·
It is to be noted that Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International
Criminal Court (ICC) decided on 4 March 2009 to issue an arrest warrant
against the president of the Republic of the Sudan for war crimes and
crimes against humanity. The Decision was made disregarding the request
made by the African Union, to the United Nations Security Council, to
defer the process initiated by the ICC. The African Union and of course
Ethiopia, strongly believe that the decision of the ICC has a potential
to seriously undermine the on-going efforts to address the many pressing
peace and security challenges facing Sudan.
The
Government of the Sudan has signed different peace agreements with the
opposition groups that have paramount importance to the peace and
stability of the Sudan as well as to the region. In this regard, the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) needs to be mentioned. The CPA is
the result of the tireless effort of the IGAD which helped end the
longest civil war in Africa. Despite some challenges, significant
progress is being made in the implementation of the CPA. The challenges
still lying ahead, among others, include the conduct of the 2009
election and the 2011 referendum, the demarcation of the North/South
boundary and the crucial issue of the reconstruction and development in
the South.
The full
implementation of the CPA needs the continued commitment of the parties
to the Agreement. The ICC, however, in its decision undermined the very
legitimacy of the president and his Government which has very important
role in the implementation of the Agreement. It is therefore impossible
to disregard the potential danger which the implementation of the CPA
faces. Of course, it is the responsibility of countries such as Ethiopia
to try to do whatever is necessary to ensure that this would not
happen.
The potential
negative effect of the decision of the ICC is not limited to CPA; it
could also have serious implication on the ongoing effort to find a
political solution in Darfur. The decision could also have serious
consequences on the humanitarian condition.
Ethiopia
attaches great importance to the peace and stability of the region. As
a country sharing with Sudan a boundary of more than 1600 k.m any
problem that might arise in the Sudan would have a spill over effect on
Ethiopia. Ethiopia strongly believes that peace is indivisible.
Regional integration and cooperation cannot be envisaged where there is
no peace and stability. It is because of this conviction that Ethiopia
played an important role in the IGAD peace process which resulted in the
signing of the CPA. Any measure, including ICC decisions, which could
negatively affect CPA's implementation is, therefore, not in the
interest of peace in the Region.
Ethiopia
is making all effort possible to consolidate its cooperation with its
neighbors. Ethiopia and Sudan for instance, are engaged in multi-sectoral
cooperation. To this effect, they have established different mechanisms
of cooperation that directly involve Federal Institutions and Regional
states bordering the Sudan.
The Joint
Border Development Commission (JBDC) which was established in March 2000
with the objective of promoting cross border cooperation will convene
its 11th meeting 13-14 March 2009, at Demazin, the capital of the Blue
Nile state of the Sudan.
The Ethiopian
delegation is led by H.E. Umed Ubong, President of the Gambella People's
National Regional State. Presidents of the regional states of Tigray,
Amhara, Benishangule-Gumuz and Southern Nations and Nationalities are
also participating in the meeting. All the Sudanese regional states
bordering Ethiopia are expected to have similar representation to the
meeting.
The meeting
will deliberate on issues of security and development of the common
border which among others includes political and security issues, border
trade, agriculture, and health and other related matters. Still other
Joint Commissions such as the Joint High Level Commission, the Joint Ministerial
Commission, the Joint Border Commission and others will be convened in
the weeks to come.
**********
·
Pursuant to the statement of the president of the Security Council
of 31 October 2001 (S/PR57/2001/30) in which the council requested the
UN Secretary General to submit reports over four months on the situation
in Somalia, the Secretary General presented his latest Report to the
Security Council, after his last Report on 17 November 2008.
The Report
includes main developments in Somalia, related to the on-going political
process, the security situation, AMISOM's activities, the findings of
the Technical Assessment Mission (TAM) of the UN, support to AMISOM and
building the Somali security and law enforcement institutions. It also
briefly touches on peace building efforts in Somaliland and Puntland as
well as issues relating to the maritime task force. The contingency
planning for a UN peace keeping operation, activities of the UN and the
international community as well as Humanitarian issues, Human rights and
protection of civilians are also included in the Report. The Report
further incorporates operational activities to support peace and the
Secretary General's observations on the matter. The Report rightly
acknowledges the daunting challenges involved in the efforts to bolster
the embryonic Somali institutions and the need for coordinating support
to these institutions.
Obviously,
some of the issues raised in the Report need further emphasis in order
to put them in their right perspective.
To begin with
the conclusions of the Report, the Secretary General in the observations
section clearly indicates that "the continued hostilities being
perpetrated by anti-peace elements, in the face of Ethiopian withdrawal,
seem to show that these groups do not have a serious agenda, other than
seeking to wreak havoc among innocent people." This is exactly the
point and there is no way of moving forward in addressing the
developments in Somalia without underlining this fact. These groups
have little by way of disincentive to refrain from their acts of
destabilization. Weapons and munitions have never been in short supply,
thanks to the enthusiastic support they receive from arch spoiler
Eritrea. As was clearly indicated by the statement of the Eritrean
Foreign Ministry on 23 February 2009, Eritrea's leaders do not mince
their words about throwing their full weight behind forces of
instability and terror in the region. Eritrea's recent statement is
exceptionally outrageous judging even by its own standards calling, as
it does, for the removal of the new government and an attack on the
peacekeeping forces. Eritrea's blatant declaration to sabotage any
prospect of peaceful political process in Somalia is not a mere
declaration of intention either. As report after report have indicated
time and again, Eritrea has all too often been consistent in making good
on that promise. No wonder then that the forces that The Secretary
General's Report refers to as "seeking to wreak havoc among innocent
people" continue their bloody carnage almost daily. Surprisingly,
however, conspicuously missing in the Report is any mention of who is
behind these forces, much less a condemnation of Eritrea's virulent
behaviour. This has become almost a pattern.
The Secretary
General's Report also indicated the dire need for humanitarian support
to the Somali people, and institutional support for the new government
to enable it to stand on its feet. The Report also touched on the
activities of Al-Shabab, its failures to take over Somalia by force as
its wings are clipped by those who oppose Al-Shabab's terrorist
activities.
As opposed to
what is indicated in the Report, after Ethiopian withdrawal the Joint
Security Forces failed to take over the areas from which Ethiopian
forces evacuated as per the Djibouti Agreement. Since the TFG and ARS
failed to establish Joint Security Forces to take over these areas, they
rather settled for dividing between them territories that had been under
the Ethiopian Defense Forces. What is more, the ARS could not mobilize
enough forces to cover areas that were allocated to it as per the
understanding between the TFG and ARS commanders on the ground. In fact,
Ethiopian forces were compelled to wait until ARS could mobilize enough
forces. Clearly, this has created an opportunity for those who are
opposed to the peace process to easily control those areas. The new
administration may have succeeded to accommodate some elements of the
leadership that had been controlling parts of Mogadishu; but the
authority of the new government will certainly continue to face
challenges.
The other
point addressed in the Report is the possibility of the deployment of a
UN peacekeeping force. The Secretary General's Report indicates what it
calls "important benchmarks" to all peacekeeping operations to operate
effectively. One of these is the formation of a government of National
Unity in Somalia inclusive beyond those present in the Djibouti
process. It would require a bit of stretch to assume that these 'other'
forces could be relied upon as part of a peaceful political process. As
indicated earlier, the Secretary General observed that these groups have
no serious agenda than wreaking havoc in Somalia. It remains a mystery
how the new government could manage to bring them on board if they are
not ready for peace.
Another
benchmark put forward in the Report is the implementation of a credible
ceasefire, which one cannot reasonably expect to get from those same
forces. Consent to the deployment of such a force by all major parties,
which is another benchmark according to the Report, is difficult to
achieve as well. It would be foolhardy to expect forces that have
relentlessly attacked AMISOM in every way possible would somehow find it
in their heart to agree to a UN peacekeeping contingent. Of course,
there still are far too many such benchmarks that are next to impossible
to achieve. Another way of reading would suggest--perhaps
plausibly--that, despite the circumlocution--the Report is simply
reiterating one foregone conclusion: a UN peacekeeping deployment in
Somalia is off the table. This of course is just another proof that
there is no seriousness on the part of the international community to
support Somalis.
The Report
also surprisingly failed to denounce the activities of extremist
elements in Somalia. In fact, it somewhat tacitly accused AMISOM of
using excessive force. AMISOM, which was supposed to grow to 8000, is
trying to accomplish with less than half that number a daunting task
against all odds. Of course, the fact that the troop level is not yet
met is another testimonial to the lack of seriousness by the
international community to support the new government of Somalia. On the
other hand it is well known that terrorist killings here and there are
conducted through the killing squads of Al-Shabab. The Report should
not have shied away form calling clearly who the spoilers are and who
are behind them.
The Report
did not also say anything about the recent ICG meeting in Brussels which
was called to look at ways and means of supporting the new government.
It is also to be recalled that the ICG failed to come up with a clear
plan of action to support the new government as well as failed to
condemn those actors who declared their intentions to relentlessly work
towards the demise of the new government.
The other
point that the Report mentions is how humanitarian actors in Somalia
advise peace keepers not to involve in securing the delivery of
humanitarian assistance. They claim that this would compromise
humanitarian space and that a mandate for physical intervention to
protect civilians could compromise the force's impartiality. This
raises a question why those who ostensibly are in the business of
delivering humanitarian assistance would be opposed to the peace keeping
force's role in protecting humanitarian deliveries. There appears to be
some kind of conundrum here that cries out for explanation. Obviously,
those in the business of aid delivery have developed soft spots for some
of the forces that are bent on destabilizing Somalia on the ground. What
could bring these strange bedfellows together; we have no way of
knowing.
**********
·
Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin held talks on 11 March, 2009 with his
Burundian counterpart on bilateral and regional issues of mutual
concern.
Foreign
Minister Seyoum expressed his admiration to Burundi for its commitment
to regional peace and security through its participation in AMISOM and
the sacrifices of its peacekeepers for the cause of peace in Somalia.
In this regard, he paid homage and conveyed his condolences to the
People and Government of Burundi as well as the families of the bereaved
for the loss of Burundian soldiers killed by Al Shabaab and for the
victims in the Lake Victoria plane crash.
The Minister
further reiterated that much more meaningful contribution from the
international community, especially from the UN Security Council, is
expected in order to help strengthen the security situation in Somalia
and emphasized Ethiopia's unflinching commitment to continue to support
activities aimed at bringing about durable peace in Somalia.
For his part,
Dr. Nsanze stated that his country also expects much more support from
the international community to help bring about durable peace in Somalia
and expressed his country's readiness to deepen and diversify the areas
of bilateral cooperation with Ethiopia.
**********
·
On March 10, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in collaboration with
the Administration of Refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA) and the
UNHCR Office in Addis Ababa convened a Meeting to exchange Views on the
Problems of Eritrean Refugees Hosted in Ethiopia. One of the objectives
of this meeting was to hold consultation with members of the
international community, particularly with donor countries and
international organizations and NGOs, on the problems of Eritrean
refugees hosted in Ethiopia. It was also aimed at deliberating on
urgent and persistent needs of the refugees such as food, shelter,
energy, clothing; the provision of social services such as health
facilities and education/ training; and their secondary movement. At the
meeting the representative of ARRA explained at length on the particular
needs of Eritrean refugees and conditions they say have forced them to
seek asylum in Ethiopia, including human rights violations and forced
conscription into the military. Currently around 33,000 Eritrean
refugees are sheltered in Ethiopia. It was discussed during the meeting
that the number of refugees who seek shelter in Ethiopia from Eritrea is
increasing from time to time at an average rate of 900 persons per
month. Though the Government of Ethiopia has been taking several
initiatives in a bid to improve the quality of life of refugees in
collaboration with donor states and organizations, it is has been
difficult to meet the various specific needs of these refugees who come
from urban areas and at very young age group. Discussions where held on
various ways in which these needs could be met including material need
and training and resettlement to other countries.
The
representative of the UNHCR also commended the generous hospitality of
the Government of Ethiopia for hosting such large number of refugees and
their protection on the country. The representative in particular
emphasized the treatment accorded to Eritrean refugees including the out
of camp opportunity offered to them. A decision was reached during the
meeting to visit Eritrean refugees at the level of heads of mission and
to further assess the specific needs and challenges. Also identified
during the meeting were the nature of Eritrean refugees' problems and
the ways of tackling these problems. The participants of the meeting
also took not of the commendable work that the donor countries and
Non-governmental organizations are undertaking in order to meet the need
of the refugees. Representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
ARRA underlined that Ethiopia will continue to take the necessary
measures enabling Eritrean refugees to continue securing better and
proper attention and help from the international community.
**********
·
It has now been an open secret that the Government of Eritrea is the
major source of destabilization in the Horn of Africa. If there is
anything about which the leadership in Asmara has been consistent to a
fault, it must be its open defiance of international law--waging war
with all of its neighbours under the international community's watch.
Unfortunately, the Eritrean leadership has never faced any meaningful
condemnation for its brazen adventures much less the kinds of collective
sanctions its behaviours so richly deserve. Having gotten away with its
recalcitrant behaviours all the way through, the government of Eritrea
has become a spoiler extraordinaire of the entire region and nobody
knows if there is an end in sight to such a disturbing pattern. As
usual, the deafening silence of the international community in the face
of Eritrea's blatant transgression of international law still continues.
Djibouti is just another proof that when it comes to Eritrea, the rules
that normally apply to others simply do not apply.
The United
Nations Security Council’s deadline for Eritrea to evacuate its forces
from sovereign Djibouti territory has expired for quite some time now
and no concrete action is in sight as far as the Security Council goes.
There is no indication if the United Nations Secretary General has even
submitted a Report to the Council as was specifically required in the
resolution. It should be clear to all that the UNSC's call for Eritrea
to return to compliance with international law and recognize and settle
its disputes with Djibouti as any member of the United Nations has
fallen on deaf ears. What is not clear is whether the Council is having
second thoughts about the need to take appropriate action even if by way
of reminder that Eritrea, too, has to be held to account. If experience
is any guide, Eritrea will, perhaps, get away with this one too. This is
a dangerous pattern indeed.
The regime in
Asmara has long joined hands with desperate villains of all stripes in
order to carry out its objectives of wreaking havoc on the entire
sub-region in general and Ethiopia in particular. The silence of the
international community towards Eritrea's unwholesome behaviour has
further emboldened the regime in Asmara to continue with its ruinous
path.
This is what
appears to be happening even today. As the most recent statements coming
out of Asmara amply demonstrate, the regime in Asmara is once again
making recourse to its known fields: destabilizing the whole region. The
leadership in Eritrea made it abundantly clear it will leave no stones
unturned to sow the seeds of destruction and violence in Somalia until
it has its way, which is, of course, wreaking more havoc. In a statement
that could be considered unusual even by the regime's own standards,
Eritrea's foreign ministry had the temerity to attack in no uncertain
terms the Transitional Government of Somalia recognized by the
international community including the United Nations, the African Union
and the Arab League as being illegitimate. What makes the statement
unusual this time around is this: Eritrea is not simply supporting
terrorist elements against the TFG, which it has been doing since day
one. Eritrea is actually calling for attacks against AMISOM forces
deployed in Somalia in peacekeeping mission by the African Union with
the authorization of the United Nations Security Council. How far should
Eritrea go before it receives its fair share of criticism--forget strong
action--from the international community? The Eritrean leadership's
illegal acts against the peoples of this region including its own are
innumerable. But calling on Somalis to attack peace keepers was the last
thing even the most deranged of people should have tinkered with. But in
the political aberration that is Eritrea, anything is possible. As long
as they can get away with it, that is.
Eritrea's
leaders have always had a tendency--nearly pathological--to fancy
themselves as something of a super power. That by itself speaks a lot
about the nature of that regime. But it is clear, perhaps by default,
that the international community has also been part of the problem. To
say that an action of some kind is long over due is quite to state the
obvious. On the other hand, paradoxically we have recently witnessed
that Eritrea's dangerous behavior in our region is being recognized by
politicians like Anna Gomez, who has never be suspected of having biases
in favor of Ethiopia. It is in fact surprising that even Ms Anna Gomez
could find moments of lucidity to expose the regime while the very
international institutions that should have done some thing about it are
missing, as it were, in action.
**********
·
Mogadishu
is certainly a dangerous place, but Jeffery Gettleman's exaggeration
starts in paragraph one. Mogadishu doesn't get just the occasional
commercial flight which is most apparently shot down as he implies. It
has three Somali airlines landing
regularly every week, as well as UN and AMISOM flights. The “Russian
cargo plane shot down in 2007” while on charter to AMISOM, has been the
only plane actually affected by the fighting.
Of course,
Mogadishu has been dangerous in recent months, and certainly for
journalists, though for others as well. It all makes a good story,
spiced by the brief dose of personal information from last year as
Jeffery Gettleman writes in Foreign Policy earlier this month (http://www.foreignpolicy.com).
But accuracy isn't the point. Of course, it might help if the
journalists, Gettleman and others, got it right a little more often.
Gettleman criticizes the failure of external powers, notably the United
States, for failing to appreciate the twin pulls of clan and religion.
That is a little rich, coming from a journalist who has consistently
failed to do just that himself. Sharia'a law is not exactly the one set
of principles that different clans agree on, and, in defiance of his own
eyes, Mr. Gettleman even suggests that in 2006, the Islamic Courts Union
“seemed to tame” Mogadishu. He failed to notice how the ICU failed to
“tame “ Mogadishu in practice, its military expansion outside the
capital into Kismayo and other towns, or the evidence of extremist
involvement in piracy (one particular sub-clan was involved in both). He
discounts all the evidence of events in 2006 after June, claiming there
was a “narrow window of opportunity” to split moderates and the likes of
Al-Shabaab which the US and Ethiopia failed to utilize. Certainly there
was a window, for a few weeks in June 2006, and again after the
Ethiopian/TFG victory in early 2007. Mr. Gettleman appears to be totally
ignorant that these windows were exactly what Ethiopia tried to utilize
in 2006 and in 2007, holding, for example, eight rounds of negotiations
with the ICU before it took the final step of direct involvement at the
request of the Somali Government and in defence of its own security
interests. Equally, it was Ethiopia which pushed the TFG into talks in
Khartoum with the ICU (not Congressman Donald Payne). Mr. Payne
reportedly actually encouraged the TFG in effect to surrender to the ICU
– not the same thing at all. Nor was it the Bush administration which
“reached for the gunpowder”. It was the extremists in the ICU which took
over after the first round of Khartoum talks at which, incidentally, the
moderates fully accepted the TFG's legitimacy and offered to put their
forces under the TFG Ministry of Defence.
Gettleman
even continues to repeat the rubbish that the US pushed Ethiopia into
Somalia as its proxy. This has been so frequently denied, by literally
everybody concerned, that it is tedious to repeat. Ethiopia went into
Somalia for its own (very obvious reasons) not for the US, which, to
repeat another of Mr. Gettleman's fictions, did not have any special
forces with the Ethiopian troops. All the journalists with Ethiopian
forces during the intervention have confirmed this, as has everybody
else. All the US did was to provide post-intervention intelligence and
make two or three post-intervention air-strike. Ethiopia certainly had
its own agenda, but it had nothing to do with its “image as a Christian
bulwark in a region seething with Islamic extremism”. One wonders where
Mr. Gettleman has been spending time in recent years. It is certainly
not in Ethiopia. Indeed, Mr. Gettleman is careful only to suggest by
innuendo that Ethiopia is about to face an extremist Islamic uprising
against its Christian leadership, though he does claim Ethiopia fears an
extremist Somalia could provide a rebel beachhead for a powerful rebel
Somali force. Presumably this is a reference to the Ogaden National
Liberation Front, a clan-based terrorist organization whose propaganda
Mr. Gettleman has continuously repeated since he traveled with the group
for a week or so, a year or two back. Since then, he has consistently
failed to notice the ONLF's terrorist activities in Ethiopia, that most
Ethiopian Somalis completely reject the ONLF, that the organization is
totally split, that both groups have suffered heavy defeats, that the
leader of one faction was killed last year. Incidentally, for Mr.
Gettleman to refer to the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia as a
“contested” region is bizarrely incompetent even by his standards. Nor
even the ONLF claims that. The government of the Somali Regional State,
which represents all Somali clans in the region, including the Ogadeen,
was elected in a successful multi-party election in 2005. Nor does Mr.
Gettleman seem to have bothered to have looked at Ethiopia's detailed
comments of Human Rights Watch criticisms of human rights in the Somali
Region, or its findings of burnt villages untouched by fire and
interviews of people found alive despite HRW allegations of being
allegedly tortured to death.
Mr. Gettleman
is equally ill-informed about the present situation in Somalia, about
the Djibouti peace process, the presidency of Sheikh Sharif and the
current strength of Al-Shabaab, which is currently splintered into
several clan-based elements whose relationship is anything but cordial.
It is true that the violence has shown little sign of halting, but Mr.
Gettleman shows even less sign of understanding the real reasons lie
within Somalia's clan relationship or in Eritrea's continued support for
Al-Shabaab and its continued attempts at destabilization in Ethiopia. He
shows little realization that support for Al-Shabaab is collapsing
steadily, or that Eritrea is even currently supporting two different
Ogadeen clan factions despite the fact they have been fighting each
other rather than the Ethiopian government. One of these incidentally is
the United Western Somali Liberation Front which gets no mention from
Mr. Gettleman. Equally, none of this has anything to do with the Eritrea
Ethiopia war in 1998-2000, and there is no possibility this will
re-ignite unless Eritrea once again invades Ethiopia as it did in May
1998.
Mr.
Gettleman's worst case scenario is for an Eritrean-supported Al-Shabaab
to take over Somalia, followed by another Eritrea-Ethiopia war. He
claims the hardest challenge will be to prevent this. It will depend
more on the Eritrean government, perhaps, than Somalis. Somalis are
equally, unlikely to accept Mr. Gettleman's suggestion for the UN East
Timor-style mandate. They do have leaders and they do want peace. He
suggests Islamic law may be an answer. One wonders what sort of law Mr.
Gettleman believes actually exists in Somalia. Somalia has always been
an Islamic country. The present government of President Sheikh Sharif
has already made it clear it supports Sharia'a. Mr. Gettleman amid his
wilder suggestions fails to take any stock of the most obvious idea:
active, western, international support for the present government in
Somalia and for the Djibouti peace process, which has the backing of all
Somalia's neighbours, including Ethiopia. The previous windows of
opportunity for peace in Somalia failed to open properly simply because
the international community refused to provide the resources necessary.
If this had occurred, Mr. Gettleman's vision of a “glassy-eyed
generation all across the country, lunging on bullet-pocked street
corners and spaced out in the back of pick-up trucks” with no concept of
law and order except the business end of a machine gun, would soon
disappear. It's certainly more promising than Mr. Gettleman's other
suggestions.
**********