US official warns Ethiopia not to invade
Somalia, but it's too late

23 November, 2011 | By Alan Boswell and Mohammed Yusuf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The State Department's top Africa policymaker on Tuesday
warned Ethiopia not to invade Somalia, but the warning came
too late, with Somalis claiming that Ethiopian troops were
already rolling through their villages in trucks.

    The statement from Johnnie
    Carson, the assistant secretary
    of state for African affairs, was
    a sign that Washington is
    growing increasingly wary of a
    month-old offensive against the
Islamist militant group al-Shabab that was launched by Kenya
and now appears to include Ethiopia.

"We firmly believe that the best way to deal with al-Shabab and
the way to restore stability is working with AMISOM militarily,
using them as a vehicle to advance security," Carson said in
response to a question during a conference call with reporters.
AMISOM is the acronym for the African Union peacekeeping
mission in Somalia, which is manned mostly by troops from
Uganda and Burundi.

"I would remind the caller that Ethiopia went into Somalia some
four and a half years ago and stayed for approximately two and
a half to three years. That effort was not universally successful
and led in fact to the rise of Shabab after they pulled out,"
Carson said.

Carson's remarks also could be viewed as a rebuke of Kenya,
another U.S. ally in East Africa. Kenyan troops invaded
Somalia last month, ostensibly after kidnappings along its border
with Somalia. According to U.S. diplomatic cables made public
by WikiLeaks, Carson was very critical in 2010 of a Kenyan
plan to use proxy Somali militias to go on an offensive against al-
Shabab and create space for a regional administration in
southern Somalia.

U.S. officials say Kenya did not consult them before launching
its recent incursion.

Now, Somalis say, Ethiopia has joined the fray.

Abdi Wehliye, 43, who lives in Gurieel town in central Somalia's
Galgudud region, says that fellow townsmen saw Ethiopian
troops rolling up on Saturday evening. He saw them Sunday
morning 5 kilometers outside town, where he says they have
pitched camp. On Sunday, Ethiopian commanders, escorted by
a small number of troops, came into the town to meet with local
elders and officials, he said.

Somalis are notoriously xenophobic when it comes to outside
interference in their own affairs, and Somalis view Ethiopia as a
historical arch nemesis. That sentiment was used by al-Shabab
during Ethiopia's 2006-2008 occupation to rally support for its
insurgency.

The U.S. is all too aware of that history, having backed
Ethiopia's military adventure in 2006. The U.S. itself pulled
troops out of Somalia in the early 1990s after they became the
targets of regular Somali attacks.

Wehliye said, however, that while people don't like Ethiopians,
their dismay has been tempered by their anger at al-Shabab for
its brutal and ultimately disastrous administrative tactics, which
many blame for the devastating famine that is expected to leave
hundreds of thousands dead this year in central and southern
Somalia. Al-Shabab banned most Western aid and recruits
barely teenage boys to fight.

"I thought some people would jump and start carrying guns
against Ethiopia but it seems they are not yet sure what they
want," Wehliye said in a phone interview. "Many Somalis hate al
Shabab for what they have done to them and their families."

Ethiopian troops have also entered central Somalia's Hiraan
region, said a resident of Beledweyne town who asked to be
identified only as Hussein for security reasons. He said that al-
Shabab had treated Somalis like "slaves in our own country"
and that he welcomed the Ethiopians, who he said had arrived
near Beledweyne in five trucks in recent days.

"I support anyone who helps us fight al-Shabab. We want to get
our freedom back. Al-Shabab are the ones who brought this
entire problem on us. They are the reason so many countries
want to invade Somalia," he said.

Not everyone reached by phone seemed keen on an Ethiopian
presence, however, a fact that U.S. officials are certain to seize
on to discourage a prolonged presence inside Somalia. The
Ethiopian government has categorically denied that its troops
have entered Somalia.

Waeys Ahmed, who is also from Gurieel, said he would be
happy to see al-Shabab "wiped out."

"But with Ethiopia and Kenya coming to fight al-Shabab, I don't
think it's good for the interest of Somalis. They have their own
agendas," he said. "This is taking us back to where we were in
2007, when al-Shabab enjoyed more support from the
population."

The Somali government, which from its limited control in
Mogadishu can do little about the arrival of foreign troops, has
struggled to find the right tone in responding to the incursions.

On Tuesday, Somalia government spokesman Abdirahman
Omar Osman said that while Kenya is welcome because it
entered into an agreement with his government, Ethiopia is not.

"We are a sovereign country, so foreign troops cannot enter
without bilateral agreement or a legal mandate," Osman said.

But he also said he was taking the Ethiopian denials at face
value, despite what Somali residents say.

"There are no Ethiopian troops on our soil," he said.

(Boswell and Yusuf are McClatchy Newspapers special
correspondents.)

                                     Courtesy
All rights reserved.
Ethio Quest News
Together We Can Make It!
You need Java to see this applet.
Ink in His Veins
and Somalia in
His Heart




Nuruddin Farah
"trying to keep my country
alive by writing about it."
More

Dilemmas facing Somali
music and musicians







"The Somali artists once used
to set the goals and visions of
their nation,...
More

IFJ Demands Action to
Protect Journalists After
Killing of Somali Leader
"...The IFJ has strongly
backed the protest of the
National Union of Somali
Journalists (NUSOJ)
whose Vice President Nasteh
Dahir Farah, was
gunned down...More