Profiteering on Location: Djibouti's repressive regime, not its people, has prospered since 9/11
By Alain Lallemand
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists
http://www.publicintegrity.org/militaryaid/report.aspx?aid=858
DJIBOUTI — Allow us to introduce you to Djibouti, the United States' new East African ally in its campaign against terrorists:
Its territory is slightly smaller than the state of New Hampshire. It is arid and torridly hot, 9,000 square miles of volcanic rock sticking out like a sore thumb on the Horn of Africa. It exports practically nothing that is locally produced and has almost no arable land. Once a French colony, its post-colonial trajectory has been wobbly and worse, including a civil war between ethnic groups that ended only five years ago. To think of Djibouti as a nation in the Western sense would be deeply misleading: Its institutions are at best weak and at worst nonfunctioning; its budget is a confusing, unreliable mess. And its strongman president, Ismail Omar Guelleh, seems to care little about economic development despite the deep poverty that afflicts his people.