Somalia: Eritrea's hope to destabilize Ethiopia by using Somalia’s conflict failed--Ambassador (Sh.M.Network)

Somalia: Eritrea's hope to destabilize Ethiopia by using Somalia’s conflict failed--Ambassador
Aweys Osman YusufMogadishu 28, Feb.07

( Sh.M.Network) Somalia's struggle to form a unified government after 15 years of clan warfare is achieving success, after the TFG and Ethiopian forces drove away the UIC and other destabilizing forces harbored there, said a U.S. diplomat. This joint victory of last December also withered away Eritrea's hopes of destabilizing Ethiopia.

Ambassador Vicky Huddleston who recently served for 15 months as U.S. acting ambassador to Ethiopia told Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) on February 22 in Washington that Eritrea, hoped to use the conflict in Somalia to destabilize Ethiopia, which the government in Asmara sees as its arch enemy Ethiopia. "But this tactic failed."

Huddleston said Eritrea is a country not contributing to stability in Somalia.
She said Somalia's struggle to form a government after 15 years of clan warfare is achieving success thanks to partners in the Horn of Africa region like Ethiopia and with help from the United Nations, the African Union (AU) and the United States.

Huddleston told the CFR audience that the Ethiopian government was instrumental in "pressing for dialogue" between the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the Islamic Courts Council (ICC), a radical Islamist movement that had wrested control of Somalia until driven from power by a coalition of TFG and Ethiopian forces in December 2006 after talks failed.

Before that victory, she said, "many warned that if Ethiopia intervened on behalf of the transitional government it would fuel a wider war. They were all wrong," Huddleston told the CFR panel.Now "Ethiopia's and the Somali government's surprisingly easy victories have given Somalia -- and the West -- a second chance to get things right," said Huddleston.

As it stands now, "we do have a success in Somalia," the diplomat said. After cooperating with the TFG to remove the ICC threat, she said, "About one-third of the Ethiopian troops have already withdrawn. There will be a second phase and third phase of withdrawal that hopefully will coincide with the arrival of AU peacekeepers."

Nations that volunteered troops for the AU force in a move recently approved by the U.N. Security Council include Uganda, Burundi and "possibly Nigeria and Tanzania," Huddleston told the panel.

The United Nations approved a force of 8,000 peacekeepers, of which about 4,000 have been pledged so far, she said.

The United States will support the deployment by providing 15 million US dollars for airlift and other logistics, she added.
"A window of opportunity" has opened in Somalia, Huddleston said, and added that "before the Islamists close it by disrupting efforts to stabilize Mogadishu … strong U.S. leadership will prevent Somalia from becoming a haven for al-Qaida terrorism in Africa."She said Somalis themselves are working to achieve national unity, especially on the military level and added that about 10,000 Somalis have been merged into a TFG security force representing all the clans.

This is important, she said, because "in the end, whether Somalia succeeds or not will depend on all Somalis" and their ability to govern themselves and provide their own security.(Nazret)
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