------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Feb. 7, 2002 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
SOLIDARITY WITH SOMALIA Asha Samad, a Somali-born professor at the City College of New York, shared insights about her country's long resistance to British and U.S. intervention at a Workers World Party forum Jan. 25. She told how since the 1980s, when the British sent a team of prospectors to Somalia and discovered uranium, oil and natural gas, the imperialists have provided weapons to one group and then another in order to divide and conquer. "When Somali clan leaders tried to solve their internal problems," she said, "the meeting was bombed and 70 were killed." The U.S. first claimed the bombing was an accident, then later took responsibility. Even as the Bush administration talks of Somalia as another target in its bogus "war on terrorism," the oil companies "are there already, with maps dividing the areas among them," said Professor Samad. Abdalla Hirad, a former program officer with the UN Development Program, talked about how the West wants there to be a president of Somalia--at present, there is no central government--so that it can negotiate business deals. He said there are no terrorist groups in Somalia, refuting Washington's excuse for an intervention. Brian Becker of the International Action Center reviewed how the 1992-93 U.S. intervention in Somalia, which led to the Battle of Mogadishu, fit in to the needs of the military- industrial complex and the Pentagon after the collapse of the USSR. When Bill Clinton successfully campaigned for president in 1992, demagogically promising a "peace dividend" of social programs, including universal health care, the Pentagon was afraid there might be a shift away from militarism. It pushed for intervention in Somalia as a "paid political advertisement"--in the words of Gen. Colin Powell--for continuing a huge military budget. --Deirdre Griswold - END - (Copyright Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you by Workers World News Service. To subscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
