Interview of Mohamed Hassan by Grégoire Lalieu and Michel Colon Somalia had every reason to succeed : an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory ; a rare phenomenon in Africa. Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different : famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink ? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty years ? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships ? In this new chapter of our series "Understanding the Muslim World", Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory.
How did piracy develop in Somalia ? Who are those pirates ?
Since 1990, there has been no government in Somalia. The country is in the hands of warlords. European and Asiatic ships took advantage of this chaotic situation and fished along the Somali coast without a license or respect for elementary rules. They did not observe the quotas in force in their own country to protect the species and they used fishing techniques –even bombs !- that created huge damages to the wealth of the Somali seas.
That's not all ! Taking also advantage of this lack of any political authority, European companies, with the help of the mafia, dumped nuclear wastes offshore Somali coasts. Europe knew of this but turned a blind eye as that solution presented a practical and economical advantage for the nuclear waste management. Yet, the 2005 Tsunami brought a big part of these wastes into the Somali lands. Unfamiliar diseases appeared for the first time among the population. This is the context in which the piracy mainly developed. Somali fishermen, who had primitive fishing techniques, were no more able to work. So they decided to protect themselves and their seas. This is exactly what the United States did during the civilian war against the British (1756-1763) : with no naval forces, President George Washington made a deal with pirates to protect the wealth of the American seas.
No Somali state for almost twenty years ! How is that possible ?
This is the result of an American strategy. In 1990, the country was bruised by conflicts, famine and lootings ; the state collapsed. Facing this situation, the United States, who discovered oil in Somalia a few years ago, launched Operation Restore Hope in 1992. For the first time, US marines intervened in Africa to take control of a country. It was also the first time that a military invasion was launched in the name of humanitarian interference.
Read full essay @ Michel Collon
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