Somalia, 1992 – Libya, 2011: Are they really as different as we imagine?

It was supposed to be proof of how peace and stability have progressed in Mogadishu: For the first time, a small group of foreign journalists would be permitted a brief walk in the streets of the world's most dangerous city. The public-relations officers who polish the image of the African Union military force in Somalia (known as AMISOM) boasted that the city was now safe enough for us to stroll freely.

More related to this story

• Somali Islamists could grab tankers for attacks
• CSIS investigating U of T student suspected of ties to Somali terrorist group
• Somali rebel group bans mobile money transfers

Photos

Mogadishu today

Video

Somali pirates kill U.S. hostages

It turned out to be a tightly guarded, 500-metre hustle from the gate of the airport military base to another heavily guarded military post. We were required to wear body armour and helmets, and military vehicles rumbled alertly behind us, while the PR people urged us to hurry up. Somali civilians laughed and waved, but we were told there was no time to talk to them.
Everywhere else in Mogadishu, we travelled like the rest of the soldiers – in South African-made Casspirs, massive armoured vehicles with V-shaped hulls to withstand land mines and improvised explosive devices. Through the tanks' murky windows, the civilians were silent shadows, beyond hope of contact.
Somalia's vicious street war has changed little in the 19 years since my first visit to Mogadishu. The combatants have new names, the technology has evolved, but this city remains a shattered urban battlefield. The front lines still snake through the bombed-out shells of its once-grand villas, just as they did in 1991. The gunmen still aim their weapons from sandbagged slits, crumbling walls and ruined rooftops.
And, as he has for years, Osama bin Laden still exerts a hold here, even from his grave: Al-Shabab, the Islamic militant army that controls much of Somalia, is among the world's biggest remaining strongholds of al-Qaeda influence.
As the Canadian government sends its warplanes roaring over Tripoli in an ostensible mission to protect Libyan civilians (and continues to fight in Afghanistan), it may have forgotten the lessons of Somalia. This impoverished nation in the Horn of Africa was the prototype for “humanitarian intervention” – the concept of using military force for humanitarian ends, the same rationale that is used to justify the Libya adventure.
After the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Somalia was the first country where the West experimented with these idealistic new notions. In 1992, the United States and Canada gambled that their military muscle could protect millions of civilians from political chaos and clan fighting. It was a gamble that largely failed. Continued