Eritrea remains the black hole of news

The Horn of Africa nation Eritrea won a very dubious award this week: the world’s most censored nation. The list of the world’s 10 worst countries was put together by the Committee to Protect Journalists and Eritrea fought off the tough competition of North Korea, Syria, Iran, Equatorial Guinea, Uzbekistan, Burma, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and Belarus to win this uncoveted award.  The CPJ research is based on 15 benchmarks, including blocking of websites; restrictions on electronic recording and dissemination; the absence of privately owned or independent media; and restrictions on journalist movements.

Eritrea has allowed no foreign journalists in since 2007 and domestic media are tightly controlled. Eritrea has been a dictatorship for 20 years since it achieved independence in  a bloody war with Ethiopia.  All domestic media are controlled by the government and the Orwellian "Ministry of Information" direct every detail of coverage. CPJ quoted an exiled journalist who said every time they had a story it was the Ministry who arranged interview subjects and gave instructions on the news angle to follow. Eight journalists from Eritrea are on CPJ's Journalist Assistance Program which supports exiled journalists who cannot be helped by advocacy alone.

Not surprisingly, the country’s president Isaias Afewerki who has ruled since independence in 1993, dominates coverage.  Equally unsurprising, the coverage is universally positive. As with all secretive countries, the media chose silence as a way of dealing with bad news. When Afewerki had a health scare recently it reported nothing for several weeks. Intense rumour-mongering filled the vacuum. Opposition websites and social media commented on the fact president had not appeared on television for nearly a month and many speculated on whether he had died.  (photo of Afewerki: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP)

Finally on 29 April, Information Minister Ali Abdu told the BBC he saw Afewerki every day and the 66-year-old president was “in robust health.” A day later Afewerki went on television to dispel the rumours. "I do not have any kind of sickness," he said and accused those peddling such rumours of being "sick" and said they were indulging in psychological warfare to "disturb" the people.

The real psychological warfare is being conducted by the government suspicious of its own people. Government spies routinely report opinions in the street and even intimidate their opponents abroad.  All Internet service providers are required to connect to the web through government-operated EriTel. While Eritrea's journalists in exile run diaspora websites from London, Houston and Toronto, domestic Internet access is only affordable for the government elite. In 2011 the country had plans to implement mobile Internet capability but as the social media impact on the Arab Spring became widely known, Afewerki’s government abandoned the idea. 

The Eritrean Government has become increasingly paranoid as the country slowly becomes an international pariah. The UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Eritrea in 2009 for its support of Al Shabaab and other insurgents fighting neighbouring Somalia’s transitional government. The UN resolution also referenced a longstanding border dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti and demanded Eritrea cease “arming, training, and equipping armed groups that aim to destabilize the region or incite violence and civil strife in Djibouti.”

Eritrea’s friendlessness has allowed another longstanding enemy make incursions into its territory. In March, the Guardian reported Ethiopia had attacked Eritrea for the first time in a decade with few repercussions. Ethiopia's forces carried out a dawn raid in what it called a successful attack against military targets. Ethiopia claimed Eritrea used the military base to train an Ethiopian rebel group which has killed foreigners in Afar. 

The Guardian put the lack of international attention to the border incursion down to Afewerki's poor reputation, “a piece of work” as the British broadsheet called him. It quoted a Wikileak cable by US ambassador to Eritrea, Ronald McMullen, which said Afewerki was an unhinged dictator and his regime was very good at controlling all aspects of Eritrean society.

Media censorship is a key part of that control and the reason why the “award” for the most censored country is not as frivolous as it sounds.  As far back as 2005 Reporters Without Borders described Eritrea as a “black hole for news”.  Seven years later nothing has yet emerged from Afewerki’s vortex. And as the San Francisco Chronicle says, no one cares.

The Horn of scarcity: Anatomy of an official famine

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has a very dry definition of a famine. More than a third of children must be suffering from acute malnutrition. Two adults or four children must be dying of hunger each day for every group of 10,000 people and the population must have access to well below 2,100 kilocalories of food per day. On 20 July, the UN decided two regions of southern Somalia met those criteria, the lower Shabelle and Bakool regions. A prolonged La Nina has led to one of the driest October-December rainy seasons ever, the second consecutive such poor season and very poor livestock production has also contributed to the crop failure which led to the drought which has led to the famine.

A new UN regional overview said the famine is likely to spread to the rest of the region. The region is suffering severe food insecurity due to drought and high food prices and there are significant refugees on the move from Somalia. The trigger for the move of tens of thousands is directly attributable to the drought but also the 20 year conflict in southern Somalia which has hindered access for humanitarian agencies.

Now those agencies are struggling to cope with the influx of Somali refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya. Malnutrition and mortality rates are alarmingly high in many parts of the region. The OCHA estimates 12.4 million people are in need of help in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. One quarter of Somalia’s 7.5 million are displaced with 3.7 million needing assistance. A further 4.8 million in Ethiopia and 3.7 million in Kenya also need help.

Feeding over 12 million people is not easy in war torn Horn of Africa but that is the task UN food agency WFP has set itself. Large parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda are suffering in a drought that is likely to continue to next year and with several conflicts in the region, the WFP they barely reached 40 per cent, leaving six million malnourished people who are slowly starving to death. Airlifts have started to Mogadishu and the south at the heart of the famine, with support also arriving in the camps in the border towns of Kenya and Ethiopia.

Dadaab in Kenya is getting 1,300 new arrivals every day while Dollo Ado in Ethiopia has taken in 54,000 this year with half the children malnourished. CARE operates three refugee camps in Dadaab which are home to almost 400,000 refugees, mostly from Somalia. Thos arriving suffering from malnutrition and medical problems are referred to supplementary and therapeutic feeding programs and stabilisation units in camp hospitals. Families are provided with two weeks' worth of food rations and other essentials including tents, kitchen sets, firewood and fuel-efficient stoves while awaiting registration and access to general food distributions.

The situation will worse before it gets better. The current food security emergency across the region is expected to persist at least for the coming three to four months with the number of people in need of urgent aid increasing by as much as a quarter. The crisis in southern Somalia is expected to continue to worsen through 2011, with the entire south slipping into famine. This deterioration is likely given the very high levels of both severe acute malnutrition and under-five mortality in combination with expected worsening pastoral conditions, a continued increase in local cereal prices, and a below-average crop harvest.

Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd has just returned from the region and he said the international community has a double challenge. Firstly to ensure UN agencies have enough funding to deal with the crisis before it becomes a catastrophe; and secondly to give UN humanitarian agencies enough flexibility to make sure people get to the aid despite the war zone.

In the medium term, OCHA says interventions to rebuild and support livelihoods will be critical. “Securing long-term food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa requires focussing on a range of issues affecting the region, including conflict, preservation of humanitarian space, nutrition, disaster risk reduction, health and education services, and climate change adaptation,” the OCHA said. “Building resilience in the agricultural sector will be essential to avoid recurrent food security crises in this region.”

Britain’s aid donation won’t tackle root cause of Ethiopian famines

Britain announced the release yesterday of a food package of $316 million (US) to support the provision of basic services, social protection and humanitarian assistance in Ethiopia. The UK Minister of State for International Development, Gareth Thomas made the announcement on a visit to Addis Ababa saying there was a “robust mechanism” to make sure that the money is used as intended. This means paying close attention to political developments and the regime of Meles Zenawi who has been Prime Minister since 1995 and de facto leader since 1991. (photo credit: Turkairo)

The British bequest came two months after the World Bank signed two financing agreements amounting to $65 million for tourism development and enhance agricultural productivity. The first agreement for $35 million will finance sustainable tourism development projects and the remaining $30 million is set aside for agricultural projects. The World Bank Country Director said they would assist Ethiopia to tap its rich resources in the agriculture sector and encourage it to become self-sufficient in food production.

The need has become urgent as Ethiopia teeters on the verge of another debilitating famine. This is Ethiopia’s fourth successive year of lack of rain and when the rains do come it is often in the form of torrential showers causing floods and landslides. While the country has recovered from the disastrous 1984 famine (during the reign of Dictator Mengistu), some of the country remains particularly exposed, especially the far eastern region bordering war-torn Somalia. The conflict has created a refugee crisis and disrupted food production making already poor people even more vulnerable. The Zenawi government said the number in need of urgent assistance during the period October to December 2009 has increased from 4.9 million people to 6.2 million.

The British envoy made no mention of the famine in the Horn of Africa in his visit or Zenawi’s role in it but others have not been so coy. Writing in The Times last month, Sam Kiley noted the drought is the region’s worst in 47 years but foreign aid was not helping. On the contrary, said Kiley, it was “the principal reason for Africa’s accumulated agony.” Kiley quotes the Oxfam paper Band Aids and Beyond, which says that between 70 and 90 per cent of all US aid to Ethiopia has been food. But while the US was feeding the country, Ethiopia spent billions on a debilitating war with neighbour Eritrea. Riley says that only education can stop the vicious cycle of dependence.

African researchers Julian Morris and Karol Boudreaux agree with Riley that Ethiopia has not dealt adequately with the risk of famine. Writing in Business Daily they say the lack of rains are common to other parts of the world where they “routinely face droughts yet avoid famine.” Global deaths from drought-related famines have fallen by 99.9 per cent since the 1920s. The reason for this is specialisation and trade which increased food production and enabled vulnerable people in drought-prone regions to diversify. But the planned central economies of countries such as Ethiopia have provided no incentives to improve the land.

Under the 1995 Constitution, Ethiopian farmers cannot own their land. This means they cannot use mortgages for capital investment in machinery, seeds, fertilisers or irrigation. The net result is that farmers sub-divide their properties leading to environmental degradation and lower crop yield. This is exacerbated by government policies restricting movement to cities. The end result is a crippling cycle of forcing people to remain smallholder farmers, denying them opportunities in cities, compelling them to migrate and making them ruin the land through subdivision. Not everyone agrees that Africa should be judged by western lights. Nevertheless The Times and Morris & Boudreaux, present persuasive cases that Ethiopia’s famines are caused by bad government policies, not bad weather.

ICG issues warning on Puntland

(Photo of Puntland's Bosaaso Airport by Sand Paper)

Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland has become the new flashpoint for the failed Horn of African state. Al Jazeera noted today that five visiting Muslim leaders from Pakistan were shot dead in execution-style yesterday as they prayed in a mosque in Somalia’s north-eastern most province. According to police, masked men dragged the Pakistanis out of the mosque after dawn prayers and opened fire on them. Puntland’s new president Abdurahman Mohamed Farole condemned the attack as a "terrible incident". The suspect and motive for the killing is unclear but Al Jazeera quoted an International Crisis Group (ICG) report that said Puntland could face a violent break-up if it does not deal with all of the semi-autonomous clans in the region.

Puntland declared its semi-autonomous status in 1998 but does not desire full independence from Somalia. The state arose out of the locally-based Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) which was one of the opposition groups fighting the central state which collapsed in 1991. The SDDF warded off attacks from the war-scarred south and created Puntland with the support of community elders. At present Puntland acts as a wholly autonomous state, but its transitional constitution says it is a part of an anticipated Federal State of Somalia. It is viewed as one of Somalia’s most prosperous areas and was initially seen as a successful model of the “building blocks” federalist approach to re-establishing national stability.

However a new report by the ICG the called The Trouble with Puntland says the province is experiencing a three-year rise in insecurity and political tension. Problems date back to faction fighting after Puntland’s first president was deposed in 2001. The state is also the centre of most Somali pirate activity. The report blames poor governance and a collapse of the intra-clan cohesion and pan-Darood (northern Somali clan) solidarity that was responsible for the state’s initial creation. Criminal gangs not only run piracy but are also involved in arms trafficking, kidnapping, and the smuggling of people and contraband. The ICG says there is evidence of state complicity in these activities and doubts if Farole’s government has the political will to move against the gangs.

The ICG says the Puntland government must take advantage of the international attention about piracy to attract funds and expertise. These are needed to carry out comprehensive political, economic and institutional reforms to address fundamental problems of poor governance, corruption, unemployment and grinding poverty, especially in coastal villages. It also called on the international community to support Puntland by equipping and training a small coast guard and improve the general welfare and help poverty-stricken fishing communities.

However some of Somalia’s neighbours need to help out too. Ethiopia and Egypt have diametrically opposed positions on Puntland (and neighbouring Somaliland which wants full independence from Somalia). Whereas Ethiopia saw Puntland as a strategic ally, Egypt feared it would lead to Ethiopian domination of the area with consequential diminished access to Nile waters. Local warlords became adept at playing the two foreign powers off each other and switched sides with ease. As the ICG says, such floating alliances added unpredictability and fluidity to already complex and dangerous politics, and made the search for peace much harder.

The government stacked the judiciary, the civil service and the security apparatus and by 2005 corruption was endemic. This had devastating impact on business as traders needed to pay large bribes to import food, fuel and consumer goods. Similar problems plagued the livestock and fishing industries. Transport and food items became more expensive as a result which increased poverty and malnutrition. Hyperinflation aggravated by severe drought, pushed Puntland into a lengthy humanitarian emergency. As well as governance issues, Puntland also has problems with a secret new constitution that puts the province on a plot to secession, territorial disputes with Somaliland, relations with Mogadishu, threat from Islamist dissidents, and piracy that has attracted global interest.

The ICG has suggested a number of key reforms particularly in governance, security and border demarcation. In the area of governance it suggests a more transparent constitution, an independent electoral commission, a committee to demark boundaries, and an electoral court to adjudicate on disputes. In security reform, the government needs to balance its budget to pay soldiers and police fairly and introduce professionalism, transparency, and civilian oversight into the security agencies. And as for borders, the ICG warns that the international community needs to move quickly to defuse a growing crisis in the disputed regions of Sool/Sanaag.

Failure, say the ICG, may result in the violent break-up of Puntland, as rival clans seeking autonomy the centre to carve out their own enclaves. It says this process is already underway in areas such as Sool and Sanaag. “Unless the government enacts meaningful reforms and again reaches out to all clans, it may become unstoppable”, warn the ICG.

Mengistu sentenced to death in absentia

Ethiopia has sentenced to death in absentia former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. The country’s Supreme Court upheld a conviction of Mengistu and 11 of his aides on 211 counts of genocide, homicide, illegal imprisonment and illegal property seizure. The 71 year old Mengistu ruled Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991 and now lives in exile as a guest of fellow dictator Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Mengistu’s regime was marked by one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.

His twelve-year trial came to a head in January 2007 when he received a life sentence for the torture and killing of thousands during his 17 year reign. Witnesses told the court that family members who went to collect the bodies of their loved ones were asked to pay for the bullets that killed them, and evidence included torture videos. The prosecution appealed the sentence saying it was not commensurate with the crimes he committed. Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed saying “Crimes committed by Mengistu and his co-defendants by killing an emperor and burying him under a toilet is unheard of in the annals of human history”.

Tens of thousands of people died during a period of Mengistu's 17-year rule known as the Red Terror. Mengistu grew up under the shadow of Ethiopia’s long-term emperor Haile Selassie. Selassie was enormously respected internationally and was instrumental in the creation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. But at home, his regime was under increasing pressure. In 1972, a famine in the north-eastern region of Wollo killed 80,000 people and the oil crisis of the following year also hit Ethiopia hard. Together with a series of military mutinies, these events were instrumental in destabilising Selassie’s regime.

In 1974, a growing opposition movement coalesced into a 120 member military group called the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army that soon came to be called the Derg (Amharic for "committee" or "council"). The Derg elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam chairman and immediately wrung concessions from the emperor which saw an effective transfer of power. In September the Derg formally deposed Selassie and secretly killed him and the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church in the months that followed. The Derg named itself as the country’s ruling body under the chairmanship of an outsider, Lieutenant General Aman Mikael Andom.

Andom didn’t last long and neither did any of his immediate successors. After three years of violent internal power struggles, Mengistu declared himself Derg leader in February 1977. He set about consolidating his power and eliminated all of his remaining rivals in a campaign that became known as the “Red Terror”. Thousands died in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following two years. Under his leadership, the Derg promoted the “Ye-Itiopia Hibretesebawinet” (Ethiopian Socialism). The concept was embodied in slogans such as "self-reliance," "the dignity of labour," and "the supremacy of the common good."

Mengistu flourished in the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War. Under his leadership Ethiopia became the main African client of the Soviet bloc, and received massive shipments of arms to fight insurgent movements in the Ogaden and Eritrea. Another half a million civilians died in the aftermath of the 1984 famine (which inspired Band Aid). Mengistu initially tried to hide the extent of the famine from the world and then used the disaster as a pretext to forcibly relocate hundreds of thousands of villagers from rebel-held northern Ethiopia to areas in the south.

Mengistu’s regime quickly unravelled after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The Eritrean opposition led a coalition of regional and ethnic rebel groups known as the Ethiopian people's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) which overwhelmed the Derg and took the capital Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled to Harare where he was warmly welcomed by Mugabe. In 1992 the new government established a Special Prosecutor's Office (SPO) to investigate the widespread crimes committed during the Derg period. In 1997 the SPO charged five thousand people with genocide and war crimes, of whom over half, including Mengistu, were charged in absentia. Two years later, Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully called for his arrest when he travelled to South Africa for medical treatment.

Mengistu is unlikely to come to justice unless Mugabe loses next month’s run-off election. Zimbabwe has consistently refused to extradite Mengistu since he fled there in 1991. And after the Ethiopian court handed down its original life term last year, Mugabe reiterated his position, saying, "Comrade Mengistu still remains a special guest". Mugabe has found a useful role for his “special guest” making him a consultant to his secret police the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation). As a Zimbabwean opposition group put it, “No doubt the former dictator found the income useful and the CIO could benefit from his wide experience in suppressing dissent.”

Ogaden: the world’s most forgotten conflict

A rare incursion by outside journalists has lifted the lid on Ethiopia’s secret war against its remote Somali Ogaden province. Photojournalists from Al Jazeera showed the devastating effect of the decade-long war on its civilian population. While war rages between the central government and local rebels, locals endure a living hell with shortages of drinking water and food while their homes are destroyed in “security operations”.

At a simplistic level, they are the silent victims of a war between a federal government dominated by Orthodox Christian Tigrayans and Amharans and a Somali Sunni Islam minority based in the far west of the country. The Somali separatists in the Ogaden have been battling Addis Ababa for over 13 years. However news has been slow in getting out to the wider world due to the onerous travel restrictions the government has placed on the region. There are very few journalists in the vast and sparsely populated region that borders Somalia, and therefore there is no accurate picture of the frequency of the fighting and its death toll. According to Al Jazeera, simmering resentment among young locals is driving them into the arms of the separatists.

The low-level war took a significant turn for the worse last year when it claimed foreign casualties. Ethiopia launched an assault on the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLF) after they attacked a Chinese oil exploration project in the Ogaden in April 2007. 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers were killed in the attack. 200 rebel fighters launched the attack which lasted more than an hour and destroyed the exploration facility and kidnapped another seven Chinese workers. Human Rights Watch say that civilians bore the brunt of Ethiopian retaliation with villages destroyed, public executions and many instances of torture.

The separatists’ ultimate aim is not exactly clear. For some the desire is simple autonomy from the central government. Meanwhile others want independence and there are those who hold the historic dream of a "greater Somalia". The prize is a thousand kilometres of sparse scrub and desert wastes where the UN says up to 4.5 million people could soon face famine-like conditions. These claims are denied by Ethiopia who blames Islamists in neighbouring Somalia for spreading the war.

The seeds of the conflict date back to 1896 when Britain, the imperial power in Somaliland, signed an agreement with the Somali Ogaden chiefs to preserve British external control of the area while allowing internal sovereignty to the chiefs. However barely a year later, Britain signed a contrary agreement with the Abyssinian Empire which recognised the Abyssinian claims on Harar on the edge of the Ogaden. According to Ahmed Ali of the pro-Somali site Ogaden Online, the next hundred years would see the Ogaden become a “no-man’s land where Abyssinian successive regimes practice their military power and slaughter innocent civilians.”

In the mid 1970s Somali leader Mohamed Siad Barre used the recent overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie to launch an assault on Ethiopia. Somalia gave support to Ogaden separatists and the Somali army invaded in July 1977. The Ogaden War proved to be a dilemma to the Soviet Union which initially armed both sides in the conflict. After several months of fighting, the assault finally collapsed when the Soviets threw their undivided support behind the Ethiopians. By March 1978, the last Somali soldiers left the country. But the new Mengistu regime in Addis Ababa did not trust its westernmost province. The region remained farflung, ignored and suspiciously Somali.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) was founded in 1984 with the goal fighting against Mengistu’s Derg (junta) of creating a separatist state. Matters changed again in the early 1990s with the fall of both Mengistu’s and Barre’s reign as old Cold War alliances collapsed. The ONLF looked towards a political solution to their problems. It now claims it uses only “defensive combat” to defend itself against Ethiopian militias. Ethiopia sees the ONLF as a “behind the lines” enemy as it launched its own adventurism with its invasion of Somalia last year to oust the Islamic Courts government in Mogadishu.

The atmosphere remains tense in the Ethiopian capital and matters were not helped yesterday by two explosions which killed three and injured 15 others. The attacks occurred just a day after local elections where 26 million people went to the polls. Both attacks occurred at petrol stations where locals were queued up to buy kerosene. While no one claimed responsibility for the bombs, and the Government has not explicitly blamed the ONLF, the Sudan Tribune reports the administration saying the attacks were “the act of the desperate who are dying to obstruct the efforts of the nation to build up democracy.” However there is very little evidence that Ethiopia is keen to let much democracy build up in the Ogaden.

Mayhem in Mogadishu

The Somali capital Mogadishu remains chaotic after the latest round of fighting between Ethiopian troops and Somali rebels went into a second day. The violence began on Friday when a large Ethiopian convoy of reinforcements struck a landmine as it entered the city late on Friday. The violence escalated in Saturday when rebel Islamist fighters exchanged machine-gun and mortar fire with Somali Government and Ethiopian troops. At least 15 people have been killed so far.

Yesterday, hundreds of Mogadishu protesters demonstrated against the presence of Ethiopian troops in the city supporting the interim government. The crowd chanted “Down with Ethiopia! Down with the Somali government!" One protestor, Abdi Adan Somane told AFP "We don't need them on our soil. Ethiopia must leave otherwise its presence will lead to more bloodshed." His call went unheeded by the Ethiopians who opened fire on demonstrators killing three people in the crowd.

Elsewhere in the city, residents either cowered behind closed doors or fled Mogadishu as the mostly Ethiopian forces sought to crush the rebels. The UN says some 400,000 people have fled the violence in Mogadishu in the past four months. Civilians fleeing the latest spate of attacks loaded pick-up trucks and donkey carts with household items. Mogadishu resident Abdurahman Nure spoke to AFP from the back of a Land Cruiser as he left the city with his children. "No one can endure what is happening in Mogadishu,” he said “It's non-stop violence and it's taking hundreds of lives every week."

The UN- and Ethiopian-backed government ousted the Union of Islamic Courts from government in December 2006. The group of 11 autonomous courts had ruled the city since 2004. Despite the defeat, they remained popular with the mainly Muslim population for their successful campaign to impose Islamic law and rid Mogadishu of the warlords who ruthlessly controlled the city for the previous 15 years. Now the Islamists have slowly regrouped and have regained control of the western part of Mogadishu where they launch guerrilla operations.

Mogadishu’s mayor warned residents in some neighbourhoods to leave their homes because the government has "run out of patience" with insurgent groups. Mayor Mohamed "Dheere" Omar told a media conference that the community should avoid the market precinct of Bakara market where anti-government forces were massing. Dheere said Somali federal troops and Mogadishu police supported by the Ethiopian army were about to launch a military operation in the market area.

But there is trouble within the government ranks. President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi have feuded ever since they came to power in late 2004. The two men represent the two largest clans in Somalia, the Darod and the Hawiye, respectively. Yusuf’s powerbase is Puntland, while Gedi’s clan rule Mogadishu. Yusuf blames Gedi for the continued unrest in the capital and their rift widened after they backed rival bids looking to exploit the Somalia’s potential oil resources. Last week Saudi King Abdullah invited both men for a reconciliation visit though there is no word if either the president or the prime minister has accepted his offer.

Somalia has been without an effective national government since 1991 when rival warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. In 2004, Yusuf and Gedi established a weak transitional government operating mainly out of the southern city of Baidoa and neighbouring Kenya. After the rise of the Islamic Courts in 2006, Ethiopia launched a 15,000 strong invasion of Somalia with the full backing of the Bush administration, which worried by supposed and unproven links between the Islamists and terrorism. While the invasion was successful, terror remains part of the everyday experience of Mogadishu’s beleaguered citizens.

IGAD's demise spells trouble for Somalia

Eritrea has pulled out of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) after a row with Ethiopia about Somalia. IGAD is the regional development organisation for east Africa which is now down to six member countries. The decision is a blow to co-ordinated efforts to pacify Somalia. The Eritrean government of Eritrea released a statement saying it was “compelled to take the move due to the fact that a number of repeated and irresponsible resolutions that undermine regional peace and security have been adopted in the guise of IGAD”.

Ostensibly allies, Ethiopia and Eritrea are locked in a proxy war in Somalia. Ethiopia backs the weak interim government; Eritrea sponsors the Islamic militants fighting to overthrow it. UN Security Council Resolution 1725 was raised to reaffirm “its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence, and unity of Somalia”. The resolution commended the crucial efforts of IGAD to promote and encourage political dialogue between the Ethiopian backed government in Baidoa and the Union of Islamic Courts who ruled in Somalia’s rambunctious capital, Mogadishu.

IGAD was created in 1996 to supersede the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) which was founded ten years earlier. IGADD was a response to the droughts that crippled the Horn of Africa in the seventies and early eighties. The then six countries of the Horn (Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan) decided to take a regional approach to the problem with the help of the UN. IGADD was officially launched in 1986 with its headquarters in Djibouti.

After achieving some success in drought reduction and famine relief, IGADD’s mandate widened to cover other areas of regional development. Eritrea joined the organisation shortly after gaining its independence in 1993. The organisation received a new charter and a name change to in 1996 with the focus moving away from drought to development. IGAD had three focus areas: Conflict Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs; Infrastructure Development; and Food Security and Environment Protection.

But process in IGAD is now stalled. The lack of a functioning central government has kept Somalia out of any meaningful action. Sudan is preoccupied by its civil wars in the South and West (Darfur). Kenya and Uganda, meanwhile prefer to concentrate their energies on the East African Community EAC) which it shares with Tanzania with Burundi and Rwanda joining later this year. The EAC is a more stable bloc of countries and has an eventual goal of economic and political union between its members.

But the major impediment to any progress within IGAD is the ongoing dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Although the two countries are officially at peace since the Algiers Agreement of 2000, the UN was forced to demand Eritrea to remove its forces from a disputed buffer zone on its border with Ethiopia last October. Two months later, Eritrea protested when Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia to end the regime of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu. Eritrea had supported the Islamic Courts as a buffer against Ethiopia.

While the fighting still rages, the US accused Eritrea this week of providing funding, arms and training to insurgents battling Somali forces and allied Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu. Assistant US Secretary of State Jendaye Frazer called for renewed ceasefire talks to end the fighting but said "Eritrea has not been playing a constructive role in Somalia because they continue to fund, arm, train and advise the insurgents" she told reporters.

The fighting not only damages IGAD. It is also destroying Somalia. In the past month alone, nearly 1,300 people have died in fighting between government troops and their Ethiopian allies on the one side, and Islamists on the other. There have been over 300,000 refugees from the capital. But the world is not interested. A Somali intellectual said, "There is a massive tragedy unfolding in Mogadishu, but from the world's silence, you would think it's Christmas.”

Somalia about to explode

Somalia stands at the brink of all-out war after pro-government and Islamist forces shelled each other yesterday near the government headquarters in Baidoa. The war is made more complicated by the involvement of Ethiopian forces on the side of the government. A local resident told Reuters government forces and Ethiopian troops were pushed back by Islamist fighters on Friday but returned to the area early on Saturday with 20 pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons.

The incident comes a week after Ethiopia and Islamic forces exchanged mortar shells in Galkayo where the two forces came within five kilometres of each other. Then two days later, Islamic fighters ambushed an Ethiopian military convoy 35km south of Baidoa. The forces exchanged fire and the Somalis destroyed one truck killing 20 Ethiopian soldiers. The incident led Ethiopia's parliament to vote approval for the government to take "all necessary" steps to rebuff any invasion.

With the situation threatening to escalate into an international war, the UN Security Council stepped in on 6 December. They unanimously authorised a new force with a mandate of six months to be set up by the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The mission has been charged with protecting the interim government and re-establishing a national security force as well as reinforcing Baidoa and seeking further dialogue between the parties.

Islamic militants have condemned the UN intervention. They suspect American interference in the decision to authorise an African force to protect Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) government from the superior armed SICC. The SICC has warned war will erupt as a result. Within two days, thousands of Somali protesters poured into Mogadishu’s Konis stadium following Friday prayers to stage a large rally of opposition.

The official government control very little of the country. The seat of government is Baidoa in south-central Somalia approximately 250km northwest of the capital Mogadishu. They control only a small strip of land around Baidoa. Approximately 8,000 Ethiopian troops are now deployed in Somalia to lend support to the government's shallow authority. The largely Christian Ethiopia fears an Islamic state on its borders and has vowed to "crush" the Islamists if they attack Baidoa. However their action has been viewed as an invasion by the radical Islamic militia known as the Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) that control the capital Mogadishu under sharia law. “We see the approval of the resolution as nothing but an evil intention," said Abdirahin Ali Mudey, speaking for the Islamic Courts. For its part, Ethiopia says Courts have hosted Ethiopian rebel groups - the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) since at least March 2005.

The U.S. resolution was co-sponsored by the council's African members who were afraid of the Somalia’s instability spreading throughout the region. The resolution partially lifts an arms embargo on weapons and military equipment and allows for training of security forces. The resolution bans Somalia's neighbours from sending soldiers, which prohibits participation by troops from Ethiopia as well as Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya. The Islamic courts are backed by Ethiopia’s neighbours Eritrea which has prompted fears that Ethiopia and Eritrea would continue their animosity against either other by engaging in a proxy war in Somalia.

Both sides in the looming conflict paint their confrontation in clichéd ideological terms. The TFG and their Ethiopian allies are calling Somalia the next front in the Global War on Terror in order to gain support from Washington. Members of the Courts have been linked to the murders of Western aid workers, journalists and Somali civil society leaders in Somaliland and Mogadishu. Meanwhile the Courts are seeking sympathy from the Muslim world by portraying themselves as victims of Ethiopian aggression and Western Islamophobia.

The arms embargo was imposed in 1992; a year after warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on each another. The interim government was formed two years ago with UN help but has struggled to assert authority. The Islamic Courts consolidated power in Mogadishu this year. The Ethiopians made the decision to support warlords exiled by the rise of the Islamists in order to oppose an Islamist threat posed to their administration of the Ogaden region.

War is not the only worry for the region. Somalia’s problems are complicated by prolonged flooding which has plagued the Horn of Africa since October. The World Health Organisation’s Dr David Okello said “The floods are expected to continue until at least the end of December if not into early next year." Almost 1.8 million people are at risk of infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, malaria as well as nutritional deficiencies. Dozens have died in flooding in Somalia itself, most drowned, some were eaten by crocodiles. Meanwhile infections are spreading due to a combination of crowding living conditions, lack of clean water, the destruction of sanitation systems, and refugees fleeing the war. The

Eritrea attacks Ethiopia

The UN has requested the African Red Sea state of Eritrea to take its armed forces out of a neutral buffer zone on its border with Ethiopia. Eritrea has moved troops and tanks into a buffer zone that the UN has policed since the border war of 1998-2000. Kjell Magne Bondevik, the special humanitarian envoy for the Horn of Africa, expressed the UN’s concerns in meetings with Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and his government.

The two countries signed the Algiers Agreement in June 2000 to officially end the border war. Several thousands had died on both sides. The agreement called for the establishment of an independent commission to decide the border question. A month later, the UN deployed a peacekeeping force called UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) to monitor the ceasefire. UNMEE consisted of 4,000 military personnel from 40 countries. UNMEE separated the armed forces of the two countries with a demilitarised security zone and briefly contributed to stability in the area and the return of the refugees displaced by the conflict.

The land known as Eritrea (from the Greek word for Red Sea) was created by the Italians. They colonised lands bequeathed to the Egyptians by the old Ottoman Empire. Italy had a strategic goal: to establish a presence on the world’s busiest shipping lane after the creation of the Suez Canal. They declared Eritrea an Italian colony in 1890. It remained in their hands until the British took it in World War II. After the war, the UN decided Eritrea would be federated with Ethiopia. Haile Selassie was restored to his throne of Ethiopia that he lost after the Italians invaded the country from their base in Eritrea and Italian Somaliland. He wanted Eritrea to give Ethiopia access to the Red Sea. Selassie proclaimed a new constitution in 1955 which proclaimed Ethiopian ownership of Eritrea. His government slowly but surely broke the terms of the UN Resolution, reducing Eritrea to status of an occupied country.

In July 1960 a group of Eritrean students and intellectuals held a met in Cairo and formed the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF). A year later, the Eritrean World War II hero Hamis Idris Awate (pictured) fired the first shots for the Eritrean independence movement attacking the Ethiopian army and police. It was to be the start of a brutal 30 year battle. In the 1960s, the ELF was primarily a lowlands Muslim movement. Selassie was ousted in a coup by the Derg junta in 1974 and they launched bloody reprisals against Eritrean attacks. The Christian highlanders had now joined the independence movement as they became increasingly disillusioned with Ethiopian massacres of civilian populations. The Derg strongman Mengistu Haile Mariam succeeded in stopping independence only because Ethiopia was now armed by the Soviet Union. After the end of the Cold War, the Soviets ceased supplying Mengistu and the war turned in Eritrea’s favour. When Mengistu was overthrown in 1991 the parties met in Washington and quickly moved to end the war.

Eritrea was formally pronounced an independent country after an almost unanimous referendum. On May 28, 1993, the United Nations formally admitted Eritrea to its membership. Initially relations with Ethiopia’s new rulers were good. But the peace agreement had not properly established the border and in 1998 the two countries’ armies clashed in the disputed town of Badme. The fighting spread and led to massive internal displacement in both countries as civilians fled the war zone. The war lasted two years and ended in unsatisfactory stalemate. UNMEE came in to monitor an uneasy peace.

Eritrea’s president Isaias Afewerki addressed the stalemate when he wrote the “Eleven Letters” to the Secretary-General and Security Council of the UN between 2003 and 2005. They claimed Ethiopia had rejected the boundary commission’s recommendations on the border between the countries and the UN failed to do its duty to “enforce its own resolutions and to uphold the rule of law”.

Afewerki has been president of Eritrea since full independence. He joined the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in 1966 and received military training in China. He went on to become deputy divisional commander. In 1970 he co-founded the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and in 1987 he was elected secretary-general of the organisation. He promised to call elections on several occasions but always found reasons to defer.

Eritrea is now a one-party state, with the ruling People's Front for Democracy and Justice the only party allowed to operate. There is no independent media or in the country and Reporters Without Borders have described the country as a “black hole” for news. Only North Korea has a worse record for freedom of expression. In Eritrea journalists exist only to provide government propaganda. Harassment, psychological pressure, intimidation and round-the-clock surveillance are common for anyone foolhardy enough to ignore the rules. While his well-equipped army wages war on Ethiopia, Afewerki's people are ravaged by poverty and drought. The UN has expressed its grave fears about the humanitarian consequences of Eritrea's violation of the security zone.