With special reference to the latest developments in Somalia ABUL KALAM analyses the oft-repeated question: why do the Muslims world over hate the US policies.
US administration unashamedly goes on repeating and the western media pretend to duplicate the rhetorical question: Why do the Muslims hate us (the West) when we are bringing them freedom and democracy.
How the situation in Somalia has unravelled in the last week provides a good insight. The Muslims carve out a political entity where they may live by their own values free from western corrupt culture and capitalist exploitation. For almost two decades, the country was ravaged by clan wars, warlords, and famine. Islamic courts restored peace, drove the warlords to a corner only where Ethiopian troops could protect them from popular anger.
The Islamists – known as the Union of Islamic Courts – brought a degree of stability to large areas of the formerly lawless country. But the US was afraid that the Islamists will gather strength and pose a threat to its interest not only in the Horn of Africa but to the despotic rulers around.
The US blamed the Islamic Court for harbouring Al-Qaeda ideology. American military experts trained the Ethiopian army, supplied the ammunitions, prepared the attack plan, and the US Navy provided the logistical support, including the surveillance.
The US sponsored transitional government in Baidoa protected by the Ethiopians accused the Islamists of al-Qaeda links. A two-week advance by Ethiopian troops swept the Islamist militias from areas they had controlled for six months.
The rag tag Somali fighters were no match and they decided to retreat to save the civilians from annihilation. The US administration pressured Kenya to deploy its forces on the Somali border to cut off the escape route for a few hundred hardcore Islamists who were not ready to give up. US has deployed its naval forces off the Somali coast to prevent leaders of defeated Islamist militias escaping.
‘Security Vetting’
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack confirmed the deployment of navy ships.
“We would be concerned that no leaders who were members of the Islamic Courts which have ties to terrorist organisations including al-Qaeda are allowed to flee and leave Somalia,” he said.
Kenya has deployed tanks and helicopters on its border, as militias fleeing south clashed near the border with Somali and Ethiopian troops.
Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju told a news conference that the border was closed, but government spokesman Alfred Mutua later told that legitimate refugees were being allowed entry. “We are conducting very thorough and rigorous security vetting to ensure that we don’t get people coming in carrying weapons, people coming in who are Islamists,” he said.
Mr Mutua denied reports that 600 Somali refugees, mainly women and children, had been deported from the border transit camp at Liboi.
On January 3, Ethiopian and Somali government forces captured the border town of Doble, one of the final places held by the Islamist militias. Four thousand refugees were reported to be stranded in the area. Between 600 and 700 militia fighters fled the town.
If the US was serious about bringing freedom and democracy to Somalia it would have backed the Islamic Court. But the US support comes with total surrender of its protectorates and the Islamists from Somalia to Palestine are unwilling to give up their freedom to choose Islamic values to govern their societies. The unrest in the Muslim lands is costing thousands of lives. But the US cares the least. Human rights violations come in hand only when Iran closes a newspaper or Hamas supporters fire harmlessly towards the Israeli tanks and armoured cars attacking civilians.
The Muslims hate the US policies that have imposed squandering dictators over them. The US has the blood of millions of Muslims on its hand from the day CIA overthrew Mosaddeq to Afghanistan war against the Soviet Union, Iraq-Iran war when the US backed Saddam. The two Iraq wars cost the US no more than 3-4 thousand US lives but millions of Muslims have lost their lives with many more displaced by single-minded pursuit of the US hegemony. Is it not enough to make the Muslims (and everyone who loves humanistic ideals of freedom and equality all over the world) hate the US and its western backers?¨