Building Solidarity
Building Peace

Addressing a year of occupation, failed policies and humanitarian crisis in Somalia

Featuring a panel of scholars and esteemed guest speakers

Date: January 26, 2008
Location: Ryerson University 350 Victoria St. (LIB72)
Time: 6:00 PM-10:00 PM

FOR MORE INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
416-841-0126 or 647-891-5895
info@somalidiasporaalliance.com

US Hides True Intentions in Somalia

Canadian Peace Alliance Statement
January 10, 2007

The US has launched attacks against southern Somalia with airstrikes from helicopters and AC-130 gunships. Reports say that dozens of people are dead. The official justification for the attack was to kill an alleged Al-Qaeda cell in the country. As with Iraq, where the links between Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaeda network were never established this new assault is another attempt to disguise US interests behind the convenient bogeyman of terrorism. There is no proof that Al-Qaeda is working with the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) who are the real threat to US interests in the region and the main target of this assault.

Somalia, after years of lawlessness and the rule of clan warlords, finally achieved peace when the ICU entered the scene and took most of the country by July of 2006. For most Somalis the ICU victory represented the first steps to peace in more than 15 years. In Mogadishu, a city described as one of the most violent places on earth, shops were opened, the airport was in operation after 5 years and the port re-opened after 8 years. Freedom of mobility was now an option. The business community welcomed the new regime, as did the population. On June 18, a hundred thousand Somalis rallied in Mogadishu carrying signs reading "Support The Islamic Courts Union" and "America Open Your Eyes - Down with the Warlord Government".

The US could not allow this to happen. The mass media in Canada, always fearful of context in their reporting, has said that the US was concerned about the development of an Islamic government. This statement conveniently misses the fact that the US is quite supportive of Islamic governments in places like Saudi Arabia. What they were really concerned with is a government hostile to US interests in such a strategic location as the horn of Africa, at the mouth of the Red Sea and the gateway to the Suez Canal and the Middle East. The fact that oil deposits have recently been discovered in Somalia was an added incentive for US intervention.

The ICU is also a threat to the US interests for the ideas that it represents. The fact that the ICU has been able to lead a country, divided along clan lines, and create a unified opposition to the US-supported Interim government is a threat in itself. But the fact that these formerly disparate groups have been unified under the banner of Islam with a non-sectarian leadership is even more damaging to the US plan for division of the Middle East along sectarian lines.

On July 20th, Ethiopian troops entered the southern Somali town of Baidoa to support Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord leader and the hand-picked president of the UN-sponsored interim government. Ethiopia, a firm US ally in the region and recipient of massive amounts of US military aid, was quick to act. Snatching war from the jaws of peace, the US and its local puppet regimes have once again condemned the people to violence and chaos.

Somalia was not a failed state except while under the Interim Government which never enjoyed the support of the people. After the UN Security Council passed resolution 1752 calling for foreign intervention in Somalia, thousands once again demonstrated in Mogadishu stadium under the banner "Why Do We Need Foreign Intervention When Somalia Is In Peace"?

The parallels between Somalia and Afghanistan are numerous. In both cases a US backed warlord government is being opposed by the people of the country because of growing popular discontent with constant violence and instability. Either way US meddling has once again destroyed the chance of peace and self-determination for the people of Somalia.

This is yet another aggressive act by the US which further threatens to destabilize the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. The peace movement calls on the government of Canada to condemn this action by the US and its regional allies, oppose any foreign intervention, and work for genuine self-determination for the people of Somalia.

» Contact the Somali Canadian Diaspora Alliance

» Download the Petition to End the Occupation of Somalia

    

   Somalia News

» The New Somalia: A Grimly Familiar Rerun
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
The New York Times
February 21, 2007

» Experts Warn US Air Raids in Somalia May Be Inefficient, Harmful
By Michel Moutot
Agence France Presse
Sunday 28 January 2007

» Oil, Not Terrorists, the Reason for US Attack on Somalia
Monday, 22 January 2007
Information Clearing House
By Wanjohi Kabukuru

» Rogue State America:
What exactly are we doing in the Horn of Africa?
Information Clearing House
By John B. Judis

» Somalia a victim of the war on terror
U.S. policy ensures it stays a failed state
January 13, 2007
Toronto Star
Thomas Walkom

» Ethiopia launches all-out war on Somalia after UN resolution legitimises foreign intervention By M. A. Shaikh
Muslim Media

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