By Dave Anderson:
Just a few things that I have seen about Somalia during the past week.
The Wall Street Journal reports on a partial decapitation strike on the Somali "government" that is completely dependent on foreign guns that are insufficient to secure the capital city:
A suicide blast at a college graduation ceremony in Mogadishu on
Thursday killed four Somali government ministers and more than a dozen
others...Somali government troops are poorly trained and ill-equipped to combat
the militias. Government troops sometimes defect, or sell their weapons
to Shabaab fighters for cash. Government officials rely instead on the
African Union mission in Somalia, known as Amisom, for protection. But
Amisom also has struggled to fund its mostly Ugandan and Burundian
troops, who are supported by the international community. As of
October, only $39 million of the $214 million pledged at an April
donors' conference had been received, according to Amisom. Amisom
troops haven't been paid in eight months,
It is apparent who has the intelligence and the security capacity in Mogadishu. Copying the Ethiopian counter-insurgency manual has worked out so well [/snark]
Reuters reports on Somali financial innovation and the seeds of the next great bubble:
In Somalia's main pirate lair of Haradheere, the sea gangs have set up
a cooperative to fund their hijackings offshore, a sort of stock
exchange meets criminal syndicate...."Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this
stock exchange. We started with 15 'maritime companies' and now we are
hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,"
Mohammed said.....The administration has no influence in Haradheere -- where a senior local official said piracy paid for almost everything.
"Piracy-related business has become the main profitable economic
activity in our area and as locals we depend on their output," said
Mohamed Adam, the town's deputy security officer.
Whatever the local government is in Haradheere, they are in on piracy because it is the only thing that makes them money. This just might be an opportunity for cutting a deal to provide 'aid and developmental assistance' to rejigger the calculation of the coastal leadership and elites.
The New York Times notes piracy is becoming much more widely practiced:
The vast ransoms paid for commercial vessels seem to be drawing more
and more Somalis. Piracy used to be dominated by two clans, the
Saleban, based in Xarardheere, and the Majeerten, who brought hijacked
ships back to a small beach town called Eyl. Now, according to
witnesses in Somalia, many other clans are involved, even Bantus, a
minority group best known as farmers.
People are robbing ships because that is where the money is....
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