Africa / Somamli Islamists threatened by Ethiopian military presence

Amadou Ly

The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said on Saturday 23 November that they had abandoned their military plans against Somalia, in order combat the Somali Islamist force. He proclaimed before the Parliament that the crisis would rather be better solved through dialogues. Although the Somali Islamist Courts that took over a part of the country, a real threat for Ethiopia at present, are reported to be ready to fight back in case of any military intervention from Ethiopia.

The Somali Islamic spokesman, Abdurahim Ali Muddey, however refuted any possibility of causing threat to the Ethiopians. Rather, on his turn, he made reference to the threatening presence of the Ethiopian troops on their territory.

Addis Abeba rejected the Somali accusation of Ethiopian military presence on Somali territory, admitting nonetheless that they have only sent a group of military advisers to help the transitional Somali government they openly support.

Somalia is going through a civil war since 1991. The history of Somalia and Ethiopia is littered with distrust, animosity and war. Suspicion of neighbouring expansionism and political extremism is deeply rooted in both states. However, Somalia's disappearance into a political abyss over the last 15 years opened a new chapter.

Meles Zenawi came to power with the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPDRF) in 1991, in the same year the Somali government collapsed. Initially, the events in the two countries seemed to break the mould. Meles knew Somalia very well, as he lived in Mogadishu when he was a liberation leader in the 1980s. He was, at that time, also handled by the National Security Service, provided with travel documents and Somali passports, trained and given a Tigrayan radio frequency.

Ethiopia got international commendation when it managed to bring the main Somali factions together for the first time in Addis Ababa in 1992 for peace talks. But the honeymoon was not to last for long. Ethiopia's pivotal role in Somali peace talks was over by 1993, with many of the faction leaders claiming it was forcibly pursuing its own agenda. The new Ethiopian government, moreover, was increasingly influenced by events in its own Somali region - which has a large ethnic Somali population and close economic and political links with neighbouring Somalia.

Somali irredentist movements in this part of Ethiopia, particularly the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), which were seeking to establish a "Greater Somalia" to incorporate all territories containing Somali populations, led to the Ethiopian-Somali Ogaden war in 1977. There are few in the Ogaden who would want to join Somalia now, though they might want an independent Ogadenia.

The EPRDF found it difficult to establish itself in the Somali region, which remains one of the most unstable areas in the country. A strong military presence has remained in the Ethiopian Ogaden area, and has provoked accusations of repression and abuse, documented by international and local human rights organisations.

Having introduced a form of democracy based on ethnic regionalism, the Ethiopian central government found itself struggling to establish an "obedient" Somali party. In the areas contiguous with Somalia, the Ogadeni National Liberation Front (ONLF) agitated for regional independence, while armed opposition groups included cells of the Islamic extremist movement, Al-Ittihad. Ethiopia's population is generally believed to comprise about 50 percent Muslim and 50 percent Christian, but the ratio was roughly 60 percent Christian to 40 percent Muslim.

Ethiopian public foreign policy became increasingly defined by the threat of "Islamic fundamentalism". Meles Zenawi said in an interview in December 2000: "What concerns us first and last is what the government [of Somalia] and the different parties and organisations do inside Ethiopia. Some of the extremist organisations did not limit their activities inside Somalia and went to destabilise Ethiopia."

By the mid-1990s, Ethiopia, the US, and the UN had failed to facilitate effective peace talks in Somalia, and international intervention brought disastrous consequences, with the deaths of UN and US peacekeepers, as well as hundreds of Somalis. There was increasing bitterness in Somalia towards what was perceived as external opportunism and negligence. Somalia became a free-for-all. Any State and organisation could interfere in any way they liked.

It seemed that the distrustful relationship between Somalia and Ethiopia had changed very little. While in the past, Ethiopian governments had felt threatened by a strong, united Somalia, the absence of any state at all was just as bad. In the name of national defence, Ethiopia went ahead and pursued a policy of backing and creating "friendly forces" in Somalia.

The transitional ruling bodies that took over the country since 2004 are all found to have failed to bring the country back to the normalcy because of the spectacular rise of Islamist forces since 2006. Since then, a large part of the south of the country including its Capital Mogadiscio is under the siege of the Islamist groups.

Security experts and diplomats say roughly 5,000 Ethiopian troops crossed the border into Somalia earlier this month and another 20,000 have massed along the frontier so they can move in swiftly. Ethiopia and the Somali government deny any troops have entered Somalia, but Addis Ababa has said it will attack the Islamists if they advance on the government seat in aidoa.

Updates : December 10

Heavy clashes between Islamist militiamen and forces loyal to Somalia's government continued for a second day on December 9, as fears of an imminent war in the Horn of Africa mounted.

The fighting centred around Maddoy, 25 miles south of Baidoa, the temporary capital and the only town that the weak transitional federal government controls. Witnesses who reported heavy shelling said Ethiopian troops formed part of the government contingent.

While information remains sketchy - due to the dangers in Somalia even local correspondents for the international news agencies are reporting on the clashes from Mogadishu, 150 miles to the east - both sides suffered casualties, perhaps more than two dozen.

The fighting appear to be the fiercest yet between militiamen allied to the Somali Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), which controls most of south-central Somalia, and Ethiopian-backed government troops. The SCIC has been steadily approaching Baidoa in recent weeks and has taken most of the surrounding towns and villages.

Salad Ali Jelle, the government's Deputy Defence Minister, told Reuters yesterday that 'war could start any minute because we are so close to each other'.

Many analysts and diplomats in Nairobi see a full-scale conflict in the coming weeks and months as inevitable. Though peace talks are scheduled to resume in Khartoum on Friday, a government spokesman said that they were 'a waste of time' and both sides have continued preparing for war.

With Ethiopia firmly backing the government - it has sent at least 6,000 troops into the country, analysts believe - and Eritrea taking the side of the Courts, the looming conflict could plunge the entire region into turmoil.

The latest clashes came two days after a controversial United Nations security council resolution authorising the deployment of African troops to protect the government. President Abdullahi Yusuf's regime remains fragile and fractured, and has been unable to win over the Somali population since its formation two years ago. Its position has been made increasingly tenuous by the rise in power of the Courts, which took control of the capital, Mogadishu, last June, ending 15 years of rule by warlords and bringing law and order.

Though they were set up to dispense justice and carry out social programmes, the Courts soon proved a strong political force. The SCIC contains moderate clerics seeking a stable Islamic state as well as hardliners whose goal is to reunite a 'greater Somalia' that includes parts of Kenya and Ethiopia.

The SCIC are also protecting terror suspects with links to al-Qaeda, although the number and provenance of the jihadists is unknown. For the US, however, their presence is a sign that the Courts are a threat to world peace that must be contained. Washington helped the Mogadishu warlords in their failed struggle against the SCIC earlier this year, a strategy that unwittingly helped the SCIC. In Somalia the warlords and the concept of foreign intervention arouse similar loathing.

The US strategy has attracted similar controversy. Despite warnings from analysts that the deployment of foreign peacekeepers would be viewed as taking sides and could trigger a war, America pushed strongly for last Wednesday's security council resolution. European Union countries, which are sceptical about whether deployment is wise, or even feasible, demanded that the peacekeeping force exclude front line states such as Ethiopia.

Even so the reaction from the Courts was immediate. Condemning the resolution, the SCIC vowed to fight any foreign troops and to remove the Ethiopians by force. While troops from Ethiopia have the clear advantage militarily - the Courts do not have an air force or tanks - analysts say any conflict is likely to be protracted because the Islamist militias will adopt guerrilla tactics.