Somali govt postpones disarmament amid anti-Ethiopian protests
Jan 6, 2007 (MOGADISHU) — Somalia’s government announced it was indefinitely postponing its disarmament program Saturday, as about 100 residents of the capital burned tires and looted vehicles to protest the plans to forcibly take their weapons.
The protesters gathered at Tribunk Square in a southern neighborhood of Mogadishu, shouting “Down, down with Ethiopia,” in reference to troops from the neighboring country that have been instrumental in the transitional government’s takeover of the capital from Islamists who controlled it for six months.
“We don’t want disarmament only in Mogadishu, we want all the people (of Somalia) and all the clans to be disarmed simultaneously,” said Dahail Abukar, one of the protesters.
“The prime minister has decided to postpone, disarming people by force until an unspecified time,” government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari told The Associated Press. He didn’t say why Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi had reversed his earlier decision to forcibly disarm Mogadishu residents.
Mogadishu teems with weapons, and some of the feared warlords of the past have returned to the city with their guns.
The ease with which Somalis can get weapons is a major problem. Thursday was Gedi’s deadline for residents to voluntarily give up their arms, but only a handful were seen doing so. Gedi has said the disarmament program was working.
Somali government and Ethiopian troops routed the Council of Islamic Courts militia last week, driving them out of the capital and their strongholds in southern Somalia.
Al-Qaida’s deputy leader urged Somalia’s Islamic militia to attack troops from Ethiopia, which has a large Christian population, according to Internet audio posted Friday.
“I speak to you today as the crusader Ethiopian invasion forces violate the soil of the beloved Muslim Somalia – launch ambushes, land mines, raids and suicidal combats until you consume them as the lions and eat their prey,” Ayman al-Zawahri said in the audio message.
The message couldn’t immediately be verified but was aired on a Web site frequently used by militants and carried the logo of al-Qaida’s media production wing, al-Sahab.
Three al-Qaida suspects wanted in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa are believed to be leaders of the Islamic movement in Somalia. The movement’s leaders deny having any links to the terror network.
On Friday, Somali government troops backed by Ethiopians were preparing to launch a major assault on the last stronghold of Islamic movement militiamen.
U.S. warships patrolled off the Somali coast to prevent militiamen from escaping by sea. The U.S. 5th Fleet said in a statement Thursday that coalition ships were boarding vessels as part of the effort to deny an escape route to al-Qaida suspects believed to be working with the Somali Islamic movement.
Somali and Ethiopian forces captured a southern town near the Kenyan border Thursday evening. Col. Barre “Hirale” Aden Shire, defense minister in the U.N.-backed transitional government, said Islamic militiamen were dug in with their backs to the sea at Ras Kamboni at the southernmost tip of Somalia and government forces planned an offensive against them.
A meeting in Kenya of U.S., European Union, African and Arab diplomats on Somalia ended Friday with a U.S. pledge to provide $40 million to Somalia in political, humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance, and a plan to ask more African nations to provide troops to help stabilize the country.
The European Union said it would also help pay for a peacekeeping force envisioned at 8,000 troops.
Ethiopian soldiers, tanks and warplanes intervened in Somalia on Dec. 24 to defeat an Islamic movement that threatened to overthrow the internationally recognized government, which at the time controlled only the western town of Baidoa. But Ethiopia’s government wants to pull out in a few weeks, saying its forces cannot be peacekeepers and it cannot afford for them to stay.
The Islamic movement has vowed to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war, raising the prospect of bloody reprisals against foreign peacekeepers. Somalia’s interior minister said Thursday that 3,500 Islamic fighters were still hiding in the capital.
Kenya closed its border amid fears militants would slip across the frontier. The U.N. said thousands of refugees were also near the border, unable to seek safety in Kenya.
The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA, said in a statement Friday that armed militia were reported to be on the roads to Baidoa and other towns in southern Somalia, engaging in looting, banditry, extortion and harassment of civilians.
The agency also said that in recent days there had been reports of at least three rapes involving militiamen.
In addition, Ethiopian soldiers detained a U.N. security staff member at the southern town of Af Madow and his whereabouts were unknown, OCHA said in the statement.
Somalia’s last effective central government fell in 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
(AP)