allAfrica.com: Somalia: Conflict a Threat to Regional Peace (Page 1 of 3)

The simmering war in Somalia following the resignation of Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Ghedi is leading the country to an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. The UNHCR estimates that about 90,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu since Ghedi's resignation.

Fighting has escalated as Ethiopian troops supporting the fragile Somali transitional government try to flush out Islamic insurgents. It is feared that uncertainty over Ghedi's replacement will yield more violence. Already, 1.5 million people in the war-torn, drought-prone country need help.

Ghedi's resignation has once again brought to the fore the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea being fought in Somalia. The former minister has been frequently portrayed as a puppet of the US and its ally, Ethiopia, with numerous sources pointing to links between Ghedi's father and Ethiopia's president Meles Zenawi. It is claimed that in the mid '80s, the former prime minister's father was appointed coordinator between Somalia and Zenawi, then head of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).

The current situation has put the Bush administration in a dilemma. While Washington is concerned about Eritrea's support for al Qaeda-linked Somali Islamist militants, it is not clear how it intends to handle Ethiopia's governance record. Recently, Congress passed the Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act, which threatens the country with security aid cuts should it fail to make positive domestic democratic changes. Yet Addis Ababa is Washington's major counter-terrorism partner in the Horn and has troops in Mogadishu.

Tension in the region reached fever pitch after Eritrean President Issaias Afeworki pledged support for the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), formed in Asmara by Somali opposition figures and militant members of the Islamic court.

"The Eritrean people's support to Somalis is consistent and historical, as well as a legal and moral obligation," Afeworki said in an interview.

The ARS, whose stated ambition is to liberate Somalia, has threatened immediate, albeit unspecified, military action against Ethiopia. It has also ruled out any talks with the transitional federal government before a complete withdrawal of the Ethiopian army. This is likely to defer even further the prospect of reconciliation.

The Somali predicament is not new. And experience shows that the nature of intervention could destabilize the epicenter of Horn of Africa conflicts. Washington's heavy-handed tactics against terrorism have aggravated the crisis and looks set to continue, with the threat to brand Eritrea a sponsor of terrorism.

Washington has failed to pressurise Addis Ababa to implement the April 2002 Ethiopia-Eritrea Boundary Commission ruling, to Asmara's great disappointment.

"Ethiopia will not relent until it accesses the Red Sea port it lost to Eritrea," observes a Kenya-based Somali analyst. "Access to the port through a superhighway was in their development plans before the 1998 war," he explains

The hostilities between the Zenawi and Afeworki administrations over the peace plan have found a new forum - Somalia.

Epicenter of conflicts

The irredentist hope for a Greater Somalia since colonial times has sucked the region into an endless conflict. Britain's hope was initially for a united Somalia comprising Kenya's Northern Frontier Districts, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Somalia. This was fiercely resisted by the new Kenya government, prompting a severance of diplomatic relations between Mogadishu and London, while Somali ethnic patriotism in Kenya rose. The "shifta" (bandit) war, led by the Somalia-backed Northern Frontier District Liberation Movement, broke out in north-eastern Kenya. It ended only when the Kenya and Somalia signed a Memorandum of Understanding in October 1967.

A direct result of the shifta war was the signing of a mutual defence treaty between Kenya and Ethiopia in 1964. Both President Jomo Kenyatta and Emperor Haile Selassie acknowledged the need for cooperation to bar Somali irredentism. It also fuelled the perception, in certain quarters, of ethnic Somalis in Kenya as a security risk.

The proxy war intensified as Somalia turned into a stage for the Cold War rivalry between the US and the Soviet Union. Post-independence Somalia received up to $32 million military aid in 1963. President Siad Barre's 21-year rule (1969-1991) initially relied on Communist-support. Buoyed by Russian military equipment, Mogadishu's irredentist ambitions drove it to Ethiopia's Ogaden region, triggering the 1977-1978 war.

This unsuccessful invasion of the American ally permanently redefined politics and conflicts in the Horn of Africa. The Soviets switched their backing to Ethiopia's President Mengistu, while Somalia suffered growing Ethiopian-backed domestic dissent, including a failed coup in April 1978.

web allafrica.com	Enter your search terms	Submit search form
OR subscribers use AllAfrica's premium search engine


Use our pull-down menus to find more stories

Today's Most Active Stories