MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Ugandans in Somalia are an army on a shoestring – no air support, no robots, certainly no "combat anthropologists" like the U.S. military recently deployed to Iraq. This translates into a no-nonsense, back-to-basics approach to counter-insurgency. It took a long time for the U.S. military to admit that expensive gizmos were never going to replace the timeless tactics for securing a society. The Ugandans were never in a position to pretend otherwise.
"We have a credible force," says Ugandan commander Colonel Peter Elwelu, referring to his troops' machine guns, rockets and Soviet-made tanks. With friends like the trigger-happy Ethiopians and the corrupt, criminally minded Somali federal forces – and with enemies like the Islamic Courts and Al Shabab – the Ugandans had no choice but to go in heavy. But it's strictly Cold War-style heavy. When I asked if the immaculate Soviet-made tank perched in front of the Presidential Palace was for deterrence, Captain Paddy Ankunda grinned. “We anticipate using it.” The Ugandans don't even have interpreters, instead relying on bilingual locals to offer their help. In terms of weapons and tactics, the A.U. troops appear to be totally unprepared, for a sophisticated counter-insurgency fight.
So how do you account for the fact that the Ugandan-controlled areas are the safest in all of Mogadishu, and that the Ugandan base camp has become a *de facto *negotiating table for all the warring parties in Mogadishu? Captain Paddy Ankunda's answer is simple. "We have tremendous support from the local people." Uganda, he explains, has a large Somalia immigrant population and treats it well – and that has won his troops some lasting goodwill.
Just goes to show: one of the first rules of counter-insurgency is to get the locals on your side -- work those social networks. Add "credible" firepower to that, and it doesn't matter if your tanks were built in 1960 and you've never so much as seen a drone.
ALSO:
* Somalia's Mystery Weapon - and Eerie Iraq Parallels
* Mogadishu's Wheeled Battlecruisers
