From: emmanuel (emmanuel@bayou.com)
Date: Thu Aug 28 2008 - 09:00:41 EDT
Ethiopian PM signals shift over Somalia
By Barney Jopson in Addis Ababa
Published: August 27 2008 19:08 | Last updated: August 27 2008 19:08
Ethiopia would be prepared to withdraw its troops from Somalia even if
the interim government they were sent in to install 20 months ago were
still not stable or functioning, the country’s prime minister has said.
Meles Zenawi told the Financial Times that Ethiopia was “not joined at
the hip” with the Somali government as frustration in Addis Ababa grows
over its perennial in-fighting and the financial cost of the occupation.
His comments mark a policy shift because Ethiopia had previously
indicated it would stay in Somalia until the transitional federal
government (TFG) was firmly established and in control.
If Ethiopia deserts it while Somalia remains lawless and violent, it
could send the world’s most intractable failed state deeper into a
crisis that aid agencies say has already left millions of people on the
brink of a humanitarian disaster.
But while analysts in Addis Ababa say Ethiopia is closer to pulling out
now than ever before, Mr Meles remains caught in a dilemma between
wanting Somali leaders to take responsibility for stabilising their
country, and needing to guarantee Ethiopia’s own security if they fail
to do so.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia – which has not had a properly functioning
central government since 1991 – with thousands of troops in the final
week of 2006 to oust a group of Islamists that had taken control of the
capital, Mogadishu, and which Addis Ababa believed represented a threat
to its security.
But after reinstalling the interim government of President Abdullahi
Yusuf in a matter of weeks, Ethiopia’s troops got bogged down as the
regime struggled to establish a firm grip on power, intra-government
quarrels escalated, and an insurgency led by Islamists and rival clans
took hold.
Mr Meles said Ethiopia would do everything it could to help the interim
government, whose power is limited to a few parts of Mogadishu, to
become stronger and more effective. But he added “that is not
necessarily a precondition for our withdrawal” and stressed that
Ethiopia’s commitment was not open-ended.
“Our obligation towards peace in Somalia is only one aspect. There are
also requirements of our own, including financial requirements,” he
said. “The operation has been extremely expensive so we will have to
balance the domestic pressures on the one hand and pressures in Somalia
on the other and try to come up with a balanced solution.”
Ethiopia’s desire to curtail its military engagement in Somalia is
driven to a large extent by its cost, which has been felt more acutely
this year as the country is hit by a combination of soaring inflation
and failed harvests caused by drought, which the United Nations says has
left some 10m people in need of food aid.
Addis Ababa refuses to say how many troops it has in Somalia, but
independent analysts estimate there are 4,000-6,000, deployed mainly to
protect senior Somali officials, government buildings and critical
infrastructure.
The Ethiopian government maintains that al-Shabaab, an Islamist
insurgent group said by the US to be linked to al-Qaeda, has been
critically weakened. But the pattern of violence suggests otherwise.
Attacks on Ethiopian troops and the Somali security forces they are
training have spiked in the past month and last Friday, in a striking
show of force, Islamists took control of the southern port town of Kismayo.
Civilians continueto be caught in the cross-fire: more than 50 died
lastweekas a result of indiscriminate shelling”byEthiopian and
government troops after a roadside bomb attack on their convoy,
according to a UN situation report.
In total, 8,000 Somalis have been killed and 1m forced from their homes
by fighting since the beginning of last year. Due to conflict, failed
rains and inflation, the UN says that up to 3.5m Somalis – or nearly
half the population – could need food aid later this year.
Asked where Ethiopia’s original plan to stay in Somalia for a short time
had gone wrong, Mr Meles pointed the finger at the west. It has offered
lukewarm political and financial support for an African Union
peacekeeping force in Somalia, which has mustered barely one quarter of
its envisaged 8,000 troops.
“We didn’t anticipate the international community would be happy riding
the Ethiopian horse and flogging it at the same time for so long,” he
said. “We had hoped and expected ... that the international community
would recognise that this was a unique opportunity for the stabilisation
of Somalia and capitalise on it.”
One western diplomat in Addis Ababa said Ethiopia never expected to find
itself in a guerrilla war and probably overestimated its ability to
“work the clan dynamics”, the web of kin-based rivalries that divides
Somali society even though its people share the same language, culture
and Muslim religion.
Last week Ethiopia sequestered the president and Nur Hassan Hussein, the
prime minister, in Addis Ababa for talks to make them address their
differences. On Tuesday the two men signed a pledge to work together anew.
“Ethiopia remains apprehensive because the TFG is not viable, it’s not
functional and it’s not helping them, and the insurgency is gaining a
new edge,” said Medhane Tadesse of the Center for Policy Research and
Dialogue, a think-tank in Addis Ababa.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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