Ainashe.net

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ “Situation Reports” (No. 30, 01 Aug 2008):

More than 150 children have been killed or injured through indiscriminate shelling, bombings and crossfire in the past year. In a press statement issued on 31 July, Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF Representative to Somalia, said, ‘the current environment of conflict, displacement and insecurity in Southern and Central Somalia has a serious negative impact on children’s and young people’s long-term psychosocial welfare and health development.’ During the reporting week alone, seven children died in the ongoing battles in Mogadishu - five as they were fleeing from school and two while they were playing football on a public pitch. UNICEF called on the parties involved in the conflict to respect International Humanitarian Law, safeguard the rights of children, prioritise their welfare and safety, and seek solutions to increase humanitarian access.

The Missionary International Service News Agency reports:

At least 10 civilians, including a woman and a child, were killed after an Ethiopian attack in a northeastern quarter of Mogadishu. Witnesses said that 12 other people were wounded after a mortar shell exploded near a group of 40 civilians that were looking for refuge behind the home. Last night the nearby military base in Hurwa quarter was attacked. Today’s victims add to the nine from night in Mogadishu as fighting continued between armed militias and Ethiopian troops, backing the Somali transition government, which has been often denounced by human rights groups and by Somalis themselves of carrying out veritable reprisals against the population.

I think it is time to file war crimes case at the International Criminal Court against Melez and his henchmen in Somalia including the TFG members linked to the crimes committed against the somali people.

The Guardian newspaper reports:

Rising tensions in the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia, combined with chronic instability in neighbouring Somalia, Eritrean enmity, and human rights concerns, are testing US support for the Addis Ababa government led by Clinton-era good governance pin-up Meles Zenawi.

The paper continued by saying:

Keeping a firm hand on ethnically Somali, Muslim Ogaden, the scene of a cold war-era proxy conflict, is a long-standing US objective.

The paper continued by saying:

Eritrea, its bitter border dispute with Ethiopia still simmering, is shipping “huge quantities of arms” to insurgents in Somalia, according to a UN report. Concerns about a spreading humanitarian and refugee emergency grow, even as international aid targets undershoot. And now, far from being “defunct”, Somalia’s Islamist movement may be gaining friends and influence in an increasingly isolated, radicalised Ogaden.

I wonder why so many different US Administrations would side with Ethiopian and deny the people of Western Somalia their right to self determination. After all, the US claims to be “beacon” of freedom in the world!

Could someone explain?

Click here to view the full report on The Guardian.

In a Press Release issued recently, the World Bank says:

The Horn of Africa is one of the regions that has been most prominently impacted by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. This area is characterized by sizeable mobile populations of transport workers, migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and cross-border populations, populations that are most vulnerable to contracting HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases.

However, the Horn of Africa is also where there is hope that something can be done to bring about change. Countries like Kenya and Uganda are bringing down their HIV/AIDS prevalence rates — from 15% and 18.5% respectively in the 1990s to about 6.1% and 6.7% today. The efforts that have seen these figures come tumbling down have been mainly at country level.

The Press Release went on by stating:

Recognizing that movement of vulnerable populations is a major challenge in the region, on June 28, 2007 the World Bank and IGAD signed a $15 million grant to support the IGAD Regional HIV/AIDS Partnership Program (IRHAPP). The program seeks to mitigate the impact of HIV/AIDS among cross-border and mobile populations in IGAD’s member states: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. The four-year project, which aims to reduce the vulnerability of these mobile populations, was initiated with the support of the World Bank and will be the first to be financed by the Africa Catalytic Growth Fund (ACGF).

By the way, it is worth noting that very little is known about the actual number of HIV/AIDS infected people in Somalia. However, many Somalis went to Eastern African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Ethiopia as refugees and those who have returned may have brought the disease to the country. Also, Ethiopian soldiers in Somalia have high number of HIV/AIDS infected among their ranks and that is probably the biggest threat facing the nation at the present time.
Click here to view the full PR on World Bank’s External Website.

SALIM LONE writes:

In the wake of the awful attacks of September 11 2001, Tony Blair’s passionate denunciation of impoverishment in Africa as “a scar on the conscience of the world” convinced many that the west would propel the issue of mass poverty and injustice to the top of the international agenda in the cause of a more stable world.

This week’s news only confirms that it was a misplaced hope. Not a single country in sub-Saharan Africa has met the criteria set by the UN’s millennium development goals on poverty alleviation, the centrepiece of the project. Some observers believe the number of poor, and the intensity of the poverty, has actually risen in almost all countries.

(more…)

The Somalia Prime Minister; Cali Maxamed Geedi was quoted as saying:

We are very grateful for the sacrifice made by the Ethiopians. Ethiopia is the number one friend of this country.

This is where Cali Maxamed Geedi and the fast majority of the Somali people, including myself turn sharply to different and opposing directions. Contrary to what the Prime Minister said, and I must say, with all accounts, Ethiopia has always been, and continues to be Somalia’s worst enemy. Unless one is blind-folded by myopic tribalist agenda, personal greed or irrational self hate, no one need to be a brain-surgeon to understand that Ethiopia is far from being Somalia’s “best friend” as the Prime Minister ignorantly stated. (more…)

The Gulf News reports:

As Arab efforts to stop the war intensified, the UAE yesterday called on Ethiopia to withdraw its troops from Somalia. The appeal was made by Mohammad Hussain Al Sha’ali, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, during a meeting in Abu Dhabi with Mahmoud Ahmad Jaz, an envoy of Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who delivered a message to President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan. Voicing the UAE’s concern over armed hostilities in Somalia, Al Sha’ali urged Addis Ababa to “halt this war” and called for “the withdrawal of foreign forces from Somalia,” WAM reported. He urged Somalia’s neighbours to “encourage reconciliation among Somali factions”.

Click here to view the full report

The South African News 24 reports:

Kenya plans to hold talks with Somalia’s embattled Islamic leaders in a bid to end escalating fighting with Ethiopian forces backing government, said diplomats on Wednesday. The talks in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Thursday “will seek ways to urgently end the conflict”, said a diplomat, requesting to remain anonymous. The diplomat said that the Islamic courts leadership has confirmed participation. Asked if Ethiopia and the Somali government would participate in the talks, the diplomat said: “We will deal with only those whom we can manage.”

Click here to view the full dispatch.

The Australian ABC Online reports:

The Arab League and the African Union have called for Ethiopian troops to be withdrawn from Somalia immediately. Ethiopian troops are said to be only 30 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu. Speaking after a joint consultative meeting the chair of the African Union commission, Alpha Oumar Konare, said the three organisations wanted to see Ethiopia’s troops withdrawn from neighbouring Somalia immediately. Mr Konare told journalists at the African Union headquarters that they wanted all parties to cease hostilities and return to peace talks. The Somali Ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdikarin Farah, said it was down to the governments in Baidoa and Addis Ababa to decide when the troops would leave.

Click here to view original article.

Leoul Mekonen, Sudan Tribune

It is clear that the Somali Islamists are enemies to the US but arming and supporting a dictatorial regime with the notion of supporting the enemy’s enemy will not bring positive outcome to the US as well as Ethiopians… It is lunatic to think that the Ethiopian army will crush the Islamists. Instead it will raise the patriotic spirit of Somalis and even those who have had negative attitude towards Islamists will prefer to join them. Any Somali who hates the Islamists will not necessarily like the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia but be compelled to join the jihadists when their airport is bombed by Ethiopian aircraft.

Samuel Makinda, Kenya’s Nation

Ethiopia’s invasion is unlikely to bring peace and order to Somalia, or to assist the transitional government to establish an effective administration. Any external force that abandons an inclusive approach and sides with one group against another, is bound to exacerbate insecurity.
If there is fear that the Union of Islamic Courts might invite al-Qaeda terrorists, Ethiopia’s invasion and defeat of the Islamists will not prevent Al-Qaeda operatives from using Somalia.

Editorial on Kenya’s Nation

While it would be silly to reduce the conflict to a mere contest between the ‘Islamist’ Somalia and ‘Christian’ Ethiopia, this religious appendage is appealing to both sides. What the world is witnessing is a resurrection of old tensions between Ethiopia and Somalia, now fanned by proxies… The lifting of the arms embargo on Somalia places the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, the African Union and the UN in a precarious position as the Somali crisis threatens to escalate into a regional conflict.

Editorial in Algeria’s La Nouvelle Republique

The situation in the Horn of Africa is worrying. No-one predicted this dangerous turn of events. In one week, what was to be a simple internal conflict between the radical Islamic Courts and transitional government, backed by the United States, has gone regional, involving three countries. The explosion in this strategic part of the Horn of Africa will not only last but also spread to other sub-Saharan Africa regions already plagued by devastating conflicts. What is strange is the ’smug’ silence from the Western powers. The easy solution is to use this war as part of the global war against terrorism; if this is the case, we can expect to see another Hundred Years’ War.

Pan Arab Al-Arab Al-Alamiyah

The crushing Ethiopian attack achieves an old dream for Addis Ababa of invading Somalia which stands as an obstacle between it and the Red Sea, especially after Eritrea become independent and started controlling the coast connecting Ethiopia to the sea.

Pan Arab Al-Quds Al-Arabi

The Islamic Courts forces are made up of a group of clean and pure believers who wanted to bring an end to bloody chaos sustained by warlords and militia leaders. It managed to expel highway robbers and the Mafia gang. However, the US, which tore apart the unity of Somalia, overthrew its government, blew up its stability and starved its people, was not pleased with this achievement and moved in to overthrow the courts.
Ethiopia will pay high price for its interference in Somali affairs. Disorder will prevail in Somalia, which will become a safe heaven for Islamist groups from inside and outside Somalia, with the help of the Somali people this time round. Will [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Meles Zinawi succeed in Somalia, in achieving what his masters in USA failed to achieve in Iraq?

Hanan Hamad in Syria’s Tishrin

Ethiopia is repeating Washington’s experiment in Iraq: ‘Self-defence’ but on others’ territories. This flagrant interference in the internal affairs of an independent country that is a member of the Arab League and UN will continue until the mission is completed. Again, the Arabs fail to defend an Arab country against a foreign invasion.

MUSIB NU’AYMI IN IRAN’S ARABIC AL-VEFAGH

Some see Ethiopian interference in Somalia war as a product of US directives. The Islamic and Arab grouping failed to do anything while watching the Western invasion sweeping the Horn of Africa. No doubt the US and its Western allies are the key beneficiaries from the Darfur crisis, the Somalia war and any possible tension in any other spots, because these crises will distract attention from the defeats incurred by the US in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

Basim Sakjaha in Jordan’s Al-Dustur

We have a new war in the region. This is an historic opportunity for Ethiopia to reach the sea and cut Somalia into two. The international situation is propitious as Washington, the commander of the world, supports an Ethiopian-Somali war to get rid of the Islamic Courts. Ditto the regional situation, as Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf countries do not want a neighbour like the Islamic Courts which constitute some kind of safe refuge for extremist Islamic forces.

Editorial in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Riyad

A new river of blood is flowing in Somalia. Ethiopia interfered in Somalia because it does not want a neighbour similar to the Taleban and al-Qaeda. The war could have broken out with the express approval of major countries.

Editorial In Yemen’s Al-Thawrah

If this war moves towards regional attrition, the security of the entire region could fall victim to the adventures of some parties.

Source: BBC Monitoring
BBC Mintoring selects and translates news from radio, television, press, news agencies and the internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages. It is based in Caversham, UK, and has several bureaux abroad.

Click here to view the full dispatch on Xinhuanet (The Chinese News Agency).

You may also click here to view the full statement.

The European Union’s Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, Louis Michel, condemned Monday the escalating battles in Somalia. Speaking in Brussels, he was quoted as saying:

I express my deepest concern on the reported involvement of foreign forces in Somalia and urge all external players to refrain immediately from intervening militarily in Somali affairs and provoke further violence.

Click here to view the full dispatch.

Xinhuanet; the Chinese news agency reports:

In a press release, the AL, of which Somalia is a member state, expressed apprehension and regret over maintaining armed clashes between the two sides at war, which has left thousands of Somalis homeless.

Click here to view the full dispatch.

Stephanie McCrummen of the Washington Post Foreign Service writes:

War or no war with Somalia, Mulunesh Abebayhu wants out. Out of her teaching job, where Ethiopian security forces constantly harass her because of her political views. Out of this city, where hundreds of protesters were killed by police bullets after disputed elections last year. And, if she can manage, out of this country that she believes has plunged into the abyss of dictatorship at the hands of its prime minister, Meles Zenawi, a staunch ally of the United States in the vulnerable Horn of Africa.

“He confuses the Westerners so that he can keep ruling,” said Abebayhu, 54, an opposition member arrested along with an estimated 30,000 others in the sweeping post-election crackdown last year. “Our party does not believe in this war. Our priority is to eradicate poverty, not go to war. Meles knows this war is a way for his system to survive.”

Click here to view the full article.

In an interview he gave to Al-Jezeera Television yesterday, President Isaias Afwerki reiterated that Eritrea did not send troops to Somalia.

Click here to view the full article on Shabait.com

Apee Ojulu editor of Gambela Today writes:

There has been a sort of unanimity among various advisors in Prime Minister Meles Zenawi government that in an all-out-war they will defeat the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) within few days. Zenawi’s Foreign Ministry warning to the UIC that his administration “will not tolerate an Islamist regime in neighboring Somalia” is an indication of that confidence (see MCT, /22, 2006). But hubris is not a military strategy to win a war. It is a risking scheme. Having mechanized forces, countless warplanes, weapons, backing of the international and capacities to destroy every house in Somalia do not prove to win the war. Recent war between Israeli mechanized army forces against a lesser tech wired Iranian and Syrian backed Hezbollah forces have proven this, that technology is not the only mean to win wars. American involvement in Iraq is the other. Both conflicts have proven public support is the key to military success in guerilla wars, not traditional military power alone.

Mr. Apee Ojulu concluded by saying:

Zenawi might have his envisioned his gamble in Somali civil war as an important strategic decision to extract more monetary from Americans, divert attentions of both domestic and international from his authoritarian rule and prolong his regime. Likely outcome of that conflict may come at a price of losing very elements that has kept alive and embolden the already emboldened opposition parties at his expense.

Click here to view article on the Sudan Tribune.

The Norwegian Newspaper; Dagbladet has a long analytical report.

Click here to view the full report. Please note that the article in Norwegian only. Please also note that graphic picture on display.

In an editorial the Dubai based Khaleej Times newspaper says:

WITH Ethiopian military incursions into the Somalian territory, in the name of fighting Islamic militants, the situation in the Horn of Africa is getting increasingly dangerous. Regional peace is under serious threat. And it looks like Somalia, one of the hotspots of the continent, would now be used for a proxy war between largely-Christian Ethiopia and its bitter rival, Eritrea, a nation that backs the Islamists.

The paper continued by saying:

Ethiopian incursions are now undermining these efforts. Amid the rolling in of the Ethiopian tanks and the air strikes that followed, the bitter memories of the past two wars have come to haunt the people. Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s stand that his government has a ‘legal and moral obligation’ to support and defend Somalia’s government is dangerously flawed.

The paper concluded by saying:

The best solution to Somalia’s problems is allowing the country to solve its own problems. Interference from Ethiopia or other nosey neighbours and big powers will only exacerbate the crisis.

I could not agree more! I hope more Arab and Muslim papers will flow suite by highlighting the plight of our people.

Click here to the full editorial on Khaleej Times.

Melez Zenawi the Ethiopian Prime Minister made it clear to everyone that he wants Somalia annexed by forces.

Mr. Zenawi was quoted as saying that:

Our patience was considered as weakness and we were forced to go to war and the alternative left to us is to speedily bring the war to a successful and victorious end in the shortest time possible.

Well, this sounds like a twisted logic! Somalia did not invade Ethiopia.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

The aerial and ground assault was the first open admission by Ethiopia’s Christian-led government of its military operations in Somalia, where it has been supporting a weak interim government threatened by forces loyal to the Islamic clerics who control the capital, Mogadishu, and much of the rest of the country.

Click here to view the full report.

Kassa Ayalew; the chairperson of Ethiopian American Civic Advocacy writes:

The undemocratic Ethiopian parliament declared war against Eritrea under the pretext that Ethiopia must “stop Eritrean aggression and punish the terrorist invaders” not long a ago. As result of that declaration, about 100,000 innocent soldiers were killed in battlefields and ten of thousands of families and individuals faced tragic deportations and dire humanitarian consequences. The same parliament that has not yet learnt from its past blunder echoed again the readiness and preparation to invade the eastern neighbor Somalia in the name of protecting Ethiopians and the rest of the world from terrorists’ threat.

Mr. Ayalew continued by saying:

The truth of the matter in waging this war against Somalia is the regime’s desperation to stop the uprising resistance movement within and outside Ethiopia which has been intensifying since the May 2005 election. The elaborate scheme (fighting the terrorists’ threat) by the dictatorial regime that attempts to justify war against Somalia may play out different this time given the fact that the Ethiopian rulers’ trustworthiness credential has been shattered and their decade’s long democratic pretension has hatched for worse.

Interesting perspective to look at Zenawi’s desperate attempt to deflect attention from the political and economic crisis at home.

Click here to view the full article on the Sudan Times.

Islamic Courts Union spokesman Abdi-Rahiin Ali Mudey was quoted as saying:

Ethiopia has recently asked us to start talks with them so the deadline was basically meant to tell the Ethiopians to withdraw from Somalia, then talks they offered would be possible.

Does this mean that the threat of all out war is receding? I am not so sure but I hope that is case. We must give peace a chance.

Click here to view the full article on the BBC News.

In a statement released on Saturday, Louis Michel, EU Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid said:

I call upon all parties to refrain from engaging in a war that cannot be won by anyone. The spoilers and warmongers of all sorts that seek conflict in order to prevail militarily are fooling themselves as well as the Somali people.

Mr. Michel went on by saying:

A new war in Somalia will have tragic consequences not just for the people of Somalia but for the whole region and beyond. We simply cannot afford to see what is going to happen.

Click here to view the full by the Chinese news agency-Xinhua.

The Toronto Globe and Mail newspaper reports:

Nearly 200 troops serving Somalia’s weak Western-backed government defected to the Islamic courts movement, an Islamic official said Sunday, as both sides braced for impending war. Sheik Mohamed Ibrahim Bilal, head of the Islamic court in the Al-Bayan region, said the troops switched sides there late Saturday. Sheik Bilal told the Associated Press by telephone that the former government soldiers “are ready to be incorporated into the Islamic courts forces.” The court movement has promised to launch a holy war Tuesday unless troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, who are supporting the government, leave Somalia. Islamic fighters have surrounded the southern Sudanese town of Baidoa, the only town the government controls. Al-Bayan, where the defections are said to have taken place, is about 80 kilometres from Baidoa.

This is a major political and security setback for the TFG and their Ethiopian masters. However, the Islamic Courts forces should not make any military movement that the other side could perceive as an attack. They must hold their fire for now!

Contrary to what Col. Cabdullahi Yuusuf said, there is still a room for dialogue.

Click here to view the full report

Click here to view a full transcript of interview with Melez Zenawi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister.

The Pan-Arab Al Jezeera television network reports:

Leader of Somalia’s Islamic Courts militia and the influential parliament speaker said on Saturday that they had agreed at talks in Yemen to turn to dialogue between the Islamists and the government to resolve differences.” The Islamic Courts are committed to dialogue with the interim federal Somali government as a way of resolving differences … and stopping any moves conducive to military confrontations by any side,” speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said in a joint statement. The statement was issued after three days of talks in the southern port city of Aden under the auspices of Ali Abdullah Saleh, the Yemeni president. It said the two sides would resume dialogue to reach a political settlement guaranteeing the participation of all sides in government.

Click here to view the full report.

Terrence Lyons of the Center for Preventive Action wrote a report titled: “Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa: U.S. Policy toward Ethiopia and Eritrea”.

The entire report (PFD format) can be downloaded free of charge by clicking here.

According to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations the Bush Administration is worried about Somalia becoming a “Terrorist Haven”:

Because Somalia is a chaotic, poor, battle-weary Muslim country with no central government. As former Secretary of State Colin Powell has said, “terrorist activity might find some fertile ground there, and we don’t want that to happen.” Moreover, U.S. government officials say that Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network supported Somali radical Islamists, organized training camps in Somalia, and threatened American troops in Somalia who were there on a U.N. humanitarian mission in the early 1990s.

Click here to view the full “backgrounder” on the CFR.

You may also like to click here to view Eben Kaplan’s note on “Somalia’s Terrorist Infestation” notes.

Stephanie Hanson of the US Council of Foreign Relations writes:

In the disputed border area between Ethiopia and Eritrea, tensions have been high all year but neither side appears willing to break the stalemate. Instead, both countries have been amassing troops in neighboring Somalia in what appears to be a proxy war. The build-up threatens to tip the entire Horn of Africa into a regional war (CSMonitor). Such a conflict appears increasingly imminent: this week Somalia’s Islamists threatened they’ll attack (BBC) if Ethiopian troops don’t leave within seven days. Ethiopia—a Christian nation with a significant Muslim population—sent troops into Somalia in support of the country’s weak, but internationally recognized, transitional government. Since the Islamists’ seizure of Mogadishu in June and the expansion of their area of control, Addis Ababa has been concerned their influence could inflame Ethiopia’s Muslims. Eager to support the enemy of its enemy, Eritrea has provided arms and troops to support the Somali Islamists, as well as other anti-Ethiopian forces in Somalia.

Ms. Hanson does not seem to understand the internal political dynamics of the Somali people. The external political and security factors certainly add more fuel to the tragic somali conflict but they are not the cause of the current conflict as Ms. Hanson mistakenly seem to imply!

Click here to view the full note on the Council of Foreign Relations.