The US authorization of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia represents the crudest expression of the banality of evil embodied in the neocolonial imperative of ‘liberal imperialism’. Out of all the horrific crimes committed by the Ethiopia forces in Somalia, the most under reported by the outside media, is the mass rape of Somali women by Tigre soldiers. By financing this illegal and immoral war of aggression the Bush administration and the international community are facilitating widespread rape, tortures, kidnappings and renditions of thousands of Somali refugees and internally displaced persons, mass killing of civilians, looting and generalized anarchy in Somalia under the grip of the unholy trinity of Zinawi’s Tigre army, the warlords of the transitional federal government in Somalia and the US.
Make no mistake. Those who are currently supporting the world regime of Gedi and Abdullahi Yusuf and their mercenary army of Meles Zinawi, financially, politically or both, are supporting the sexual violence against Somali women in the hands of Tigre soldiers, among other hideous crimes against humanity. The current mass rape of Somali women by the Zinawi’s Tigre soldiers is a direct result of Zinawi’s invasion of Somalia. As a result, the mass rape of Somali women is one of the immediate outcomes of George W. Bush’s sponsorship of Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia. As evidence by the Bush administration’s widespread use of sexual humiliation against Arab male prisoners at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, the current systemic rape of Somali women by Zinawi’s Tigre soldiers is being deployed as a weapon of war designed to demoralize and humiliate the Muslim population of Somalia so break down their will to resist the occupation forces in their land.
The following story is a personal account of 37 year old Suuban Maalin and mother of eight children, including six months old baby whom she was still breastfeeding, when she was raped by two Ethiopian soldiers in way to the market. In March 2007, Suuban Maalin was raped repeatedly and beaten by two Ethiopian soldiers at gunpoint. After they were done with her, they told her to go and never look back and never tell anybody what happened to her. Suuban Maalin went home and told her husband what had happen. Her husband took her to the nearest hospital. The medical authorities there were able to corroborate Subaan Maalin’s personals story. It is pertinent to note that her husband was standing beside here side when she told her horrific experience to the media.
“Last Saturday, as I was driving my donkey-cart loaded with grass near Elirfid settlement, two Ethiopians armed with AK 47 came straight at me suddenly after they come out of a detour. They stopped me under gunpoint and forcibly held me to the ground and then everything went against my willing” said Suuban, while weeping. Suuban said the Ethiopian soldiers did everything to her, including rape and beatings. “After they were done with me, they told me to walk off and not to look back, threatening they will kill me if I do glance back to take a good look at them,” Suuban said. Ahmed Ali Hassan, Husband of Suuban also spoke to the newsmen said, “My wife was raped and tortured by Ethiopian soldiers so that I am calling on everyone who can help to rush to our help”[2]
The use of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women is not limited to the current situation in Somalia. Sexual violence against women works within patriarchal norms in all male dominated societies. In the current war against terror, Bush administration’s and neocons’s use of rape and other forms of sexual humiliation against Muslim women and men is predicated on the false belief of unique Muslim moral aversion to sexual humiliation. Thus, neocons believe, without evidence, that sexual humiliation could be used to break down resistance of Muslims to western domination. This false belief is the basis of the widespread use of sexual torture by the US as interrogation tool on terror suspects at many known and unknown US rendition and terror prisons around the world.
While I cannot speak other Muslim society’s view on sexual humiliation, Somali society, which is the Muslim culture am most familiar with, while rape is considered a heinous crime, the victims of rape are considered blameless and do not face further humiliations by their society. Thus, no shame will come to Suuban Maalin and other victims raped by occupying Tigre army in Somalia. This is one of the reasons why rape victims are coming out and telling their stories to the media in the current Tigre occupied Somalia. However unless they are stopped, there are greater potential that more Somali women and young girls may be still sexually violated for there are now over 400,000 internally displaced refugees(IDPS) in Somalia and majority of them are women and young girls.There is also the potential for spreading sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS to these vulnerable hundreds of thousands of internally displaced population since Ethiopia has the second highest rate of HIV/AIDS infection in Africa, second only to South Africa. Published medical literature shows that the Ethiopia’s police and the members of the armed forces have the highest rate of HIV/AIDS incidents in Ethiopia.
“Ethiopia faces a mixed epidemic among sub-populations and geographic areas, with an estimated overall HIV prevalence rate between 0.9 and 2.5 percent among adults ages 15 to 49.1 While previous estimates were higher, expansion of surveillance data and improved analyses resulted in significantly lower estimates for 2005. Based on antenatal clinic surveillance data, HIV prevalence has declined to about 10.1 percent in urban areas and has stabilized to an estimated 1.8 percent in rural areas. The primary mode of HIV transmission in Ethiopia is heterosexual contact. Young women are more vulnerable to infection than young men; urban women are three times as likely to be infected as urban men, although in rural areas the difference between genders is negligible. Populations at higher risk for HIV infection include people in prostitution, police officers and members of the military.”[3]
Currently, there are over 30,000-50,000 Tigre[ Ethiopian] soldiers in Somalia. They are armed, dangerous and menacing: and the Somali population has very little effective power to defend themselves against them. There are is still ongoing armed struggle against the Tigre occupation of Somalia. As a result, the presence of Ethiopia’s troops and concomitant lack of security will continue to expose grave and present danger to ordinary citizenry of Somali women and girls in particular. So, far, despite unleashing death and destruction on ordinary Somalis, the Somali people are resisting the foreign armies and the thuggish Somalia warlords.
The warlord regime of the transitional federal government has demonstrated its failure to protect the citizens of Somalia. As a result, majority of Somalis see the TFG as an extension of the Ethiopian occupation forces. Somali women have also been the victims of kidnapping, extraordinary renditions and torture in the hands of the Ethiopian regime, agents of the government of Kenyan in collaboration with CIA agents operating inside the Horn of Africa.Fatma Ahmed Chande, 25, who spent three months in detention Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia after being caught up in the war on terror.
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