France offers to protect shipping off Somalia from piracy

Somalia is in a free fall. That poor country has been in a process of disintegration for sixteen eyars now, since the toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, and no longer exists in any meaningful sense. Yes, there is a government —if “government” is the correct term — carrying the title of “Transitional Federal Government of Somalia,” but as Jeffrey Gettleman reports in today’s New York Times, this government controls — if “controls” is the correct term — but “a handful of heavily fortified buildings in Mogadishu.” Gettleman begins his moving story with this sentence: “The instant the sack of grain fell off the truck and thumped down on the ground, it was enveloped in a whirl of dust, fists and knees.” Somalians are so poor and so straved, that soon a couple of men pulled knives from their belts, and one pulled a gun. From somewhere “three heavily armed militiamen in wraparound sunglasses surrounded [the man with the gun]. Facing superior firepower, the pistol-wielder smiled, shook his head and tucked his gun back into his waistband. The sack of grain was then tossed back on the truck, which sputtered on, like most of this country.”

Since it is difficult to make a living in Somalia, many former soldiers and policemen turned to pircay — hijacking ships and holding them for ransom. Now, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said that his country was prepared to send a warship off Somalia to protect delivery of international food aid to beleaguered Somalis from attacks by pirates. “France is prepared to send a warship to protect humanitarian supplies,” he told reporters after chairing a Security Council on Africa. “France stands ready to ensure security for the assistance provided by the World Food Program in Somalia for a period of two months using naval military resources,” the French leader told the fifteen-member Council. “I call on all those who wish to do so to join this initiative”.

Last fall Somalia’s Islamist movement, supported by al Queda and neighboring Eritrea, tried to take over the capital but was was defeated in January after Ethiopia, with the support of the united States, intervened in the war. Eritrea’s continued support of the Islamist insurgency has raised the stakes in this conflict, and U.S. covert operations in Somalia may soon extend to Eritrea itself in an effort to convince that country’s government that trying to meddle in Somalian internal affairs is costly.