Ethiopian blogger given 18 years for criticizing arrests of journalists

    Eskinder Nega is a prominent Ethiopian blogger. He won the coveted Pen America's Freedom to Write for his work. However Nega and 23 others were accused of having links to an opposition group called the Ginbot Seven. Ethiopia considers the group a terrorist organization. The 23 were found guilty of having links to this organization.  Nega was originally arrested last September after he had published a piece that questioned the government's  arrest of some journalists.
  While Nega was sentenced to 18 years another opposition activists Andualem Arage was given a life sentence. Human right group have criticized Ethiopia's anti-terrorism laws as being much too broad. This is not the first time that Nega has been arrested. Since starting his first newspaper in 1993 he has been arrested at least seven times!
   Amnesty International said. "The imprisonment… is emblematic of the Ethiopian government's determination to gag any dissenting voice in the country," For more see this article.  

Rendering to Ethiopia

This article gives some good case studies of the manner in which the war on terror has destroyed the myth that the US supports human rights at least as far as any one nabbed as part of the war on terror. Of course the US will continue to mouth platitudes about not sanctioning terror etc. when it is obvious that it does when it comes to the war on terror.


Do secret interrogations continue?
By Nat Hentoff
April 30, 2007




Americans know many details of the firing of U.S. attorneys and Don Imus -- along with the horror at Virginia Tech. But how many are aware that the FBI has been interrogating terrorism suspects -- including an American citizen -- in secret Ethiopian prisons?
On April 5, the Associated Press reported that Ethiopia was under pressure "to release details of detainees from 19 countries... including women and children [who] have been transferred secretly and illegally. An investigation by the Associated Press found that CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating the detainees." As John Sifton, a deeply experienced researcher at Human Rights Watch, said on the national Democracy Now radio and Internet program (April 5), these suspects would previously have been held as enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay or the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. But "the Bush administration has shifted gears, and now they have the FBI interrogating people... by local forces, the Ethiopians, the Kenyans... That's why we call it a sort of outsourced Guantanamo." These interrogations purportedly are to weed out al Qaeda conspirators and cells in the Horn of Africa.
The American prisoner, Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J., held since late January, was questioned several times by FBI agents as American officials admit without being charged and without having a U.S. consular official present, or an attorney. But Meshal has a very active and properly indignant attorney in Jonathan Hafetz of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. On April 2, he wrote to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice demanding that she get the Ethiopian government to release his client. Also, writing to Miss Rice was Rep. Rush Holt, New Jersey Democrat, about his constituent, Amir Meshal: "Our government," Mr. Holt told Miss Rice, "cannot allow an American citizen to be held by the Ethiopian government in violation of international law and our own due process." As of this writing, Miss Rice has not replied to the congressman.
Fortunately, Mr. Holt is chairman of the House Select Intelligence Oversight Panel. I expect that in addition to finding out why his constituent was outsourced to Ethiopia, the congressman will also ask FBI Director Robert Mueller, CIA Director Michael Hayden and other high-level intelligence officials why they have been directly responsible, in this case of an American citizen, for working with the Ethiopian government to violate international law and the very basis of our system of justice, due process. (If they are not directly responsible, who's running their shops?)
It also would be very useful and indeed necessary if our rule of law is to have credibility at home and in the world to find out from the president and Vice President Cheney how they justify this outsourcing of an American citizen to an Ethiopian dungeon.
Meanwhile, what's happening to American citizen Amir Meshal? In a dispatch from Addis Ababa on April 12, The Washington Post quoted FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko, who "confirmed that there were no charges against Meshal, and State Department officials said the FBI told them that no charges were pending." So, Mr. Meshal was set to be released from the secret prison and flown back to the United States where, unlike Ethiopia, every citizen is guaranteed due process of law.
Not so fast. The same Washington Post story revealed that Mr. Meshal is still imprisoned. (As of this writing, he remains in his cell.) Why? "State Department officials booking his flight discovered that his name had been placed on a no-fly list at the request of the FBI and no airline would take him, U.S. officials said." Then, on Friday, April 13, Mr. Meshal did get out of that lockup to be hauled before an Ethiopian military tribunal. The New York Times on April 14 added: "No news media or members of the public were allowed at the hearing (before the military tribunal), and American officials said that they, too, were barred from attending. Ethiopian officials did not disclose details. Ethiopian Foreign Ministry officials said they were not authorized to talk about it." Did any FBI agent on the scene call Mr. Mueller? Did any American State Department person there try to reach Miss Rice?
Last year, the president said that no one was still being held in CIA secret prisons, although they remain open, as permitted by the Military Commissions Act of 2006. On what authority has (as reported by The Washington Post) "the FBI carried out interrogations of dozens of detainees in Ethiopian secret prisons?"
What of the international treaties against torture and other abuses by which we are bound? What about American citizen Amir Mohamed Meshal of Tinton Falls, N.J.? Has his citizenship been suspended?

UK think tank blasts Ethiopia, US, over Somalia

Reports today indicate that the provisional govt. is proclaiming victory in Mogadishu and urges people to return. We will see. This may be a lull before another storm. I wonder how many African peacekeepers can be recruited to serve in Somalia! Ethiopia seems to be carrying the fight against the insurgents. This will hardly sit well with Somalis.


British think-tank blasts Ethiopia, US over Somalia Wed Apr 25, 3:10 PM ET



LONDON (AFP) - US and Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia has hampered international efforts to bring peace to the war-torn country, an independent British report said Wednesday.



"Genuine multilateral concern to support the reconstruction and rehabilitation of Somalia has been hijacked by unilateral actions of other international actors -- especially Ethiopia and the United States -- following their own foreign policy agendas," the report from the Chatham House foreign affairs think-tank said.

The installation of a new Somali government in early 2007 with Ethiopian backing and US support to counter a rise in Islamism, plus the arrival of African Union peacekeepers, was "highly provocative", it said.

Eight days of ongoing violence between Ethiopian forces and Islamist guerillas in the Somali capital Mogadishu has claimed at least 329 lives, according to a tally from a human rights group.

Similar battles at the end of last month claimed at least 1,000 lives and thousands of civilians have now been displaced.

Chatham House researchers Cedric Barnes and Harun Hassan said support for the brief Islamic Courts regime that came to power in Mogadishu in 2006 is likely to re-emerge.

"This experience (the unrest) dramatically underlines the benefits of the brief period of 'Islamist' authority in southern Somalia which already begins to seem like a 'Golden Age'," they said.

Barnes, from London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), and Hassan, from the Somali Media Centre, said people do not trust the government and it does not represent the powerful interest groups in Mogadishu.

"Whatever the short-term future holds, the complex social forces behind the rise of the Islamic Courts will not go away," they said.

"Indeed, while warlords and secular governments have come and gone, the Islamic Courts have enjoyed relatively consistent support for over a decade.

"They have tended to garner support when the populace are fed up with insecurity and ineffectual and corrupt politicians.

"For these reasons alone, as well as the likely long-term failure of the Transitional Federal Government's reliance on foreign protection and unwillingness to reconcile with armed opponents, the forces behind the Islamic Courts -- in one form or another -- are likely to rise again."

Ethiopian troops to go on offensive in Somalia?

If this is true it is bound to sabotage the ceasefire and return the city to chaos. The rebels are not likely to give up even though they may take time to regroup.


Ethiopian troops to start major offensive in Somalia
Ethio-Zagol
Ethiopian and Somalia government soldiers are preparing to start a major military offensive against insurgents in Mogadisu, a source at the Somalia Embassy in Ethiopia said.
The source who requested anonymity because of the risks of leaking the information told Ethio-Zagol Post that the forces are at the final stage of their preparation. Mogadishu has remained relatively calm in the last week after the capital’s dominant clan, the Hawiye, had brokered a cease-fire about 10 days ago to end a calamitous fighting.
“The Ethiopian forces have gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of the leaders of the insurgents and they feel the time is ripe for major offensive to end the insurgency, “the source said. The Ethiopians will be helped by Somalia government soldiers.
Ethiopia has been stung by war crimes claims. On April 2, EU Commissions senior adviser on security for Somalia sent send a letter to Eric van der Linden, the commission’s head of delegation in Kenya, alerting him about the "significance of the events of the past four days in Mogadishu in terms of the international law on conflict". Hawiye clan elders said that more than 1000 people were killed and 4000 wounded during the heavy clashes in capital.
The new offensive will, however, commence despite the accusation. “The Ethiopian government is nervous about EU allegations; but I don’t see any evidence that it will stop them from another attack,” the embassy source claimed.
posted by

Mogadishu casualties high

With artillery use in urban areas it is not surprising there are large numbers of civilian casualties. The African Union "peacekeepers" had better find a secluded area and establish a green zone for themselves. The proxy war by Ethiopia to rescue the "legitimate" UN supported government is another disaster supported by US taxpayers. But if you manufacture weapons and military supplies I imagine there must be a bright side!

Mogadishu clashes 'killed 1,000'

Many of those killed and injured were civilians
More than 1,000 people have been killed in recent clashes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, according to elders from the city's main clan.
Hawiye clan spokesman Hussein Aden Korgab also said more than 4,000 had been injured in some of the heaviest fighting in 15 years.

The clashes came as the government and Ethiopian soldiers battled insurgents - both Islamists and Hawiye fighters.

Meanwhile, Eritrea has confirmed that a Somali Islamist leader is there.

The Union of Islamic Courts was driven out of Mogadishu in December by an alliance of Somalia's transitional government and Ethiopia.

Eritrea, Ethiopia's regional rival, has always denied backing the Islamists but has now admitted that Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed has held talks with President Isaias Afewerki in Asmara.

"We are not all prepared to allow invaders to trample upon our sacred rights and bring us under submission," he said, according to a statement on the website of Eritrea's information ministry.

Somalia has not had an effective national government for 16 years.

War crimes probe

BBC Somali service editor Yusuf Garaad says the figure of more than 1,000 dead does not come as a surprise as heavy artillery were used in residential areas during the fighting.

Most of the clashes took place near the main stadium in Mogadishu and al-Kamin neighbourhood in the south of the capital, according to human rights groups.


African Union troops are supposed to replace the Ethiopians
"We assessed battle fields, spoke to civilians, visited hospital and areas that were affected by the clashes," Mr Korgab told the AFP news agency, explaining how the clan elders reached a figure for the number of casualties.

The United Nations refugee agency says some 124,000 people have fled the city.

Last week, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer while on a visit in Somalia accused Eritrea of destabilising Somalia, by backing the insurgents.

Ms Frazer who met the president and prime minister in Baidoa, called for a permanent ceasefire to be established through dialogue between the interim government and affected communities.

The European Union representative in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, Eric van der Linden, has called for investigations to establish if the Ethiopian and Somali forces committed war crimes during the fighting.

Hawiye clan elders and commanders from Ethiopian forces are expected to hold further talks on Tuesday about their implementing the ceasefire they agreed last week.

But fears are high that fighting could be imminent following reports that both sides have been digging trenches in parts of the city they control.

African Union (AU) troops are supposed to be replacing the Ethiopian soldiers but so far only 1,200 Ugandans have arrived, of the planned 8,000-strong force.

Renditions ongoing by the US to Ethiopian prisons

You would think that the US would have realised by now that these renditions show it as a country that hasn't the slightest respect for human rights when it comes to anyone who might be remotely connected to terrorism. The US has become an international pariah and anti-US sentiments are growing throughout most of the world.
Given the rhetoric about freedom and human rights in the US it is surprising that the US public and intelligentsia is not taking action to stop this barbarian practice.


U.S. questions Canadians in secret Ethiopian prisons by Anthony Mitchell
Globe and Mail 04/04/07

Nairobi : CIA and FBI agents hunting for al-Qaeda militants in the Horn of Africa have been interrogating terrorism suspects from 19 countries, including Canada, at secret prisons in Ethiopia, notorious for torture and abuse.

Human-rights groups, lawyers and several Western diplomats assert hundreds of prisoners, including women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally in recent months from Kenya and Somalia to Ethiopia, where they are kept without charge or access to lawyers and families.

They include at least one U.S. citizen and some are from Canada, Sweden and France, according to a list compiled by a Kenyan Muslim rights group and flight manifests obtained by The Associated Press.

Some were swept up by Ethiopian troops who drove a radical Islamist government out of neighbouring Somalia late last year. Others have been deported from Kenya, where many Somalis have fled violence in their homeland.

Ambra Dickie, a spokeswoman for Foreign Affairs Canada, said last night the department was looking into reports of Canadians being interrogated by CIA and FBI agents in East Africa, but would not be commenting at this time.

Ethiopia, which denies holding secret prisoners, is a country with a long history of human-rights abuses.

U.S. government officials acknowledged questioning prisoners in Ethiopia. But they said U.S. agents are following the law and are investigating past attacks and current threats of terrorism.

Some U.S. allies have expressed consternation at the transfers to the prisons. One Western diplomat in Nairobi, who agreed to speak only if not quoted to avoid angering U.S. officials, said he sees the United States as playing a guiding role in the operation.

Associated Press

New Rendition Destinations: Somalia, Ethiopia

The rest of the article is at the ICH blog.
These happening are mostly under the mainstream press radar. The mainstream radar must have been presented as a gift from Bush and buddies. As all this occurs conflict in Somalia is escalating.

Getting Away With It: Rendition and Regime Change in Somalia

By Chris Floyd
03/24/07 "ICH" -- -- Yesterday we wrote of the plight of a U.S. citizen who had fled the fighting during the Bush-backed invasion of Somalia only to find himself "renditioned" into the sinister prisons of the Ethiopian invaders – despite the fact that U.S. officials declared that there were no charges against him. (See the second half of that post.)

Now The Independent reports that Amir Meshal – the 24-year-old New Jersey man renditioned by U.S. officials because he refused to confess to being an al Qaeda agent – is not alone in being subjected to the lawless procedure so beloved by the defenders of civilization. (For an early example of this, which also involved Somalia, see Render Unto Caesar.)

Anger at US 'rendition' of refugees who fled Somalia (Independent)

Excerpts: At least 150 people arrested in Kenya after fleeing violence in Somalia have been secretly flown to Somalia and Ethiopia, where they are being held incommunicado in underground prisons, human rights groups say...

Several of the suspects are understood to be held in underground prisons at Mogadishu airport where they are held shackled to the wall. Most have since been sent on to two detention facilities in Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has been accused of routinely torturing political prisoners. A further 50 or 60 people accused of belonging to Ethiopian rebel groups fighting alongside Somalia's Union of Islamic Courts were sent directly to Ethiopia....

The suspects deported from Kenya were interrogated beforehand by American FBI officials in Kenyan prisons, where they were accused of having links with al-Qa'ida. "This is extraordinary rendition," said Maini Kiai, chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission. "Britain and America are involved in interrogating suspects."

Following the US-backed invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian troops, thousands of Somalis have tried to escape the violence by crossing the long, porous border with Kenya. Many of those caught on the Kenya-Somalia border were accused of belonging to the Islamic Courts and refused entry.

At least 150 of those who managed to get through were detained by Kenyan police, including 17 women and 12 children, one a baby of seven months. Many needed medical attention but did not receive it, including a pregnant Tunisian woman who had a bullet lodged in her back.

All were held in Kenyan prisons for several weeks without access to lawyers and family members. As well as being interrogated by the FBI, human rights groups in Nairobi also claimed British officials were involved.

"The Americans had direct access to the prisoners, one on one," said Al-Amin Kimathi of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, adding that US diplomatic vehicles carried the suspects from Nairobi police stations to be questioned. "Senior Kenyan police officers told us they had nothing to do with the operation," said Mr Kimathi. "It was out of their hands."

The US has claimed that Somalia's Islamic Courts, which controlled much of the country until December, was run by an al-Qa'ida cell. Ethiopian troops, backed by US intelligence and logistical support, overpowered the Islamic Courts within a few days of fighting at the end of last year.

This latter claim is baseless. It is simply a reflection of the Bush gang's primitive tactic of labeling any inconvenient Muslim group or individual as "al Qaeda," which then "justifies" any action taken against them: military invasion, assassination, rendition, indefinite detention, torture.

It's clear that no nation on earth will be allowed to organize its own society as it wishes, or work out its own internal conflicts, if the American elite decides they have some financial or strategic interest in the matter. The only nations immune to this power-mad interventionist philosophy are those who can strike back hard enough to upset the elite's apple cart. And thus we have Bush's "war on terror" – which is, as we've often noted, simply an escalation of the long-running, bipartisan foreign policy of the "National Security State" that has ruled America for 60 years.

This year marks the anniversary of this coup d'état: the 1947 "National Security Act." Writing on the 50th anniversary of this supplanting of the Republic, Gore Vidal wrote:

Fifty years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid. Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947. Place: The White House Cabinet Room. Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders. Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only IF he first "scared the hell out of the American people" that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congress and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues...we bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine..."

Obviously, the situation that Vidal describes didn't begin with the illegal implantation of the Bush Regime by the rightwing faction of the Supreme Court (two of whom had family members profiting from the Bush campaign) in December 2000. It has gone on for decades, under "liberal" Democrats and "conservative" Republicans. But it has reached a new pitch of intensity, audacity and recklessness today.

Somalia might seem an odd choice for "the path of action" – the Hitlerian phrase that Bush incorporated into the official "National Security Strategy of the United States" in formalizing the doctrine of "preventive" – i.e., aggressive – war. (It was also then that he declared that his version of corrupt crony capitalism to be the "single sustainable model of national success.") But as "blaqfather," a commentor on the previous points out, before Somalia collapsed into anarchy in 1991, it was being actively explored by major oil companies: "A World Bank and U.N. survey that year of eight northeastern African countries' petroleum potential ranked Somalia second only to Sudan as the top prospective commercial producer. Northern Somalia lay within a regional oil window reaching south across the Gulf of Aden, the geologists said." So Somalia's affairs are not entirely without interest to a Washington regime populated by professional oilmen.

What's more, Somalia's geographic location gives it heightened importance in the Bush Regime's strategy to control the Horn of Africa and dominate the continent's ever-more-vital oil supplies. The Pentagon recently set up its first-ever "African Command," adding it to the string of regions under the command of a military proconsul. (Bush has also created the first such satrapy covering the United States itself, which has never before been the subject – the target? – of a military "command.")

And finally, Somalia was "doable." You can crush it without cost, squash it like a fly, and not only do it on the cheap – with Ethiopian troops and local warlords serving as your proxies – you can do it without notice. The entire Somalian campaign – and America's very extensive involvement in it – has passed virtually unremarked in the U.S. media, and plays no part at all on the national political scene. It is simply a non-event, something happening far away to a bunch of darkies – Muslim darkies, on top of that – so who cares? It's not even worth a joke by Leno or Letterman

Canadian 'rendered' from Somalia possibly to Ethiopia

I wonder if the Kenyan government is doing this at the behest of US authorities or if it is just part of its co-operation on the war on terror or to win brownie points with Ethiopia. Just as with Arar he should have been deported to Canada.





Canada 'strongly protests' man's deportation to Somalia
Last Updated: Monday, January 22, 2007 | 2:49 PM ET
CBC News
A Canadian who describes himself as a used clothing dealer has been deported from Kenya to Somalia — possibly into the hands of Ethiopian authorities — after fleeing Somalia in the wake of that country's civil war.

Bashir Ahmed Makhtal is originally from the Ogaden region of Ethiopia, an ethnic Somali enclave where his grandfather was a founder of a separatist movement, the Ogaden Liberation Front.

Bashir Ahmed Makhtal was deported from Kenya to Somalia after fleeing Somalia in the wake of a civil war.
(CBC) Ethiopia has a large military presence in Somalia, after providing the muscle that enabled a weak secular government to defeat Islamist forces formerly in control of much of the country.

Makhtal's lawyers and family fear for his safety in Ethiopian hands.

"He's never been part of any kind extremist organization," his wife, Aziza Osman, told CBC News. "He's just a businessman."

Osman, who lives in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, said her husband had travelled between Somalia and Kenya on business four times in the past year.


Because he was travelling on a Canadian passport, the decision to deport him to Somalia rather than Canada amounts to what is called rendition, a tactic famously used by U.S. officials when they grabbed Montreal resident Maher Arar as a terrorism suspect in 2002 and sent him to Syria for interrogation.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said in Ottawa on Monday that Canada "strongly objects" to Kenya's decision, partly because the department has labelled Somalia too dangerous for travel and has advised all Canadians to leave.

Spokesman Réjean Beaulieu said the matter has been raised "at the highest level" with Kenyan officials in Ottawa and the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. He said he had no information on whether Makhtal has been handed over to the Ethiopians.

CBC Africa correspondent David McGuffin reports from Nairobi that Makhtal was picked up by Kenyan authorities on Dec. 30 as he applied to enter Kenya from Somalia. He was held at the border for three days, then moved to a police station in Nairobi.

On Saturday, he was deported to Somalia along with 29 other people picked up on the Kenyan side of the border. Their exact whereabouts are unknown.

Makhtal's lawyers believe he is in Ethiopian hands and may have been sent to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. They say he told them that Ethiopian security officers were present as he was interrogated about possible terrorist links.

His relatives, who fear he may be executed, deny strongly that he has any involvement in terrorism or ties to Somalia's short-lived Islamist regime.

"Anything could happen, any minute, any second," a cousin living in Hamilton, Ont., Said Maktal, told the Toronto Star. "You're dealing with a Third World country which does not obey international law. They don't care."

Family fled Ethiopia in the early 1970s
Makhtal's lawyers and relatives provide this background:

The family fled to Somalia in the early 1970s and ultimately to Canada to avoid persecution of ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia.

Makhtal lived in Canada in the 1990s, where he studied computers at the DeVry Institute of Technology, a private trade school, and worked for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

He moved back to the Horn of Africa in 2001 to open his clothing business, operating from Dubai, Eritrea, Kenya and Somalia.

He was stuck in Somalia during the fighting in December and January and was trying to leave via Kenya.

In Nairobi, McGuffin reports that Makhtal didn't get access to a lawyer until Jan. 10, during his second week in Kenyan custody, and was denied Canadian consular access five times before a Canadian High Commission official was able to meet him in the week of Jan. 15.

McGuffin spoke to four Kenyan government departments and the office of the president, none of which would comment. It is believed this is the first case of a foreign national in Kenya being deported to a third country, McGuffin says.

The Somali government was also not commenting, he reports, but a Somali journalist told him that Makhtal and others were seen being taken away in an Ethiopian military truck after arriving by plane in the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Beaulieu, the Foreign Affairs spokesman, said Kenya did not tell Canadian officials that Makhtal was being deported to Somalia.

Canada has no resident diplomatic mission in Somalia, he said, "so you will understand that it limits our capacity to provide consular assistance."

Blood for oil in Somalia

In the mainstream press the Somali conflict is all about the war on terrorism. As is often the case the war on terrorism is a cover to mask other aims.


More Blood for OilBy Carl Bloice01/16/07 "Black Commentator" -- -- Forget about all that stuff about Ethiopia having a 'tacit' o.k. from Washington to invade Somalia. The decision was made at the White House and the attack had military support from the Pentagon. The governments are too much in sync and the Ethiopians too dependent on the U.S. to think otherwise. And, it didn't just suddenly happen. Ethiopian troops, trained and equipped by the U.S. began infiltrating into Somali territory last summer as part of a plan that began to evolve the previous June when the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) took control of the government. In November, the head of the U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid (until last week he ran the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq) was in Addis Ababa. After that, Ghanaian journalist Cameron Duodu has written, Ethiopia 'moved from proving the Somali government with 'military advice' to open armed intervention.' And not without help. U.S Supplied satellite surveillance data aided in the bombardment of the Somali capital, Mogadishu and pinpointing the location of UIC forces resulting, in the words of New York Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman, in 'a string of back-to- back military loses in which more than 1,000 fighters, mostly teenage boys, were quickly mowed down by the better-trained and equipped Ethiopian-backed forces.' As with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the immediate question is why was this proxy attack undertaken, in clear violation of international law and the UN Charter? And again, there is the official line, the excuse and the underlying impetus. The official line from Addis Ababa is that it was a defensive act in the face of a threat of attack from Somalia. There's nothing to support the claim and a lot of evidence to the contrary. As far as the Bush Administration is concerned, it was a chance to strike back at 'Islamists' as part of the on-going 'war on terror.' For progressive observers in the region and much of the media outside the U.S., the conflict smells of petroleum. 'As with Iraq in 2003, the United States has cast this as a war to curtail terrorism, but its real goal is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region by establishing a client regime there.,' wrote Salim Lone, spokesperson for the United Nation mission in Iraq in 2003, and now a columnist for The Daily Nation in Kenya. 'The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea.' In a television interview broadcast on the day of the full-fledged Ethiopian assault, Marine General James Jones (who ironically, like Abizaid, recently lost his position), then-Nato's military commander and head of the US military's European army, expressed his concern that the size of the U.S. army in Europe had 'perhaps gone too low.' Jones went on to tell the CSpan interviewer the US needed troops in Europe partly so that they could be quickly deployed in trouble-spots in Africa and elsewhere. 'I think the emergence of Africa as a strategic reality is inevitable and we're going to need forward-based troops, special operations, marines, soldiers, airmen and sailors to be in the right proportion,' said Jones. 'Pentagon to train sharper eye on Africa,' read the headline over a January 5 report by Richard Whittle in the Christian Science Monitor. 'Strife, oil, and Al Qaeda are leading the US to create a new Africa Command.' 'Africa, long beset by war, famine, disease, and ethnic tensions, has generally taken a backseat in Pentagon planning - but US officials say that is about to change,' wrote Whittle, who went on to report that one of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's last acts before being dismissed from that position was to convince President Bush to create a new Africa military Africa command, something the White House is expected to announce later this year. The creation of the new body, he quoted one expert as saying, reflects the Administration concern about 'Al Qaeda's known presence in Africa,' China's developing relations with the continent with regards to oil supplies and the fact that 'Islamists took over Somalia last June and ruled until this week, when Ethiopian troops drove them out of power.' Currently, the US gets about 10 percent of its oil from Africa, but, the Monitor story said but 'some experts say it may need to rely on the continent for as much as 25 percent by 2010.' Reportedly, nearly two-thirds of Somalia's oil fields were allocated to the U.S. oil companies Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips before Somalia's pro-U.S. President Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January, 1991. Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter, a Pentagon spokesman, said the division for African military operations "causes some difficulty in trying to ... execute a more streamlined and comprehensive strategy when it comes to Africa." According to the plan, the Central Command will retain responsibility for the Horn of Africa for about 18 months while the Africa Command gets set up. The Pentagon's present Horn of Africa joint task force, headquartered in Djibouti, includes about 1,500 troops. African countries won't see much difference in the US military presence on the ground under the new command, Herman Cohen, assistant secretary of State for African affairs under the first President Bush, is quoted as saying. "They're already getting a lot of attention from the US military.' The Defense Intelligence Agency "has built up its offices throughout Africa in US embassies. Right after the cold war, they reduced a lot, but they've built back up." "When the Cold War ended, so too did the interest of the USA in Africa...for a while. Particularly following September 11, 2001, the interest of the Bush administration in Africa increased several fold,' says Bill Fletcher, Jr., visiting professor at Brooklyn College-CUNY, former president of TransAfrica Forum. 'Their interest was, first, in direct relationship to the amount of oil in the ground. Second, it was in relationship to a country's attitude toward the so- called "war against terrorism." Irrespective of the character of a regime, if they were prepared to provide the USA with oil and/or support the war against terrorism, the USA would turn a blind eye toward any practices going on.' "The second piece of this puzzle, however, is that the new interest in Africa was accompanied by a new military approach toward Africa,' says Fletcher. 'This included both the development of the so-called Trans Sahel project, which supposedly concerns training countries to fight terrorism, as well as the deployment of military bases and personnel to Africa. Specifically, and beginning around the time of the initiation of the Iraq war, US military planners began discussing relocating US forces from Europe into Africa, and specifically into the Gulf of Guinea region, a region rich in oil reserves. "It is clear, once again, that in all of this, the character of any regime is secondary to the regime's compliance with the interests of the Bush administration and their economic/strategic priorities. The net effect of this could be the introduction of US military personnel into extremely complicated internal struggles not only in the Gulf of Guinea region, but in other locations, e.g., Somalia, allegedly in the interest of fighting terrorism and protecting strategic oil reserves." Describing the Trans Sahel project, which covers a swath of North Africa, Foreign Policy in Focus commentator Conn Hallinan wrote recently, 'The Bush Administration claims the target of this program, called the Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative is the growing presence of al-Qaeda influenced organizations in the region. Critics, however, charge that the enterprise has more to do with oil than with Osama bin Laden, and that stepped up military aid to Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia will most likely end up being used against internal opposition groups in those countries, not 'terrorists' hiding out in the desert.' An apt example of how the charge of terrorism becomes cover for suppression of local democratic or leftist dissent is Nigeria. A major focus of U.S. oil interest is in that country and the Gulf of Guinea region. There, activists reflecting popular demand for retaining more oil revenues for local development and an end to environmental chaos, have been labeled 'terrorist' and are being brutally suppressed by a U.S. trained and equipped military.Southern Africa scholar George Wright observes that the development of military ties to government and 'rebel' groups in Africa, in pursuit of U.S. geo-strategic objectives, is long standing but has accelerating over recent years. Between 1990 and 2000, military arrangements were concluded between governments or opposition groups in 39 countries on the continent. These involved weapons supplies, military training, shared intelligence and surveillance. The aim, he says, has always been to secure neo-colonial relations with African countries. However, since 9/11, Wright says, the process has been accelerated and taken on an increasingly militarist character 'under the guise of fighting terrorism.' Fighting proxy war is credible as long as there is a chance of holding sway but history has repeatedly demonstrated when that doesn't work out, the end is often direct involvement. That explains why the 2007 U.S. military sets funding for Special Forces to increase by 15 percent. According to the 2005 Quadrennial Defense Review, these Special Forces 'will have the capacity to operate in dozens of countries simultaneously - relying on a combination of direct (visible) and indirect (clandestine) approaches.' The Ethiopian government has said it does not have the resources for an extended stay in Somalia even though the projection is that it will take many months to 'stabilize' the situation in the invaded country. As of this writing, the Bush Administration was having difficulty raising troops from nearby cooperative states to take over the job. Only Uganda seemed a sure bet. Assistant U.S. Secretary of State for Africa, Ms Jendayi Frazer, told journalists: "Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni promised U.S. President George Bush in a recent phone call that he could supply between 1,000-2,000 troops to protect Somalia's transitional government and train its troops. We hope to have the Ugandans deployed before the end of January.' Shortly after the invasion, Frazer told reporters there had been no request for U.S. troops or military assistance so far, but she did not rule out that it could be requested and supplied later if necessary. Later came quickly. On Sunday, U.S. AC-130 gunships began bombarding sites within Somalia and Hawkeye reconnaissance planes took to the air pinpointing locations for attacks by jet aircraft. Although the announced purpose of the bombing was alleged al-Qaeda personnel, media reports indicated the target were 'Islamic fighters', meaning troops of the UIC government. "The US has sided with one Somali faction against another, this could be the beginning of a new civil war ... I fear once again they have gone for a quick fix based on false information, one 'highly respected regional analyst' told the Times of London. 'If they pull it off, however, it could be a turning point. The stakes are very high indeed, now. I fear they are repeating the mistakes of the past, not only in Somalia but in Afghanistan and Iraq and will end up creating a new insurgency which could destabilize this entire region.'BC Editorial Board member Carl Bloice is a writer in San Francisco, a member of the National Coordinating Committee of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism and formerly worked for a healthcare union.