The Somalia Challenge

An interesting column at the CS Monitor, on the growing problem in Somalia:

Just this past week, Martin Adler, a distinguished Swedish newsman and filmmaker, became the 21st journalist - by my count - murdered there in the past decade. Immediately afterward, the powerful Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which now controls the capital, Mogadishu, and much of southern Somalia, named Sheikh Hassan Aweys, an Islamist on Washington's list of terrorist suspects, as head of its de facto parliament.

Somalis have lived with anarchy since the dictatorship of Siad Barre in 1969-81. Mr. Barre forcibly and superficially unified an intricate society of somewhat Afghan-style clans and warlords. Since then, Somalia has suffered war, famine, and a breakdown of civil society. As in too many other African countries, its children often do not go to school but become child soldiers or bandits.

Humanitarian nongovernmental organizations question whether they dare return to alleviate starvation.

President George Bush has wisely convened a symposium of experts on this neglected land. His senior military men must wonder how to avoid future mistakes like those that impelled President Bill Clinton to end the humanitarian military intervention of 1995, familiar to viewers of the film "Black Hawk Down."
....
Meeting the Somali challenge should concentrate on control of the incessant arms traffic. It should consider calling in African Union or UN forces to protect aid to hungry Somalis, and lending political support to the transitional regime to transform it into a unified and strong federal system. This might reduce clan politics and encourage constructive action by neighboring African and Arab states to bring about peaceful change.