Minnesota Somali leader says U.S. partly to blame for chaos in Somalia

WASHINGTON — Years of bungled policy by the United States and other western countries has led to the current chaos in Somalia, the leader of a Minnesota Somali advocacy organization said Wednesday.Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, Omar Jamal, the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, said that in recent years the United States had only engaged Somalia when it wanted or needed something.
One example, he said, was tracking down terrorism suspects in east Africa. The U.S. erred in the 1990s, when it reached out to some warlords by offering them money to help track people down, Jamal said.Because the U.S. reached out to ruthless warlords, Jamal said, disparate groups who opposed the warlords control came together under the banner of radical Islam.
“They would give money to the warlords. They would say ‘I need this guy,’ ” Jamal said. “Then out of fear … people unified. That was a turning point. Now we have much more powerful Islamists.”http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/119580/group/home/
.