Somalia: Up to 12 Countries Could Be Sucked Into Conflict
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The East African (Nairobi)
October 23, 2006
Posted to the web October 23, 2006
Posted to the web October 23, 2006
John Mbaria
Nairobi
Nairobi
As another regional war in Somalia becomes ever more imminent,
Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda and, to some extent, Tanzania are among some 12 countries playing active roles in the conflict, says a new report prepared for the US State Department.
The report - Somalia: Regional Involvement and Implications for US Policy - which The EastAfrican has obtained, says that unlike Ethiopia and Kenya - who have some justification for getting involved - Uganda and Eritrea's interest in the conflict has more to do with regional adventurism and the desire to achieve goals extraneous to the conflict.
Tanzania's role in the conflict is somewhat interesting and indirect in that the country was drawn into participating when the US invited it to join the Contact Group on Somalia.
Besides, Dar es Salaam has in the past expressed a desire to accommodate Somali Bantus who are said to have close cultural and linguistic affinities with the Zigua people of northern
Tanzania.
The report was prepared by a former US Ambassador to Ethiopia, Prof David Shinn.
It says that, since the defeat of the warlords and the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), there has been "a significant increase" in outside engagement and accuses some of the countries of "meddling."
It lists the 12 countries that it says are playing direct and indirect roles in the conflict and bankrolling either the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) or the Islamic Courts. The other countries involved are Djibouti, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran and the US.
The participants' individual interest in the conflict differ. For example, Ethiopia has a military presence in the country, but others have sent in arms and/or cash to either the Transitional Government or the Islamic Courts.
Other
countries like Uganda - which is not a Muslim country and had earlier shown little interest in the conflict - have now formally pledged troops for a proposed peacekeeping effort.
The nature of the participation by countries such as Egypt and Libya is not clear, although they have been accused by TFG's Prime Minister Mohammed Gedi of arming either the Islamists or terrorists suspected to be operating in the country.
The report says that although some of the countries have openly taken sides in the conflict, many have preferred to do so secretly.
Indeed, not wanting to be in the bad books of the US, some of the countries like Saudi Arabia have publicly disassociated themselves from the radical Islamists.
However, the report alludes to a lingering suspicion that charities in the kingdom could be bankrolling the Islamic Courts.
The
report says Somalia's immediate neighbours - Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, all of which have Somali populations of their own - have legitimate reasons for taking more than a casual interest in the ongoing consolidation of power by the Islamists. "Prior to its disintegration, Mogadishu had a policy of actively seeking to incorporate these (Somali) populations as part of Somalia."
It says this desire has recently been publicly expressed by some of the radicals in the Islamic Courts.
And for the first time, the report tries to justify why Ethiopia went into Somalia to protect the interim government of President Abdullahi Yusuf.
It says that Ethiopia and Somalia engaged in a protracted military conflict in 1977/78 over Ogaden, which constitutes 25 per cent of Ethiopia's total land area. Though prone to drought, the area is rich in natural gas and has up to four million Somali
inhabitants.
It has been the subject of renewed conflict between Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's government, on the one hand, and the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) on the other.
Prof Shinn says, "Addis Ababa worries
that a hostile government in Mogadishu would strongly support ONLF and UWSLF and revive earlier goals of encouraging the Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia to join it. Ethiopia is also said to be concerned that its arch-enemy, Eritrea, has been supporting the UIC."
Addis Ababa was earlier named by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia for having flouted a UN embargo on arms sales to Somalia when it sent three separate consignments of arms - mortars, machine guns, assault rifles, anti-tank weapons and ammunition - to the Transitional Government.
However, the report says this could eventually work against Addis Ababa. "The problem is that any Ethiopian military presence inside Somalia significantly inflames Somali nationalism and antagonism towards Ethiopia."
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