Tuesday, April 10, 2007
ASMARA (AFP) - Somalia's Islamist movement has vowed to to oppose foreign troops deployed to help the weak government consolidate its tenuous grip across the war-fatiqued nation.
"We are not all prepared to allow invaders to trample upon our sacred rights and bring us under submission," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the executive arm of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) said, following a meeting with Eritrea's President Issaias Afeworki.
In a statement posted on Eritrea's information ministry's website on Monday, Ahmed said: "Somalis are united more than ever and their nationalism heightened."
Ahmed was speaking nearly two weeks after Ethiopian forces launched a bloody crackdown on suspected Islamist and clan insurgents in the Somali capital, sparking four days of fighting.
The Ethiopia troops helped the Somali government dislodge the Islamists from the country's southern and central regions in January, igniting an insurgency that has displaced around 124,000.
Ahmed, who is regarded as moderate in the UIC, said Ethiopia wanted to "wipe Somalia off the world map", the statement added.
Issaias repeated his country's objection to the deployment of African Union peacekeepers in Somalia to help the government, saying the recent fighting in Mogadishu "demonstrates the fallacy of adventure."
The president has called for the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops as well as 1,500 African Union peacekeepers in Somalia, warning their presence would worsen the situation.
"Instead of rectifying one's error and committing more acts of adventurism -- a typical behaviour of gamblers ... the best option for those parties who keep on making more grevious blunders is to correct their mistakes," the statement quoted him as saying.
Eritrea has rejected widespread claims that it was arming the Islamists while Addis Ababa has justified its intervention, saying the Islamists posed a threat after they declared a holy war against Ethiopia.
Over the weekend, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer, held talks with Somali officials in the Somali provincial town of Baidoa.
The New York Times quoted her as saying neighbouring countries were destabilizing Somalia. Frazer said it was widely known that Eritrea will "do anything to hurt Ethiopia."
But Asmara dismissed Frazer as an "amateur".
"The Eritrean government is not disposed to reply to such a statement by an amateur diplomat that does not reflect the US administrations official stance," the Eritrean foreign affairs ministry said in a statement.
"It is nonetheless worthwhile to recall that the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, a quarter of a century ago (ostensibly when the said junior US official was a high school student), has been and continues to struggle against terrorism and its consequences," the statement added.
Analysts have expressed fears that Ethiopia and Eritrea, still at odds over their unresolved 1998-2000 border conflict, may fight a proxy war in Somalia.
Source: AFP, April 10, 2007