The Star
Saturday, February 25, 2012
ERITREA has criticised Kenya's military incursion into Somalia,
saying that it is worsening and undermining the country's peace process.
In a statement directed at the Kenya Defence Forces and their Ethiopian
counterparts who have crossed into Somalia, and likely to spark off
another round of diplomatic row, the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign
Affairs dismissed the the Operation Linda Nchi and asked all Somalia
neighbours to pull out of Mogadishu. The statement was sent through the
Eritrean embassy in Nairobi yesterday.Apart from Kenya and
Ethiopia, Uganda and Burundi are the major troop-contributing nations to
the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia. A day before the
London Conference on Somalia starts, Asmara dismissed the international
efforts to finding a political solution that excludes any “formation or
group”. “There is a growing international conviction that a serious and
credible process is key to unlocking the Somali problem.
And yet
this has not been matched by concerted and sustained action as the
focus continues to be on military and counter-terrorism strategies that,
despite the discouraging experience of the past, continue to consume
disproportionate resources and energies,” said the statement. “More
critically, the military interventions of Somalia's immediate
neighbours, whatever their motivations, have to be brought to an end as
they complicate and worsen the situation, fuel hatred and resentment,
intensify and prolong the conflict and undermine the political
process.”
The Red Sea state of Eritrea and Nairobi have had sour
diplomatic relations in recent times. Kenya and other members of the
Intergovernmental Authority on Development, along with the the United
Nations Security Monitoring Group, accuse Eritrea of funding the
terrorist group, al Shabaab. Eritra has denied the allegations and
accused Ethiopia of ''peddling lies to undermine the government of
President Isaias Aferworki''. At the start of the Operation Linda Nchi,
Kenya accused Eritrea of supplying the al Shabaab militants with three
plane-loads of weapons through the Baidoa airport, a claim that the
latter vehemently denied.