From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri Mar 19 2010 - 09:17:31 EST
Eritrea does NOT have any links with Al Shabbab
Sofia Tesfamariam, Mar 19, 2010
On 17 June 1998, the Gettysburg Times (GT) reported on a White House
interview with President Bill Clinton. The questions were mostly about US
Foreign Policy and sanctions. According to the report, Clinton said that the
United States had become “sanctions happy” to the detriment of its foreign
policy. Responding to a question about using export curbs as a weapon to
punish countries abroad, Clinton said:
“…I think sanctions can be helpful from time to time, but most clearly when
the world community agrees…”
Clinton mentioned effective world sanctions against South Africa and Iraq as
examples. Lest one gets the idea that President Clinton was against
sanctions, let us take a look at what Gary Clyde Hufbauer of the Peterson
Institute for International Economics wrote about Clinton and US’ liberal
use of sanctions. He wrote:
“…Clinton is the same president who has signed laws for new punitive
measures against India, Pakistan, Cuba, Iran and Libya and has used his
executive powers to add to the rich legacy of sanctions inherited from past
occupants of the White House…No country in the world has employed sanctions
as often as the United States has… During this century, the United States
has imposed economic sanctions more than 110 times… The current inventory of
U.S. sanctions covers 26 target countries, accounting for over half of the
world's population… In short, whenever tensions rise, sanctions become the
favorite tonic of American diplomacy…”
It looks like there is a sanctions "epidemic" in the Obama foreign policy
team too. Susan Rice, who was the US Secretary of State for African Affairs
in the Clinton Administration and now serves as the US Ambassador to the
United Nations and Hillary Clinton, his wife and the current US Secretary of
State seem to be just as “sanction happy” as he was. Eritrea became Barack
Obama’s first African sanction and the US’ 111th and Eritrea became the 27th
country to be targeted by the US.
On 23 December 2009, Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the United Nations,
stood in front of the cameras and announced the adoption of UN Security
Council Resolution 1907 (2009) against Eritrea. Like the cat that swallowed
the canary, she sought to deceive, but her demeanor-and record- gave her
away. She presented the illegal, unjust and unfair Resolution 1907 that
imposed sanctions on Eritrea, as an “African Initiative”, knowing full well
that it was not. The handful of Africans at IGAD and the Peace and Security
Council of the African Union, whose hands are soaking with the blood of the
Somali people, are there to give an “African cover” to a thinly disguised US
action under a UN patina.
Eritreans around the world and Eritrean-Americans in particular, had great
hopes in the Obama Administration and were looking forward to engaging it
despite Obama’s cabinet choices which included personalities with an ax to
grind with Eritrea. The hopes eroded fast as the headlines turned
increasingly hostile and ugly. Just months into office and the “threats”
against Eritrea had reached a screeching crescendo. Suffice it to mention a
few:
“…Eritrea has been instrumental in facilitating support of the extremists to
commit these attacks. This support must cease immediately. Eritrea’s support
for anti-government forces in Somalia is a serious obstacle to the
possibility of a more normal relationship with the United States.14 May
2009: U.S. Insists Eritrea Stop Fomenting Violence in Somalia…” (Ian
Kelly-Department Spokesman, Office of the Spokesman Bureau of Public
Affairs)
“…The role that Eritrea has played most recently has not been particularly
helpful in helping to bring about a return to political stability and
normalcy there (Somalia)…We would like very much to have good, normal
relations with the government or Eritrea but that is predicated upon Eritrea
acting as a responsible citizen in the neighborhood…” (Johnnie Carson, US
Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs in an interview conducted
with Reuters in June 2009)
"…We will continue to discuss with colleagues in the Security Council
appropriate measures, including potentially sanctions, against Eritrea for
its actions in Somalia…There is a very short window for Eritrea to signal
through its actions that it wishes a better relationship with the United
States and indeed the wider international community….If we do not see signs
of that signal in short order, I can assure you that we will be taking
appropriate steps with partners in Africa and the Security Council… We will
continue to discuss with colleagues in the Security Council appropriate
measures, including potentially sanctions, against Eritrea for its actions
in Somalia…” (US Ambassador to the United Nations testifying at a House
Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in July 2009)
“…Al-Shabaab and other extremist groups, fueled by outside actors, have
caused numerous deaths and violated the rights of Somali citizens with
impunity—including by assaulting, detaining, and illegally arresting
civilians….The issue of outside actors is a serious one. The Somalia
Sanctions Committee’s Monitoring Group has reported that Eritrea has
provided political, financial, and military support to armed opposition
groups in Somalia. Efforts by the international community to engage the
Eritrean government on its regional relations have been rebuffed. It is time
for the international community to consider ways to address Eritrea’s
destabilizing impact on Somalia and the region…”- (Remarks made by
Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo at a Security Council 7 October 2009 meeting on
Somalia. (DiCarlo is considered to be Susan Rice's number two)
“…It is long past time for Eritrea to cease and desist its support of
al-Shabab and to start being a productive rather than a destabilising
neighbour…We are making it very clear that their actions are unacceptable.
We intend to take action if they do not cease…”- (Remarks made by US
Secretary of State on in August 2009 at a joint press conference with Sheikh
Sharif Ahmed held in Nairobi, Kenya)
As I have said before, the US and Eritrea may have had , and may continue to
have, many political differences, but that does not give the US the moral or
legal right to use the Security Council as a bully pulpit to subordinate
Eritrea´s sovereignty, security, stability and development. That is a
violation of international law. As for the erroneous and rehearsed
statements made by US State Department officials about Al Shabbab, they are
as credible as their sources [Usually Ethiopia and its mercenary allies].
Just because the US accuses Eritrea of supplying arms to groups in Somalia,
doesn’t mean that it is true.
The onus is on the US and the Security Council to provide the evidence that
they claim to have. Repeating the lies is not going to make it true and
absent a critical and truly independent media to investigate and inform the
American public, we are left at the mercy of inept and intellectually
immature, not to mention vindictive US diplomats.
Some US officials have claimed that Eritrea had some kind of link to Al
Shabbab. Those allegations are also categorically false. Nobody tried harder
to link Eritrea with Al Shabbab, and terrorism, than Jendayi E. Frazier, the
incompetent former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Here
is what Steve Bloomfield wrote about her in the Independent on 10 March
2008:
“…The US is planning to designate Al Shabbab, the main jihadist insurgent
group in Somalia, a terrorist organisation…In the increasingly bizarre world
of Jendayi Frazer, America's top diplomat for Africa, they are all
terrorists. When asked in a recent Newsweek interview why the US-backed
government had so little popular support she managed to cram the word
"terrorists" into her answer three times…”
A few weeks later, she got her wish and Al Shabbab was put on the list. Her
intentions were very transparent and Steve Bloomfield in a 31 March 2008
wrote the following on 31 March 2008:
“…As predicted the US has designated Al Shabbab, the main insurgent group in
Somalia, as a terrorist organisation… The timing of the US announcement
appears odd… Diplomats (the non-American type) worry that this week's
announcement will derail any chance of proper peace talks…The US, though,
doesn't seem that interested in peace talks. What it does seem interested in
is sidelining Eritrea, the arch enemy of America's main ally in the Horn of
Africa, Ethiopia. In September last year, Jendayi Frazer, America's top
diplomat for Africa threatened to name Eritrea as a state sponsor of
terrorism. There was only one problem. None of the groups which Eritrea
supports had been designated a terrorist organisation. Hence this week's
announcement…”
She ended up leaving office leaving trails of blood across the continent and
especially in Somalia. Frazer left without ever producing a shred of
evidence to back up her vindictive allegations against Eritrea. For the
record, let us see what else has been reported about Eritrea and Al Shabab.
Garowe online, a Somali site reported the following on 3 October 2007:
“…Abu Mansur Robow, who was the Islamists' deputy defense secretary, told
Mogadishu radio Wednesday that his group, al Shabaab, has "nothing to do"
with opposition figures in the Eritrean capital Asmara…A group composed of
dissident former government members, Islamic Courts officers and Diaspora
activists formed a united front in Asmara known as the Alliance for the
Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS)… Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Islamists'
supreme leader, attended the conference. Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, who was
the Islamic Courts' executive head, was elected last month as chairman of
the ARS…”
BBC’s Mary Harper in her 21 March 2008 piece “Somalia's Islamist 'lads”
profiled the Al Shabab group. Here is an excerpt from that article:
“…Its name stems from its first incarnation as the youth and military wing
of a group of Sharia courts who controlled much of southern and central
Somalia in 2006. When, at the end of that year, the Union of Islamic Courts
(UIC) was driven from power by Ethiopian troops supporting Somalia's weak
transitional government, al-Shabab melted away into remote and distant parts
of the country… Unlike many UIC leaders, who fled into exile in Eritrea,
al-Shabab stayed behind to fight…Al-Shabab has distanced itself from the
Somali opposition based in Eritrea, saying it is too secular…”
Mohammed Omar Hussein of the Somaliweyn Media Center (SMC) reported the
following on 31 October 2009:
“…Al-Shabab an Islamist faction in Somalia which America say is Al-Qaida
proxy in Somalia has disclosed that they will sooner or later attack Asmara
the capital of Eritrea…They said Eritrea is a country which is against the
interest of the Muslim people, and has included it the list of the countries
which they have sent their threat massages…In their statement they also said
that Eritrea is not a friend and has no relationship with the Muslim
countries in the world wide and in this case they will attack her….”
There is not a single mention of this threat against Eritrea in any of the
western media…no surprises there. How can they justify their incessant
attempts to link Eritrea with Al Shabab and then report that Eritrea is
being targeted by Al Shabab?
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross in the Middle East Quarterly, Fall 2009, VOLUME XVI:
NUMBER 4, pp. 25-36 reported the following:
“…Amriki explained that Al-Shabaab had boycotted the Asmara conference
because it refused to work with the non-Muslim Eritrean state. He argued
that cooperation with "infidels" would corrupt the jihad because Eritrea
would open "the door of politics in order for them to forget armed
resistance," leaving "members of the Courts in the lands of the Kuffaar,
underneath their control, sitting in the road of politics which leads to the
loss and defeat they were running from…"
And on 31 October 2009, Shaaficiyah Media reported the following under the
headline, “Al-Shabab says they will attack Asmara”:
“…Al-Shabab an Islamist faction in Somalia which America say is Al-Qaida
proxy in Somalia has disclosed that they will sooner or later attack Asmara
the capital of Eritrea…”
The record is clear. Eritrea has not and does not support Al Shabab, and Al
Shabab does not want anything to do with Eritrea. So where are the arms
coming from? Let us take a look at these reports and news items:
"…The UPDF has been shaken by the discovery that some of the battle-hardened
Al Shabaab militants it is fighting in the volatile Somalia were trained
here at home. … The UPDF has been secretly training Somali forces at Bihanga
Military Training School in the Western Uganda district of Ibanda…. AMISOM
has discovered that one [of the Islamist fighters] who died and one of the
injured were trained by UPDF…"— (“Somali terrorists trained in Uganda”, The
Observer)
“…The Government of Ethiopia informed the Monitoring Group in October 2008
that it had trained 17,000 Somali security personnel.... Of that total,
Ethiopia believes less than 3,000 may still be effective, suggesting an
attrition rate of over 80 per cent. Since most soldiers who desert or defect
take their weapons and uniforms with them, this represents some 14,000 new
weapons entering Somali territory..."—(Dumisani Shadrack Kumalo, Report to
Security Council, S/2008/76)
“…Arms and military hardware are mainly transported to Somalia by boat and
airplane, but traffickers also use horses and donkeys, making shipments
difficult to track…boats often came from Yemen ‘with goods for general trade
and with weapons, (and) ... arms shipments were reaching Somalia at points
along the entire coast…’ He also said Somalia's ‘business community was
profiting as well from the general situation of lawlessness...” – (Louis
Charbonneau, May 2008 Reuters)
“…elements of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia known as
AMISOM, and Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG)" are involved in
arms trafficking activities.” Furthermore, “eighty percent of ammunition
available at the Somali arms markets was supplied by the TFG and Ethiopian
troops." The Committee also reported of getting “details of some 25 military
flights by Ethiopia into Somalia and knew that Ethiopian troops had brought
military equipment into the country to arm friendly clans….”- (U.N. Security
Council's Somalia Sanctions Committee)
"…Eighty percent of ammunition available at the Somali arms markets was
supplied by TFG and Ethiopian troops…The monitoring committee received
details of some 25 military flights by Ethiopia into Somalia and knew that
Ethiopian troops had brought military equipment into the country to arm
friendly clans…"- (The UN Monitoring Group on Somalia)
Eritrea’s 16 year long principled stand on the Somali issue is well known.
Eritrea believes in allowing the Somali people to resolve their issues
without any external interference. Eritrea has no bone in this fight, does
not favor one Somali faction over another, and does not engage in activities
that pit Somalis against each other.
The rule of law must prevail over the law of the jungle!
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