Somalia: Trampling the Grass

Somalis have a saying about the geo-political realities of their country: ‘When the elephants fight, the grass always gets trampled’. The Somali people are the proverbial grass. Almost since independence the country has been caught in the cross-fire of proxy wars. First it was the Cold War, with the United States and the former Soviet Union battling for dominance in the Horn of Africa, a choke-point for Middle East oil. Now it is the ‘war’ on terror.