Ethiopia says Eritrea fomenting Somali unrest

Nov 4, 2006 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia on Saturday accused arch-foe Eritrea of forming and coordinating an anti-Ethiopian front among domestic separatists, terrorists and neighboring Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement.

Eritrea immediately and angrily rejected the claim that further ratcheted up tension in the Horn of Africa where fears are high of all-out war between the Islamists and the weak Somali government that could lead to regional conflict.

As the Islamists claimed first blood in a “jihad,” or holy war against thousands of Ethiopian troops they say are in Somalia to help the government, Addis Ababa said Asmara was fomenting the unrest in a bid to destabilize Ethiopia.

The Ethiopian Information Ministry denounced the “destructive machinations” of Eritrea and the Islamists, who it said had joined with terrorists and two Ethiopian rebel groups, the Oromo Liberation Front and Ogaden Liberation Front.

It said the Islamists have “not only declared ‘holy’ war against Ethiopia repeatedly … but also made public that they are engaged in satisfying their dream of expansion, thus sharing Eritrea’s vision and disturbing other countries of the region.

“The anti-Ethiopia forces currently amassed in Somalia … coordinated by the Eritrean government and the radical groups in Mogadishu, have neither a religious agenda nor any significant vision other than using the so called Union of Islamic Courts as a cover for their destructive machinations,” it said.

“The principal objective of these destructive forces is to obstruct Ethiopia’s ongoing momentum of a stable political atmosphere and unprecedented economic development,” the ministry said.

“Their interest is to undermine a peaceful, stable and developing Ethiopia (…) their dream is to draw Ethiopia into ethnic and religious strife and violence,” in a statement published in the state-run Ethiopian Herald.

It added that Ethiopia “fully supports” efforts to prevent war and “ensure lasting and reliable peace in the Horn of Africa.”

The Islamists say Ethiopia has deployed some 12,000 troops to Somalia and claimed on Saturday that its forces had killed two of them in an ambush outside the government seat of Baidoa, where the two sides are girding for battle.

There was no immediate reaction to the claim from Ethiopia but government officials said the dead fighters were in fact Somali troops.

Ethiopia denies having thousands of soldiers in Somalia but acknowledges sending military advisors to help protect the government from “jihadists,” some of whom are accused of links with Al-Qaeda.

Tension has soared in Somalia since the collapse this week of peace talks aimed at averting a full-scale war that diplomats and analysts fear could draw in Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Many believe the two countries may have turnd Somalia into a proxy battlefield for their own unresolved 1998-2000 border war.

Eritrea has been accused of supplying weapons to the Islamists in Somalia but has hotly rejected allegations it has sent some 2,000 soldiers to back them.

Asmara, which has in recent days lashed out at Addis Ababa and Washington for allegedly planning to invade Somalia as a misguided part of the international war on terrorism, repeated that charge on Saturday.

“We have already heard that allegation before from their (the Ethiopians’) masters, that is, the United States,” Eritrean Information Minister Ali Abdu said in Asmara.

“As we have made clear in the past it is pure fabrication, and its objective is aimed to create a pretext for the invasion that is taking place in Somalia,” he said.

(AFP)