Professor Samatar Sheds Light on the War Against Somalia

by Kim Francis

Wednesday April 4, 2007

On Thursday, March 1, students and faculty alike gathered in the library’s Pillow Room for professor Said Samatar’s “Winners and Losers in the War for Somalia” lecture. The presentation centered on the current political crisis in teh African country of Somalia, where the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has recently secured a measure of control over the country after 15 years of anarchy and civil war.

The epicenter of the battle is teh capital, Mogadishu. The Union of Islamic Courts (IUC) controlled the city for a period of six months until they were forced out by the TFG and armed forces from neighboring Ethiopia in December. The situation is often presented in the media as a fight against fundamentalist Islam in the horn of Africa.

Professor Samatar began his lecture indicating that the “winners” in the struggle included the United States, now able to point to the region as a foreign policy success, and Kenya, which may benefit from a stable neighboring government and fewer refugees from the region. Also named as a beneficiary of the conflict was the image of Africa itself, with the continent formerly accused of not taking initiative in fighting domestic problems and with Ethiopia now “undermining the myth of a helpless Africa.” The “losers” in the outcome were stated to be the President of nearby Eritrea, which backed the Islamists, and Egypt, which has historically endured a rivalrous relationship with Ethiopia. However, Professor Samatar indicated that the status of the two camps is not as rigid as the winners’ success may backfire if “Islamists flame national sentiment by portraying the TFG as puppets of Christian Ethiopia.”

Professor Samatar took a more controversial stance in his commentary on US involvement in the conflict by saying tha tthe shift from covert to overt action was ill-advised. According to him, this is because global Muslim jihadists may spawn an Iraqi-style insurgency in the region and “the US should have continued a proxy war, or allowe dthe Union of Islamic Courts six months to a year in power to enforce sharia (Islamic law) enough to make themselves highly unpopular, causing them to be swiftly run out by the Somalian people.”

The lecture was followed by a lengthly question-and-answer period, during which Samatar was pressed to define success in Somalia. His response indicated that success would be social stability and responsive government, but that the two were “unlikely to happen unless the international community injects resources” to combat unemployment and ensuing gang violence.” This sentiment conflicted somewhat with an earlier statement that “investment cannot happen without stability.” The incongruence between Professor Samatar’s proposed solutions powerfully reflects the complex and difficult nature of the conflict itself.