Interview of Mohamed Hassan by Grégoire Lalieu and Michel Colon Somalia had every reason to succeed : an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory ; a rare phenomenon in Africa. Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different : famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink ? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty years ? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships ? In this new chapter of our series “Understanding the Muslim World”, Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory.
...
US soldiers were indeed defeated by a Somali nationalist resistance. Since then, American policy was to keep Somalia without any real government, even to balkanize it. This is the old British strategy, already applied in many places : setting weak and divided states in order to better rule them. That is why there has been no Somali state for almost twenty years. The United States has implemented a chaos theory in order to stop any Somali reconciliation and keep the country divided.
In Sudan, due to the civilian war, Exxon has had to leave the country after having discovered oil. So isn’t letting Somalia plunge into chaos contrary to American interests, which cannot exploit the discovered oil ?
Oil exploitation is not their priority. The United States know that the reserves are there but doesn’t need it immediately. Two elements are much more important in its strategy. First, prevent the competitors from negotiating with a rich and powerful Somali state. If you consider Sudan, the comparison is interesting. The oil that the American companies discovered there thirty years ago, Sudan is selling it today to China. The same thing could happen in Somalia. When he was president of the transition government, Abdullah Yusuf went to China although he was supported by the United States. US mass media had strongly criticized that visit. The fact is that United States have no guarantee on that point : if a Somali government is established tomorrow, whatever is its political color, it could probably adopt a strategy independent of United States and trade with China. Western imperialists do not want a strong and unified Somali state. The second goal pursued by this chaos theory is linked to the geographical location of Somalia, which is strategic for both European and American imperialists.
http://www.michelcollon.info/Somalia-How-Colonial-Powers-drove.html?lang=fr