From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Wed May 20 2009 - 14:14:37 EDT
African bloc calls for U.N. sanctions on Eritrea
Wed May 20, 2009 1:21pm EDT
* Regional body says Eritrea funds, trains Somali rebels
* Calls on U.N. to impose sanctions, enforce no-fly zone
* Ethiopia again denies troops have crossed border
By Barry Malone
ADDIS ABABA, May 20 (Reuters) - An east African regional bloc called on the
United Nations on Wednesday to impose immediate sanctions on Eritrea for
backing rebels attempting to overthrow Somalia's besieged government.
Islamist insurgents, including the hardline al Shabaab group, have gained
ground during two weeks of Somalia's fiercest fighting for months. Local
human rights workers say the clashes have killed at least 175 civilians and
wounded more than 500.
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed's U.N.-backed administration is the 15th
attempt in 18 years to set up central rule in Somalia. Neighbouring states
and Western security forces fear the nation could become a haven for al
Qaeda-linked extremists.
"The government of Eritrea and its financiers continue to instigate,
finance, recruit, train, fund and supply the criminal elements in and/or to
Somalia," the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) said.
"(We call on) the U.N. Security Council to impose sanctions on the
government of Eritrea without any further delay," IGAD said in a statement
after an emergency meeting on Somalia in Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa.
IGAD is made up of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
Eritrea suspended its membership in 2007.
SEA, AIR BLOCKADE
Somalia's transitional government said on Wednesday the hardline Islamist
rebels had been joined by foreign fighters and had on Tuesday night again
attacked government forces.
IGAD said the United Nations should impose a no-fly zone on the chaotic
country and enforce a blockade of its ports to stop foreign fighters and
arms from bolstering the rebels.
The U.N. Security Council last week said conditions were not right for a
U.N. peacekeeping force to enter Somalia, despite repeated requests from the
African Union.
While there is a small African peacekeeping force in Mogadishu, some members
of the government fear a fully-fledged U.N. force could rally support to the
insurgents, who want to drive foreign troops from Somalia.
Forces loyal to Ahmed now control only parts of the capital Mogadishu and
the country's central region.
Ahmed was chairman of an Islamic group that ran Mogadishu in 2006 before
Ethiopian troops, wary of having an Islamist state next door, ousted them
from power. The Ethiopian soldiers withdrew earlier this year.
Ethiopia's Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin denied reports its soldiers had
returned to fight the hardline Islamist rebels.
"We are not back in Somalia," Mesfin told reporters
"We don't intend to go to Somalia unilaterally. We will continue to follow
up developments and do everything possible that this legitimate and
sovereign government of Somalia is supported and assisted," he said after
the IGAD meeting.
Since the Ethiopian intervention, fighting has killed at least 17,700
civilians and made more than 1 million homeless. More than 3 million people
survive on emergency food aid.
The United Nations refugee agency says 45,000 people have fled fighting in
the capital Mogadishu in the past 12 days.
IGAD Executive Secretary Mahboub Mahlim told the meeting the region had
failed to support properly the ailing Somali government and called the
security situation "very grave".
"This is no longer just a war against Somalia. It is a war against all of
us," he said. (Editing by David Clarke and Jon Boyle
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