Ethiopia denies plans to extend stay in Somalia
Reporter, Ethiopia
Saturday, 06 December 2008
Namrud Berhane
“We don’t make policy based on hope, promises and speculations,” MoFA
“There is no change of policy, our decision to withdraw out of Somalia still stands and everyone can be sure hundred percent that we are moving out of Somalia by the end of December,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) official said on Friday.
The reaction from MoFA came after reports that Ethiopia had agreed to delay pulling out its troops from Somalia next month, to allow time for the arrival of peacekeepers.
Spokesperson for the ministry, Wahade Belay, said that the decision to pull out by the end of the year, despite being announced last week, had been discussed and made much earlier.
“It was three weeks after we went into Somalia in 2006 that we began asking to be replaced, almost two years now and the international community and the African Union have not been able to provide the necessary help,” Wahade said.
Immediately after Ethiopia announced its plans to pull out, the UN called for urgent talks expressing its concern that the decision could create a power vacuum exposing the weak Somali transitional government to implosion.
AU Commission Chairman Jean Ping and his peace and security commission chief Ramtane Lamamra are reported to have gone to Cairo to hold talks with leaders of the Arab League. The AU is also expected to consult with the UN Security Council and the Secretary-General. Despite the recent rush to prevent a possible collapse of the government in Somalia, which also is pleading that Ethiopian troops stay in its country, Wahade says Ethiopia has done enough and still stands by its decision to pull out on the given deadline.
“The reports that we have agreed to extend our stay were taken out of context and exaggerated. We have for the past two years been saying ‘look guys we are going out’ and no one was willing to listen. Whatever is happening now won’t change the government’s decision. We don’t make policies on hope, promises and speculations, and this decision is made on experience and is irreversible.”
Of a promised 8,000 peacekeeping force that was to replace Ethiopian troops, so far 3,000 Ugandans and Burundians have gone into Somalia.
The UN on its part has on numerous times expressed its reservation that a peacekeeping force in Somalia was “viable or realistic.”
The transitional government in Somalia has also been characterized as one that repeatedly had to address fractures within itself rather than deal with a national reconciliation and power sharing issues.
Infightings among the top leadership, particularly the president and his successive prime ministers, have had their effects on the peace process in the country.
Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin who along with other IGAD ministers was recently making yet another attempt to mediate between the President of Somalia Abdullahi Yusuf and his Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein Ade, expressed his frustration in the strongest of terms saying: “The Somali leadership is not such that could be depended upon, it is nepotistic, clannish, and lacking political commitment.”
Seyoum added that the problem in Somalia stemmed not from security issues in the country but from the problems that exist in the political leadership.
Despite a power sharing agreement between the transitional federal government and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) – a splinter of which is based in Asmara and opposes the agreement - peace still seems illusive in Somalia.