THE HOSTILITY BETWEEN THE ISLAMIST TERRORISTS IN SOMALIA MAY JEOPARDISE THE OPERATIONS OF IGAD AND WORSEN THE SECURITY IN THE HORN OF AFRICA.
News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
The operations of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development {IGAD} might come to an immediate halt as a result of the on-going political wrangling among its three important member states. IGAD plays pivotal on major political and economic regional issues in this region. It was under IGAD’s auspices that Kenya brokered the volatile Sudan Peace that ended more than two decades of armed conflict between the northerner Arab Moslems and the black Christians in Southern Sudan..
The current hostilities, which is likely to put IGAD activities in jeopardy involves four of its principal member nations, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea and the seemingly ungovernable Republic of Somalia.
President Mwai Kibaki, who is the current chairman of this important regional body is facing what African diplomats have described as ‘litmus test’. He is likely to suffer major political and diplomatic set-back as a result of the present stand off. The stand off came about following allegations that Eritrea is supplying the rebels and Islamist insurgents in Somalia, who are hell-bent on toppling the transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government.
A top IGAD’s meeting is expected to be held today on the sideline of the AU summit, which starts today in the Libyan City of Sirte. Libyan strongman Col Muamor El-Qadhafi is the current chairman of the African Unity {AU}.
IGAD ,according to African diplomats in Nairobi, has taken a hardliner stance on extremist Islamists and Eritrea, which it is being alleged is supporting them..Eritrea is a key member of IGAD. The same diplomatic sources say, Eritrea may be looking for a new theater for its continued hostilities with Ethiopia, a neighboring country whose forces had intervened and routed Islamists in 2006.The two countries are technically in a state of war.
A meeting of Igad’s Council of Ministers was held towards the end of last month[of May 2009},which petitioned the UN Security Council to impose the stiffest economic sanction against Eritrea, which is also a member of the same regional organization.
The situation is seriously aggravated by the mutual suspicion that has of late emerged between the Islamist terrorist groups fighting for the control of Somalia and Kenya. This is suspected to have something to do with the recent revelation by the United States that it has sent weapons worth USD 10 million as the emergency military assistance sought for by the embattled transitional government in Mogadishu. And the US, which maintains a very cordial and warm relationship with Kenya is understood to have sent weapons to Somalia with express permission of the UN Security Council, which had imposed strict embargo on military supplies to this war-torn African nation. The UN Security Council and the US government are said to have agreed on the waiver procedures.
The new weapons and ammunitions, whose quantity, the route used in supplying the military hardware has remained a top secret of the US .But the Islamist extremists in Somalia have been secretly pointing an accusing finger at Kenya as the conduit through which the US government channeled the Somalia bound military hardware.
The only IGAD member country, which is openly known to have sent its troops to Somalia is Uganda, and other sources believes the US might have sent its weapons by Uganda ,Uganda provided half of the 4,300 African Unity troops now charged with the responsibility of protecting key installations for the transitional government in Mogadishu.
On the other hand, neighboring Ethiopia has repeatedly made it clear that it has no wish of sending its troops to Somalia, but the Addis Ababa. regime is believed to be extremely worried and uneasy with unfolding situation in Somalia, and it is believed to have secretly dispatched a contingent of reconnaissance military teams to its port of the Ogaden region to vigorously monitor the movement of the Isamists Court in Somalia.
Prime Minister Meles Zanawi was last week quoted by major news agencies as saying that he never believe the transitional government of President Sheikh Shariff Ahmed’s government will not be overthrown by the Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab extremists groups. But he hinted that his country will not watch the situation from a distant, making it clear that Ethiopia was willing to support the government in Mogadishu to stabilize itself at any costs.
The security situation inside the war-ravaged Somalia is the most worrying issues in Eastern African region. Reports appearing in the media last week that the Islamist insurgents have started imposing Muslim Sharia laws inside the territories under their control has struck the civilized world like the Tsunami, especially the cutting off of the arms and legs of four young men allegedly convicted of petty offenses of theft
In an apparently clear message of their growing strength and determination to impose their rule on Somalia,the insurgents issued a stern warning to other suspected criminals of similar treatment..”We have carried out this sentence under the Islamic religion and any robber or bandit will face similar fate”, said a statement attributed to one Sheikh Ali Hussein Mohamed Fidow, al-Shabaab’s Mogadishu supreme leader.
According to press reports emerging from Mogadishu over the weekend,, young men who happened to be the first victims of the Sharia laws had been condemned earlier in the week . The amputation was postponed by the presiding judge of al-Shabaab criminal court until last Thursday morning when the condemned men were paraded in front of a huge crowd of people in Mogadishu area under the insurgent control.. The rebel soldiers proceeded to cut off right hands and left feet of the accused persons whose names were given as Ali Mohamud Geeddy, Osmall Khalif Abdule, Jeylani Mohamed Had and Abdulkhadir Adow Hirale. Eye witnesses told newsmen that the insurgents used long knives to cut off the body parts as punishment for theft. The men screamed in pain, and some spectators were reported to have vomited.
The Al-Shabaab has carried out executions, floggings and single limb amputations before, mainly in the southern port of Kismayo, which is close to the Kenya-Somalia border.
Entertainments such as movies and soccer games are banned in areas it controlls, while men and women cannot travel together using the same public transport. These primitive practices have shocked the Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Moslems, forcing thousands of them fleeing their homes to seek refugee in neighboring Kenya.
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
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Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2009 20:09:47 -0700 (PDT)
From: Leo Odera Omolo
Subject: HOSTILITIES BETWEEN ERITREA, KENYA, ETHIOPIA AND SOMOLIA POSE THREAT TO IGAD
IGAD: Wayward means to sully Eritrea
Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Asmara
In a move full of irony, and, by misappropriating the names of the African Union and IGAD, countries hostile to Eritrea, on issues that have nothing to do with Somalia, are trying to use the Somali fig-leaf to persuade the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Eritrea. They have strategized to demand maximum sanctions in the hope that they can exact at least some measures from the Security Council.
An African country demanding sanctions on another African nation by falsely using the name of the African Union is indeed a dastardly and unprecedented move. As it happens, the countries that are pushing for sanctions have been forced to drop their claim to be pursuing it on behalf of the AU, as no legitimate organ of the Union has mandated them to do so. In reality, they could not have mustered the hubris to approach the UNSC, if they did not believe that they could gain the indulgence of some permanent members of the Security Council.
Eritrea’s position on the maneuverings underway in New York is the following:-
1. Eritrea confidently reaffirms that it is not sending arms and/or ammunition to any party in Somalia. It categorically rejects the baseless charges directed against it. In fact, the Special Representative of the Secretary General on Somalia, Mr. Ahmedou Ould Abdella, has admitted that despite “much talk” there was no proof of the charges against Eritrea.
2. There is irrefutable proof that Ethiopia, in open violation of the UN arms embargo, is training and arming the Islamist armed group, the Ahli Asunna and Jami’a, various clan militias and an assortment of warlords, including Barrehilale. This is in addition to its continued military intervention inside sovereign Somali territory, which continues to complicate the search for a durable settlement.
3. Accusations of violating the UN arms embargo have also been leveled against a number of other countries.
4. In this respect, if the UNSC is going to impose any sanctions, it must do so, on the basis of unassailable proof, against those countries which perpetrated illegal military invasion of Somalia in the past years and who provided arms to Somalis in violation of the embargo. Eritrea has not done so. Ethiopia is in flagrant violation on these counts and must be sanctioned.
5. In regard to Eritrea’s political position on Somalia, Eritrea has been criticized for not falling in line with the “international consensus”. But, Eritrea has a right to hold an independent position, even a dissenting one. Moreover, over the past two years and half, the Eritrean position on Somalia has proven to be more realistic and correct, as compared to the conventional wisdom. Eritrea was correct in its assessment that the Abdullahi Yusuf and Nur Adde “governments”, despite the “international legitimacy” conferred on them, could not bring peace. It is Eritrea’s considered assessment that the same is true for the present, externally installed “government”, which remains holed up in a few districts of the capital, despite massive military and financial support.
6. Eritrea strongly believes that if the objective is the establishment of a broadly representative government paving the way for a durable settlement, then we need to refrain from trying to impose our candidates, irrespective of the qualities that we see in them. This has been tried at least 15 times in the past 15 years and has failed every single time. What is required, and what Eritrea advocates, is a Somali-owned inclusive process that would also ensure the participation and address the issues of Somaliland and Puntland.
7. Eritrea has absolutely no interest in the instability of Somalia. We do not, and have never considered, Somalia a threat. The Eritrean objective is to see a peaceful, stable and united Somalia.
8. It is Ethiopia that has for over more than six decades sought to destabilize Somalia, fought three wars against it, continued to intervene to thwart the emergence of a united government with popular legitimacy. It is farcical that the country that harbours ill-will towards Somalia and its people, seeks to use Somalis to fight its war against Eritrea. It is regrettable that Ethiopia, which should have been sanctioned, under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, for continuing to occupy sovereign Eritrean territory, in contemptuous rejection of a binding international arbitration, has the temerity to pour scorn on the Security Council, by demanding sanctions on Eritrea.
9. It would be a travesty of justice, if members of the Security Council, condemn a country that has not violated the embargo and reward the one that should be brought to the dock, for its violation of both the arms embargo and of its obligations under international law. It would be a violation of UN principles if the Security Council responds to the issue of the embargo selectively.
I’ve never read such mincing reporting in 35 years of covering Africa as a war correspondent. Why doesn’t someone in the Press tell the people what’s really going on? That the Sudanese invasion of Somalia is the first irrefutable move in Allah’s grand plan for Islamists to conquer the whole of Africa, according to emminence gris Hasan al Turabi. They are fighting on the Kenya border, and fronts will soon be opening in the West. Watch for elite US, French and British forces to meet the invaders headon, as China quietly waits and watches.