Ethiopia threatens to withdraw troops from Somalia
November 18, 2008 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has threatened to withdraw its troops from Somalia if the political forces in the neighbouring country fail to embrace peace and end the 17 year civil war, the Ethiopian foreign minister said.
The Ethiopia backed Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf’s government has been unable to settle a comprehensive peace agreement during two years and put aside their differences.
“I want to reiterate as unequivocally as possible. Ethiopian troops and perhaps AMISOM too are not prepared to continue paying heavy sacrifices indefinitely,” Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopian foreign minister, told a meeting of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), countries Tuesday.
“The top leadership of the transitional government, the federal government of Somalia have to decide whether they commit to the Nairobi decision of IGAD heads of state and government, or that they be left alone to fight among themselves,” he added.
U.N.-brokered peace talks in Djibouti to end the war, which has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, have been rejected by Islamist hardliners, while a spat between Yusuf and his prime minister has further hindered the process.
The IGAD members also issued a statement expressing disappointment with the failure of Somalia’s transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein to end their quarrel over cabinet posts, as they had promised to do at an IGAD summit meeting in Nairobi last month.
The statement calls for tough sanctions on anyone, in and outside Somalia, blocking peace efforts. The sanctions include travel bans, freezing of assets among others. It also calls upon the African Union and the U.N. Security Council to do the same.
The text did not name names, but afterward Ambassador Sahle Work told reporters it should be clear that the main target is Somalia’s President Yusuf, who has refused to accept the list of cabinet ministers proposed by Prime Minister Hussein.
Somalia has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of president Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability.
Founded in 1986, IGAD has six active members: Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.
(ST)
Yaadasaa Dafaa
Ethiopia threatens to withdraw troops from Somalia
Go ahead Ethiopia the new imperial power of Africa…impose your surrogates to be appointed to your recently conquered territories just like General Gordon of Great Britain when he captured Khartoum. I sincerely hope you will get the same predicament of General Gorden too!!!!!
What an irony, History repeats itself in the most strange way!!! But the inharmonious difference remains in two huge categories: First , Ethiopia remains the Land of caressively with a limited resources to be a self sufficient, let alone invading other Independent Nations, unless she uses those Humanitarian donated foods and goods to feed her invading army. On the other hand, your guess is is better than mine as the far as British army’s predisposition during those dark colonial days. But a conquest of a free Nation is the same whether it was Sudan of yesterday, or Somalia of today.
The other difference is: Sudan and othet African Nations were conquered by Great Britain and other aliens Nations from Europe under the pretexts of European scramble for Africa. But today, Somalia was conquered by the invading ary of Ethiopia under the pretexts of fighting the Global Terrorists. What a beautiful
cover up for the new-Colonialists. But what might have been overlooked even by the enabling administrations of mine, remains the power of the people, for the people, by the people as opposed to colonial appointees.
Peace!!!
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