August 14, 2007:
The fighting
in Mogadishu now pits the native Hawiye clan militia, and its allied clans,
against the outside clan militias representing the Transitional Government, and
their Ethiopian allies. The government is forcing the hostile populations to
flee the city. The Hawiye clan has numbers, but lacks the firepower of the
Ethiopians and government irregulars. The Hawiye clan gunmen have been
unsuccessful trying to raid police stations and army camps. In response, the
government troops go attack neighborhoods the raiders came from (or were
believed to have come from), forcing the civilians to flee the city. The plan
here is to drive out the hostile (willing to fight) elements, and then exploit
the more docile segments of the population.
The government continues to
host meetings between clan elders and chiefs, to try and broker some kind of
peace. But in Somali politics, there's a tendency to downplay give and
concentrate on take. Compromise is seen as a temporary setback. And everyone
has guns, and is ready to use them. While international media and NGOs bemoan
this sorry situation, no one is willing to step up and try and stop it. That
was attempted in the early 1990s, and no one is eager to try it again. But
complaining about Somalia is pretty safe, so there is plenty of that.