Ethiopia in Somalia: the cost-benefit anaysis of intervention

By Kassahun Addis

When is Ethiopia leaving Somalia? No one knows for sure, neither the Ethiopian government nor the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. However,one can anlayse the costs and benefits of Ethiopia’s military intervention and stay in Somalia. It is in the tradition of politics that leaders and social scientists do a calculus of costs and benefits of acts and decisions affecting the lives of a given people. So, let’s embark on an amaeteurish analysis of the cost incurred and the benefits garnered out of Ethipia’s intervention and lengthened stay in Somalia.

Before doing the calculus, it should be immensely clear that it is not done based on the “Bird’s View.” What is the cost for Ethiopia may be benefit for Somalia and the vice versa because there is too little positive interdependence in the region, but mutual destabilization and destruction.
To start with costs, military adventurism costs the country dear in terms of human lives and hard currency. Ethiopian soldiers have been killed and wounded in the course of the fighting that saw the ousting of Islamists from Mogadishu. And because a single peaceful 24 Hours, in Somalia, is a rarity tantamount to luxury far from the life of a common Somali man, there are always attacks on the Ethiopian bases and army personnels across Somalia. And this phenomena adds to the casuality tolls which, according to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, doesn’t reach the four digit mark so far.

Second to the cost of human (Ethiopian) lives is the image Ethiopia is sending to Somalis and the Islamic world. Because of the act of intervention, the wrong image that Ethiopia is primarily a Christian nation amidst an ocean of muslims is unnecessarily reinforced. The bad thing is that in politics what matters most is perception, regardless of the aptness or excess of the perception. It is a cost that may have dire consquence not only for this generation, but also for the coming ones. I remember a young Somali woman telling me how Ethiopians seized the opportune moment of state failure to wreak vengeance and belittle Somalians in a bid to make Somalis feel inferior and helpless. The recent intervention is not helping commoners in the Islamic world forget the old notion of viewing Ethiopia as a land of Christians only.
The outright and poorly justified alliance with the “international war on terrorism” put the country in the targets’ list of frustrated [by US unilateralism and cultural imperialism] muslims.

Yet another cost is the financial burden. Ethipian taxpayers paid their money to the government for the maintenance of peace and stability within the country. It is very difficult to illustrate the indirect nexus and/or absurdity between the stability of Somalia and the stability of Ethiopia for the average taxpayer. As offficials in Addis Ababa have noted lately, Ethiopioa is coming to the status where by the the economy can no longer support a war hundreds of kilometers away from home.

Now the benefits. At this point, I have a belief that the profits of the intervention undertaking relates slightly more to temporary regime security than long lasting state security. The regime has got rid of the oppostion political forces that were about to use the institution of UIC in vast lands of Somalia to the end of launching an attack in that direction
The incumbent was also able to divert the attention of the domestic and international public from the “unright politics” that reigns in the country. The government has succeeded not only in diverting the attention of the international community, but also managed to win their trust using another card, ally of the west, when the former card, champion of democracy, expired; and all this could have been difficult with out the military adventurism in Somalia. It is because of this project of “win their trust by other means” that the leaders in Addis have got some relief from the pressure exerted on them following the controversial May 2005 elections.
Ethiopia has also re-emerged hegemonious out of the intervention as it showed the neighbouring countries, in clear terms and actions, that it can directly meddle with their internal business. The country has also achieved military victory in one of the many fronts in which Eritrea is the belligerent.
It takes time before one can do comrehensive cost-benefit analysis of the adventurism. Time has, yet, to tell us the qualitative and quantitative outlay and trophy Ethiopia will carry and enjoy.

A final note: the more Ethiopia stays in Somalia, the more the country incurs cost and the less it can make out of the supposed benefits of intervention. •