-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/"> </A> -Cui Bono?- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a prelude to war! STRATFOR.COM Global Intelligence Update 22 March 2000 Somalia Revisited: Gadhafi's Plan for Partition Summary The Libyan government is sponsoring a plan that may finally bring a measure of peace to war-torn Somalia. The plan aims to turn Somalia - in which the United States intervened briefly in the early 1990s - from a land of dozens of feuding clans into a unified country ruled by two dominant factions. Ultimately, however, the Libyan plan appears likely to partition the country. As a result, neighboring Ethiopia will cement its access to ports on the Red Sea. Libya will gain a steadily larger role in Africa, as well as maintain its grip on an important airbase in central Somalia. Analysis The Libyan government is drafting plans that would put Somalia under the control of a two-headed government, controlled by a pair of the country's most important factions, the Somali newspaper Ayaamaha reported on March 18, citing diplomatic sources. The report stated that Libya is also urging neighboring Djibouti to drop its plans for forming a transitional Somali government. Since 1991, when insurgents overthrew President Siad Barre and drove him from the country, Somalia has been in the throes of anarchy. The Somali army dissolved into competing armed groups, loyal either to former commanders or clan-tribal leaders. For a brief period in the early 1990s the international community intervened. U.S. forces withdrew in 1994, after a battle with Somali gunmen left U.S. Rangers dead and hundreds of Somalis dead or wounded. In 1999, two regional actors, Eritrea and Ethiopia, further aggravated Somalia's civil war by manipulating and arming Somali groups as part of their own war. Now, the governments of Djibouti and Libya have put forth two plans for stabilizing Somalia and re-establishing a functional government. Surrounded by Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia, Djibouti would like to see some stability on its borders. Libyan interests in Somalia include access to Mogadishu's port facilities and use of the Baledogle air base. Also, working to stabilize Somalia serves as a short term, low-risk public relations exercise for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, who has significantly expanded his influence in Africa by helping some of the continent's most troubled nations. The two peace plans are vastly different. The Djibouti plan mirrors many international peace plans that have failed. It calls on warlords to convert their clan-based factions into political parties, commit to a complete and verifiable disarmament and respect the creation of a Somali police force to replace armed militias. The Libyan plan, however, seems more likely to succeed because it accepts the harsh reality of the Somali situation. It seeks to set up a government comprised of two major groups. The first, dubbed Sodere, is named for an Ethiopian town, and is composed of major pro-Ethiopian factions. The second group, Salballar, would be a faction allied to the principal warlord of the ruined capital city of Mogadishu, Hussein Mohamed Aideed. The Libyan plan is steadily gaining support. The Ethiopian government now backs it. Landlocked Ethiopia wants to continue to use the Somali port of Berbera, located in the northern, self- declared state of Somaliland, whose government would be part of Sodere. Col. Abdullahi Yusuf, president of the self-proclaimed pro- Ethiopian Puntland regional government in the north, and Hussein Aideed, in the central part of the country, have both accepted the Libyan proposal and rejected the Djibouti plan. Tripoli's plan, after all, protects the Somali clans' interests. The prospect of order in Somalia, however, is not permanent. It seems likely that the two factions - one that is backed by Ethiopia and the other led by Aideed - will probably be able to work together and form a government. And in such a period, smaller weaker groups will fall in line behind the two main factions. This two-headed arrangement would probably only last for a year, at best. The situation would be easy to manipulate in the context of the ongoing Ethiopian-Eritrean civil war; not only would one element of a Somali government be allied with Ethiopia but Aideed is backed by Eritrea. Similar Somali experiments in the past have failed in the space of anywhere from a few months to a year. Over the long term, it seems likely that two Somalias would emerge from the Libyan peace plan. The pro-Ethiopian faction would control the north, Somaliland and Puntland, and Aideed would control the central part of the country, the Mogadishu area, along with part of the south. The emergence of two Somalias would still stabilize the region - while furthering Ethiopian and Libyan interests. Landlocked and facing difficulty in using the port at Djibouti, the government in Addis-Ababa would gain long-term access to ports on the Red Sea. Ethiopia needs the ports to import food aid. In two recent months, it received 46,000 tons of food aid via the port at Berbera in Somaliland. Ethiopia receives nearly all its essential goods - from petroleum to manufactured equipment - from the outside world, while exporting small amounts of coffee and leather. But the chief beneficiary of the plan would be Libya itself. The Gadhafi government is forging an increasingly larger role for itself in taking on the plights of African nations that the international community has abandoned as basket cases. Bringing peace - or at least order - to Somalia after more than a decade of anarchy would only gain Tripoli greater influence on the continent. As part of a greater role on the continent, Libya would enjoy continued access to an important air base near Mogadishu. The former Somali air force base at Baledogle, near Mogadishu, has been under the control of Aideed. Nearly a year ago, Aideed reportedly offered Gadhafi the base for peacekeeping purposes, as long as Gadhafi supplied the planes and weapons. The base gives the Libyan military an important toehold both in the Horn of Africa and within range of parts of East Africa. What is notable about the Libyan plan now gaining momentum and support is that it flies in the face of what most African nations have insisted upon in attempting to settle conflicts. Most African nations oppose the redrawing of borders. Under the plan now taking shape in Somalia, the Libyan and Ethiopian governments are avoiding this prospect. But in reality, they are supporting a plan that will ultimately partition the country. 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