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Duufaan

Garowe Conference: The Balkanization of Somalia??

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Duufaan   

Somalia has long been a country with political troubles. It is a widespread idea amongst political scientists that the divisions and conflicts that exist on the country are a result of the European colonization in the 19th-20th Centuries, when Somali state colonial boundaries were drawn by the colonizers. Now, some 50 years after most Somali nation gained independence, the country is experiencing a period of turmoil.

 

 

 

The term ‘balkanization’ is used in political science to describe a process of breaking up a territory into small, hostile states. It is derived from the events in the Balkans, which saw the splitting up of Yugoslavia into seven states, hostile to each other and resulting in a series of armed conflicts. Could this be applied to what is happening in Somalia and Growe Conference now?

 

 

 

When a nation is targeted for Balkanization, the justification for the overt and covert operations such a campaign entails is almost always a “humanitarian” effort to control inter-ethnic strife. The media generate public confusion by fabricating, or exaggerating, ethnic, tribal, mini-wars, often stirred up and paid for by the agents of the would-be Balkanizers

The Growe Conference seems severe destabilization of a targeted Somali nation is a logical and necessary prerequisite to Balkanization. The media help to promote that destabilization by their demonization of targeted Somali unionist leaders. Such campaigns often carry overtones of ethnic persecution, along with accusations of corruption, communism, terrorism, or (but only when it suits the westerners.) fundamentalism

 

 

 

Whether this Growe event would be classified as an example of Balkanization remains to be seen, since one cannot predict whether the new regional states would be ‘hostile’. Although this Growe Conference does not have the aim to break up the country, it has created an aura of hostility between the people and the ruling elite. One need only think back to the period 1789-1810 to see how similar events in Europe proceeded to create the modern French state.

 

Something should be said about the way in which a very shady peace process has furthered Somalia’s Balkanization, just as it did in Yugoslavia.

 

 

 

The Kampala accord (Road Map of Somalia’s balkanization) was not a good deal for the Somali nation; Ex Prime Minister Faramjo was forced to accede by implicit and explicit threats of even greater assistance to the rebels, and an endless war. And in consequence, a divided Somalia became an accepted, institutionalized reality, a solid line drawn through the country in every map that accompanies every news story. The negotiations, stage-managed by the Ugandese. Intensified the demands for the pullout of the Ex Prime Minister Faramjo from his political office, neatly equating the Ethiopian, Ugandan and Kenyans invaders with the troops from different sides of Somali nation. There is no moral equivalency here…

 

Whether Somalia is experiencing a revolution cannot be doubted. Yet, whether this will lead to balkanization, can be. One can only hope that, if any breaking up of territories does occur, it will not have the same consequences as it did in the former Yugoslavia.

 

 

 

 

 

By: SSC Diaspora (Somali Unity Political office)

 

ssc_diaspora@yahoo.com

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Somalia   

The only people who are against the outcome are the people of the south and central regions who do not have their areas under control.

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Duufaan   

Somali

Everybody else is against except the few groups Mahiga chosed, who cannot agree themselves. This is very different for all other confress since 1991, it is driven by Mahigan. He does not have much succes so far

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