Al-Shabaab's deadly strike

It was only a matter of time.

Some 74 innocent people are now dead in the Ugandan capital of Kampala in the wake of two vicious suicide bombing attacks by the al-Shabaab militia, which controls almost all of southern Somalia.

This is the kind of deadly disaster that I feared would happen in my forthcoming book, Pirate State: Inside Somalia's Terrorism at Sea. Sadly, it won't be the last.

Although Pirate State is ostensibly about Somalia's pirate horde, the pirates and the al-Shabaab militia have emerged from the smoldering chaos that has gripped Somalia for the past two decades.

Remember Black Hawk Down? Al-Shabaab does. But they're not waiting for another invasion of U.S. marines. They've exported their war. Expect it to get worse.

That al-Shabaab attacked two locations in Kampala, Uganda, is no surprise. Uganda provides the bulk of the African Union's 4,000 or so troops now hunkered down in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

These Ugandan soldiers, accompanied by a much smaller contingent of soldiers from Burundi, are all that prevents a complete take-over of southern Somalia by the fundamentalist al-Shabaab militia.

The Ugandan soldiers are kept alive by a life-line of military and logistical support from the U.S. and protect the fragile and pro-western Transitional Federal Government that is holed up in corner of Mogadishu.

This is not the first time that Uganda has been hit by al-Shabaab. On September 17, 2009, al-Shabaab militants, some of whom were reportedly American converts, drove a couple of stolen UN vehicles into the Ugandan's compound and detonated themselves, killing more than 20 people.

Because of the notorious Black Hawk Down debacle, the U.S. has been more than happy to let the Ugandans hold out as the final bulwark of defence for the teetering transitional government.

But clearly there is a price to pay, while Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni relishes his role as the pro-western posterboy for the few African governments that still claim to be "democratic."

After altering the constitution to allow himself unlimited terms, Museveni faces yet another re-election bid in early 2012. Uganda's presence in Somalia has already been challenged, and this bloody tragedy will certainly rouse Museveni's opposition.

The suicide bombing at the private club in Kampala where hundreds had gathered to watch the World Cup final only underscores al-Shabaab's fundamentalist doctrine, which has forbidden such entertainment as anti-Islam.

The attack on an Ethiopian restaurant was also a reprisal, since Ethiopian forces, with U.S. help, defeated the Islamic Courts Union and occupied much of southern Somalia for a couple of years after.

Al-Shabaab, which means "the youth," grew out of the former Islamic Courts Union, which controlled southern Somalia for most of 2006 and at the time was the only law and order the country had known in 15 years.

Al-Shabaab was the ICU's militia. When the ICU was defeated in the opening weeks of 2007, the al-Shabaab scattered, licked its wounds, and regrouped.

Despite the defeat, the militia had established strong ties with the militant and deeply fundamentalist Islamic network that grips the region, including Yemen, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Using suspected links with the Somali pirate clans that control the coasts, al-Shabaab has been supplied and staffed by a cadre of seasoned militants who serve as instructors and mentors for the al-Shabaab recruits.

These recruits have included disenchanted American converts, some from the Minneapolis area, but also many from Nairobi, Kenya's sprawling Somali neighborhoods.

I spoke at length with a former al-Shabaab soldier in September of last year. The man had volunteered, been trained by al-Qaeda- and Taliban-linked commanders, then fought for more than a year against the Ugandans in Mogadishu and other towns in Somalia.

Seeing the futility of the killing, he had left, and was on the run in Kenya, convinced that al-Shabaab agents, bent on revenge, would soon kill him.

He told me that al-Shabaab militants permeated Kenyan society and it was only a matter of time before the would begin to strike.

At the time, it was widely rumored that Kenyan authorities has barely been able to foil an al-Shabaab plot to strike hotels in downtown Nairobi during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit in August 2009.

The attack on Uganda shows that al-Shabaab has a long reach that extends through Kenya, Uganda's strongest ally and neighbor. Is Burundi next? Or is Kenya?

Good governance in Africa?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's diplomatic swing through Africa comes on the heels of President Barack Obama's recent trip in which he chastised Africa and African leaders for their culture of corruption.

That, he said, was one of the major stumbling blocks for all of Africa, and Clinton is highlighting these issues as she visits seven countries in 10 days.

Her fist stop was in Kenya, which is unable to set up a tribunal that will explore and hopefully punish those who were behind the ethnic violence around its last election that left about 1,300 people dead.

While Kenya officially welcomed Clinton, the country's top leader commented that what he didn't needed from Clinton was a lecture on good governance. Apparently Obama's stinging criticism had hit home.

The reason the Kenya tribunal will never be formed is that those who are responsible for the violence are among the inner circles of the government, and shining a light on what actually happened will send the guilty scurrying for cover as the regime falters.

Clinton's public remarks in Kenya were sprinkled with the standard cliches used by most visiting dignitaries who struggle to find positive things to say. She resorted to praising the continent's great potential.

Inherent in such statements is that Africa's potential is far from realized. Unless there are major changes to how business is done and civil and social affairs are conducted, we can expect to hear the same pleasant phrases about Africa's potential spoken five, 10 and 20 years from now.

Clinton is due to set foot in Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her presence will draw international attention to one of the continents' most complex and enduring problems. She will be highlighting the serious epidemic of rape in the region, which makes it probably the worst place in the world to be a woman.

I spent time in Goma meeting with victims, civil society experts and lawyers about the problem. The rape epidemic is the result of a general breakdown in society and its values.

But at the core of the problem is that perpetrators of rape were very much aware that they would never be punished, even if identified. Behind this was the fact that the judicial system, including the police, the military and the courts in the eastern DRC and everywhere else in the country were corrupted.

The situation is incomprehensible to most people, but the reality is that no one was or has ever been held accountable, no matter how horrific the crime. It's a free-for-all.

While most people would turn to the government for some help, people in the eastern DRC know better. The government is virtually non-existent, except as an institution that collects bribes and makes trouble for people.

The endless chaos in eastern DRC, which shows no signs of abating, raises the obvious questions of who is benefiting and how.

Among other things that Clinton will be mentioning while she's in Goma will be the illegal exportation of minerals from the region, which includes tin and elements such as coltan, a highly conductive metal used in high tech gadgetry.

The chaos in the eastern DRC means that those who run the region are the military units, who are virtually indistinguishable from the various warring militias that roam the region, killing, looting and raping as they please.

Clinton's visit to Goma will mostly likely bring about more heartfelt speeches about the problems and needs.

The reality, however, is that international agencies such as the UN, which now has a massive 17,000-member force in the country, is about the only thing that provides order in the eastern DRC.

Justice for the warlords who have and continue to control the region is not being imposed by Congolese courts, but by the The Hague-based International Criminal Court, which has people like Thomas Lubanga on trial and soon will hold several more regional militia leaders and their deeds up to public scrutiny.

And, it looks like the ICC will ultimately be court that will have to examine the chaos that sullied the Kenyan elections and which forced a coalition government to be imposed on the country.

While international pressure and presence may be the only thing that keeps a lid on full-blown mayhem in the many African hotspots, the only enduring solution to Africa's problems will be by Africans, not outsiders.

But can and will Africans take that step? Can and will Africans ever hold their leaders accountable for their actions? Can Africans confront corruption and take human rights seriously? Can democracy be implemented or is the continent doomed to be ruled by military juntas and psychopaths such as Robert Mugabe?

Clinton's visit raises these and other questions. Sadly, the answers are few and far between.

Obama's east African roots

We all know about President Barack Obama's father being Kenyan, but now claims are being made that Obama's grandfather was a Ugandan.

In an article published in the Kampala newspaper, the Daily Monitor, and written by Angelo Izama, a group claims that Obama's Luo tribal connections extend to regions of Kenya that were once part of Uganda in the 1920s when it was a British protectorate.

According to the Monitor, the information came in a statement signed by Nelson Umah Tete about a book titled “The Luo” by George William Alenyo.

The organisation, Luo Community [Ugandan Chapter], is however an unregistered entity whose real membership remains unknown, the Monitor said.

“By 1926 when Obama’s grandfather Onyango Obama was born in Nyanza province [it] was still part of the Uganda protectorate whose boundary extended up to the Rift Valley in Nakuru” the statement said, adding that the boundaries were not altered until 1926.

As we all know, Obama’s African roots have been a source of excitement in the region, and a beer has been named after him in Kenya. Children born on the day he won the presidency have been named after him.

DVD’s with his speeches are selling like blockbusters and his acceptance speech has been turned into a cellular phone ringtone, the Monitor reports.

While ‘Obamania’ has shown no signs of ebbing, it holds a special significance to ethnic Luo group.

It must be noted that the Luo tribe in western Kenya is closely related to the Acholi tribe in northern Uganda, of which Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord's Resistance Army is a member.

The Acholi as well as the Luo, as they're known, both speak the Luo language, which in northern Uganda is also simply called Acholi.