The Horn of Africa Region(Somalia and more)

A thread for discussing the good and the bad in this often troubled Eastern African peninsula region that includes Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea,and Djibouti.

the bad:
Somalis Waste Away as Insurgents Block Escape From Famine

The Shabab Islamist insurgent group is setting up a camp where it is imprisoning displaced and starving Somalis who were trying to escape Shabab territory.

From an August 2, 2011 NY Times article. I do not profess to know much about the long, sad history of this region or the good things- the culture, etc. But feel free to discuss here.

The change from herding to farming combined with climate change and political chaos and terrorists and poverty and the role of "the West" in Somalia.

Discuss-

One thing about that region is that it is not all the same - the uplands of Ethiopia don't really have much in common with Somalia, Somaliland, or the Somali bit of Ethiopia. But I think Eritrea is culturally at least somewhat like core Ethiopia, for all the respective governments hate each other.

Put another way, the change from herding to farming is a thing for the ethnic Somali bits of the Horn of Africa... upland Ethiopia has been practicing settled farming for longer than your or my country.

You started this nice other thread previously

Visiting Ethiopia

http://www.afrikansarvi.fi/component/content/article/15-issue1/artikkeli/41

A piece discussing the change from pastoralism in Somalia. There was also a recent NY Times article on it.

Are we heading toward a military operation against Somali pirates?

I'm curious as to the extent to which the Horn's problems arise from climate change.

I wonder if it weren't for the Clinton-era US deaths, whether neo-cons and others might be pushing a military action against the Shabab (or maybe not, starving Somalians may not rate that highly)

Hasn't there been proxy intervention against the Shabab (and possibly other Islamists) in Somalia? I got the impression that the Ethiopian intervention was green-lighted by the USA as someone else fighting the War On Terror for them. And isn't there some kind of African Union force in Somalia that is basically serving as muscle for the completely ineffectual Transitional Government?

But I reckon that even without all the Black Hawk Down stuff there would not have been that much interest in direct US intervention in Somalia now... it has begun to sink in to even the most ardent interventionist that the USA does not have the resources to intervene everywhere simultanaeously.

I think currently there are less than 10,000 AU troops in Somalia, mostly Ugandan and Burundian.

Good update on the crisis:

http://www.unhcr.org/4e296f4f9.html

http://www.voanews.com/english/news/africa/Has-Somalias-Famine-Weakened-al-Shabab-126341368.html

more reading:

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/08/support-for-farmers-in-africa-dried-up-long-before-somalias-famine/242960/

disturbing news if true: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9556288.stm

the allegations are that the current Ethiopian government is basically repeating the mistakes of the Derg regime - using famine as a weapon against political opponents and engaging in a reign of terror against ethnic malcontents.

this is such horrible shit

Ethiopia and Eritrea are apparently reestablishing diplomatic ties in what should probably be a pretty big story? https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-eritrea/eritreas-president-to-visit-ethiopia-eritrean-minister-says-idUSKBN1K30NE

Anyone has any good articles on Abiy Ahmed?

So far I thought this was really good: https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/12/ethiopia-and-eritrea-have-a-common-enemy-abiy-ahmed-isaias-afwerki-badme-peace-tplf-eprdf/