We have had enough of the corrupt CEOs who sail towards offshore banks. We do not want to hear anymore about the prime ministers who attack and invade faraway countries. What we really want is to see real pirates. While those corsair and freebooter businessmen and politicians are well-known and still at large, you can confidently expect that the two detainees will spend a long time behind Spanish bars. Everyone knows that they are poor, black, Muslim and dared to attack a Spanish fishing boat.

PRISON PREFERABLE TO FREEDOM?

However, if you think twice, you might conclude that their future in prison is not so gloomy. First of all, they will enjoy three hot meals a day and they will see a doctor, probably for the first time in their lives. Besides, they will be spared the random bombing of their land by United States F-16s, and also the bullets shot by Ethiopians and Somalis working for imperialism.

In spite of the storytelling by NATO and European Union security high priests, who make a comfortable living out of sending troops to third world lands and seas like Somalia and the Indian Ocean, supposedly swamped by pirates on a rampage after European fishing boats, in the real world things are the other way round.

Perhaps Spanish fishers could forgive Somalis for not knowing the differences between the foreigners who approach their coasts in order to take away their fisheries, from those who land in order to impose a political regime, and both from those who just choose to dump their nuclear waste in the sea bed.

According to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Somali fishermen live in one of the world’s poorest countries. Life expectancy is approximately 48 years. Around 60 per cent of the population is illiterate, while there is no compulsory basic education law. Close to 36 per cent of infants are underweight. There are half a million refugees and another million internally displaced. Hundred of thousands undergo similar living conditions. Almost everything is scarce, especially human rights.

Unicef announces that a Somali child’s chances of surviving to adulthood are among the lowest of children anywhere in the world. Add to this the fact that the odds of the child’s mother dying during pregnancy or in childbirth are also extremely high. These high death rates stem from the interaction of a number of causes set within a complex socio-political context, but are largely attributable to disease, dehydration, malnutrition, lack of safe water, and poor sanitation.’

GOOD PIRATE, BAD PIRATE

Perhaps Somalis could forgive Spanish fishers for not knowing the difference between illegally fishing in Somalia and in Norway, and not knowing the different ways each people has to protect their riches.

In 2005, a Norwegian Navy vessel seized a Galician boat illegally fishing halibut. The Navy communiqué says that ‘during the inspection we found out that the boat had big amounts of halibut hidden in its hold’. It also informs that ‘we ordered the boat to sail to Tromso (a north-western city), but the Spanish captain refused to comply with.’

Perhaps one could forgive the Norwegians for being so insistent. The very next day (20 November) they seized another Spanish fishing boat: ‘The Garoya is the second fishing boat captured in two days. It has been reported that it kept in the hold more than 100 tonnes of halibut, just like the Monte Meixueiro seized yesterday. Its captain has been charged with providing wrong information to the fishing authorities and tampering the books.’

Perhaps one could forgive Spanish mass media for not reporting these days about the story of the Spanish boats seized in the past, which took place in the seven seas. Boats have been captured by Norwegian, Moroccan, Irish, Canadian, South African, British patrol boats.

It is also rather ironic that the British engage today in chasing Spanish pirates, although they could be forgiven for this, since classical Spanish author Lope de Vega and Literature Nobel Prize winner Garcia Marquez – as well as various film directors – were inspired by Sir Francis Drake.

THE STATE OF SOMALIA

Somalia has not had a real government in the last fifteen years. During this period, the king of the seas (and indeed of the sky and the whole world), the greatest pirate of all times, ordered yet another military operation in Somalia.

Siad Barre, former Somalia president, was a client of the Soviets during the seventies, but this did not prevent the United States from supporting him during the eighties. When the White House decided to support the warlords in their war against the Islamists from 2000 on, the US president did not hesitate.

Westerners could be forgiven for remembering (and praising through a Hollywood film) the killing of 19 marines who took part in the Mogadishu military operation carried out by the United States in the early 90s, and forgetting the approximately 1000 Somalis that were killed in the attack.

This operation capped many years of US actions in Somalia. Somalis, like other lesser peoples, enjoyed US international aid, which mainly means shipping arms to a country in order for the beneficiaries to kill each other, and at the same time providing political support to justify the killing according to the motive in fashion: Communism, drug trafficking, Islamist terror, tribal fighting and so on.

One has to add the dumping of US-subsidised agricultural produce in Somalia, and other political and economic interventions related to oil and strategic interests, to produce a ravaged nation, physically and morally devastated.

Somali seas have not been spared foreign interventions. As Johann Hari writes, some Western countries have taken advantage of the lack of government in Somalia to dump their nuclear waste in its waters.² For Somalis, the consequences are as harmful as the consequences of war and long lasting.

To make matters worse, Somali fishers watch huge foreign ships taking away tons of fish while they barely manage to obtain some kilos with their skiffs.

Perhaps Somali fishers could be forgiven for dreaming of their sons and daughters enjoying the riches the foreigners take away for their children.

HOW THE WEST WINS

Spanish fishers fishing in the seas around Somalia and people who eat their produce back in Spain, could be forgiven for cherishing basic wishes: Working unmolested and ingesting fish proteins respectively. They could also be forgiven for electing politicians who guarantee the fulfillment of their wishes, no matter what price, other people’s life included.

These politicians could also be forgiven for setting up a Holy Alliance with their neighbours, in order to send war boats supported by war planes to compete for food with poor Somalis in the Indian Ocean, although they could negotiate fishing permits before fishing, or even pay fines if they are caught cheating, as it has happened many times in the past with Spanish vessels.

However, it cannot be forgiven that Spanish and other Westerners – who know how Somalis are mercilessly being crushed – put the blame on Somalis and hunt them when they confront the real pirates.

Pirates have traditionally been well considered by the people, in novels and in films. How revolting they became when they took over governments and corporations.

1. Operation Atalanta is campaign of the European Union to stop the ‘piracy off the Somali coast’. The joint naval patrol includes vessels from Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden.
   A Spanish frigate captured two of the bunch of ‘pirates’ who seized the Spanish fishing boat Alacrana, and both are now in a Spanish prison awaiting to be taken to court.
2. Johann Hari, ‘You Are Being Lied to About Pirates,’ The Independent, January 9th, 2009.

One might think the BBC’s headline would identify the agency responsible for the bombing, but the first few sentences also shed no light:

“The leader of the military wing of an Islamist insurgent organization in Somalia has been killed in an overnight air strike.

“Aden Hashi Ayro, al-Shabab’s military commander, died when his home in the central town of Dusamareb was bombed.

“Ten other people, including a senior militant, are also reported dead.”

Only in the fourth sentence, was responsibility ascribed:

“A US military spokesman told the BBC that it had attacked what he called a known al-Qaeda target in Somalia.”

English teachers often illustrate use of the passive form with the sentence: ‘A man has been arrested.’ The passive is preferable, students are told, because the active form, ‘The police have arrested a man,’ contains a redundancy — the agent is already indicated by the action. There’s no need to actually mention ‘the police.’

Likewise, the BBC takes for granted that the US is the world’s policeman; no need to mention it by name. The action of bombing an impoverished Third World country already indicates the agent. This also helps explain why no mention was made of the illegality of this act of aggression.

On the rare occasions when the media mention the conflict in Somalia at all, the focus tends to fall on US attempts to hunt down al Qaeda, or on the West’s alleged humanitarian motives. Other priorities were indicated in 1992 when the US political weekly The Nation referred to Somalia as “one of the most strategically sensitive spots in the world today: astride the Horn of Africa, where oil, Islamic fundamentalism and Israeli, Iranian and Arab ambitions and arms are apt to crash and collide.” (December 21, 1992)

In December 2006, the US backed the invasion of Somalia by its close Ethiopian ally to overthrow the Islamist government, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). Christian Ethiopia is a historic enemy of Somalia, which is made up entirely of Sunni Muslims.

On December 4 of that year, General John Abizaid, the commander of US forces from the Middle East through Afghanistan, travelled to Addis Ababa to meet the Ethiopian prime minister, Meles Zenawi. Three weeks later, Ethiopian forces crossed into Somalia and Washington launched a series of supportive air strikes. The Guardian quoted a former intelligence officer familiar with the region:

“The meeting was just the final handshake.” (Xan Rice and Suzanne Goldenberg, “The American connection: How US forged an alliance with Ethiopia over invasion,” The Guardian, January 13, 2007)

Political analyst James Petras commented:

“Somalia . . . was invaded by mercenaries by Ethiopia, trained, financed, armed and directed by US military advisers.” (Petras, ‘The Imperial System: Hierarchy, Networks and Clients: The Case of Somalia,’ Dissident Voice, February 18, 2007)

USA Today reported in January 2007 that the US had “quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia,” which had received nearly $20 million in US military aid since late 2002. The report added:

“The [Somalia] intervention is controversial in Ethiopia, where the Meles government has become increasingly repressive, said Chris Albin-Lackey, an African researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“The Meles government has limited the power of the opposition in parliament and arrested thousands. A government inquiry concluded that security forces fatally shot, beat or strangled 193 people who protested election fraud in 2005.”

Petras noted that, having driven the last of the warlords from Mogadishu and most of the countryside, the ICU had established a government which was welcomed by the great majority of Somalis and covered over 90% of the population:

“The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation.” (Petras, op. cit)

Martin Fletcher wrote in the Times of the ICU:

“I am no apologist for the courts. Their leadership included extremists with dangerous intentions and connections. But for six months they achieved the near-impossible feat of restoring order to a country that appeared ungovernable…

“The courts were less repressive than our Saudi Arabian friends. They publicly executed two murderers (a fraction of the 24 executions in Texas last year), and discouraged Western dancing, music and films, but at least people could walk the streets without being robbed or killed. That trumps most other considerations. Ask any Iraqi.

“The Islamists have now been replaced – with Washington’s connivance – by a weak, fragile Government that was created long before the courts won power, that includes the very warlords they defeated and relies for survival on Somalia’s worst enemy.” (Fletcher, ‘The Islamists were the one hope for Somalia,’ The Times, January 8, 2007)

It was clear to many commentators that the Ethiopian invasion would prove disastrous. Three months later, the Daily Telegraph reported:

“A new humanitarian crisis is rapidly taking shape in the Horn of Africa where eight days of heavy fighting in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, has forced about 350,000 people to flee.

“Artillery fire has devastated large areas of the city, forcing about one third of its population to leave. Yesterday Mogadishu’s main hospital was shelled.

“The plains around Mogadishu are filled with refugees enduring desperate conditions with little food or shelter. The fighting began when Somalia’s internationally recognised government, supported by Ethiopian troops, launched an offensive against insurgents.” (Mike Pflanz, ‘Fighting brings fresh misery to Somalia,’ Telegraph, April 26, 2007)

The Telegraph cited a British aid worker: “They are bombing anything that moves.”

Catherine Weibel, from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees was also quoted:

“Everyone we are talking to says this is the worst situation they have seen in 16 years since the last government fell.”

The War On Terror . . . And The Real Concern

The preferred media framework for making sense of US actions closely parallels cold war mythology. We are to believe the US is passionately, even blindly, battling ideological enemies in an effort to protect itself and the West. Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland could be relied upon to paint this picture of events:

“A fortnight ago the Ethiopians entered Somalia to topple the Islamist forces who had just taken Mogadishu. Americans dislike that Islamist movement, fearing it has the makings of an African Taliban, so they backed the Ethiopians to take it out. According to Patrick Smith, the editor of Africa Confidential, the war on terror is fast becoming a cold war for the 21st century, with the US finding proxy allies to fight proxy enemies in faraway places.” (Freedland, “Like a deluded compulsive gambler, Bush is fuelling a new cold war,” The Guardian, January 10, 2007)

If this sounds curiously simplistic, even childish, it is. In fact, the cold war, like the “war on terror”, was far less ideological, far more prosaic, than journalists like Freedland claim. Historian Howard Zinn has, for example, commented on the Vietnam war, which the BBC would have us believe “was America’s attempt to stop Communists from toppling one country after another in South East Asia”:

“When I read the hundreds of pages of the Pentagon Papers entrusted to me by [military analyst] Daniel Ellsberg, what jumped out at me were the secret memos from the National Security Council. Explaining the U.S. interest in Southeast Asia, they spoke bluntly of the country’s motives as a quest for ‘tin, rubber, oil.’”

Ethiopia’s invasion coincided with the Pentagon’s goal of creating a new ‘Africa Command’ to deal with what the Christian Science Monitor described as: “Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda.” Richard Whittle wrote:

“The creation of the new command will be more than an exercise in shuffling bureaucratic boxes, experts say. The US government’s motives include countering Al Qaeda’s known presence in Africa, safeguarding future oil supplies, and competing with China, which has been courting African governments in its own quest for petroleum, they suggest.” (Richard Whittle, ‘Pentagon to train a sharper eye on Africa,’ January 5, 2007)

As Andy Rowell and James Marriott have noted, the key fact is that “some 30 per cent of America’s oil will come from Africa in the next ten years”. (Rowell and Marriott, A Game as Old as Empire — The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption, edited by Steven Hiatt, Berrett-Koehler, 2007, p.118)

The US has plans for nearly two-thirds of Somalia’s oil fields to be allocated to the US oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips. The US hopes Somalia will line up as an ally alongside Ethiopia and Djibouti, where the US has a military base. This alliance would give America powerful leverage close to the major energy-producing regions.

Chatham House, a British think tank of the independent Royal Institute of International Affairs, commented on US and Ethiopian intervention last year:

“In an uncomfortably familiar pattern, genuine multilateral concern to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Somalia has been hijacked by unilateral actions of other international actors — especially Ethiopia and the United States — following their own foreign policy agendas.”

Catastrophic Crisis

This ‘hijacking’ has had truly appalling consequences. More than one million people have been made internal refugees, and the UN food security unit warned last week that 3.5 million people, half of Somalia’s population, are facing famine. Fighting has turned Mogadishu into a ghost town. About 700,000 people have fled — out of a population of up to 1.5 million. The International Committee of the Red Cross describes Somalia’s crisis as “catastrophic.”

Soaring food prices have driven thousands of protestors onto the streets of the capital, Mogadishu. On May 5, Professor Abdi Samatar, a professor of geography and global studies at the University of Minnesota, told the US radio program Democracy Now:

“Well, what you see in Mogadishu over the last year and a half or so, since the Ethiopian invasion, which was sanctioned by the US government, has destroyed virtually all the life-sustaining economic systems which the population have built without the government for the last fifteen, sixteen years.”

A kilo of rice, which previously sold at around seventy US cents, now costs as much as $2.50. The average day’s income for anyone fortunate enough to have a job is less than a dollar a day. The gap between incomes and the cost of food primarily imported from overseas means that millions of people cannot afford to eat.

Last week, Amnesty International reported that it had obtained scores of accounts of killings by Ethiopian troops that Somalis have described as “slaughtering [Somalis] like goats.” In one case, “a young child’s throat was slit by Ethiopian soldiers in front of the child’s mother.”

Amnesty reported that during sweeps through neighborhoods, Ethiopian forces placed snipers on roofs, and civilians were unable to move about for fear of being shot:

“While some sniper fire appeared to be directed at suspected members of anti-TFG [Transitional Federal Government] armed groups, reports indicate that civilians were also frequently caught in indiscriminate fire. In many cases families were forced to carry their wounded to medical care in wheelbarrows and on donkeys because ambulance drivers would not operate their vehicles due to general insecurity, including sniper fire. As a result, it has become very difficult for civilians to access medical care.”

The British government has consistently downplayed both the gravity of the crisis and the murderous behavior of Ethiopian forces. In the Foreign Office’s latest annual human rights assessment of Somalia there was no mention of Ethiopia, let alone the conduct of its troops. No surprise — Ethiopia is one of the largest recipients of UK aid in Africa and, as discussed, is an important regional ally.

The Media Follow, The Government Lead

Predictably, the government’s strategic silence is reflected in press reporting. In the last year, the words ‘Somalia’ and ‘famine’ have appeared in a grand total of seven British broadsheet newspaper articles discussing the topic. Of the few references to the latest US attack in the British press over the last week, only the Independent and the Sunday Times made briefs references to Somalia’s humanitarian crisis. The Independent noted that life for Somalia’s nine million residents has become “unbearable”. The Guardian merely quoted Reuters:

“Western security services have long seen Somalia as a haven for militants. Warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre in 1991, casting the country into chaos.” (Reuters, “US airstrike kills head of al-Qaida in Somalia,” Guardian International, May 2, 2008)

The Amnesty report was mentioned in three broadsheet newspapers. Of these, The Guardian failed to mention the US role at all. Ian Black commented:

“Ethiopia sent in troops in December 2006 and ejected them. Since then, Mogadishu has been caught up in a guerrilla war between the government and its Ethiopian allies and the Islamist insurgents. Up to 1 million Somalians are internally displaced.” (Ian Black, ‘Somali refugees speak of horrific war crimes,’ The Guardian, May 7, 2008)

By contrast, a short Independent piece led with the US role:

“Amnesty International has called for the role of the United States in Somalia to be investigated, following publication of a report accusing its allies of committing war crimes.”

Amnesty’s Dave Copeman was cited:

“There are major countries that have significant influence. The US, EU and European countries need to exert that influence to stop these attacks.”

This is the sole reference to Copeman’s comments in the entire national UK press.

Professor Samatar commented on the latest US attack:

“[I]t’s quite befuddling to Somalis and many other peace-loving people around the world as to why the United States has chosen to bomb people who are desperate for assistance and food, and who have been dislocated and traumatised by an Ethiopian invasion, a country that has its own people under tyranny in itself.”

The Truth of “Our Leaders”

With our shared responsibility for the catastrophe in Somalia buried out of sight, the Telegraph reported this week:

“Gordon Brown urged the Burmese authorities to give ‘unfettered access’ to humanitarian agencies. ‘We now estimate that two million people face famine or disease as a result of the lack of co-operation of the Burmese authorities. This is completely unacceptable,’ he said.” (Alan Brown, ‘Burmese officials “are seizing emergency aid and selling it for profit”,’ Daily Telegraph, May 13, 2008)

The great lie is that we are represented by people like Gordon Brown, described as “our leaders.” Because they represent us and we are not monsters, we are to believe that “our leaders” are seeking to resolve problems afflicting humanity in general, while working more specifically to protect us from terrorism and other threats. In other words, we are to believe that ‘our leaders’, like us, are rational, compassionate and well-intentioned.

The truth is very different. In fact we are free to chose from parties and leaders who all represent the same interests of concentrated state-corporate power — the tiny fraction of the population that owns much of the country and runs its business.

Crucially, “our leaders” front a political system that has an overwhelming advantage in high-tech military power. They are all too willing to use this power to convulse countries with bloodshed when doing so supports their lucrative version of economic “order”. Iraq is the obvious example — Somalia is another.

“Our leaders” rule in the name of democracy, but they act in the interests of a narrow, extremely violent kleptocracy.

Nearly 50 civilians have reportedly been killed and 100 wounded in the two-day fighting spree between fighters loyal to the Union of Islamic Courts and government forces and their Ethiopian allies. A report, issued by Human Rights Watch, chastised both Ethiopian troops and ‘insurgents’ for the bloodletting. Peter Takirambudde, the watchdog’s Africa director, was quoted as saying, “The international community should condemn these attacks and hold combatants accountable for violations of humanitarian law — including mutilating captured combatants and executing detainees.” Of course, one cannot realistically expect the international community to take on a constructive involvement in the conflict. Various members of this ‘community’ have already played a most destructive role in Somalia’s 16-year-old civil war, which fragmented a nation that had long struggled to achieve a sense of sovereignty and national cohesion.

To dismiss the war in Somalia as yet another protracted conflict between warlords and insurgents would indeed be unjust because the country’s history has consistently been marred by colonial greed and unwarranted foreign interventions. These gave rise to various proxy governments, militias and local middlemen, working in the interests of those obsessed with the geopolitical importance of the Horn of Africa.

Colonial powers came to appreciate the strategic location of Somalia after the Berlin Conference, which initiated the ‘Scramble for Africa.’ The arrival of Britain, France and Italy into Somali lands began in the late 19th century and quickly the area disintegrated into British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland. Both countries sought expand their control, enlisting locals to fight the very wars aimed at their own subjugation.

World War II brought immense devastation to the Somali people, who, out of desperation, coercion or promises of post-war independence, fought on behalf of the warring European powers. Somalia was mandated by the UN as an Italian protectorate in 1949 and achieved independence a decade later in 1960. However, the colonial powers never fully conceded their interests in the country and the Cold War actually invited new players to the scene, including the United States, the Soviet Union and Cuba.
One residue of the colonial legacy involved the Ogaden province of Somalia, which the British Empire had granted to the Ethiopian government. The region became the stage of two major wars between Ethiopia and Somalia between 1964 and 1977. Many Somalis still regard Ethiopia as an occupying power and view the policies of Addis Ababa as a continuation of the country’s history of foreign intervention.

The civil war of 1991, largely a result of foreign intervention, clan and tribal loyalties, and lack of internal cohesion, further disfigured Somalia. As stranded civilians became deprived of aid, Somalia was hit by a devastating famine that yielded a humanitarian disaster. The famine served as a pretext for foreign intervention, this time as part of international ‘humanitarian’ missions, starting in December 1992, which also included US troops. The endeavor came to a tragic end in October 1993, when more than 1,000 Somalis and 18 US troops were killed in Mogadishu. Following a hurried US withdrawal, the mainstream media rationalized that the West could not help those who refuse to help themselves; another disfiguration of the fact that the interest of the Somali people was hardly ever a concern for these colonial philanthropists. Since then, the importance of Somalia was relegated in international news media into just another mindless conflict, with no rational context and no end in sight. The truth, however, is that colonial interest in the Horn of Africa has never waned.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 provided an impetus for US involvement in the strategic region; only one month after the attacks, Paul Wolfowitz met with various power players in Ethiopia and Somalia, alleging that al-Qaeda terrorists might be using Ras Kamboni and other Somali territories as escape routes. A year later, the US established the Combined Joint Task Force — Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) to ‘monitor’ developments and to train local militaries in ‘counterterrorism’.

The US contingent was hardly neutral in the ongoing conflict. Reportedly, US troops were involved in aiding Ethiopian forces that entered Somalia in December 2006, citing efforts to track down al-Qaeda suspects. The Ethiopian occupation was justified as a response to a call by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), whose legitimacy is questioned. TGF, seen largely as a pro-Ethiopian entity, had been rapidly losing its control over parts of Somalia to the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) which came to prominence in January 2006, taking over the capital and eventually bringing long-sought stability to much of the country. Their attempts engage the US and other Western powers in dialogue failed, however, as a US-backed Ethiopia moved into Somalia in December 2006. On January 7, 2007, the US directly entered the conflict, launching airstrikes using AC-130 gunship. Civilian causalities were reported, but the US refused to accept responsibility for them.

The last intervention devastated the country’s chances of unity. It now stands divided between the transitional government, Ethiopia (both backed by the UN, the US and the African Union) and the Islamic courts (allegedly backed by Eritrea and some Arab Gulf governments). Recently, the UN ruled out any chances for an international peacekeeping force, and the few African countries who promised troops are yet to deliver (with the exception of Uganda).

This situation leaves Somalia once more under the mercy of foreign powers and self-serving internal forces, foreshadowing yet more bloodshed. Our informed support is essential now because the Somali people have suffered enough. Their plight is urgent and it deserves a much deeper understanding, alongside immediate attention.

Four days of attacks, beginning March 29, killed as many as 1,000 civilians in the capital of Mogadishu. The Ethiopians, backed by their allies in Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), used tanks, helicopter gunships and artillery to demolish nearly four square miles of the city — neighborhoods housing Somali subclans that support militias opposed to the invasion.

Ten thousand residents fled during the attacks — on top of the 100,000 who had left since February. Doctors Without Borders reported Mogadishu’s largest outbreak of cholera in 15 years, and UN officials warned of a humanitarian catastrophe for the country’s internally displaced people, who now number half a million.

The TFG, whose leadership is skewed to favor Somalia’s northern Darod clan, was already splintering before this act of ethnic cleansing. But the slaughter sparked a key defection from the government — Hussein Aideed, a deputy prime minister who belongs to one of the targeted subclans.

Aideed made a joint statement against the occupation April 18 alongside Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, leader of the moderate wing of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) — the group ousted in January by Ethiopia’s invasion. Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, the former speaker of the TFG parliament, joined in the statement, which called for a common Somali front to force out the Ethiopians. Unlike Aideed, Aden was always opposed to the invasion and favored talks with the UIC moderates. For these reasons, TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf demoted him in January.

Hussein Aideed, a member of the Hawiye clan that dominates Mogadishu, is the son of Muhammad Farah Aideed — the bogeyman who haunted the U.S.-led UN occupation of Somalia from 1992 to 1994.

Educated in the U.S., Hussein entered Somalia in the 1990s as a Marine. He stayed to become a warlord, like his father, and got rich turning Somali acacia forests into charcoal for export. He posed as a U.S.-friendly powerbroker in a country that has lacked a central government since the 1991 fall of its U.S-backed dictator, Siad Barre.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Aideed became a CIA informant in the “war on terror” — and may be the responsible for making some of the currently unsubstantiated claims that the UIC harbored al-Qaeda kingpins. The charges of al-Qaeda infiltration were the propaganda cover for Ethiopia and their U.S. backers to install the TFG.

Amnesty International reports that more than 80 Somali men, women and children are still locked up without charge as “terror suspects” in secret jails in Ethiopia. They were captured by U.S.-trained Kenyan border security forces in January and February.

The detainees were fleeing a region where Ethiopian tanks were advancing and the U.S. carried out air strikes to assassinate supposed al-Qaeda leaders — but instead killed 70 Somali herdsman, according to the aid agency Oxfam.

Despite his checkered past, Aideed, together with his two new anti-Ethiopian allies, has deeper roots in the southern capital area than the TFG. The three could represent the face of a future Somali government. If so, it would be a coup for Isaias Afwerki of Eritrea, who brokered the discussions among the new allies and hosted the announcement of the alliance in Eritrea’s capital of Asmara. Just weeks ago, it seemed like Ethiopia and the U.S. were succeeding in installing a Somali government to their liking. Now Isaias could end up being the kingmaker.

Eritrea, a breakaway province of Ethiopia and now its regional rival, has a longstanding border dispute with Ethiopia that broke out into war in 1998. It is a one-party state with anti-imperial pretensions left over from its rebel days. Once supported by the U.S. when the USSR was aligned with Ethiopia’s Mengistu Haile Mariam, Eritrea has since become estranged from Washington, and the U.S. government supports Ethiopia’s border claims.

In the past two weeks, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer stepped up her invective against Isaias for “supporting terror.” Although Eritrea is a secular, mixed-religion state, it has had ties to Somalia’s Islamic courts movement — in part to keep Ethiopia tied down in the south, away from the border with Eritrea.

The appearance of Aden and Aideed in Asmara, however, changes Eritrea’s role, increases its regional stature, and raises the stakes for the U.S. if Frazer and Bush continue on their belligerent course.

In other circumstances, Bush might want to escalate the conflict into a regional war, but the U.S. is already overextended by its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And because Mogadishu is still a battleground — with 130 more Somalis killed last week — the Ethiopian invasion force can’t count on African Union members sending troops to relieve them. Only close U.S. ally Uganda has sent troops so far.

The U.S. may hope to arrange a face-saving settlement to allow Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi to declare victory before retreating. It’s conceivable that the U.S. would put its blessing on a Somali government that includes moderate Islamists, and draws a line against UIC militants. Some in the administration seem to have favored this course all along.

But the separation of the UIC’s two wings may be impossible to achieve, since they are currently united in a common front against Ethiopia and the TFG.

For these reasons, the conflict may grind on. The Ethiopians can’t simply retreat, since the Yusuf government — the one they want — would collapse without its support.

But if the realignment of Somali forces takes hold, conditions are not stalemated. Things are moving against the U.S. and Ethiopia. Even if they have many more cards to play, the invaders seem to have a losing hand.