Ethiopia’s two year military occupation of Somalia, intended to prop up the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the self-appointed government of Somalia, ended in failure. The troops left, much of the TFG’s security forces deserted, and the TFG was left on the brink of collapse.
But that’s just stinkin’ thinkin’, in the opinion of the African Union (AU). They called the Ethiopian pullout a major step towards peace, and to the extent that it may hasten the end of the TFG’s reign they may well be right. The AU also took the media to task for emphasizing all the negative events going on in the war-torn nation while overlooking the “positive developments.”
When the Ethiopian troops left, Islamists seized control of at least four of the six bases they vacated, though the AU claimed that this too was all according to plans. With the strongman head of the TFG Abdullahi Yusuf ousted under US pressure, the media sees a power vacuum, and it seems to be one the Islamists are all too willing to fill. If the media is missing all the progress the African Union is making, it was likely obscured by the swarms of militants who seized control of the nation’s presidential palace two days ago.