MJ Akbar's War Blog

George Bush has trapped America

2007-05-01T15:37:00.000+05:30

There are two kinds of land mines: the kind that explodes when you step on it, and the kind that explodes when you take your foot off. Which kind is Iraq? How can it be defused?

Brilliant proposition, but there is a third “mine” – undermine

George Bush has trapped America into a field of all three mines. Bush stepped on the first when he took the country war without any intellectual, historical or even strategic homework. The invasion was armed with nothing more substantial than a tactical military plan, which ended up in tatters within three months. Bush could have escaped if he had gotten out in those first hundred days, leaving Iraq to Iraqis.

A separate mine had already gone off when Saddam Hussein's foot was forcibly lifted, but it needed post-Saddam Iraqis, of all persuasions, to find their way through the debris. Bush's hubris set in even before the first cloud of smoke cleared. He undermined the American people, extracting a savage price in both American and Iraqi blood.

How do you defuse Iraq? The nature of the conflict is often misunderstood, since media presence is simply not widespread enough to offer clarity. Media reaches the scene after the event, when it reaches it at all, which is rarely. There are no set-piece battles; America would have won such a war long ago. The insurgency – which is planned by men who understand power and the local rules of the game – has two missions: to corrode morale wherever Occupation troops have a "safe" haven. This is done either through sabotage or a constant mortar barrage from points outside the reach of Anglo-American troops.

And second, to use its mobility to wear down the Occupation asymmetrically. While the Occupation may have helicopters, the insurgency can move anywhere in the country among the population. The first can't match the second. Occupation troops patrol and go back to their bases. The insurgency can strike and then melt away. How does a stressed-out patrol find a target in a melting pot? Forget about stepping on one mine: the insurgency has turned the Occupation into an over-stretched centipede that cannot negotiate any of its feet through the mine field.

If you want to defuse the situation, the first priority is to remove the cause that lights the fuse. Occupation troops have lit many fuses. America already has floating bases called nuclear carriers in the Gulf, and stationary bases in Qatar, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. If these cannot meet the nation’s "security" requirements in the region, then a million troops in Iraq will not make America more secure. Yes, the mine might go off when the foot is lifted, but at least it will be only that mine, and the Iraqis will be able to find a way out of the debris. They have a vested interest in stability.

The American presence breeds fresh mines each day. That is how America has undermined itself.

M J Akbar
(Washington Post:Post global posts)

2007-04-19T18:18:00.000+05:30

Could these global economic leaders please find some space in the emerging economies for those who work in production lines and services, who have been displaced by technology?

No one can work in technology-intensive industries without training – even for voice outsourcing. The disadvantaged must be trained, work forces must keep up with a changing world, and only their leaders can assist them to do so.

If new opportunities are not provided to the losers of globalization, the consequences are surely violence…

M J Akbar
(Washington Post:Post global posts)

India is - Powerful

2006-03-05T13:20:00.000+05:30

Recently, I came across a poll survey conducted by CBS News. 59 per cent of respondents disapproved of the job Mr Bush was doing. Even in his war on terrorism, usually his strongest suit in opinion surveys, Mr Bush’s approval rating dropped to an all-time low of 43 per cent, with 50 per cent disapproving of his actions.

Now as the PM offers warmth to President Bush, India turns up the heat! Outside, the hours preceding the President’s arrival were spent with lakhs of demonstrators gathering from all over the country to shout "Go Back Bush" as they vent their anger over his policies on Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran. The crowds roared in approval to hear former Prime Minister V.P. Singh say: "The people of India have a categorical message for President Bush: Go home." Carrying placards and effigies, poor farmers, members of the minorities, shopkeepers and clerics, including a representative of a shankarcharya, joined to express outrage at US policies and urging the Indian government not to welcome the US President to this country. More to go on, political parties and civil rights groups were determined to make him "feel the heat."

I believe we have the right to claim a place in the world as a rational, responsible and mature nuclear power; and a nuclear military power.

Faith fills Vacuum

2006-01-14T11:59:00.000+05:30

Faith fills vacuum in land of clans By MJ Akbar
- Mogadishu (Somalia)

Fear is rational. As long as one is anonymous death can only be an accident. It is superfluous to fear an accident in a minefield: the mine has nothing personal against you. It became different when my friend said, while we were dining on the terrace of the Shamo Hotel and Residence Plaza, a heavenly breeze blowing from the Indian Ocean, the stars of the southern hemisphere dominated by Mars to my left and the Orion belt to the right of my occasional gaze: "This is an oral society."

We were at the hotel where a few months ago Kate Peyton of the BBC had been shot dead.

So far, I felt far more protected by anonymity than the "technicals". The Red Cross does not advertise its travel plans. Unlike the United Nations (when it is around, and it disappeared from Somalia in March 1995), which believes in the power of the press release, the Red Cross appreciates the virtues of silence. But by now word would have spread that a journalist was in tow: this is an oral society. A big boy might want to know why he had not been lined up for an interview. Press coverage is good for the self-esteem of a warlord trying very hard to look like a peacelord.

Kate Peyton made a number of mistakes. The crucial one was that she walked out of the single entrance-exit, across the compound and out of the gate to get into a car that was meant to take her to the Sahafi Hotel (Journalists’ Hotel, so named in honour of the media flock that constituted its last crowd during the battles of 1993). Unlucky. A single shot, which is rarely fatal, got her. She was rushed to Medina Hospital, but her moment had come.

Our technicals, as well as our Land Cruiser, is inside the compound. Everyone sleeps behind walls. Zakaria, the young waiter, speaks excellent English. The only other guest is a Chinese resident who is often on his cellphone: mobile phones are the most successful business in Somalia and any international call costs only 30 cents since there are no licence fees and very little advertising. A young and fair Arab is with him, perhaps his partner. In an adjoining room a radio sparkles to life, and a tall waiter begins to dance with abandon, his tray twirling on his fingertips. From the roof, Mogadishu is peaceful, quiet and patchily lit. There are no mosquitoes. The ocean breeze has driven them away. The moon is seven nights old, and stars unaffected by the gauze of industrial pollution. I switch on television in my room after dinner, and am pleasantly surprised by B4Music. And so to bed listening to Rabbi in Mogadishu, and up with Dev Anand and Hare Rama Hare Krishna and Ishq tera garam masala. Dawn always, and illogically, seems so much safer than night.

Ten warlords are the principal arbiters of Mogadishu, but they do not control the only guns on the street. The nippiest guns now belong to the Sharia courts, possibly because they are the youngest, perhaps because they are motivated by more than money.

The south of the city has twice the life of the north, which means what it means. The old fish market is still dead. The office buildings are still stark, wounded and empty. A donkey cart stands at the entrance of a lane, selling water. A battered Fiat, looking as old as Mussolini, chugs by: it is the first personal civilian vehicle I see and has no number plates. A choking and lonely jeep is sign of some public transport. Then appears the first traffic jam: a truck and two donkey carts struggling to negotiate the rubble in front of a vegetable market just after the mosque.

There is a loudspeaker on the minaret of the Shaikh al-Sufi mosque. As the name suggests, Islam was spread by Sufi mendicants and dervishes in Somalia. There is no hard line on Somali sand. Women, their heads covered in bright cloth, are a normal part of public life, and show as little hesitation as men when they spread a cardboard sheet or cloth and offer namaz at the call of the muezzin. A sign outside the mosque shows the way to a madrasa, the largest in the city. A little later we are overtaken by a Toyota with three young men at the back. They race ahead, oblivious of the rubble or carts or even a technical like ours. "Sharia police," explains my friend.

Their sense of power is evident in their speed, and the slight adolescent jeer in their eyes. They are too young to care. Older gunmen in technicals, with bullet belts slung across the shoulder coursing down expanding bellies, take care to travel in large bands. They have something to care about: their salaried lives. Fifty dollars a month gets you a technical or a fake passport, probably Ugandan.

Col. Abdullahi Yusuf, president of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) since October 14, 2004, has often said that he is going to destroy "Islamic terrorists" in Somalia. Col. Yusuf was part of the problem for so long that he has, by the consensus of neighbours and grudging acceptance of nominated members of Parliament, been made part of the solution in the hope that there will be one. But it took him five months to enter Somalia after he became President, and then relocate the capital to Jowhar. His Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad Gedi, was greeted with bomb blasts that almost killed him when he tried to address a public rally in Mogadishu last May. He returned to Nairobi a trifle hastily.

Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys’ henna-streaked beard is familiar to anyone in Mogadishu, as are his calm, softly-delivered sermons. He lives near his mosque and was the most prominent leader of the Ittehad Islamiya. Ever since Washington put this organisation on its terror list after 9/11, everyone prefers to be known as a former leader. His security includes a truck with an anti-aircraft gun but I doubt if that would be sufficient protection if the CIA decided to pick him up. America has no official presence in Somalia, but an anti-terrorist task force of 2,000 is based in Djibouti, a Somali region in the north that was given separate independence because it was under French rule. (A parallel event in India would have made Pondicherry a separate nation.) Sheikh Aweys makes no effort to hide his conviction that Somalia can only be saved by a conversion into an Islamic state, that America has launched a war against Muslims all over the world, and that the CIA has Somali warlords on its payroll who pass on information as well kidnap any suspect on America’s wanted list. It is popular belief that CIA agents regularly visit their employees in Mogadishu, arriving by secret aircraft. Sheikh Aweys believes that Colonel Yusuf makes the noises he does in order to get Western support for his notional government.

The Islamic movement in Somalia predates the current troubles, said Dr Ahmed Mohammad Hassan, president of the Somali Red Crescent Society and old enough to have seen it all. We met in Nairobi, where he lives. The clergy was the first, he pointed out, to protest against the "scientific socialism" of the pro-Soviet Siad Barre, in January 1975. Barre publicly executed 11 respected clerics in revenge.

The clans, principally an alliance between Ali Mahdi and Mohammad Aideed (who, incidentally, served as ambassador to New Delhi for five years), drove out Barre in January 1991 and then spent the next year killing each other in thousands in the battle of succession. That was when famine devastated hundreds of thousands of Somalis who wanted a government rather than a civil war.

Who fills the gaps left by a withered state?

The Muslim Brotherhood came to a famished people in 1991 through effective relief work across the length of a long country in places like Merca, Kismayo, Dobley, Lugh, Berbera and of course Mogadishu. In June 1992 they, along with Ittehad Islamiya, instigated an insurgency in Puntland, eventually defeated by the Yusuf clan. In mid-1994, a council for the implementation of Sharia law was created with Sheikh Sharif Muhidin as its chairman, in Mogadishu North. It was the first experience of law in a country that had become lawless and helpless, and established a positive image of the clergy.

A clan’s power over people emerges from its role as a provider of essential necessities of life: security (in times of crisis, even food security), kinship, justice, and an economic net without too many holes. What happens when the credibility of such a powerful, traditional institution is savaged?

Over the last fifteen years, this essential fact of Somali society has indulged in spectacular self-destruction. The mosque is perhaps the only institution that provides a community net, education, justice that is implemented and a growing revenue system that can create a safety net. The mosque was always the sole source of salvation in the afterlife for a deeply religious people. It has now become the predominant source of salvation in this life as well.

The future of both the clans and the mosque began when Siad Barre fled in January 1991. Only one of the two will find the horizon.

- War Blog on Main

Battle Wounds

2006-01-12T14:06:00.000+05:30

Battle wounds By M.J. Akbar
- Mogadishu (Somalia)

Where do you find war? In a graveyard or a hospital. There are no stories in a graveyard. A hospital, on the other hand, has too many.

The director of Medina Hospital was in Mecca. It seemed the appropriate place for Sheikh Don to be. He had left for Dubai en route to Haj by the south city airport on a Russian Antonov: an extremely enterprising private airline now ferries those who can afford the minimum fare of $250. There is even an occasional flight to Paris. Where there is a will there is a way. The south city airport, unlike its poor cousin in the north, is protected by anti-aircraft guns.

Medina Hospital was built by the Germans for the local police and has proper buildings, lovely trees in the spacious compounds, a high water reservoir and space for 500 beds. About 65 — always add a few for battle casualties — function now.

Our guide is Dr Ali the White, a jovial Somali who refuses to get depressed by his difficulties. Instead, he breaks into song when he learns that I am an Indian. Thankfully, it is not Mera joota hai Japani... but the rather surprising Meri muhabbat jawan rahegi, sada rahi hai sada rahegi. May I add that he got the tune right.

I am not brave enough to face another’s pain and the visit to the wards was acutely discomforting. The relatives around each bed looked stoic as they fanned their loved child, or simply waited. There are few old men or women in hospital. That is the meaning of war.

The most important doctor is the chief surgeon, which tells the story. Dr Hassan Osman is legitimately proud that one of the techniques he has devised for immediate operations is now quoted in medical journals. The wounded come from as far away at Diinsoor, which is 500 km away. That is reputation in a war zone.

The police disappeared from Medina in 1991, when the remnants of government crumbled. It was partially reopened in 1992 with the help of Medicins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders). Patients were treated under trees. There was no water or power. A hospital is perhaps the only thing that brings clans together in wartime. The elders got together and contacted the Red Cross in 1999, which stepped into desolation. In 2000 a generator arrived, which purrs quietly in a large shed and turns Medina into an island unrecognisable from its environs: a full drug store, surgical equipment, doctors who are taken to one annual conference, nurses and, perhaps most important, community involvement. It was the community that paid for the new tiles in one ward and painted the buildings.

If Medina is a marvel then Keysaney is a miracle. This hospital in the north was a prison outside the city, on the shore, making it, as someone wryly observed, the "most secure hospital in the world". When the Siad Barre regime collapsed the prison emptied.

Compared to Medina, the facilities are rudimentary, the facilities minimal. The strength of Dr Ahmed Muhammad Ahmed, a devout young man who prays five times a day, and his colleagues is inspiring. This is the only hospital for he north, and has treated more than 55,000 patients in over a decade. Add more than 100,000 outpatients. That is the meaning of war. The Red Cross turned this prison into a hospital in November 1991. There are four wards, including one for VIPs, which means it has curtains. Dr Ahmed showed me with shy pride the apparatus he had set up to recycle a bullet victim’s blood back into the patient.

The one thing you can’t get in a bloodstained country is blood.

The main hall at Keysaney doubles up as an English classroom for the staff in the evenings, thanks to Dr Ahmed. The sentences chalked on the blackboard are instructive in more ways than one. ‘A: Do you think you can get me to Victoria by half-past? B: We should be OK if the lights are with us. A: You’ve still got five minutes to spare. A: Pounds 6.40 please.’ The last sentence was: ‘I go to a private institute which is called Oxford.’

You find both war and aspiration in Dr Ahmed’s fly-blown hospital.

The unsentimental fortitude of doctors is remarkable. Dr Ahmed takes nothing for granted, and everything in his stride. Dr C. Oscar Avogadri has just joined the Red Cross team for Somalia. He is an Italian who spent some time in Nepal but, much to his relief, did not understand cricket — otherwise he might have spent eight hours on a weekend watching the game instead of doing something better. Pascal Hundt, head of the Somalia division, is Swiss, imperturbable, practical and measures a day by how much he has got done, whether stocking medical supplies or injecting capital into the rural economy by financing 5,000 goats, or telling impoverished representatives of a betrayed people that he cannot change the rules. He is already planning for a famine that looms ahead.

The price of war is poverty. Somalis do not have the individual or collective resources to fight a famine. The destitution is utter. Clothes are old, slippers tattered, food basic. There are no shops, apart from the occasional medical (what else?) store, or a utility outlet. There is no state, and therefore no state service. Water and electricity must be purchased from entrepreneurs; travel rights from the gun-toting militias. The thin elite owns generators. For visitors with foreign exchange and a hotel room there is excellent fruit juice and lobster from the Indian Ocean. For the nomad, or the citizen, life hovers at subsistence level. Measure incomes on a simple scale. The best paid are top-of-the-line gunmen, who get a hundred dollars a month. Fifty dollars will fetch you a bullet-sprayer (a bullet costs 30 cents). Most of the gunmen don’t have shoes either.

There may be no money for food, but there is always enough money for war.

My friend remembers this fact with a hint of awe: the only time the price of food collapsed was in 1991, when the Americans came, leading an international effort to fight famine and starvation, restore governance and leave behind a semblance of civil society. A 50-kg bag of rice that cost $450 during famine was available for nine dollars. (The current price is $50.)

So what was the mistake that the world’s most powerful country made in the world’s weakest country?

Cultural insensitivity is too boring an accusation. A diplomat who was in and out of Somalia at that time, and lives in Nairobi, has more relevant analysis. The Americans were not interested in peacekeeping; they wanted something that they called peace-building. They wanted an architecture that would stabilise the country around a democratic polity. It was another honourable intent, that came unglued when it hit warlords. Every warlord was convinced that only he could become President of the Somali Republic. In a bid to challenge the lords, American soldiers raided the home of the most powerful, Aideed. That was the end of both peacekeeping and peace-building. The American position on the country is: Somalia missed the bus a decade ago; it will not be given another chance.

There are others ready to take a chance, or provide one. The last spot on our tour of Medina Hospital was the newly-painted canteen for families of patients, another stray sign of normalcy in an abnormal world. The doctors left me alone: clearly no one senior ever ventured into a public canteen. If they wanted coffee outside office they sat on benches in the shade of trees. Even Dr Ali the White left me. I wandered in. The painting was fresh; the walls sparkled with schoolchild paintings of the usual variety, animals, scenery et al. To my right, in a panel, were two highrise buildings. On top of one was a legend: New York. A similar masthead on the other was filled with black. Two airplanes were exploding against the upper stories of both buildings. In the space between the towers, in small lettering, was a phrase. Since I can read Arabic, I knew what it said. Al Qaeda.

Perhaps someone reading this will get into a pother, and that painting, done by someone doing community service for the hospital in a canteen the senior staff did not enter, will be erased. That is not the point. The point is what is happening to the community in Mogadishu, living on the deserted, rubble-strewn streets around Medina.

I could not resist the question as I said goodbye to Dr Ali the White. Surely that could not be his real name. No. His name was Dr Ali Muallim. Then...? "Oh," he said with a big grin, "white because I am so black. Just reverse!" Just reverse. It seems a good metaphor for Mogadishu.

-War Blog on Main Blog

In the name of the warlord

2006-01-11T12:44:00.000+05:30

In the name of the warlord by MJ Akbar
- Mogadishu (Somalia)

On December 2, 2005, His Excellency Eng. Hussein Mohammad Farah Aideed, deputy prime minister (politics and security), minister of interior, Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic, called, by appointment, on India’s high commissioner in Nairobi, Mr Surendra Kumar. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, tie and leather-strap sandals. The ‘Eng.’ before his name was similar to ‘Dr’: Engineers now like to be known that they are thus qualified. In Somalia the preferred title of Hussein Aideed is ‘General’, a claim by hereditary right.

His father, General Mohammad Farah Aideed, became the world’s most famous warlord, immortal in local lore and deified by Hollywood, when, in 1993, he broke American will by downing two Black Hawk helicopters and killing 18 American Marines whose bodies were dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, capital of Somalia. A reward of a million dollars was placed on his head, and he was nicknamed, for some obscure reason, Yogi the Bear. The father did not die in an American prison, but in his own city. His son was living in America, and had trained to become a reserve Marine. When his father died, he returned to Somalia to inherit the title and the loyalty of his father’s militia, though not the respect that his father commanded. Neither father nor son believed that the term "warlord" was appropriate. Aideed means "one who rejects insults".

He seemed sincere, said Mr Kumar. Hussein Aideed promised peace would finally come to Somalia in about six months, thanks to the latest deal brokered by mostly well-meaning (or simply fed-up) neighbours. He asked for Indian assistance in demining southern Somalia, building roads, assisting in healthcare and training the police.

Uniforms and guns for the police would not be unwelcome. Since there is nothing called a police force in Somalia at the moment, perhaps Hussein Aideed wanted arms and training for his own force. Mr Kumar was diplomatic in his response; the visitor’s charm was not sufficient to reduce the host’s scepticism. The news is that India is not in any hurry to arm and train anyone, or rebuild roads, which are controlled by AK-47-wielding bands who laugh as they collect their tax on any vehicle brave enough, or desperate enough, to travel. The government of Hussein Aideed used to be based in Nairobi until the Kenyans exhausted their patience and told them to go.

Somalia is not a country in search of a government. It is a government in search of a country.

From the air, Mogadishu is entrancing, lean and stretched out against the Indian Ocean, a city of two million in a country of seven. It begins in the greenery of banana trees in the south, curves along the pristine beaches untouched by the large waves that break much before the shore. The city ends where the sand rises to cliff height in the north before spreading into the arid and endless desert.

We flew into an airport in the north on Saturday in a Red Cross plane. The Red Cross is now the only international organisation with a national presence in Somalia, working to bring a touch of contemporary concern to a land that has been driven back into a pre-industrial past by criminal greed and mindless violence.

Drop The breeze cools the midday sunshine and throws sand into our eyes as step off. The airport was built by Osman Hassan Ali Atto, warlord and politician, to ferry khat, a local nerve-soother. When the international airport closed down, its fortunes boomed. Wisely, Mr Atto decided to share such fortunes with a fellow warlord. The commerce is limited but it is a commercial hub of sorts.

In 1998, two Red Cross officials disembarked at this airport from a similar plane and wandered off to answer a call of nature behind a nearby sand dune, a reasonable need after a two-and-a-half hour flight. They were lucky. The rest of the group was kidnapped by gunmen who appeared over a small hill, and held hostage for 10 days. Somalia is now one of two regions where the Red Cross uses armed guards, rather than the humanitarian credibility that keeps it safe elsewhere. The only other place is Chechnya.

There are three structures at this airstrip, nearly indistinguishable from the colour of the surrounding desert. The first, about 10 feet wide with a sloping tin roof, is both the cafeteria and the bank: you can get a soft drink while you change foreign exchange for Somali shillings. There was a time when a dollar fetched 30,000 shillings, but the rate has stabilised at 15,000.

Warlords print the Somali currency. There is an advertisement of a cellphone company on the second hut, which is possibly an office. The third structure on an airstrip devoid of any human habitation for miles is a mosque, an Ottoman crescent atop its minaret.

A small craft of Aviation Sans Frontiers is waiting to take off when we land: the two NGO planes constitute the business of the day. A man near the tarmac with a cap, a piece of cloth wrapped around both ears, a football-referee whistle in one hand and a tasbeeh (prayer beads) in the other is the air traffic clearance authority. Each item has a function.

The cap is for the sun. The cloth is for the sand. He keeps in touch with the pilot with the whistle. He keeps in touch with God with the prayer beads.

Our plane is refuelled while we wait. Three skinny, industrious men, two of them in the trademark lungi, kick-roll dented drums from a Dyna 350 semi towards the plane. A wheelbarrow, carrying a hose and a small engine, accompanies them. The drums contain the fuel. Each is opened, with some effort, by a metal strip that fits into a groove in the cap and twists the cap around. On end of the hose goes into the drum, the other into the plane. The engine is pulled into a gurgle. Oil begins to flow up.

They travel about a hundred metres or more ahead, obscured by a windscreen of powdery desert dust: nine men on the back of a powerful Toyota, their legs dangling over the side, each with an AK-47 of varying power, and enough ammunition to start a small war. In the centre is a mounted heavy machine-gun, manned by a burly brother in a bandana, with don’t-fool-with-me in his eyes and a pistol in his belt. In local parlance, they constitute a "technical". No self-respecting warlord travels with less than four "technicals". Since this one has been hired to protect us, I suppose this "technical" is on the side of the angels, but loyalties are variable in a cash-and-carry business.

We drive over sand and rock towards the world’s largest, or perhaps only, ghost city. An occasional man sleeps under a desert shrub. Lonely men squat on the edge of the track, waiting for nothing, their faces drained of all expectation. Women, in rare ones or twos, are defined by the bright colours of their dress, principally a dramatic red interspersed by a soothing yellow. The rest is silence in a vast emptiness, broken only by the periodic and minimal radio exchanges between our SUV and our "technical".

Drop Suddenly, to our left, appears a huge scrapyard, a crazy museum of twisted, shattered metal, carcasses of cars, machines, yesterday’s homes, anything that could be pillaged. It is owned by Bashir Raghe, a warlord. A minute later we see a large ship sitting impassively offshore. This is the scrap metal trade, a lucrative byproduct of a destruction-economy, and yet another fortune for warlords to kill over. "Do you know where the scrap is headed?" asks a friend whom I shall leave unnamed. I don’t. To India.

To the right, in another minute, is what seems to be a mirage: a pink villa from an Italian seashore. Who lives there? A businessman. What is his business? He owns a bone factory.

A destruction-economy has more than one byproduct.

So far, I note, I have seen seven beneficiaries of this economy: the warlords; Japanese vehicle manufacturers (all registrations in Dubai or Sharjah); the Russian armaments industry; Belgian pistol-makers; telecommunications equipment makers; shipowners and Indian scrap merchants. Add an eighth, I am told. Coca-Cola. There is a flourishing Coca-Cola factory in the south of the city. Life goes better with Coca-Cola, particularly amidst death.

The first sight of Mogadishu is unreal. It is like seeing ruins from the wrong end of time.

The jagged edges of Rome’s or Amman’s amphitheatre symbolise the achievements of 2,000 years ago. In Mogadishu, you see the ruins of a flourishing 20th century city in an environment that has regressed 2,000 years. Only a few of the shell-shocked homes seem inhabited; strangely there is utter silence even among the sparse patches of life.

I am given a guided tour of devastation: here what was once an enclave of diplomatic homes or an embassy row during the era of the Soviet-supported President Siad Barre, there nothing where once the Indian embassy existed. Every hundred paces is dull repetition of what used to be. The true sadness of Mogadishu is not what it has become, but what it once was, and what it could have been.

The radio crackles. We cannot go to the Italian cathedral built when they colonised this part of Somalia. The "technical" has reported that a gunbattle is going on in front of the cathedral. And so, without any fuss, we turn left a little before the gunbattle and drive into what was once the pride of the city: the main street, full of banks, businesses, government offices, cars, pedestrians, restaurants, bars and hotels. The street ends at the embankment. A majestic hotel sweeps in a classic Italian curve to our left, architecture that once hummed to the music of hundreds of rooms. It has now been blasted apart, shattered by tank battles that destroyed this street and city.

We get off at the embankment, which is broken at one place leaving a large gap. One tank, unable to brake, crashed through at this point. The tank lies on the rocks of the ocean shore, rusted, its turret tilted up, still searching for an enemy of the same colour and blood. It is as distressing a memory as the Fascist pillar nearby that has survived on the promenade from the time of Mussolini.

We are at the Hammaruin. We change guard. Literally. Our gunmen are all smiles as they wave goodbye; their replacements smile more broadly as they welcome us. But they don’t smile at one another.

This is the dividing line between the north and south of Mogadishu. Militia from the north cannot enter the south, and naturally vice versa. In the ocean, a handful of children chatter and skip over the rocks, the shallow water being their only entertainment. On the street, from a comer, young men with nothing to do but clutch triggers at their nerve-ends watch as we switch vehicles and guards. A gun is part of the normal dress code of normal young men.

Engineer Hussein Aideed, leader of the United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance, is yet to reach middle age. His mother, Asli Dhubat, his father’s first wife, took him to the United States as a teenager. He joined the US Marine Corps Reserves in 1987, became a corporal and told the Associated Press in Somalia: "Once a Marine, always a Marine". He has, he believes, a wonderful idea for Somalia’s future.

There are no passports in Somalia; even Kenya does not recognise a warlord passport any more. Hussein Aideed told ambassador Surendra Kumar that he was negotiating with an Indian IT company to create e-passports. The cost was estimated at $25 million. He had worked it out. An account would be opened in a prestigious international bank; 80 per cent of the passport fee deposited in this account would go to pay for the initial cost and 20 per cent would be sent on to Somalia. This would eventually pay the $25 million.

It seems a great idea for California.

(pic: Mogadishu Mosque)

Osama's Jihad!

2006-01-09T14:14:00.000+05:30

Did the Quake shake Bin Laden's Lair? Can't be! Bin Laden has managed to avoid capture for nearly a decade, including a feverish manhunt since he ordered the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The United States is offering up to $25 million for information leading to his killing or capture.

And in an audiotape broadcast by Al-Jazeera Dec. 27, 2004, a man purported to be Osama bin Laden endorses Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq, describing al-Zarqawi as the "emir" of al Qaeda in Iraq and calling on Muslims there "to listen to him." The voice also calls for a boycott of upcoming Iraqi elections, saying the vote for a constitution-writing national assembly was being held under unIslamic, U.S.-imposed rules.

Now, the very same Abu Masab al Zarqawi is in news that the recent rockets had been fired at Israel from Lebanon last month "on the instructions" of the network's overall chief Osama Bin Laden.It was on the instructions of the sheikh of the mujahedeen, Osama bin laden, may God preserve him," said the voice attributed to the Jordanian extremist. He's even said "O Muslim youths ... especially in (Iraq's) neighboring countries and Yemen, jihad is your duty."

Could this be Jihad???? Osama Bin Laden's Jihad!

An Open Letter To Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri

2006-01-02T13:38:00.000+05:30

As the new year bells chime to ring in hope and joy, here's a Peace Activist, a Blog reader from Pakistan in my mail box with an open Letter to Osama Bin Laden. Is he somewhere in oblivion? The world with Osama Bin Laden's is no wonder 'Terrorism' and he is a scum of the Earth - But one wonders, Does Osama Bin Laden really Exist???

An Open Letter To Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
(Wherever You Are)

Aslam-o-Alaikum!

Do you know what degree of shame, abomination, misery and wretchedness is being heaped on the innocent and peace-following Muslims all over the world because of this so-called and self styled Jihad of yours?

Do you know how many innocent, unsullied people are being daily butchered as result of this professed Jihad of yours? How many children are being orphaned and women being widowed precisely for the same reason.

And do you know, killing one faultless human being is like killing the entire humanity. You must definitely be knowing that you will surely be held accountable for this all bloodshed. Will you, then, be able to face your God? I challenge, no!

Then, why have you become an agent of some hidden hand. Why are you taking the responsibility of the murder of entire humanity to yourself on his behest. Why are you dragging the Muslims down? Why are you demeaning Islam by presenting it as a terrorist religion? Acting like this, which religion are you rendering a great service to? Are you raising the standard of Islam high or you (if you reflect on it) are causing the heads of the followers of the path of the righteous bow down with shame in-front of the entire humanity.

Today most of the Muslims believe that you are not a true Muslim but planted by the enemies to destroy the image of Islam.

For God’s sake, take recourse to sense, and announce a CEASEFIRE at once so the inhabitants of world may be introduced to that divine aspect of the Muslims at whose hands no soul suffer, whose words and actions bear no tinge of dichotomy, whose speech, when uttered, conveys to others the message of love and protection, whose thoughts, when thought, are devoted to the well being of others. Herein lies the true success, and herein lies the victory of the true religion of Allah.

S.A.Rehman
peace_activist24@yahoo.com
(Peace Activist)
PAKISTAN

Train the Iraq Army!!!

2005-12-25T17:38:00.000+05:30

Bush was elected in 2000 to take America away from the problems of the world.He was re-elected in 2004 to make America safe from the problems of the world. He will leave, in 2008, America more vulnerable to the problems of the world than it has been in a long while. On paper, he wants to change the Middle East by changing Iraq into a democracy. In practice, Iraq is heading towards what might be called a radical-democracy, where popular support has shifted decisively towards those who oppose American policy as well as American values. The one thing that Shias and Sunnis are now agreed upon in Iraq is that Americans must leave their land.

George Bush and his fawn Tony Blair have now come to the end of their list of reasons for staying in Iraq. They now say that they must stay to train the Iraq Army so that it is able to fight the insurgency. In other words, they cannot pull out because of a problem that did not exist before they came. There was no insurgency before the Occupation. (The average death rate, by the way, is 30 per day; Iraqis also die, although there is reluctance to recognise this.) So we have the classic conundrum. American and British troops will not leave until the insurgency is controlled; and the insurgency will not end unless the Anglo-American armies go. Welcome to the near future.

- More here

Every War is not Jihad!

2005-12-20T16:58:00.000+05:30

The intellectual onslaught against Muslims started long before 9/11, it was not a reaction. Huntington wrote about a clash of civilisations seven years before 9/11. It was a time when almost every Muslim nation had supported America in the wars for the liberation of Afghanistan and Kuwait. To blame the neocons is not enough. We have to answer them.

Judging by some of the reporting in the West, one would imagine that suicide was invented by Muslims. Suicide missions have always been an element of war tactics, with the highest honours being reserved for those who risk their lives to the maximum.Such has been the distortion of world opinion that the average person today believes that "terrorism" is something created by the doctrines of Islam. This is calumny of the most perfidious kind.

Like so many other Muslims, I too have been taunted and told that my religion is nothing but "Jihad". I am not defensive about the basic tenets of my faith. Islam is a religion of peace, but it recognises that in certain conditions, war may be forced upon you. It defines a legitimate war vis a vis an illegitimate one. Jihad is a war against injustice. The Prophet (PBUH) never took up arms during the long years of oppression and tyranny in Makkah; the war verses of the Quran were revealed only when persecution began to try and destroy the faith, and the Prophet was forced to take up arms against injustice. Jihad has clear rules: it has been stressed that you cannot kill women, children and innocents in a Jihad; you cannot even destroy palm trees. And hence my proposition: Every Jihad is a war fought by Muslims, but every war fought by Muslims is not a Jihad.
- How Green is My Valley?

Bush Lied, Soldiers Died!!!

2005-12-16T14:24:00.000+05:30

As around 11 million of the nation's 15 million registered voters took part, which would put overall turnout at more than 70 percent. The slogans says aloud "Bush Lied, Soldiers Died" - the voice in unison is 'No War'

Many Sunnis said they voted to register their opposition to the Shiite-led government and to speed the end of the U.S. military presence. People said they would not care to die of hunger and thirst as long as Americans left. Opposition to the American military presence runs deeper among Sunni Arabs. The Shiites and Kurds are hopeful of security to be restored by the new government. However, on a common note, all appeared to be a yearning for an end to the turmoil that has engulfed Iraq since the U.S.-led coalition invaded in March 2003 to topple Saddam's regime. "This is a day of freedom for us - We need security and want our children to live a happy life" quipped the voters who hope that peace prevails soon.

And here's President Bush now admitting, an estimated 30,000 Iraqis have died in the war. He said, "I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis," Bush said. "We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq."

I've heard yet the Pentagon targets Anti-war Groups as Threats! Peace takes a courage and as Bush accepts the proposal to ban cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of terrorism, here's a site with 160,000 American soldiers who desperately await to return home for Christmas!

Kashmir issue at OIC

2005-12-12T18:11:00.000+05:30

OIC Declaration briefs:

In a declaration issued after the two-day summit of intellectuals in Mecca, the OIC leaders condemned terrorism in all its forms and manifestations and rejected any justification for it. Considering terrorism as a global phenomena not related to any religion, race, colour or country, the conference emphasised the importance of joining international efforts to combat the menace.

Addressing the conference, Gen. Musharraf, raised the Kashmir issue at the summit on Wednesday.He said "failure to resolve Kashmir and Palestine issues led to desperation, confusion and extremism" and asked Islamic countries to ban extremist groups. He further said, "Our differences and divisions are exploited. Our failure to secure just resolution of disputes such as Palestine and Kashmir has spawned desperation, confusion and extremism"

OIC also called for "respect of the human rights of the Kashmiri people and agreed to provide all possible political and diplomatic support to the representatives of Kashmiri people. The 57-member organisation of Islamic countries has "extended" its support to the "inalienable right" of people of Jammu and Kashmir for "self-determination" in accordance with the UN resolutions.
- posted by ilaxi

War : Compulsions of Peace

2005-12-06T15:47:00.000+05:30

War Blog : This blog aims to present the Byline extracts of MJ Akbar with the news on war, books, plots, rumors and conspiracy....hopefully, Lots More! MJ would pen down his thoughts n musings on the Blog and his voice aims to reach people round the globe. Let there be peace - For You-Me-Us : ilaxi

The Kashmir issue remains focused at the OIC Summit (Organisation for Islamic Conference) at Mecca and President Pervez Musharraf mentioned "Both in the 10-year action plan and the joint communiqué there are strong words on Kashmir. The new charter includes special mention on the conflict resolution mechanism. The new charter recognises all conflicts, including the conflict of Kashmir".

Till we know more of the OIC summit outcome, here is Compulsions of Peace : MJ Akbar, during the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus started with a significant achievement.

Compulsions of Peace
by MJ Akbar

War breeds vested interests that will not easily surrender their lucrative space. Peace must build its own vested interests.The war lobby, which of course is a coalition of varied interests, must have an objective, for war cannot be an end in itself. Let us try and examine what it is as coolly and unsentimentally as possible. Militants, the self-proclaimed "jihadis" who have picked up the gun, believe that the status of Jammu and Kashmir can be changed by continuous, low-intensity, high-casualty warfare as long as they have the protection of a base outside the reach of the Indian Army. They underestimate the will of a state to preserve its geographical integrity. It is easy to be gulled by the rhetoric of a television debate, particularly when someone else’s child is being sent into the killing fields.

Peace opens up opportunities but Peace has its compulsions as well. The compulsion of war is sacrifice. The compulsion of peace is economic growth and a better life.

- Read more....