The withdrawal of Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked rebels from their bases in Mogadishu and severe food shortages in southern Somalia might be linked to the same problem familiar to politicians the world over: tax collections.
The abandonment of Mogadishu by al-Shabab puts Somalia’s UN-backed government in its strongest position in years in a country where anarchy has reigned for two decades.
Somali drought victims who lived in territory controlled by al-Shabab say there was little incentive to plant surplus crops because the militants demanded so much of the harvest as a form of tax payment. Families had nothing to fall back on after drought withered this year’s crops, so they were forced to flee to the government-controlled capital.
Meyrahow Hashi, a mother of seven who fled her farm in the Lower Shabelle region, said al-Shabab demanded half of a farm’s output.
“Al-Shabab enforced the condition that you give 50 percent or your farm will be taken over,” she said. “Tax men were always coming and threatening us. Then droughts turned the farm fields into ghost lands.”
Somalis who once supported — out of fear or conviction — al-Shabab say high taxes, harsh punishments that often involved amputations and denial of food aid to famine victims, have drained much support for the insurgency.
“How can you farm if the profits will be theirs?” asked Ali Gocoso, a former farmer also living in a hunger refugee camp. “Our labor was only profiting al-Shabab. We got nothing, except a few sacks they left to us.”
Taxes were the insurgency’s main source of revenue, according to a UN report, but al-Shabab has lost control of Mogadishu’s biggest market — Bakara — and there is little left to tax in the famine-hit south.
Al-Shabab’s second-largest source of revenues, from southern ports it controls, have been unavailable since May because monsoons create seas too rough for the small ships that come.
Revolts in Arab nations might also have disrupted foreign donations, although these payments are harder to measure.
Even as the insurgents ran low on cash, foreign donors began regularly paying their enemies, Somalian government soldiers. About 8,000 have received US$100 a month since December last year. Government troops are supported by 9,000 African Union (AU) peacekeepers, whose tanks and armored vehicles outgunned al-Shabab fighters in pickup trucks mounted with machine guns.
The insurgency has been steadily losing ground in the capital since last year. The AU and the government now control all of Mogadishu. Allied militias control a strip of land along the Kenyan border, areas near Ethiopia and parts of northern Somalia near the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. The rest of southern and central Somalia is held by al-Shabab.
However, the AU and the government did not conquer the capital outright. The Islamists were still holding about a third of the city when they suddenly withdrew overnight.
Al-Shabab said it was a “tactical withdrawal” and promised devastating suicide attacks.
Those have not materialized, although car bombs have been found and defused or blown up before reaching their targets.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese