"Somalia was named and shamed Tuesday as the worst-governed country in sub-Saharan Africa in a survey of political performance across the continent," AFP reports:
Somalia's problems? A lot like Iraq's, in fact: a growing Islamic insurgency and a government that lacks consensus. With Mogadishu still wracked by violence 10 months after the fall of the hardline Islamic Courts regime, some observers wonder if the country wasn't better off under the extremists. One pro-Courts news service touted the benefits of security just a month before the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion that toppled the Islamic government:> *A prevailing sense of peace and security felt in many parts of the once lawless Somalia since the rise of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS) is increasingly attracting foreign investors back to the Horn of African country. ... [F]oreign investors are able to move in the Mogadishu streets without the help of gunmen. The SICS has also re-opened Mogadishu's port and airport, where a "Let us build Somalia together" sign hangs high. Both had been closed for over a decade. Since the SICS started issuing visas, flights to and from Kenya and Dubai have been full of curious investors and returning refugees. *
"The best antidote to terrorism, according to Horn of Africa analysts, is stability in Somalia, which the Islamic Courts had provided," according to one Nairobi paper:
But that means negotiating with extremists. And we don't do that, do we?
