By Shashank Bengali

September 28, 2007

Last week the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi held a press conference to discuss the ever-bleak situation in Somalia. The State Department's point men on the crisis -- Michael Ranneberger, the ambassador to Kenya, and veteran diplomat John Yates, special envoy to Somalia -- tried to sound upbeat notes about the interim government's efforts to build an inclusive political system.

It's become clear that the West has put all its Somalia eggs in the interim government's basket. So it wasn't surprising that Rannebeger put a glass-half-full spin on a recent summit on national reconciliation that, according to many observers, didn't begin to address the root causes and support networks of Somalia's large Islamist insurgency.

"The results of the conference were very positive," Ranneberger was quoted as saying in The Washington Post, though he added that the process of political reconciliation "is not over."

As The Post's East Africa correspondent, Stephanie McCrummen, noted: "The assessment was perhaps the rosiest to date for a country whose bombed-out seaside capital, Mogadishu, has been mired in daily violence since December."

Then, yesterday, I received this message yesterday from a Somali friend who's been working for a Western aid agency in Mogadishu, on and off, for much of the year. As there's no substitute for on-the-ground reporting, his message -- brief, to the point and fundamentally depressing -- is worth reading in its entirety:

----- Original Message -----
From:
To: Shashank Bengali
Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2007 1:32 PM
Subject: Re: Puntland

HI Shashank

I am now in Mogadishu and the situation is dreadful.

Level of crime have gone up
Inflation is very high
Targeted assassination's are becoming widespread
Growing Conflict between the TFG [government] leaders
Increasing insurgent attacks
A good number of new displacement

To sum up; it doesn't look good

[name withheld]

PS: I will be in Nairobi next week

Somewhere in Africa is written by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Shashank Bengali. He's based in Nairobi but travels widely around the continent.

Source: McClatchy Newspapers