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IS FANDAMENTALISM GOOD FOR SOMALIA? YOU DECIDE

SomaliNet Forum (Archive): RA'YIGA DADWEYNAHA - Your Opinion: Somalia: Archive (Before Sept. 29, 2000): IS FANDAMENTALISM GOOD FOR SOMALIA? YOU DECIDE
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QOSLAAYE

Tuesday, September 19, 2000 - 11:16 am
Reports continue to emerge that Asmara and Addis Ababa are arming competing factions in Somalia in order to create a third front that could break the deadlock on the Ethiopian-Eritrean battle front. While both sides deny the charges, the consistency and redundancy of the reports and the logic of the presumed underlying strategy suggests that Somalia may soon emerge as a third front in the war -- or at least as a new source of chaos in its own right.

ANALYSIS

According to the April 3 edition of the Mogadishu daily Xog- Ogaal, a truckload of ammunition arrived in Mogadishu on April 1 from the town of Beled Weyne near the Ethiopian border. The ammunition was allegedly part of a 40 metric ton shipment supplied to warlord Hussein Haji Bod by Ethiopia. Two similar truckloads were reportedly detained by members of the United Somali Congress-Patriotic Movement (USC-PM) in Beled Weyne.

While Xog-Ogaal is supportive of Mogadishu warlords Hussein Mohamed Aideed and Ali Mahdi Mohamed, who are opposed to Ethiopia, an April 3 Agence France Presse article confirms the report. AFP cited witnesses, including one of the workers who reportedly unloaded the shipment, as saying that multiple cargo trucks escorted by gunmen in machine-gun mounted pickup trucks ["technicals"] delivered the ammunition to the Gedoole militia compound in northern Mogadishu.

Adding to the paper trail, on March 31, Mahdi Mohamed charged Ethiopia with violating the arms embargo on Somalia by providing weapons and ammunition to various factions. In comments carried on April 1 in Xog-Ogaal and on March 31 in the Mogadishu daily Qaran, Mahdi Mohamed claimed that United Somali Congress splinter group leaders in Beled Weyne, including Hussein Bod, Umar Hashi, Muhammad Dhereh, and several others, had received arms from the Ethiopian government. Mahdi Mohamed alleged that technicals had been dispatched from Mogadishu to escort the arms from Beled Weyne. Qaran noted that this was the first time some of the warlords had received aid from Ethiopia, and that some rival factions were being armed by Eritrea. Both Eritrea and Ethiopia have denied the charges.

This by no means the first allegation that the deadlocked battle between Ethiopia and Eritrea may be seeping into neighboring Somalia. The Mogadishu newspaper Tarik reported on March 6 that some 200 of Aideed's militiamen would travel to Eritrea for military training. In late January, the Rahanwein Resistance Army and the Digil Salvation Army factions in Somalia alleged that Eritrea had flown five plane-loads of arms and ammunition to the Balidogle airfield, west of Mogadishu, for distribution by Aideed to Ethiopian opposition forces based in Somalia. And the Addis Tribune reported on March 5 that, the previous week, an unidentified ship was spotted at the port of Merca, south of Mogadishu, unloading arms thought to be for Aideed. The arms reportedly included armored personnel carriers, as well as BRDM and Ferret type reconnaissance vehicles.

The Mogadishu Times reported on March 8 that Ethiopian government officials held talks with USC-PM officials in Feerfeer, on the Ethiopian-Somali border north of Beled Weyne. According to sources cited by the Mogadishu Times, the meeting was in preparation for an Ethiopian offensive against some border districts of Somalia. On March 9, Somali National Front leader General Omer Haji Mohamed "Masale" claimed that an Ethiopian armored column crossed the border on March 7 near Balanballe, north of Feerfeer on the Ethiopian-Somali border in the Galguduud region. The troops allegedly looted Balanballe and kidnapped a local businessman before returning to Ethiopia on March 8. Eyewitnesses reported that the soldiers claimed to be chasing members of the fundamentalist Al-Itihad Al-Islam, an allegation repeated in the Mogadishu newspaper Ayaamaha on March 10, citing an Ethiopian government spokesman. The Ethiopian embassy in Nairobi denied Haji Mohamed's allegations, but did reserve the right to take steps against terrorist groups operating out of Somalia.

Al-Itihad Al-Islam has been fighting to unite Ethiopia's Ogaden region, formerly Western Somalia, with Somalia. The London-based newspaper Al-Hayat on March 29 cited the head of the National Front for the Liberation of Ogaden (NFLO), Mohamed Umar Uthman, as stating that Addis Ababa's rejection of a dialogue with the NFLO left the group with no option but to intensify its military operations. Uthman denied his group had received military assistance from Eritrea, though he admitted the NFLO was in contact with Eritrea for political dialogue and is "willing to accept military assistance from Asmara and any other quarter, to help our forces in their confrontation with the Ethiopian Army." Besides the Ogaden conflict, Ethiopia is also coping with other separatist ethnic Somalis and Oromos.

On March 17, Qaran reported that the Dagodi and Gare clans in Somalia had issued a statement expressing concern at and opposition to Aideed's support for Oromo rebels based in Somalia. The clans warned ethnic Somalis in Ethiopia to beware of the danger they faced. They also warned Aideed that he would be held responsible for the consequences of his actions, and urged his Habargidir clan to counsel him against continuing such support.

On March 11, director of the Eritrean president's office Yermane Gebremeskel, told China's Xinhua news agency that his country did maintain some relations with Somalia, but denied that Eritrea took sides in Somalia's internal struggle or armed individual factions. Yermane said that Somalis are "very friendly" to Eritrea, and were so throughout Eritrea's fight for independence. He said that, while Eritrea had sympathy with some groups in Eritrea, it was not trying to play one group against the other, and had even turned down breakaway Somaliland president Mohamed Egal's request for diplomatic recognition.

The simmering dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea erupted in open combat on February 6, and despite the continuing efforts of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) to negotiate a settlement, has degenerated to an entrenched stalemate. Some 500,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are dug in along both sides of the border, and though Ethiopia has reportedly retaken the disputed Badme region and both countries have technically accepted the OAU peace plan, the fighting has not ceased. Locked in a stalemate, it is only natural that the warring sides would seek to outflank one another.

Eritrea has it easier in this case, as it does not share a border with Somalia, while Ethiopia has a history of conflict along its border with Somalia. The fact that Somalia has been in a state of anarchy since 1991, divided among feuding warlords, only makes it easier to manipulate. By funding dissident Ethiopian groups based in Somalia, which despite denials appears to be what it is doing, Eritrea hopes to present Ethiopia with a two front war. By funding pro-Ethiopian factions in Somalia, in turn, Ethiopia hopes not only to let them take care of its dissident problem, but also perhaps to secure access to the port of Mogadishu, currently held by anti-Ethiopian forces.

What appears to be brewing, therefore, is less a third front in the Ethiopian-Eritrean war than a renewal of the civil war in Somalia. Foreign military aid to both sides has not helped resolve the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict. If this little bit of chaos in neighboring Somalia doesn't tip the scales between Asmara and Addis Ababa, and they don't simply tire into acceptance of a peace accord, there remain two options. They can try the same gambit to the West, attempting to manipulate Sudan or its opposition forces to their favor. Or they can hope for more direct foreign military or political aid. Either way, the situation will likely get worse before it gets better.

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ISMAHAAN

Wednesday, September 20, 2000 - 04:40 pm
It really sounds scary. If this where we headed, god may help us all.


Thanks Brother QOSLAAYE

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