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October 25, 2005

It's The State, Stupid

Filed under: Somalia, Africa — Federal Farmer @ 10:14 pm Edit This

Somalia's newest would-be government is at it again, proving that the state is the greatest source of violence on earth.

Francois Lonseny Fall, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's special representative, flew to Jowhar to meet President Abdullahi Yusuf, the second time the diplomat has visited the town 90 km (55 miles) north of Mogadishu in three months...

Fall said his main task was to learn "how to solve some differences among some members of the (government)"...

The tension between the Yusuf-led faction, based in Jowhar, and dissident warlords in his cabinet who are allied with a group based in Mogadishu, has led to an increased flow of weapons into the Horn of Africa country of 10 million people.

Despite an arms embargo, weapons shipments into the country in the past eight months have grown nearly 400 percent over the previous year, according to a report delivered to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month.

Both factions are gearing up for a military showdown, and 10 ministers in the government and Yusuf were involved in the latest transactions, the report said. Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea were the main suppliers, it said...

Security sources in Jowhar said that about 150 trainers from the Ethiopian military were working in and around Jowhar, teaching militiamen recruited by Yusuf in the past few months.

Ethiopia has consistently denied providing military support to Yusuf, a long-time ally of Addis Ababa.

Dissident warlords from the Mogadishu group have said the recruitment sends a message that military options will replace dialogue, and have responded in kind by boosting their own militias' strength.

These wannabe power whores haven't even seized power and they are already crippled by infighting and gearing up to perform the state's top duty: making war. Meanwhile, Somalia's stately neighbors are doing everything they can to ensure and increase the violence. Gee, and I thought that anarchy was the problem.

But come on, who really ever believed that these men would bring order, civility and peace to Somalia?

Every time some poor Somali so much as stubs their toe, every statist on earth jumps at the chance to place the blame on anarchy. The standard operating procedure for journalists reporting on Somalia is to imply that any amount of disorder, any act of violence, any unfortunate event is a direct consequence of the absence of a state.

The double standard couldn't be more glaring. Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Congo, Zimbabwe, Guinea-Bissau (to name just a few and I know I've left some out) all have experienced and are experiencing major crises either directly caused or unprevented by their respective governments. War, crime, famine, genocide and starvation all regularly occur in the aforementioned countries while the worst of the violence and chaos in Somalia is caused by would-be governments with the help of the nosy states next door.

Seriously, when it comes to violence and chaos in the world, it's not anarchy that's to blame; it's the state, stupid.

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