NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9919

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From: Hank Roth <[e-mail]>
Subject: MADE IN THE USA
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{From LIVING MARXISM, January 1993}
MADE IN THE USA
by Barry Crawford

Many commentators have emphasised that Somalia's problems are
rooted in its past. Some claim that the Somalis' `warlike nature'
is an inherent racial characteristic; others identify tribal
blood feuds which have been going on for more than a century. But
the history which has really shaped the recent conflict in
Somalia is that of European colonialism and American militarism
in Africa.

By the end of the nineteenth century, European colonialists had
divided the Somali people into British, French and Italian
subjects. Britain also handed the million Somalis of the Ogaden
region over to Ethiopia. The British and Italian regions were
joined together in the republic of Somalia in 1960. But many
Somalis remained divided under the rule of Ethiopia, Kenya and
(until 1977) France.

The era of European colonialism left Somalis a legacy of poverty
and civil strife. That legacy was built upon by the Americans
during the Cold War.

General Mohammed Siad Barre seized power in Somalia in 1969,
taking advantage of popular discontent with the ruling elites
sponsored by Britain and Italy. In a bid to break the hold of the
West, Barre declared Somalia a socialist republic and provided
naval facilities for the Soviets. Meanwhile, Somalis fought
against the French, Ethiopian and Kenyan authorities for a united
Somalia.

By the late seventies, the Americans, having suffered setbacks in
the third world after their defeat in Vietnam, sought to re-
establish their global authority by launching a militaristic
offensive which became known as the Second Cold War.

In 1977 president Jimmy Carter identified Somalia as one of six
third world countries in which the Soviets looked most
vulnerable. So Carter cut off all aid to Ethiopia, and encouraged
Barre to believe that he would get US backing if he seized the
Ogaden. When Barre duly invaded early in 1978, the Soviet Union
switched its support from Somalia to Ethiopia, and Cuban forces
helped drive the Somalis out. American national security adviser
Zbigniew Brzezinski delcared that US-Soviet detent `lies buried
in the sands of the Ogaden', and Somalia returned to the Western
fold.

In August 1980, Barre signed a defence pact with the Carter
administration which gave US troops access to the air and naval
facilities at the Soviet-built port of Berbera. It became a key
base for America's Rapid Depoloyment Force, and US aid flooded
into Somalia.

Through the eighties, the USA under Ronald Reagan and George
Bush funded and armed Barre's incrasingly corrupt dictatorship.
Any notion of uniting Somalis was buried by Cold War politics.
Through Barre, the Americans manipulated and intensified ethnic
divisions in Somalia. He used US dollars to buy allies, and US
arms to keep down his enemies. Somalia became an American-built
armed camp.

With the end of the Cold War, however, Barre became expendable.
Since the USA no longer needed a proxy power to counter Soviet
influence, it had no further interest in what happened to the
Somalis. In 1991 America pulled out, the Barre regime fell and
central authority collapsed. The divisions fostered under Barre
now burst into war, and the country was split along the lines of
the old Anglo-Italian carve up. In 1992, the Americans had the
nerve to use the conflict caused by their policies as a pretext
for re-invading Somalia and reasserting their global authority.
Yet again, the Somalis have been caught up in Western intrigue.
----------------------------------------------------------
LIVING MARXISM is the monthly review of the Revolutionary
Communist Party. It is published in England by Junius
Publications Ltd, BCM JPLTD, London WC1N 3XX
------------------------------------------------------------
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