Somali Govt to Last for Weeks

Well actually the headline is “Ethiopian army to stay in Somalia for weeks” — but those of us who have paid attention to Somalia over the past few years know what that really means in relation to what the UN has been insisting is Somalia’s government. This “government” consisted of a gaggle of warlords and former communist regime bureaucrats holed up in a Nairobi Hilton — and who were only finally forced to return to Somalia when the hotel finally evicted them out for nonpayment. Even then a few of them just holed themselves up in the southern town of Jowhar, where they were nothing more glamorous than internationally-recognized version of the same thugs that lord over nearly every city in Somalia.

Now that the Ethiopian Army has come to their rescue, the commies and warlords have seized control of the important parts of the country and are now attempting to assert their collective will — naturally the first thing they do is order a complete disarmament of the entire city without exception.

“Everybody will be disarmed. There will be no sacred cows,” Information Minister Ali Jama Jangali said.

But then tellingly, and not surprisingly, the reporter feels the need to mention:

However, at a collection point seen by Reuters, not one gun had been handed in by midday.

And this is with Ethiopian backup. There is no evidence that many Mogadishans are rooting for the so-called government, at least not one made up of these butchers and gangsters and thieves. The business community — allowed to flourish over the last 15 years in near-total freedom, at least compared to the rest of Africa — will have a lot of demands that will need to be met if the government is to have anything of value left off which to survive.

So time will prove me right or wrong but I’m willing to bet that within hours of the Ethiopians heading home the technicals will come a-raiding, and with the support of various Somali civilian factions will butcher and/or expel the self-proclaimed government from the country yet again, as they did in 1991.