Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Questioning Bashir Goth, Editor of Awdal News

What has been the cost of conflict in Somalia?
The cost of conflict in Somalia can be summed up in one word; the death of a country. Somalia doesn’t exist as a nation state. Its name is found in the ledgers of the United Nations, it is mentioned in UN resolutions once in a while, but the country literally does not exist. It is like a fairy tale that everybody knows that happened sometime, somewhere but does not have a physical existence. Somalia is the story of a nation at war with itself for at least the past 15 years, a nation that has committed suicide. But there is that part of former Somalia which has spared itself of the lawlessness and mayhem taking place in Somalia. It is Somaliland, the former British Protectorate, which united with the Italian South after independence in 1960. Somaliland has restored its sovereignty after the collapse of the central government and has since then enjoyed peace and stability and established a democratic state to the admiration of the international community. It only lacks world recognition for its hard won achievements.. READ MORE in Strategicforesight

Monday, February 12, 2007

America Is Colonizing Us Quietly
By Bashir Goth
China is doing what the West failed to do. The West colonized Africa, robbed its natural wealth and left a spoiled continent behind. Africa traded its original lifestyle for a European one but didn’t have the means to sustain it. It was a textbook recipe for parasitism, corruption and banana republics. European colonial powers also planted the seeds of today’s civil wars in Africa by arbitrarily dividing tribes across borders.
The West viewed post-independence Africa as the white man’s burden, and as a staging ground for its Cold War wrangle with the Soviet Union. Economically speaking, the West also dismissed Africa as a bottomless charity basket. The resources of the continent were pawned for backbreaking debt. The West lined the pockets of stooge dictator regimes and used the continent to dump obsolete weapons. America initiated the Marshall Plan to revive Europe’s ruined economy after WWII at any cost. For Africa, the West thought a bowl of porridge was more than enough. MORE in Washington Post/Newsweek