Genocide Toll in Somalia Revised Upward | Black Agenda Report

Genocide Toll in Somalia Revised Upward

01 May 2013

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

A quarter million Somalis died in the great drought of 2011, according to a new report. “The death toll represents an American crime against humanity; just one chapter in an ongoing genocide that began in December, 2006.”

Genocide Toll in Somalia Revised Upward

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by executive editor Glen Ford

“The Americans turned to mass starvation as a weapon of war.”

A new study shows that twice as many people died in 2011, in Somalia, than previously reported. The British government had estimated that between 50,000 and 100,000 Somalis succumbed to hunger during the great drought, but the new study concludes that 260,000 died, half of them under the age of six.

As usual, corporate media coverage of the mass starvation puts the blame on the Shabaab fighters who have been resisting the United States and its allies’ war against the Somali people when, in fact, the death toll represents an American crime against humanity; just one chapter in an ongoing genocide that began in December, 2006. That’s when the U.S. and Ethiopia invaded Somalia to overthrow a broad-based Islamic Courts government that had defeated warlords supported by the United States. The savage assault from air, land and sea created what UN observers described as “the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.” It was a bloodbath engineered in George Bush’s Washington, and which has continued under President Obama.

The initial cause of the holocaust was not drought, but the savage slaughter of civilians by the invading Ethiopians and the resultant collapse of Somali agriculture. Mogadishu, the capital city, was put under a siege that would last for half a decade, while civilians were chased across the countryside by Ethiopian armor and bombed by U.S. aircraft. The United Nations Children’s Fund representative for Somalia spoke of the “dirtiness” of a conflict in which “children are the real target.”

Nevertheless, in the first years the war did not go well for Washington, whose Ethiopian allies who were forced to withdraw from much of the country after heavy losses. The Americans then turned to mass starvation as a weapon of war – a calculated act of genocide.

“The U.S. tried to break the resistance by starving out the people.”

By late 2009, the U.S. began withholding food aid to the humanitarian relief agencies on which half of Somalis in the south and central parts of the country depended for survival, endangering three million people. The main sources of food were warehouses under U.S. control in neighboring Kenya, but the Americans drastically restricted the flow, complaining that too much food was going to Shabaab fighters. In effect, the U.S. tried to break the resistance by starving out the people – a genocide by any legal definition. By early 2011, the worst drought in decades was gripping the region, adding a natural layer of disaster to the manmade catastrophe that had begun in late 2006.

The scale of the horror was tremendous, made worse by the escalation of war and the entrance of Kenya into the carnage as an American client. Yet, the British claimed that only 50,000 to 100,000 died, and the United States declined to produce any official estimate. Finally, six and a half years after the U.S. plunged Somalia into hell, international officials are admitting that at least a quarter of a million people perished during just one period of the U.S.-backed invasion – all of them on President Obama’s watch.

The United States is an infernal killing machine, no matter the color of the criminal in the White House.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

listen

http://traffic.libsyn.com/blackagendareport/20130501_gf_SomaliaDrought.mp3

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Laith Marouf and the Struggle to Defend Palestine
23 Sep 2022
Laith Marouf is Policy Consultant with the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) in Montreal and a long-time defender of Palestine and the rights of Palestinian people. He has been publicly attacked…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
The Prosecution of Abuse Survivor Tracy McCarter
23 Sep 2022
Samah Sisay is an attorney and an organizer with the group Survived and Punished, which advocates for the rights of criminalized survivors. She joins us from New York City to discuss the case of…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Felony Convictions and Voting Rights
23 Sep 2022
Across the United States, people with past felony convictions may have severely restricted access to the franchise and in some cases may be denied the right to vote forever. Blair Bowie is senior…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Asylum, Migration and U.S. Foreign Policy
21 Sep 2022
Immigration rules are often determined by U.S. foreign policy. Citizens of nations under U.S. attack, such as Venezuela, are made eligible for asylum. Haitians suffer under U.S. dictates but are…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
MANIFESTO: The Anti-Racist Manifesto of Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, 2020
21 Sep 2022
The Anti-Racist Manifesto of Puerto Rico’s Colectiva Feminista en Construcción (La Cole) outlines a radical solution to capitalism, colonialism, and climate change.