By David Barouski
17 February, 2007
Original version posted at
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=12190.
Revised and Edited 21 April 2007.
Today, it is cliché to say the United States (U.S.) is off on another oil-acquisition conquest anytime they invade or support a war on an Arabic or Near Eastern nation. In the case of Somalia, the cliché may neverless prove to be true. While undoubtedly, the U.S. and its Ethiopian proxy force conquered Somalia and “liberated” it from the clutches of Al-Qaeda primarily for geostrategic reasons, including a potential launching point for a coordinated attack on Iran, friendly territory close to the Arabic-majority Northern Sudan, and additional ports under their control to house forces that will protect the Strait of Hormuz [the primary shipping point of Middle Eastern oil], etc),
[1] but Somalia is indeed awash in yet undiscovered and untapped oil and natural gas deposits that provide a tantalizing business opportunity if lasting peace can be achieved.
In 1990, just prior to the horrible famine of virtually Biblical porportions that claimed thousands of lives in Somalia, Mohamed Said Barre was in charge of the country. Barre signed off nearly two-thirds of Somalia's territory to Conoco, Amoco, Chevron, and Phillips (this was prior to the Conoco-Phillips merger). Unfortunately for them, Barre was overthrown by Mohammed Farah Aideed of the rival Hebr Gedr clan in January 1991 and a brutal civil war began shortly thereafter.
As a result, the oil giants were unable to work on their concessions for two reasons. One, the constant fighting, robbery, and pirating off the coast created an impossible work environment. Second, it was technically illegal because Somalia did not have a centrally-recognized government anymore. Since Somalia was run by a “warlord” that was illegal to conduct business with, the oil companies were out of luck. Either the U.S. had to legitimize Aideed in the eyes of the international community to have him recognized as the central authority in the country or they remove him.
As one of his last acts as president, George Herbert Walker Bush (who owned oil concessions across the Gulf of Aden in Marib, Yemen via Hunt Oil) sent the first wave of U.S. Army soldiers to Somalia to officially help deliver food to the starving Somalis. Meanwhile, U.S. Special Envoy to Somalia Robert Oakley kept in daily contact with Aideed from December 1992 to May 1993.
[2] He was unsuccessful in his negotiations to end the fighting.
President Bill Clinton then launched “Operation Restore Hope.” Conoco’s office in Mogadishu served as a de facto U.S. Embassy for the arriving U.S. Marines force after the original embassy was shelled and looted. Mr. Oakley and Marine General Frank Libutti later wrote a letter of commendation to Conoco Somalia’s General Manager Raymond Marchand thanking him for his service.
[3]After a series of unsuccessful assassination attempts by U.S. forces, the Somalis struck back during a U.S. raid in the infamous “Blackhawk Down” incident (the U.S. Army dubbed it the “Battle of the Black Sea” while the Somalis’ called it “Maalinti Rangers” [Day of the Rangers]) on 3-4 October, 1994 that claimed the lives of 18 American and one Malaysian soldier.
[4] President Clinton subsequently pulled out of Somalia and the place was left to its own devices while the U.S. cultivated relationships with Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, Djibouti’s President Hassan Gouled, and Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki. Aideed was eventually assassinated in 1996 by Osman Hassan Ali Atto.
Somalia continued to be deeply fractured after the death of Aideed. The extreme northwest corner of Somalia, known as Somaliland, declared its independence in 1991, but it did not receive any diplomatic recognition internationally. The adjacent region to the east, known as Puntland, followed suit in 1998 under the leadership of its President (and resident warlord) Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, but with one major difference: they only wanted to be a separate semi-autonomous Somali state, not an independent nation.
Puntland had lucrative oil concessions, but the turnover of local and national Somali governments rendered most of the contracts null and void. The companies also faced a legal problem. Since Puntland was not an independent country, the companies had to deal with the central government in order to do business. The problem was…there was still no central government entity.
Somalia began toying with the idea creating an internationally recognized government in 2001. Indeed, French oil giant TotalElfFina signed an optomistic agreement for a concession in southern Somalia. The U.S. made moves to reestablish itself in Somalia after 9/11. A Special Forces team was deployed to Hargeisa Airport in Somaliland under the cover of a USAID mission. They were sent to secure hangers and warehouses to store "security equipment." The U.S. also met with leaders of the Rahanwein Resistance Army, a rebel group fighting against the Mogadishu government.
[5]After lots of infighting for power between rival clans, the first government plan was signed in July 2003. Kenya presided over the process and the federal charter was signed in September 2003. However, fighting broke out again in early 2004, particularly in the south, and it reached Mogadishu by the end of May. As a result, the Somali Transitional Government was exiled to Nairobi.
Despite the chaos, parliament members were sworn in during August 2004. They voted Puntland’s Abdullahi Yusuf (from the Darod clan, which is not well-liked in Mogadishu) president. President Yusuf is a career soldier who served as Somalia’s mlitary attaché to the Soviet Union. When the U.S. backed Barre’s rise to power, Mr. Yusuf refused to turn on his Soviet Allies and was imprisoned. After he was released, he took part in a failed coup attempt on Said Barre. He fled to Kenya and befriended the Ethiopians. He later returned to northern Somalia and has run Puntland since its independence in 1998, making him a valuble ally to U.S. oil interests if he could shed his communist-supporting background.
In December 2004, Ali Mohammed Gedi was appointed the Prime Minister. He hails from the Abgaal sub-clan of Mogadishu's Hawiye clan, one of the two largest clans in the country. The new government relocated to Mogadishu and by May 2005, Mohammed Qanyare Affrah, Osman Ali Atto, and Muse Sudi Yalahow united their militias as a de facto government army. By late 2005, the government’s transition process was derailed.
Some factions were not happy the largest clans possessed all the power positions. President Yusuf and Prime Minister Ghedi both survived assassination attempts and retreated back to Kenya. By October 2005, the Transitional Government was purchasing large amounts of arms from Yemen and arming allied clans to defend Mogadishu and Baidoa to the south. Ethiopia was also suppling the Transitional Government with weapons.
[6]Recent History
From the beginning of 2006 until July, fierce fighting between rival clans and political movements occurred. It culminated with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) seizing control of Mogadishu, and in effect, the country, though most of the Transitional Government was still located in Baidoa. While Eritrea armed the UIC, the U.S. unsuccessfully backed the opposing forces, called the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPC).
[7] The so-called warlords leading the ARPC, Mohamed Dheere, Bashir Raghe, and Mahamed Qanyare, had been spying for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) years. A U.S. diplomat at the Nairobi Embassy was even fired for criticizing the CIA’s policy.
[8] Once again, U.S. business interests were thwarted and the UIC’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, was already on the U.S.’ official terrorist list for heading al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, a group supposedly linked to Al-Qaeda during the 1990s, making it illegal for them to do business with his regime.
[9]Beginning in 2005, Prime Minister Gedi demanded all business proposals go through the Transitional Government. He forbade anyone to approach the local administrations in Puntland, but he was willing to allow business there provided he approved of it. The Australian firm Range Resources Limited signed an agreement with the government of Puntland for exclusive rights to all their minerals, including oil, lead, zinc, copper, iron, manganese, tin, beryl, tantalum, niobium (columbium), uranium, coal, and gypsum.
[10] Range Resources obtained permission to exploit the land from Puntland President Mohamud Muse Hirse on 18 October, 2005, and from Prime Minister Gedi on 2 November, 2005.
[11] They are also bidding to buy addition consessions from the Korea National Oil Corporation (KNOC).
Range Resources is run by Non-Executive Chairman Sir Samuel Kwesi Jonah. Sir Jonah is a Board Member of: Lonmin, the Commonwealth African Investment Fund (Comafin), Transnet Limited, Anglo-American Platinum Corporation Limited, the Ashesi University Foundation, Equinox Minerals (Chairman), the uranium-producing nuclear power company UraMin Incorporated (Chairman), Anglo-American Corporation, Moto Goldmines Limited, Scharrig Mining (Chairman), Sierra Rutile Limited (Chairman), Sierra Resources Holding, Titanium Resources Group, Copper Resources Corporation (with George Arthur Forrest and George Andrew Forrest, both major players in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo), Standard Bank Group of South Africa, Bayport Holding Limited, Transnet Limited, Equator Exploration Limited in Nigeria and São Tomé – Príncipe (with Baronness Lynda Chalker), and Mittal Steel (in the proverbial hot seat for a contract they signed with the government of Liberia).
Sir Jonah is a member of the U.N. Secretary General's Global Compact Advisory Council, South African President Thabo Mbeki's International Investment Advisory Council, the African Regional Advisory Board of the London Business School, First Atlantic Merchant Bank, Defiance Mining, Ghanian President John Kufuor's Ghana Investors' Advisory Council, President Obasanjo Nigerian Investors’ Advisory Council, and serves as a Presidential Advisor to President Mohamud Muse Hersi of the Somali state of Puntland. He also holds an honorary British knighthood, the Star of Ghana and several other international awards and titles. He also recently announced the creation of his own mining company.
80% of Range Resources’ concession belongs to its business partner Canmex Minerals of Vancouver.
[12] The President of Canmex is none other than Swedish Lukas Lundin, son of former Shell engineer Adolf Lundin, a personal friend of former U.S. President and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Herbert Walker Bush. Lukas and his father run several businesses including Lundin Mining Corporation (Sweden and Ireland), Tanganyka Oil Company (drilling in northeastern Syria and Egypt), Valkyries Petroleum Corporation (Russia), Lundin East Africa, Lundin Petroleum Corporation
[13] (which owns 24.5% of Block 5B in Sudan, located on the southern part of the Muglad Basin in Southern Sudan),
[14] Vostok Nafta Investments, and Tenke Mining Corporation. Tenke has a lucrative copper and columbite-tantalite (coltan) concession in the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Adolf Lundin originally received the concession in 1996 after George H.W. Bush called President Joseph Mobutu on Mr. Lundin’s behalf before he was forced out of his country the following year.
[15]Meanwhile, Perth-based Ophir Energy seeks to drill in Somaliland. Ophir is led by Alan Stein and is 50%-owned by South Africa’s Mvelaphanda Holdings.
[16] Mvelphanda is run by Tokyo Sexwale and its Board of Directors includes Michael Beckett (former Chairman of Ashanti Goldfields, a company prevously run by Sir Jonah), and Bernard Van Rooyen (former director of the Canadian firm Banro Resources). Ophir was reportedly introduced to Somalia by Mvelaphanda’s partner Dr Andrew Chakravarty, who’s wife is a well-connected Somali national. Mr. Chakravarty’s Rova Energy Corporation acquired offshore concessions formerly belonging to Equitable Life Investment Company and its U.S. partner Somapetroleum. Ophir currently is a 75% shareholder of Rova.
[17]The Rest, as They Say, is History
Somalia’s Transitional Government desired to keep Puntland as a part of the larger Somalia. This fact, coupled with several nations’ unwillingness to work with the UIC (who may or may not recognize the contracts) led to a need to restore the Transitional Government in Mogadishu and remove the UIC. This line of thinking was directly in line with the U.S., who wanted to control Somali for the aforementioned geostrategic reasons and also to prevent the nation from becoming a “terrorist safehaven.” The U.S. backed Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia to stamp out the UIC once-and-for-all. Indeed, Eritrean President Afewerki stated, “The Ethiopian invasion of Somalia is not spontaneous, but a long time and well organized plan initiated by the Washington administration,” that was, “tantamount to terrorism.”
[18] They supplied air support (bombing and strafing runs) and Special Forces soldiers to aid in the mission. U.S. Naval ships from Djibouti patrolled the Somali coast. The UIC was forced into Kenya, where many of its leaders were subsequently arrested. Those who remained at large fled into hiding in southern Somalia. Chaos reigns in Mogadishu as UIC-backers and an increasing number of militia who see the Eithiopian troops as an occupying force launch daily attacks in the capital. Puntland and Somaliland are fighting between each other.
Meanwhile, the U.S. officially continues to hunt Al-Qaeda in Somali. They are pushing for an African peacekeeping force to be deployed in the nation as soon as possible. Unsurprisingly, two nations with a history of acting as U.S. proxies in the region answered the call. The Ugandan People’s Defense Force (UPDF) pledged two battalions to enforce the peace and train the Somali army. The U.S. has pledged to provide logistics support for Uganda,which likely will include airlift support.
[19] If the private military contractor Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) gets involved in the logistics like they have in Darfur,
[20] the context of U.S. involvement in Somalia could take on a whole new outlook, especially if counterinsurgency operations become the norm. MPRI offers a perfect opportunity to embed U.S. operatives to do the illicit bidding of the Pentagon the U.S. Armed Forces cannot.
The Somali Government has been reinstalled in Mogadishu and though violence is constant in the city, the government has bulldozed forward in an attempt to gain legitimatcy. Many of the cabinet members are dual citizens, with the majority coming from Canada. Others are former warlords. The Deputy Prime Minister is Hussein Farah Aideed, the son of the late warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed. In contrast to his father, Hussein is actually a naturalized American citizen and a former U.S. Marine who served in the Gulf War. He even served as a U.S. emissary during Operation Restore Hope, where he met with his father several times.
[21]With a central government in place, the corporations with concessions in the more peaceful northern region of the country can begin their work. The China National Oil Corporation (CNOC) and India’s state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) are interested in purchasing concessions. ConocoPhillips stated they are not interested in doing business in Somalia at this time. Will ChevronTexaco and other American oil giants take advantage of the opportunity to exploit Somalia’s “black gold”? Only time will tell, but Ophir, Rova, Range Resources, and other oil industry giants are probably grateful the U.S. and Ethiopia pacified Somalia.
Appendix I: Documentation
Letter from President Hirse to Consort Private Limited:
http://www.zmag.org/LetterHirse.pdfLetter from Prime Minister Gedi to the Government of Puntland:
http://www.zmag.org/LetterGedi.pdf.
These letters and futher details, can be found on Range Resources' website at
http://www.rangeresources.com.au/somalia.cfm.
[1] Note: The U.S. already has rights to a base in Somaliland even though the U.S. has refused to recognize its independence. The U.S. also had surveillance stations on the island of Burr Gaabo in Somali territoral waters and Ras Kambooni, the recent site of a U.S. bombing run that reportedly intended to kill Al-Qaida member Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the prime suspect in the U.S. Embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Saalam in 1998. The U.S. had several signal intelligence (SIGINT) stations in Kenya. One was located on the island of Lamu and a separate station was in Kilifi. (Madsen, Wayne. “Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, & Big Oil.” Walterville, Oregon: Trineday. 2006. pg. 22-23.)
[2] Madsen, Wayne. “Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999.” Lampeter, Ceredigion, Wales, United Kingdom: Edwin Mellen Press, Limited. 1999. pg. 31.
[3] “The Oil Factor In Somalia,” Mark Fineman. Los Angeles Times. 18 January, 1993.
[4] Bowden, Mark. “Blackhawk Down: A Story of Modern War.” New York, New York: Penguin Putnam Incorporated. 1999.
[5] Madsen, Wayne. “Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops, & Big Oil.” Walterville, Oregon: Trineday. 2006. pg. 222.
Note: The British were also interested in Somaliland. In March 2004, it president, Daher Riyale Kahin visited the United Kingdom, where he spoke to the House of Commons and visited Buckingham Palace. The company DNO Britain Limited expressed an interest in obtaining a concession. (Ibid.)
[6] “UN: Arms Pouring Into Somalia,” Al-Jazeera. 8 October, 2006.
[7] “U.S. Secretly Backing Warlords in Somalia,” Karen DeYoung, Emily Wax. The Washington Post. 17 May, 2006.
Note: A confidential U.N. Security Council report revealed several armed Islamic groups armed and fought with the UIC, including Hezbollah and fighters from several Islamic nations including Saudi Arabia.
[8] “Somalia: Fighting in the Shadows.” Jeffery Bartholet, Michael Hirsh. Newsweek. 5 June, 2006.
Note: One of the planners for these types of intelligence operations was Steven Cambone’s Deputy Undersecretary of Intelligence at the Pentagon, General William “Jerry” Boykin, who is known for his anti-Islamic comments. Boykin commanded the Delta Force team deployed in Mogadishu in 1993.
[9] “Profile: Somalia’s Islamist Leader,” Joseph Winter. BBC News. 30 June, 2006.
[10] Range Resources Limited. “Exclusive Rights to All Minerals in Puntland.” Company Announcements Office. 5 October, 2005.
[11] President Mohamud Muse Hirse. “Letter to Consort Private Limited and Mr. Tony Black.” Office of the President. 18 October, 2005; Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi. “Letter to Puntland State of Somali and Vice President Hassan Dahir Mohamud. Offic of the Prime Minister. OPM/251/05. 2 November 2006.
[12] “Oil Profits Boost East Africa Exploration,” Sudan Tribune. 22 February, 2007.
[13] Note: Lundin Petroleum also owns blocks 2 and 6 in Ethiopia. Both blocks are located in the Ogaden Province, were the Ogaden National Liberation Front has been at war with the Ethiopian Government. The former Islamic government of Somalia seeks to want to integrate the province into a Greater Somalia state. (“Ogaden Rebels Challenge Ethiopia’s Oil Deal With Lundin,” Alexander’s Gas and Oil Connections. Volume 11, Issue 23. 14 November, 2006.)
[14] “Sudan.” Lundin Petroleum. Press Release. January 2006. pg. 1.
[15] Palast, Greg. “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” New York, New York: Plume (Penguin Group). 1st American Edition. 2003. pg. 93.
[16] “Minnows See Oil Seeping Out From Fractured State,” Eleanor Gillespie, Jon Marks. African Energy. Issue 100. 20 July, 2006.
[17] Ibid.
[18] “Humilitated Eritrea Blames US for Somali War,” African News Agency. 2 January, 2007.
[19] State House of the Republic of Uganda. “’US to Provide UPDF Support to (sic) Somalia’ - Frazier.” Press Release. 29 January, 2007.
[20] Confidential Source. 2007.
[21] Kevin Sites. “Son of Aideed.” Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone. Yahoo News. 29 September, 2005.
http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs1077.
