Donors may be complicit in war crimes in Somalia – EU

April 06, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Ethiopian and Somali forces may have committed war crimes during four days of heavy artillery shelling to quash an Islamic insurgency in the Somali capital and foreign donors could be complicit, a European Union conflict expert said in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press.

The United States, United Nations and the European Union have provided millions of dollars to support Somalia’s fragile interim government. Ethiopian troops intervened in December to protect the government and defeat their militant Islamic rivals.

But Islamic insurgents and clan militiamen opposed to the government have attacked government and Ethiopian troops in recent weeks. An operation by Ethiopian-backed government forces last week sparked the heaviest fighting in 15 years, leaving hundreds of civilians dead, and the tactics they used raised concerns among EU experts.

The warning was made in an urgent e-mail to Eric van der Linden, the chief EU official for Kenya and Somalia. Van der Linden confirmed the e-mail’s authenticity to the AP.

“I need to advise you that there are strong grounds to believe that the Ethiopian government and the transitional federal government of Somalia and the African Union (peacekeeping) Force Commander, possibly also including the African Union Head of Mission and other African Union officials have through commission or omission violated the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,” the e-mail said.

The e-mail’s author, whose name was blanked out on the copy obtained by the AP but whose senior position was apparent from the text, went on to detail the exact statutes that may have been violated. They included intentionally directing attacks against civilians and ordering the displacement of civilians for reasons related to the conflict.

“In regard to the abovementioned potential violations of international law there arise urgent questions of responsibility and potential complicity in the commission of war crimes by the European Commission and its partners,” the e-mail said.

Van der Linden said he forwarded the e-mail to EU headquarters for legal review. He said he takes all accusations of war crimes seriously, but said the e-mail only raised questions about potential legal issues and did not make any specific allegations.

“We cannot talk at this stage about war crimes, we need to do some serious research,” he said. He also denied some press reports that he had appointed a team to investigate possible war crimes in Somalia.

Van der Linden said he was focused on trying to bring together all of the warring sides at a reconciliation congress intended to end the fighting.

In the Somali capital, Mogadishu, residents were still burying bodies from last week’s fighting. A fragile five day cease-fire was holding but residents were still fleeing, fearing new clashes between Somali government forces, their Ethiopian backers and Islamic insurgents.

The e-mail was sent on Monday, following the four day battle. The day after it was written, the European Union issued a statement calling for an end to the fighting.

“We are deeply concerned about the humanitarian impact of the conflict in Mogadishu and the indiscriminate shelling of heavily populated areas,” the EU said Tuesday. A statement condemning potential war crimes can be considered under international law as mitigation against accusations of complicity.

Somali officials declined to comment.

The EU was shortly expected to release A15 million (US$20 million) for the African peacekeeping force, but the e-mail could lead to the suspension of the money, a Western diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The United States is also a major financial supporter of the Somali government and the peacekeepers, pledging more than US$120 million (A90 million).

Solomon Abebe, spokesman for the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the allegations a “fabrication.”

“The international community, everybody knows that this is false,” he said.

But European diplomats said they were analyzing the legal implications.

“We are looking at this from a legal point of view at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm,” said Jens Orlander, the Swedish special envoy for Somalia based in Nairobi.

The European Union has no mechanism for investigating and prosecuting war crimes in Somalia; that would fall on the International Criminal Court.

One Somali human rights group, which asked not to be identified for fear of retribution, said it was gathering evidence of war crimes in Somalia for submission to the International Criminal Court for possible future prosecutions.

Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf and his Cabinet ministers have repeatedly called for civilians to leave their homes because insurgents have fired mortars at Ethiopian and government troops from densely populated neighborhoods.

The U.N. refugee agency says some 124,000 people have fled Mogadishu since the beginning of February, including 11,000 in the past six days.

New York-based Human Rights Watch called Friday for all sides to end indiscriminate attacks against civilians.

“Civilians in Mogadishu are paying an intolerable price for the failure of all sides to abide by the rules of warfare,” said Georgette Gagnon, deputy Africa director of Human Rights Watch.

(AP)