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[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]

*****

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

*****

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.

The lengthiest descriptions of violations in the report, however,
involve Ethiopian forces.

Ethiopian commanders flouted international humanitarian law by firing
"inherently indiscriminate" Katyusha rockets into civilian
neighborhoods, the report found, and by "routinely and repeatedly"
firing rockets, mortars and artillery in a manner that failed to
distinguish between civilians and military targets.

The report found "strong evidence" that the indiscriminate bombardment
was intentional, carried on day after day even after it was clear that
scores of civilians were being killed.

In some areas, witnesses told the group, rockets and heavy artillery
shells fell in a systematic pattern, as if the Ethiopians were
attempting to level entire neighborhoods.

Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that all
the warring parties have shown "criminal disregard for the well-being of
the civilian population of Mogadishu" and accused the U.N. Security
Council, which took up the subject of Somalia on Monday, of "indifference."

[Pressed by African nations, the council passed a draft resolution
calling for contingency planning for a peacekeeping force in Somalia,
the Reuters news agency reported.]

Though the report focused mainly on violence during March and April this
year, Mogadishu residents have continued to endure almost daily violence
in the form of roadside bombs and grenade attacks by insurgents, and
reprisals by Ethiopian and Somali troops.

One key demand of Somali opposition groups is for Ethiopian troops to
withdraw.

A planned African Union peacekeeping force of 8,000 troops, which would
in theory replace the Ethiopians, has failed to fully materialize.
Currently only 1,600 Ugandan troops are deployed in Mogadishu.

*****

http://tinyurl.com/2e8r3x
Ethiopia accused of using white phosphorus bombs in US-backed occupation
of Somalia
By Brian Smith
13 August 2007

A new report by United Nations arms monitors accuses Ethiopia's army of
using illegal white phosphorus bombs during the US-backed occupation of
Somalia.

The report was compiled by a UN panel of independent experts and
analysts and was delivered to the UN Security Council at the end of
July. It covers the period from November 2006 to late June 2007.

The most damning accusation in the report is that during a battle in
Mogadishu on April 13 between the Ethiopian military and the forces of
the United Islamic Courts (known as Shabaab), "Ethiopian military forces
resorted to using white phosphorus bombs. . . . [A]pproximately 15
Shabaab fighters and 35 civilians were killed."

Residents reportedly said that the bombs literally melted people. The
report's analysts said this was not an isolated incident.

The Ethiopian government denied the accusation, calling it "baseless."
But the UN monitors provided bomb scene photographs and soil sample
evidence indicating that the soil at the impact area had 117 times the
normal amount of phosphorus.

White phosphorus is particularly dangerous to exposed people because it
continues to burn unless deprived of oxygen or until it is completely
consumed, in some cases burning right down to the bone. Phosphorus burns
carry a greater risk of mortality than other forms of burns due to the
absorption of phosphorus into the body, resulting in liver, heart and
kidney damage, and in some cases multi-organ failure.

Its use by the US occupying forces against enemy areas in Fallujah,
Iraq, was reported as early as April 2004. The US military denied this
for 18 months until November 2005, when Pentagon spokesman
Lieutenant-Colonel Barry Venable confirmed to the BBC that white
phosphorus had been used as an antipersonnel weapon, and was quoted
stating, "Yes, it was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy
combatants" (see "New revelations of US military use of white phosphorus
in Iraq" [http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/nov2005/phos-n21.shtml ]).

During last year's Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, Israel stated that it
had used phosphorus shells "against military targets in open ground" in
south Lebanon. However, several sources reported that they had seen
Lebanese civilians with injuries characteristic of phosphorus.

The use of white phosphorus in civilian areas or as an anti-personnel
incendiary is illegal and was banned (by signatory countries) in the
1980 United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Protocol
III. The United States, aware of the chemical's usefulness from its
experiences in Korea and Vietnam, opted out of signing.

The UN monitors also confirm reports that on June 1 of this year, the US
Navy "attacked by firing several times at suspected al-Qaeda operatives
near the coastal village of Bargal in Puntland, Somalia." When
questioned, the US government said it had "conducted several strikes in
self-defence against al-Qaeda terrorist targets in Somalia."

Claims of self defence are absurd when the missiles were fired from a
ship anchored off the coast, as are claims of a targeted attack -- local
sources reported farms destroyed and hilltops flattened by the missile
strikes (see "US Navy bombards Somalia"
[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/soma-j07.shtml ]).

The invasion of Somalia by Ethiopia began in December of last year. It
was intended to install the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), led
by former warlord Abdullahi Yusuf, and to oust the United Islamic Courts
(UIC) administration, which had won popular support by bringing some
stability to Mogadishu and much of the south of Somalia after more than
a decade of low-level civil war. Washington backed the invasion on the
grounds that the UIC contained radical Islamists and was supposedly
sheltering members of Al Qaeda.

The US launched at least two air strikes in the south of Somalia during
the invasion's aftermath, devastating coastal towns and pastoralist
camps on the Kenyan border, and killing 31 civilians near Afmadow. The
attacks were launched from the US base in Djibouti, which serves as the
US military training and operations centre for the Horn of Africa.

For the first few months of this year, with little coverage in the
Western media, the Ethiopian military, backed by Washington, unleashed
an intense bombardment of Mogadishu's crowded and impoverished urban
neighbourhoods, killing and wounding thousands and turning hundreds of
thousands more into homeless refugees without adequate water, food or
medicine. Fighting between insurgents and Ethiopian and Somali
government troops displaced more than half of Mogadishu's population
while the humanitarian situation deteriorated rapidly.

A long-awaited peace conference is now underway in Mogadishu, seeking to
reconcile the country's myriad clans, political factions and former
warlords. The intention is to impose a regime that will be subservient
to Ethiopia and its US backers.

This looks unlikely to succeed since two key constituencies were absent:
representatives of the UIC and of the powerful Hawiye clan. Both refused
to attend the talks in protest at the continued presence of Ethiopian
troops in the country and the interim government's unwillingness to
engage with its opponents.

According to the UN refugee agency, some 125,000 of the estimated
400,000 who fled the capital between February and May have now returned.
Further fighting has flared up since talks began, and nearly 21,000 have
left Mogadishu again in June and July.

The UN arms monitors report states, "Antagonism against Ethiopia is at a
crescendo, clearly not being helped by the Ethiopian army's heavy-handed
response to insurgent attacks involving the use of disproportionate force."

It also claims that the number of weapons now in Somalia exceeds that
during the civil war period of the early 1990s. "In brief, Somalia is
awash with arms," it states. "There is no clearly established authority
that has the capability of exercising control over a majority [of the
weapons]."

The UN monitors describe persistent instability in Somalia since the
invasion, in which the UIC is far from a spent force, and in which the
former warlords are reasserting themselves. The panel found that
"warlords are now among the most important buyers of arms at the
Bakaraaha arms markets" in Mogadishu "and are trying to regain control
over their former fiefdoms (which they lost to the [UIC] in 2006)."

See Also:
"Massacre in Mogadishu--war crime made in the USA"
[http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/moga-a28.shtml ]
[28 April 2007]

*****

--
Dan Clore

My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/clorebeast/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo

Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"