The countries of the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Sudan, and Ethiopia, are not members of the mythical cornucopia club. They are very poor by all the conventional socio-economic measures. Their economic status is unenviable even by African standards.
According to the most recent World Bank ranking of international economies, Ethiopia is number one from the bottom, Somalia number 13, and Sudan number 28.
If the past has been bleak and the present patently problematic, neither does the future of these economies look very promising.
The recurring droughts and general environmental degeneration pose daunting long-term problems. Bankrupt developmental policies have mortgaged the future. The symptoms of a blighted future include the inability to generate significant domestic resources for investment, to feed - as a minimum - their increasing populations, and to service their external debts.
The fluctuating international market will continue to have a negative impact on these fragile economies, but more alarming are the increasingly restrictive trading policies of the industrialized countries and the marked fall in the levels of economic aid.
The authoritarian regimes that have ruled these countries for the last decade and a half have proved to be brutal in their denial of basic human rights, incompetent in the forgoing and implementation of developmental strategies, and unimaginative in the resolution of domestic and regional conflicts.
Somalia
Two recent events cast a long shadow over the political future of Somalia. First, President Mohammed Siad Barre was involved in a car accident on May 23, 1986. He suffered head and chest injuries and was flown to a Saudi air force hospital in Riyadh. Although the preliminary reports indicated that he was in a coma for three to four days and was in intensive care for more than two weeks, by late June he was able to leave the hospital. It is not yet clear whether his injuries might incapacitate him partially or fully. His grip on the reins of power was already slipping, and this could provide the coup de grace.
In the meantime, the first vice president and minister of defense General Mohammed Ali Samater, in accordance with the constitution, has been running the country. Samater is better trained, more subtle, and by far more capable than Siad Barre. The development of the modern Somali army is credited, and justly so, to him. He has earned the respect and loyalty of this dominant institution. This respect has been tarnished, however, by his turning of a blind eye to the enormous excesses, particularly within the armed forces, of the Barre family.
A bedridden Siad Barre, moreover, would undermine the credibility of Samater, as he cannot distance himself from the current bankrupt policies. More specifically, he will be unable to release the political prisoners, attempt to bring about national reconciliation, move against the rampant mismanagement, and get on with the needed work of national development.
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