Stop the Ethiopian aggression

By Ali Osman

Nov 27, 2006 — Ethiopia has massed troops inside Somalia in direct violation of United Nations arms embargo on Somalia. Ethiopia prime minister claims he has inherent right to self defense and that is why he is pouring Ethiopian paramilitary militia into Somalia. The world must realize this is a blatant lie as no Somali group or faction has carried out any action inside Ethiopia. In fact, Ethiopia military has been inside Somalia more than a year without any provocation from Somalia.

Ethiopia without provocation from Somalia and direct confrontation with UN sanctions have decided to unilaterally send thousands of troops and military hardware into Somalia with the pretense they are protecting the pro-Ethiopian rebels within Somalia.

This will certainly result the dominant Islamic courts which have restored peace and order due to the unprovoked Ethiopian aggression to square off for prolonged round of bloodshed and ethnic strife.

The world should not be agnostic about the Ethiopian aggression taking place in Somalia for several reasons I would enumerate here.

– Ethiopian claim that the pro-nationalist forces in Somalia are threat to Ethiopia is false as one can easily verify if they have carried out aggression inside Ethiopia. The other claim that they support anti-Ethiopian rebels is also false pretense as they have no full control of Somalia how would they go over a land they don’t even control and bother Ethiopia? To the contrary they have promised Ethiopia they will leave with neighborly relations and any disputes will be deal within negotiations not through aggression which Ethiopia answered sending troops inside Somalia.
– Ethiopia has funded, armed and supported the warlords that massacred and looted the Somali nation the past fifteen years and Ethiopia only acted to interfere when these warlords were defeated by pro-nationalist forces.
– Ethiopia has control of a disputed Somali territories and any infringement on Somali sovereignty would be interpreted another occupation of Somali land.
– Ethiopia is against the wishes of the 90% of Somali population who chose a Islamic Sharia based rule and any Ethiopian interference that advocates otherwise would be interpreted by the Somali people a direct attack on their religion, dignity and pride
– Ethiopia hand picked the president and the current transition prime minister and supporting them unconditionally is interpreted another Ethiopian proxy regime
– The Islamic courts now mainly control the south and central Somalia where majority are Hawiye tribes. The Hawiye being one of the dominant tribes in Somalia have currently no warlords that are in control of any significant location. They are represented by the same Islamic courts that Ethiopia is accusing of having an ambition to Unite Somalia including the Ethiopian controller Somali State. Any aggression against the Islamic courts would immediately take a very ugly turn of ethnic dimension and will unleash another wider civil war where no one wins.
– There is natural disaster underway in Somalia “flooding” which Somalia has not seen for the last 100 years that caused over 300,000 people to evacuate and need immediate food and clean water. Ethiopian troop present is already making the situation very difficult and badly needed aid is not reaching the needy
– It is the time of the pilgrimage where the Muslim faithful goes to hajj once in their life time. Ethiopian interference to such a sacred worship would turn this war “a war between Muslims and Christians”
– The Islamic courts have options which if they are forced to use will also cause hardships inside Ethiopia and could also turn Somalia into another Iraq for long time to come.
– The Ethiopian prime minister is a dictator’s dictator and world class communist black mailer who frequently kills, tortures and imprisons his own pro-democratic forces and his call that he is fighting a terrorism is in fact laughable as he unleashes terror on peace loving people and pro-democracies in his own country.

Somalia has seen their share of genocide, hunger, civil war. To prevent another one the world should restrain Ethiopia and tell in clear and unambiguous terms to withdraw its troops from Somalia. Somalis would find a workable solution in the negotiating table if Ethiopia is forced to withdraw its troops out of Somalia.

Ethiopia sees the tacit agreement of major powers such as the US and would not comply with the request of the UN arms embargo until these countries change their views of what is happening in Somalia. Sadly, pro- Ethiopian lobby group in Washington is pulling the strings not a humane policy that takes into consideration the needs and sovereignty of Somalia. The world is well advised to prevent another Darfur that could engulf the whole region before it is too late.

* Ali Osman is a Somali citizen currently living in United States. He can be reached at [email protected]