Somalia Divided Again

For Somalia, the past decade has been where little progress has been and much fighting. Too much fighting in fact. Always being one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world, Somalia had all but given up on reform in the early 1990’s as their government crumbled amid violent civil wars that have plagued the area since 1971.

However, last year the International Herald Tribune reported on the somewhat improving circumstances in Somalia. While still technically an anarchy, there were strong efforts from powerful governing groups to restore order and establish an infrastructure, whereby elections could be held, decisions could be made, and day to day operations governed. The situation had gotten so bad that not even a sanitation department was organized and trash continued to pile up through out the city, spreading disease, contributing to poor living conditions and not ever being taken away.

But times were changing. President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan stepped forward and set up the transitional government, which was recognized internationally, the first time that had happened in Somalia in 10 years. Hassan and his group, with the militant groups and warlords separating from the nation to form Somalialand a few years ago, governed only a small portion of the country, but it was a start.

However, on May 12th of this year, the efforts perhaps crumbled when fighting broke out in Mogadishu killing 40 people. The source of the uprising was one of the most powerful warlords in the country, Hussein Aideed. His men, who had been reportedly receiving weapons aid from Ethiopia, clashed with loyalists to the new central government.

Exactly a week after that, a piece of luggage filled with explosives went off on a bus, killing 26 people. While it was not traced to any terrorist group, and has been pegged as an accident, the violent deaths of Somalian citizens only further foreshadows the events that could erupt within the next year as the central government fails to exert any sort of power of it’s citizens.

It is unfortunate that the source of political anarchy in a country already so underdeveloped was internal fighting. It is even more unfortunate that as group make solid efforts to correct the wrongs of the past and establish a system to improve the conditions within the country, that internal strife and violence continues.

Will Somalia ever see another true government again? Not while fighting continues. On May 31st there is a meeting to vote on whether or not the militant region, Somalialand will become and official independent region. If the vote is successful, the central government of Somalia will certainly receive a crushing blow. Without that area of people and land, they have no chance at success and will most likely resort back to the violent uprisings that caused the separation in the first place.

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