Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
Abdinasir Mohamed Guled
2 July 2008
US ambassador to Ethiopia, Donald Yamamoto, says the United States recognizes Ethiopia's contribution in various peacekeeping operations in the region and other areas of conflict in Africa.
"Ethiopia is right now, I think, the second largest troops contributing country in peacekeeping operations in Sub-Saharan Africa and probably has the most disciplined and qualified troops," Yamamoto said.
Ethiopia has been playing a very positive role in regional peace and security, Yamamoto said at a press briefing he gave on Tuesday [1 July] at the US embassy.
The US government is working closely with Ethiopia and other countries with a view to helping enhance peace and security in the Horn of Africa, he said.
According to the ambassador, the US government looks at the peace and security situation in the region with due concern.
Yamamoto said the mandate of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia will expire and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in Sudan will have to be fully implemented in 2009 and elections are to be held.
"The year 2009 is going to be a watershed, because we are going to have stability or instability or we are going to have directions towards regional security or not," he said.
With regard to Somalia, the United States appreciates Ethiopia's concerns. For Ethiopia, the issue in Somalia is particularly the security issue just as was the stability issue.
"If you don't have stability in Somalia you never have stability in your borders." He added.
"On the other hand, it is also a regional issue, because we can see the influx of foreign fighters and other extremists coming to Somalia," he said.
"And these are all concerns that affect not only Ethiopia but also Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti and all the people who live in the region, he said."So we need to work together with Ethiopia and the neighbouring countries to carry out objectives on how to enhance security," he said.
The shaky transitional government invited Ethiopian forces into the country to help it battle Islamic insurgents. Somalia has been torn apart by years of violence between the militias of rival clan warlords.
The rights group said it had scores of reports of killings by Ethiopian troops. In one case, "a young child's throat was slit by Ethiopian soldiers in front of the child's mother," the report says.
Amnesty said about 6,000 civilians had been reported killed and more than 600,000 had been forced to flee their homes in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, last year.
"The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, and tortured. Looting is widespread and entire neighborhoods are being destroyed," Michelle Kagari, the Amnesty deputy director for Africa, said in a statement from Nairobi that accompanied the report.
The report quotes testimony from 75 witnesses as well as scores of workers from nongovernmental organizations. People are identified only by first name to protect them from retaliation.
In one testimony, Haboon, 56, said her neighbor's 17-year-old daughter had been raped by Ethiopian troops. The girl's brothers tried to defend their sister, but the soldiers beat them and gouged their eyes out with a bayonet, Haboon was quoted as telling Amnesty.
"The testimony we received strongly suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity have been committed by all parties to the conflict in Somalia and no one is being held accountable," Kagari said.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew the longtime dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, and then turned on each other. Last year, Islamist militants took control of most of southern Somalia, including Mogadishu. Troops from neighboring Ethiopia dewere ployed in December 2006 and ejected the Islamists from the capital.
Since then, Mogadishu has been caught up in a guerrilla war between the government and its Ethiopian allies, and the Islamist insurgents.
Amnesty urged the United Nations, the African Union and other groups to halt the violence.
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