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East Africa: Eritrea Says Ethiopian and Somali Officials Ransack Money
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Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
19 August 2007
Posted to the web 20 August 2007
Mogadishu
The Eritrean government accused the Somali transitional government and its Ethiopian ally of looting millions of U.S. dollars that were supposed to aid the Somali people.
Speaking to Shabelle by phone Saturday, Eritrean information minister, Ali Abdou Ahmed, said the Ethiopian troops were responsible for the closure of several independent FM stations based in the capital, Mogadishu, including Shabelle Radio.
"If you make an investigative report, you will find out that million o f U.S. dollars were divided between Somali PM, Ali Gedi and Alya Kola, the wife of Ethiopian prime minister," he said.
Nonetheless Eritrea has had bad history of oppressing the independent radio stations in its country, according to Somali political experts, who gave their political notions on Eritrea-Ethiopia divergences on Saturday following the emergence of the minister's retort to remarks by the United States secretary of State for African affairs, Jendayi Frazer, who said Eritrea might be added to list of nations that support terrorism if it does not change its acts.
The American government says it has intelligences proving that Eritrea made arms shipments to war-torn Somalia. A United Nations report made public last month said Eritrea was secretly shipping large amounts of arms to Islamist fighters in Somalia, possibly including explosive belts used by suicide bombers and surface-to-air missiles.
The UN report also criticized actions by Ethiopian troops in Somalia, accusing them of using white phosphorous bombs that killed both insurgents and civilians in Mogadishu in April.
Both Eritrea and Ethiopia have denied the United Nations allegations,
Ahmed says Somalis loved the Islamic Courts Union during their six months of control in the Horn of African nation.
He reiterated that Ethiopia has illegally occupied the country and imported the T.F.G. without the consent of the Somali population.
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