Sudan rejects deployment of foreign troops in Somalia
Dec 9, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudan has rejected the deployment of foreign troops in Somalia, considering plans against the Islamic courts as part of attacks on Islam and Islamic countries en the region.
At a press conference held Friday 8 December by the end of the Summit of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group in Khartoum, Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir expressed his opposition to any intervention of foreign troops in Somalia.
Al-Bashir who was for the first time talking about this sensitive regional issue, said Somalia is the unique country in Africa qualified to stay united because of the religion, ethnicity, and culture. He considered plots against the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) as part of the attack against Islam and Islamic countries in the region.
Al-Bashir with his public support for the UIC may anger his Ethiopian neighbour who denounces consistently the Islamist militias in Somalia. He also reinforces Addis Ababa fears from the nascent Asmara-Khartoum alliance.
Earlier his month, the United States asked the U.N. Security Council to help prop up Somalia’s shaky government with an African peacekeeping force that would exclude troops from bordering states such as Ethiopia.
Al-Bashir finds in the Somali situation a similar case to his opposition to the deployment of the international troops in Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur.
His stand is comparable to Eritrean government which is backing Sudan’s rejection of the international troops in Darfur because of the border row with Ethiopia and the unwilling of the UN to press Ethiopia to withdraw from a disputed area.
The African Union and regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which brokered the transitional government’s installation in 2004, have long been pushing for regional peacekeepers to support it.
But word of the U.S. initiative set off alarms when the Brussels-based International Crisis Group and European experts warned the US proposal could backfire by undermining the interim government, strengthening the Islamists and leading to wider war.
(ST)