Darfur distracts from Somalia’s needs

by Andrew Traverse
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
The worst humanitarian crisis might not be unraveling in Darfur, but on a 20-mile strip in Somalia. The road between the market town of Afgooye and the war-torn capital of Mogadishu is brimming with suffering and anguish, with 200,000 displaced people living in camps that lack the proper amount of food. Children there are so malnourished they can’t even swallow. But where is the help? It’s stuck in Sudan.

According to a recent article in The New York Times, top United Nations officials who specialize in Somalia say the country has higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur, which is often regarded as the most pressing crisis by the media.

The urban combat in Mogadishu is endless. Civilians have stuffed themselves onto the Afgooye road to avoid fighting between an unpopular transitional government, which was actually installed with partial American aid in December of last year and Islamic extremists. The people in Mogadishu are hungry, sick and dying. Yet too few aid organizations are brave enough to enter the area to help them. These organizations simply do not have the capacity to reach all of the people that are suffering.

Ever since the incident in Mogadishu in 1993, where Somali militiamen shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, Somalia has been a no-go zone. That is until 2006, when an extreme Islamic faction took control of most of the country. This faction was popular until it declared a holy war on Ethiopia and provoked a devastating Ethiopian reaction. Ethiopian troops were fed satellite imagery, courtesy of the U.S. military, while U.S. planes bombed fleeing extremists.

This operation was regarded as an anti-terrorist success. Unfortunately, when that Islamic faction was in control, the country was in much better shape. And we have yet again another instance of U.S. intervention gone poorly.

Also, since 1993, when the U.S., along with much of the world, gave the cold shoulder to Somalia, the situation in this country has been overshadowed by Darfur, which has been given a multitude of press by the media. A movie, “Darfur Now,” and an entire album, “Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur,” have even been dedicated to the cause, with the likes of George Clooney and Don Cheadle leading the way. Now, I am not trying to undermine the 200,000 deaths that have occurred in Darfur, but perhaps what the media portrays as the largest humanitarian crisis center in Africa is not that at all.

Let’s compare the situation in the two countries. Darfur has a billion-dollar aid operation and over 10,000 aid workers, whereas Somalia receives less than $200 million in aid and nothing but empty promises from the African Union. The Union promised 8,000 aid workers to Somalia, but because of the misguided focus on giving Darfur a 26,000-strong aid force, only 1,600 Ugandans have arrived to help solve the crisis.

Piracy dominates the seas near Somalia, blockading any aid and hijacking ships. Militant groups, the government’s greatest rivals, inflate travel taxes as high as $400 per truck. The government itself lacks direction — it imprisoned a United Nations official who was providing aid because it thought he was conspiring with terrorists. The official has since been released.

Is it really the Somali government’s fault that it is facing these problems? While some may say yes, consider this: Its situation has included floods, droughts, locusts, suicide bombers, roadside bombs and near-daily assassinations. In areas hit the hardest by plagues, the malnutrition rate is 19 percent, compared with approximately 13 percent in Darfur — 15 percent is considered the emergency level. Most Western diplomats believe that this government will fail.

How encouraging could that be, especially knowing that 13 governments have failed before them? While it’s an incredibly hard decision to put one humanitarian crisis over another, the timeline for Somalia is reason enough. After seeing what inaction results in by way of the genocide in Darfur, allowing Somalia to descend into a similar catrastrophic set of circumstances is unacceptable. If we can prevent Somalia from becoming the next Darfur, then it should be at the top of our priorities in the region.

As great as it is to take up a cause like the one for Darfur, how can we as one of the greatest nations in the world ignore a problem that has become so urgent like the one Somalia? Where is the “Somalia Now” movie? Where is the Amnesty International follow-up album that helps feed Somali children? Where are the George Clooneys, Don Cheadles and Arnold Schwarzeneggers in Mogadishu? More importantly, where are all of the humanitarians that were promised to this country, and when is Somalia going to take priority over the media-inflated Darfur?

Andrew Traverse (traverse@wisc.edu) is a freshman majoring in business.