News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

[Having now occupied Somalia for almost three times as long as
originally planned, the US-proxy Ethiopian invaders/occupiers remain
enmired in the quagmire, with no end in sight, and little hope of being
replaced as occupiers by AU or UN troops. Meanwhile, those on every side
of the fighting -- Islamist insurgents, the US government, and the
US-proxy Ethiopians -- have been documented making indiscriminate
attacks on civilian targets, the very definition of terrorism. The
Ethiopian government has even used the WMD white phosphorus against the
Somalis, much as the US government did against Iraqis in Fallujah. In
return, the US government gives the Ethiopian government a free pass on
its many human rights abuses. But, after all, it's not *Americans*
dying, so everything's okay.--DC]

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http://tinyurl.com/22af5k
Worst day of violence since beginning of June claims 31 lives in Somalia
AU appeals to Un to deploy peacekeepers to bolster existing african force
Compiled by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Fighting in Somalia's capital has killed more than 30 civilians and
wounded 60 in the past 24 hours, a local human rights group said on
Tuesday, a day after Britain circulated a draft resolution that would
keep an African Union (AU) force in the war-torn country for six months
and start planning for UN peacekeepers to possibly replace it.

The most violent 24 hours in Mogadishu in two months began Monday when
insurgents attacked government bases, said Sudan Ali Ahmad, chairman of
Elman Human Rights, an independent Somali group. His organization
arrived at the death toll by contacting hospitals and doing its own
surveys throughout the city.

"Thirty-one civilians were killed and another 60 were wounded in the
past 24 hours," Ahmad told the AP.

Ethiopian troops opened fire after a bomb went off near their base, he
said. The blast was followed by a bomb attack on a public minibus,
several grenade explosions and a gunbattle with police, witnesses and
authorities said.

Ahmad said that the last time so many civilians were killed in 24 hours
was between June 3 and June 4.

The UN has come under increasing pressure from the AU and Somalia's
transition government to deploy a well-equipped force in Somalia, which
has been mired in chaos since 1991 when warlords overthrew Mohammad Siad
Barre and then turned against one another.

The AU's Peace and Security Council agreed on July 18 to extend the
mandate of its force in Somalia for six months and called for the UN to
deploy a peacekeeping operation that will support the country's
long-term stabilization.

The UN's authorization for the AU force ends on August 20.

AU Commission Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare followed up with a letter
earlier this month to Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the council
pushing for the deployment of UN troops to replace the AU force.

Francois Lonseny Fall, the secretary general's special representative to
Somalia, told reporters on Monday that the AU's expectation is that a UN
force will replace the AU troops in six months.

Whether that happens remains to be seen. Key Security Council countries
have said there must be a peace to keep before UN troops are sent in.

China's deputy ambassador to the UN Liu Zhenmin said Monday that while
many council members, especially African nations, want greater UN
involvement in Somalia, a position China generally supports, "everything
depends on the security situation inside the country. If the security
situation improves, we will support the active involvement of the UN, at
least to stop the current situation becoming further deteriorated."

The deputy ambassador from the Republic of Congo Pascal Gayama, the
current council president, said Somalia faced one of the most difficult
conflict situations in Africa.

"The Security Council has to move when there is no peace. When people
are saying that there should be peace first and then the UN comes, it's
really a nonsense in my view," he said.

Uganda currently has about 1,700 troops in Somalia, officially as the
vanguard of a larger AU peacekeeping force that is supposed to total 8,000.

Fall said the deployment of 1,500 troops from Burundi has been delayed
because of the lack of funds and logistical help. Troops are also
expected from Nigeria and Ghana, he said.

The draft resolution circulated Monday would extend the AU mandate for
six months and urge member states "to provide financial resources,
personnel, equipment and services" to reinforce the AU mission so the
force can be fully deployed.

The draft asks the secretary general to further develop plans for the
possible deployment of a UN force by contacting potential troop
contributing countries and identifying what actions the UN and the
international community should take to create the conditions for a
successful peacekeeping operation.

It asks for specific "measures, indicators and timeframes" to review
progress that would assist the council's decision "on the
appropriateness of and objectives for a UN mission."

It also asks Ban to send a technical assessment mission to the region as
soon as possible.

The draft resolution welcomes the convening of the National
Reconciliation Conference, aimed at ending Somalia's 16 years of violence.

It stresses the need for all clan and religious leaders, the business
community and civil society to be included in the political process and
reiterates the need for agreement on a lasting cessation of hostilities
and a road map for democratic elections at the local, regional and
national levels.

The draft also states the council's intention "to take measures against
those who seek to prevent or block a peaceful political process," those
who threaten the transitional government's institutions or the AU force,
and those who undermine security in Somalia or the region.

-- Agencies

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http://tinyurl.com/ytrubk
Civilian Toll Cited In Somali Conflict
Report Blames All Sides for War Abuses
By Stephanie McCrummen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, August 14, 2007; A10

NAIROBI, Aug. 13 -- Ethiopian, Somali and insurgent forces rampantly
violated the laws of war during heavy fighting in the Somali capital of
Mogadishu earlier this year, resulting in a "catastrophic" toll on
civilians, according to a report [http://tinyurl.com/2gav8j ] released
Monday by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

The violations included deliberate, indiscriminate shelling of civilian
neighborhoods and hospitals, and summary executions of civilians,
according to the 113-page report.

Among its copious details is a transcript of a March radio interview
with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, whose government was installed by
Ethiopian military might in December and has been battling a growing
insurgency in Mogadishu ever since.

The president was asked whether a neighborhood where insurgents were
hiding would be bombarded, even if civilians were there.

"Yes we will bombard it!" Yusuf responded.

In a statement, the Ethiopian government called the Human Rights Watch
report "unfounded" and "irrelevant to the promotion of human rights."
There was no immediate response from the Somali government, which in the
past has defended its campaign, or from insurgent groups.

The report accused Yusuf's foreign backers, including the United States,
of "shameful silence" in the face of the violence.

The United States supported Ethiopia's invasion of Somalia to oust a
relatively popular Islamic movement that had taken hold there last year.
U.S. forces subsequently launched three airstrikes inside Somalia aimed
at Islamic fighters alleged to have terrorist ties.

The rights group said there was not enough information on the U.S.
strikes to determine whether they might have violated international
humanitarian laws.

The State Department, which views Ethiopia as a key ally in fighting
terrorism in the Horn of Africa, has offered little public criticism of
the Ethiopian government's intervention or the increasingly unpopular
Somali government.

The Human Rights Watch report is the first independent, detailed
accounting of the massive counterinsurgency offensive in March and April
this year. The operations killed an estimated 1,000 civilians, sent
about 400,000 Mogadishu residents fleeing and touched off weeks of
chaotic fighting that Somalis said was the worst since the fall of their
last central government in 1991.

According to the report, the insurgents -- a loose coalition of
hard-core Islamic fighters, clan militias and nationalists -- violated
international law by routinely deploying in densely populated civilian
areas. They indiscriminately fired mortar shells into civilian areas,
the report found, and in one case dragged the bodies of dead soldiers
through Mogadishu's streets.

The Somali government's violations included failing to effectively warn
civilians of the impending attacks, looting, committing mass arrests and
interfering with humanitarian assistance, according to the report.