Browsing by Author "Osondu, Chukudwi Solomon."

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The horn of Africa and international terrorism : the predisposing operational environment of Somalia.
(2008) Osondu, Chukudwi Solomon.; Okeke-Uzodike, Nwabufo Ikechukwu.
A fundamental driving factor to contemporary international terrorism is the role of religion. Since the 1980s, there have been not only a rise in the number of Islamist terrorist incidents but also of a more globalized and intense dimension. The casualties have risen to unprecedented levels. Africa, and the Horn of Africa, in particular, has experienced its fair share of terrorist activities. For instance, in December 1980 terrorists sympathetic to the PLO bombed the Norfolk Hotel, owned by an Israeli, in Nairobi, Kenya, killing sixteen people and injuring over a hundred. The 7 August 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, were more deadly: 240 Kenyans, 11 Tanzanians and 12 Americans died, with over 5,000 Kenyans and 86 Tanzanians injured. There was yet another terrorist attack on another Israeli-owned hotel in Mombassa and an attempt on a passenger plane on the runway at the Mombassa International Airport, Kenya. Both incidents happened in November 2002. Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the 1998 and 2002 attacks. With rising terrorism in the Horn of Africa and the reality of the Somali state failure, there is a growing concern that the Somali environment is supporting terrorist activities in the region. The activities of the al-Itihad al-Islamiya (AIAI) and later the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the Somali Islamist fundamentalist organizations, with their feared international connections and the security implications, are of concern not only to the region but also to global security monitors. There is not much debate regarding the level of collapse of the Somali state and the possible security implications of the territory as a congenial terrorist safe haven. Most experts have presented Somalia as a clear example of a completely failed state. Rotberg (2002:131) describes Somalia as “the model of a collapsed state: a geographical expression only, with borders but with no effective way to exert authority within those borders". Jhazbhay (2003: 77) quoted Ali Mazrui as saying that "the situation in Somalia now is a culture of rules without rulers, a stateless society‟. Menkhaus (2003: 27) has singled out protracted and complete state collapse, protracted armed conflict and lawlessness as aptly representing the Somali situation. “Somalia‟s inability to pull together even the most minimalist fig-leaf of a central administration over the course of twelve years places the country in a class by itself.
War and alliances : the transformative roles of external actors in the Somali conflict.
(2015) Osondu, Chukudwi Solomon.; Okeke-Uzodike, Nwabufo Ikechukwu.
The Somali conflict is not completely driven by internal factors and not prosecuted entirely by internal actors. Significant involvements, interventions and varying forms of alliances of external and internal actors combined to escalate and sustain the conflict at one time or another. Much as the conflict has festered on domestic factors, including the seeming irreconcilable goals of the internal actors, the activities of the external actors in pursuit of their divergent interests have proven to be a major driving factor in the conflict. The major point of departure in the Somali conflict has been the alignment of internal actor to external actor in the conflict. This brought more complexities to the conflict as each external actor brought its independent agenda into the conflict. The alliances between the Somali moderate/conservative internal actors, Ethiopia and the United States have remained at counterpoint to the alliance between the radical Islamists inside Somalia, Eritrea and international Islamist network operating within and outside the Horn of Africa and the East African region. The dynamics of the Somali conflict have greatly been defined by the interests, actions and responses of the external actors whose positions on the conflict tend to dictate the behaviour and/or posturing of their internal allies and opponents alike in Somalia. Using the index of battle related deaths, quantity of weapons purchases and the internal displacements of people inside Somalia at specific periods in the Somali conflict clearly shows a correlation between the period of mobilization and high intensity conflict with periods when assistance funneled to the internal warring factions by external actors are at their peak. The competing divergent interests of the external actors in Somalia have equally impeded all the peace processes on Somalia with each of the two major domestic alliance partners always postured to antagonize any peace process which results in the enthronement of a government for Somalia headed by the opposing group. Wheeling Somalia out of the present conflict is still possible. An insistence on a strong centralist arrangement will continue to bear negatively on the attempts at ending the conflict and rebuilding the Somali society. A concerted support and stabilization of the emerging organic administrative entities inside Somalia would be a necessary step. These would in turn become the building blocks for a new Somali state in which the center is made less attractive and, thus, less competitive.