From: Sophia Tesfamariam (sophia_tesfamariam@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Dec 17 2009 - 05:08:51 EST
Somalia Inquiry Committee
Sophia Tesfamariam
16 December 2009
24 December 2009 will mark three years since the aggressive US-backed Ethiopia war of invasion and occupation of Somalia began. Despite what the media and some ill advised analysts say, the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia has not ended and Ethiopian troops have not left Somalia. The presence of Ethiopian, Burundi and Ugandan forces in Somalia have angered Somalis and fueled the tensions there. The Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia has caused the greatest humanitarian disaster in the history of Somalia:
§ Over 20000 Somalis have been killed
§ Thousands more have been injured and maimed
§ 1.2 million have been displaced from Mogadishu alone
§ 3.5 million have been displaced in the country
§ 3.5 million are now dependent on international food aid
§ Etc. etc.
The carnage and destruction wrought in Somalia by the minority regime in Ethiopia and its ill advised partners is massive and warrants an international inquiry. Instead of white washing Ethiopia’s crimes and exacerbating the situation in Somalia by blaming others for mistakes and miscalculations made in Somalia, the Security Council ought to form a Somali Inquiry Committee, similar to the Iraq Inquiry in the UK to investigate the root cause of the instability in Somalia.
If there was a Somali Inquiry Committee established and it was allowed to do its work without interferences, several individuals and governments would be held accountable for the disaster created in Somalia. Meles Zenawi, the genocidal Prime Minister of Ethiopia and his “skirted” friends at the US State Department would top the list. So what would a Somalia Inquiry Committee find?
1. The Somalia Inquiry Committee will find that neither the UN Security Council, nor the African Union had any legal or moral mandates to “install”, “establish”, or “prop up” governments in Somalia, or anywhere else in the world. By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right, to freely and without external interference, to determine their political status and to pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and that every State has the duty to respect that right in accordance with the provisions of the Charter (Article 2.1).
2. The Somalia Inquiry Committee will find that the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs of States enshrined in Article 2.7 of the UN Charter was violated by the minority regime in Ethiopia led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi for the last 16 years. UN documents clearly show a history of interventions in Somalia by the regime in Ethiopia.
3. The Somalia Inquiry Committee will find the Ethiopian war of invasion and occupation in Somalia illegal, unjust and unwarranted. It was in violation of the UN Charter, African Union Charter, IGAD resolution (2005) and several Security Council Resolutions on Somalia including Resolutions 1724, 1725 and 1744.
4. On examination of the 26 June 2006 UN memo written by Azzouz Ennifar, the Somalia Inquiry Committee would find that Jendayi Frazer, rear Admiral, US Navy Richard W. Hunt, Commander Combined Joint task Horn of Africa, Ambassador Vikki Huddleston, US Charge d’Affaires in Addis Ababa as well as Colonel Richard Orth, the military Attaché at the US Embassy in Addis Ababa and Ethiopian officials invented a bogeyman in Somalia in order to plan and execute the December 2006 Ethiopian invasion and occupation of Somalia.
5. The Somali Inquiry Committee would also find Jendayi Frazer and Vicki Huddleston covered up the crimes and human rights violations committed by the minority regime in Ethiopia in order to advance and effectuate the racist, Islam phobic and incoherent US policy for the Horn of Africa, including Somalia These two “skirted” friends of the reckless, street smart Prime Minister prevented lawmakers from taking any punitive actions against Meles Zenawi’s genocidal regime. When the whole world was viewing the satellite pictures of the carnage in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, Jendayi E. Frazer during a hearing held by the Subcommittee on Africa claimed that the genocides in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia were “unsubstantiated”. The Science and Human Rights Program at AAAS, analyzed several before and after satellite images of villages and found villages and small towns in the Wardheer, Dhagabur and Qorrahey Zones, that appeared to have been burned or destroyed.
6. The Somalia Inquiry Committee would find the minority regime in Ethiopia guilty of deliberately and maliciously feeding “highly questionable intelligence” to US military officials. For Meles Zenawi and his belligerent regime, playing up the Al-Qaeda threat was a convenient way to get U.S. backing and public sympathy. Based on Ethiopia’s faulty intelligence, the US strikes in Somalia pulverized villages and farms and caused the deaths, injuries and maiming of innocent Somalis.
A 10 January 2007 Associated Press report “U.S. air strike in Somalia stemmed from Ethiopian tip” said:
“…The Ethiopian military provided the targeting intelligence used by a U.S. Special Forces aerial gunship in a strike in southern Somalia…The raid, conducted by an AC-130 gunship early Monday on a remote island at the southern tip of Somalia, was done in "close cooperation" with Ethiopia, a U.S. ally in the war on terror, said the U.S. official…"We acted on time-sensitive intelligence and made the strike in cooperation with the Ethiopians," the U.S. official said, who is based in the region. He said Ethiopia provided the intelligence tip…”
Air strikes in Somalia that have killed innocent civilians are a violation of international law and Article 51 of the First Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. The Geneva Conventions clearly state that “Parties shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives”.
7. The Somalia Inquiry Committee would find that Jendayi E. Frazer knowingly suppressed the truth and went even further by preventing the US media from telling the truth about the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. The New York Times reported on 27 December 2006 about the State Department and how it wanted all eyes on supposed U.S. efforts at a diplomatic settlement. It wrote about a leaked memo that said:
"…The press must not be allowed to make this about Ethiopia, or Ethiopia violating the territorial integrity of Somalia…”
The mainstream western media failed to search for the truth about Somalia and instead chose to toe Washington’s line by disseminating erroneous and false analysis put forth by hired Washington “analysts” and “intellectuals”.
8. The Somalia Inquiry Committee would find Jendayi E. Frazer’s claims about the Union of Islamic Courts categorically false and unsubstantiated. It should be recalled that on several occasions Frazer’s made repeated claims about the UIC as the one reported by Voice of America on 14 December 2006 in which she said:
“…The Council of Islamic Courts was controlled by Al-Qaeda cell individuals, East Africa Al-Qaeda cell individuals. The top layer of the courts are extremist to the core. They are terrorists and they are in control. They are creating this logic of war, and that's a problem…”
Somalia expert Ken Menkhaus told Foreign Policy magazine in December 2006 that the Islamic Courts were "absolutely not" controlled by Al-Qaeda. In addition, John Negroponte, the Depute Secretary of State also disagreed with Frazer’s assessment of the situation in Somalia and her claims about the Union of Islamic Courts.
9. The Somali Inquiry Committee will find credible reports from several sources which highlight flagrant war crimes and human rights abuses committed by the Ethiopian troops, including arbitrary arrests, summary executions, looting, pillaging, collective punishment, targeting of hospitals and indiscriminate bombardment of populated neighborhoods.
The Somalia Inquiry Committee will find the 2006 Monitoring Group’s Report on Somalia to be another manufactured document hastily put together by the State Department and its hired guns. Their investigation will find how Frazer and her partners intended to disseminate it in the US. Frazer’s attempts to frame Eritrea became evident to this author in August of 2007. I found out that Jendayi E. Frazier’s office had sent out the following email:
“…Assistant Secretary of African Affairs Jendayi Frazer will brief the press on U.S.-Eritrea Relations Wednesday, August 15 at 3PM…The press conference call briefing will provide print media and key bloggers with an update on U.S.-Eritrea relations following the recent release of a U.N. report detailing the flow of weapons in the Horn of Africa…If interested, please contact me by Tuesday, August 14 for conference call-in information…”
On Monday, 13 August 2007 I called the office and spoke to a person (Jennifer) and told her that I wanted the call-in information. She told me she would get back to me with the information I wanted about the conference call barring there were no “access issues”. I told her that the Organization of Eritrean Americans (OEA) wanted to participate in the discussions with the Assistant Secretary. I was told to leave my name, phone number and email address and that someone would get back to me, I did.
I got a call later on that day and was referred to Sarah Jackson, Media Officer, presumably the author of the above email. Ms. Jackson told me that the conference call was not opened to the public. I told her that by inviting unknown “key bloggers” who had no “press credentials” and were not part of the US State Department Press Core, as far as I was concerned, made it a public discussion and Eritrean Americans had a right to participate even if we didn’t receive an invite. I told her that since at least one of the “key bloggers” that had been contacted was an American housewife, and since the issue to be discussed was US-Eritrean relations, it was important that the Organization of Eritrean Americans be allowed to participate. When asked why and who the “key bloggers” were, Sarah Jackson told me that they were considered “a type of media”. She told me that she had no time to talk, that she was in a meeting and hung up abruptly.
When I called her back later on that day, she told me that the conference call was going to be re-scheduled. I have not heard from her office to this date. I don’t know if the Assistant Secretary had her conference call briefing with the select group of “bloggers”. My guess is that the vindictive Assistant Secretary was seeking to address a “friendly crowd” and the “conference call” with anonymous “key bloggers” was an attempt to use that medium to poison American public opinion and present Eritrea in a negative light
On 17 August 2007, Jendayi Frazer, had an on-The-Record Briefing on U.S.-Eritrea Relations in which accused Eritrea of violating the Vienna Conventions and also threatened to put Eritrea on the list of countries supporting terrorism “not because of U.S. relations with Eritrea, but because of what's going on in Somalia”. Frazier threatened to put Eritrea on one of this Administration’s many shame “lists” for not supporting the US-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.
10. Despite Ethiopia’s aggressive campaigns with the African Union and IGAD in tow, the Somalia Inquiry Committee will agree with Ould Abdallah, the UN Special Envoy for Somalia who has openly admitted that the UN has no evidence against Eritrea. If the Somalia Inquiry Committee was to do its own independent investigations the bloody trails would lead it straight to Meles Zenawi and his incompetent handlers.
11. The Somali Inquiry Committee would also find that Ethiopia was a repeat offender. An article “Ethiopia bought arms from North Korea with US Assent” in the 8 April 2007 International Herald Tribune reported that Ethiopia had bought weapons from North Korea in violation of the sanctions with the tacit approval of the US in order to circumvent the UN arms embargo on Somalia. Reuters noted Washington’s duplicity and hypocrisy in its 7 April 2007 news report, which said:
"…The Bush administration allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from North Korea in an apparent violation of a U.N. Security Council sanctions resolution passed months earlier over its nuclear test…the United States allowed the January arms delivery in part because Ethiopia was fighting Islamic militias in Somalia in an offensive that aided U.S. policies of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa…"
12. The Somalia Inquiry Committee will find that the presence of Ethiopian, Burundi and Ugandan forces on Somali territories remains the casus bellie for the conflict raging in Somalia. Ethiopia still occupies parts of Somalia despite the western media’s reports about Ethiopia’s “withdrawal” last year. In the Hiran region in Mostahil district, sovereign Somali territories that remain under Ethiopian control, Meles Zenawi’s continue to conduct military operations, jail and hold residents and more. On 24 May 2008 Reuters reported the following:
"…Dumisani Kumalo, chairman of the U.N. Security Council's Somalia sanctions committee and the South African envoy to the body, accuses "elements" of an AU peacekeeping force in Somalia and Ethiopian and Somali government troops of arms trafficking…The South African envoy said 80 percent of ammunition on sale in Somali markets come from Ethiopian and Somali troops…the presence of Ethiopian troops inside Somalia was itself a violation of the 16-year-old arms ban..."
13. The Somalia Inquiry Committee will call on the Obama Administration to stop the bloodshed in Somalia and develop a coherent policy for Somalia which will rectify the mistakes and miscalculations of the Bush Administration that have created an intractable situation in Somalia that is now threatening to engulf the entire region. The Security Council is now seeking to punish the innocent, such as Eritrea, while allowing the guilty parties, such as the minority regime in Ethiopia and its partners to go Scott free-to carry on with their killing spree.
For the sake of peace, security and stability in Somalia and for the sake of justice in this world, the Security Council ought to stop its witch-hunt against Eritrea and do the right thing by establishing a Somalia Inquiry Committee to look into the international crimes committed against the people of Somalia. There can be no peace and security without justice for the Somali people. The people of Somalia deserve to know why their sons and daughters are being senselessly massacred in cold blood.
The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!
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