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To: Max Flatow
I don't know exactly where it's at now, but I know that after we left things continued to go downhill for a while. Then the most wonderful thing happened. The UN decided that Somalia was a hopelessly "failed state" and packed up and left. In short order, things started to drastically improve. Businessmen began organizing joint patrols to protect against looters and other miscreants, which began to look like the rudiments of a government that was powerful enough to prevent crime, but not powerful enough to push citizens around. The Atlantic Monthly (of all publications!) had an article about this, entitled "Ayn Rand Comes to Somalia", in its May 2001 issue.

Unfortunately, al-Qaeda still managed to hang around the place, and after 9/11 we were constrained to take certain actions which (if I recall correctly) impeded Somalia's commerce with the outside world. I don't know what course things have taken since then.

18 posted on 06/26/2005 7:08:56 PM PDT by inquest (FTAA delenda est)
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To: inquest
Thanks for the 411. My curiosity got to me after my last post, so I did a search to see what has been up with that country since 1993. Seems that the place is still in total anarchy. Warloards still run the country with no central government, no currency, no infrastructure to speak of. Parts of the country have broken off into separatists nation-like countries, such as Somililand. Abdullahi Yusuf was elected president of Puntland who is considered to be the only recognizable person of a central government though his election is suspicious at best. The northern part of the country has seen a growth in economic activity due to no laws, no taxes and the opportunity of a capitalist environment. Telecommunications seem to be the largest economic activity in Somalia. But the warloads instill a sense of unstability and unpredictablity in any activity in the country that can change from day to day.

So it seems that until one central government can rule without civil war, the country wil always be a hot bed of poverty and infighting.

19 posted on 06/27/2005 8:54:12 AM PDT by Max Flatow
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