Why Somalia Ain't No Haiti

January 15, 2007


A "perpetual" peacekeeping operation may work in Haiti, where the peacekeepers essentially are serving as a police force intended to keep the wilder criminal elements out of political power, but it's doubtful it would work in Somalia.

There are no clans or tribes ( with significant militia forces on call) in
Haiti. In Somalia, there are dozens of well armed clan militias, and past attempts to disarm the clans have all failed. It would be well to examine that history. For thousands of years, Somalia consisted of trading ports along the coast, each with large Arab and Indian minorities, and often controlled by those foreigners, who owned the trading organizations. The interior was populated by dozens of clans. The term "tribe" doesn't really apply, because all these people were of one ethnic group, what we know of as Somalis. These were an independent and feisty people, who depended on their weapons more than anything else. Somali didn't even have a written form until the 1970s. Before that, if you wanted to be literate, you usually did it in Arabic.

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