:
How about Mao's Great Leap Backward where he got the people to wage war against sparrows, melt all the steel they could find in backyard furnaces and leave the fields barren leading to a population the size of Canada dead within three years? The Holomodor was simply a misunderstanding by comparison....
Interestingly, this article
http://www.counterpunch.org/mountain07222011.html
claims it's the Ethiopian military enforcing the food blockade.
"crocodile tears have begun to run down the faces of the likes of Anthony Lake, CIA director nominee turned Executive Director of UNICEF, as some 15 million people starve in the Horn of Africa. Tony Lake appeals to the world for tens, no, hundreds of millions of dollars to save the starving people of Ethiopia and Somalia, never once telling you that the majority, some 10 million, are in the Ogaden and Oromia regions and being subjected to a western funded food aid blockade by the Ethiopian military."
I'm not especially surprised that the BBC has a different line, however.
I'm not especially surprised that Counterpunch has a different line, however, obviously it's the fault of the Americans and the Israelis.
Anyway, regardless of who is at fault, the Kalashnikov Scourge has meant the destruction of legitimate governance in Africa, except for a handful of nations.
It is certainly a tragedy, and the most tragic aspect is the assumption that this dry semi-arid area can support any population larger than what it had in Biblical times. The rain is no more plentiful than it was back then, which gives a ceiling on how much food can be grown.
I don't think the problem is "kalishnikovs" or "Islamofascists" (if we're going by numbers killed or the support for human rights denying regimes, we'd have to create Amero-fascist and Canucko-fascist to avoid being hypocrites).
The problem in Somalia is that having backed a dictator during the Cold War, arming him with lots of weapons (presumably M-16s, not Kalishnikovs), the US and their allies have prevented the emergence of any sort of stable regime that might not fit with our regional agenda. So, we invaded in the 90s to stop an evil warlord who happened to have widespread tribal support but who was mildly critical of the US, etc. We know where that led - Blackhawk Down, the disgracing of the Canadian Airborne for engaging in racist murder of the locals, etc. Then, having ensured that a power vacuum would continue, western corporations and government dumped toxic waste and illegally fished the territorial waters, depleting local fish stocks. And when the Islamic Courts movement came to power - with wide-ranging popular legitimacy, western airplanes and bombs were used to overthrow them and create a "Somali government" that has less of a remit than the mayor of Kabul, oops, I mean President Hamid Karzai.
We have literally boxed in, bombed, stolen and embargoed the Somali people into famine and desolation. It is entirely logical that the Shabab don't want western aid organizations anywhere near Somali territory. These decisions and situations don't appear out of nowhere just because the media suddenly noticed them. They have a history, even if it is inconvenient.
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