As I wrote in last October, America should lead the international community into action in Somalia. This year, Foreign Policy listed Somalia as the World’s Most Failed State for the fourth year in a row, long before the current massive famine broke out. With a child dying every six minutes from malnutrition in the five southern states, Somalia is a humanitarian disaster zone. The Guardian recently published an interactive map that shows the extent of the two-year drought and food crises across the entire Horn of Africa. Nearly 13 million people, already some of the poorest in the world, are at risk as food prices skyrocket and pastures wither. Humanitarian aid has trickled in as the international community (plagued by the American debt-ceiling fiasco, the Eurozone crisis, and the conflict in Libya) has haphazardly responded to a disaster in a country that is best known for being a haven for terrorists and pirates.
The last week has seen a marked increase in coverage from international media sources. Coupled with this attention has come an increased inflow of aid to the affected regions. Humanitarian agencies have stated that $2.48 billion will be needed to control the crisis and thus far only about half of that has been collected, with the largest contributors being the UK ($185 million) and Canada ($72 million). Despite aid efforts, the majority of relief has missed the hardest hit areas of southern Somalia because of the militant Islamist terrorist organization al-Shabaab. In October I wrote about how the international community needed to take action to eliminate this menace, responsible for the 2010 bombing attacks in Uganda as well as the Underwear Bomber who threatened Americans in 2009. The need has only grown since then.
Al-Shabaab hardliners are denying the existence of famine in the regions that they control (the hardest hit zones) and are actively preventing many humanitarian organizations from entering the disaster zone so as to relieve the civilians. Speaking with NPR, Kristalina Georgieva, the Humanitarian Aid Commissioner of the European Union, described al-Shabaab as being “a dragon with many heads” and said that while some factions allow foreign aid in the regions they control, many do not. This denial of basic aid to millions of dying Somalis should be viewed as a mass atrocity by the international community and as ground for action. A report released on August 4th shows that around 29,000 children under the age of five have already perished from starvation and malnutrition in the last 90 days. Meanwhile, the death toll continues to rise at a rate estimated to be as high as 2,000 people a day.
The United States has promised $63 million in aid to the general region as well as an additional $5 million in aid to Somalia. However, most of this has not reached the Somali people because U.S. law prevents granting aid that supports terrorist organizations. While al-Shabaab has benefited by collecting taxes on foreign aid caravans carrying in American emergency aid, goods have been kept out of the hands of the dying. President Obama has taken action to lift this law so as to bring aid to the Somali people, but the situation demands far greater action. Al-Shabaab has enjoyed a half-hearted international response to their activities for far too long. Currently, only AMISOM, a small African Union peacekeeping contingency deployed in Mogadishu, stands between Al-Shabaab and the overthrow of the hapless Somali government.
The reality of a state controlled by an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organization is far closer in Somalia than in Afghanistan or Yemen, and the UN needs to take far more stringent measures to prevent this. The White House announced the creation of new American policy on instances of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, pledging quicker and more decisive action in the prevention of crimes against humanity. Attached to a press release on the new policy was this quote taken from 2010 National Security Strategy:
“The United States is committed to working with our allies, and to strengthening our own internal capabilities, in order to ensure that the United States and the international community are proactively engaged in a strategic effort to prevent mass atrocities and genocide. In the event that prevention fails, the United States will work both multilaterally and bilaterally to mobilize diplomatic, humanitarian, financial, and—in certain instances—military means to prevent and respond to genocide and mass atrocities.”
The situation in Somalia is mass atrocity. Al-Shabaab’s denial of humanitarian aid to starving Somali citizens calls for policy change on the part of the United States to increase international aid organizations’ penetration into the area. There is no doubt that these people need the assistance provided by Oxfam and the Red Cross and that al-Shabaab should not be permitted to deprive the Somali people of this.
This crisis is largely the fault of a broken government; the international community should take a stand and place Somalia back onto a track of development and stability. It all starts with the destruction of the “multi-headed dragon” that is pulling the country into ruin.
Source: humanwarvelous.blogspot.com