Could this be evidence of confidence in the TFG?
In one day, moneychangers and street vendors said the Somali shilling shot up to 10,000 per dollar from 14,000 on Thursday.
posted by Steve | 10:23 AM
9 Comments:
My guess is that the strengthening of the somali shilling must be seen in relation to the extreme uncertainty of recent days.
I think it's also very possible that a foreign government intervened on the currency market in order to raise the shilling, so that the foreign press would report on it as evidence of confidence in the TFG.
You may very well be right. Any intervention must be made in cash money, so what they have done is in that case that they have flooded the market with US dollar notes.
The fanatastic thing about the Ethioian intervention is that it has left Mogadishu in a complete power vacuum where for example the trade with drugs is open again.
Very quickly security comapanies, militias and gangster syndicates will fill the power vacuum.
I have also found out that the popoulation is by no standards disarmed. My hope is that security will be provided by local militias and that neither the UIC nor the TFG will be able to control the country. It maight also be the case that the khat prohibition made ethiopian exporters loose so much money that this is one reason behind the ethiopian intervention.
It is great that the UIC is not controling people anymore, but hopefully no others will be able to gain control of the country.
According to a swedish newspaper the somali premier minister has given the people of Mogadishu three days to "disarm themselves" or something like that.
Still it is obvious that they will need ethipian support to achieve this.
My hope is that the TFG will be unable to restore control of the country and that after some time the absence of law and order will be filled with small local militias and other providers of security.
I think the main reason that the foreign powers invaded has to do with public relations and the legitimacy of states as we know them. They couldn't stand the embarrassment of a non-bureaucratic and broad-based type of government (the UIC) succeeding in Mogadishu in the absence of a state while the foreign-backed "government" sat powerless in Baidoa with no reason to continue existing. Now they've achieved a public relations victory (probably just a short-term one) because, depending on how events play out, journalists will be writing about either (1) how the conditions in Somalia have been improving ever since the "government" was moved to Mogadishu, or (2) a typical civil war situation, with two groups vying for control of the "levers of power." Casual readers are less likely now to find out that no such levers exist and the country is in fact politically very divided and complex.
The invasion also has rhetorical value for the War on Terror.
I agree that the Ethiopian government probably also benefits from the lifting of the ban on khat.
The TFG has already announced that the population of Mogadishu will be disarmed forcefully after three days if the do not agree voluntarily.
One interesting aspect is of course if people will be allowed to carry smaller guns, but with superior military force they can undoubtebly tax imports and exports and they will also receive foreign aid.
But I doubt that the public would accept a ban on smaller guns and it seems less likeky that they will be able to inroduce direct taxation.
Still one opportunity is that there will be a civil war and that Ethiopia will withdraw from the country.
Time will tell, but this does not look good. A completely free and open market for all kinds of guns and weapons would make it impossible to introduce a centralized government and Somalia would remain in a state of market anarchy without moral laws imposed by islamists.
At the moment Mogadishu is in more or less perfect anarchy.
According to www.shabelle.com people have until now voluntarily surrendered 11 AK 47 to the TFG.
It seems not very likely that the TFG will be successful in disarming people if the result is so poor.
And if people stay armed their real opportunities to tax people will be limited.
So typical of Somalia: you hand over your gun as you join an armed group, and then they issue you...a gun. I wonder if the second gun is better than the first one, or maybe it's the same gun.
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