Somali Islamists demand Ethiopian pullout, reject Kenyan mediation

(AFP)
29 October 2006
MOGADISHU - Somalia’s powerful Islamist movement said on Sunday it would not meet with the country’s weak government at peace talks this week in Sudan until Ethiopian troops allegedly on Somali soil leave.
On the eve of a third round of talks to be held amid fears of all-out war and regional conflict, the Islamists said they would attend the Khartoum negotiations, but would speak only to mediators until their demands are met.
At the same time, prospects for proximity talks in the Sudanese capital were also clouded as the Islamists said they would not accept neighboring Kenya as co-chair of the talks because of Nairobi’s alleged bias toward the government.
‘We will go to Khartoum for the negotiations but as long as Ethiopian troops are inside Somalia, we shall not meet the government face-to-face,’ said the Islamists’ top foreign affairs official, Ibrahim Hassan Adow.
‘We are ready to meet the government when and after the Ethiopian troops leave Somali territory,’ he told reporters shortly before leaving Mogadishu for Monday’s talks in Khartoum.
‘We are urging the international community to press the Ethiopians to leave Somalia to make the meeting a success,’ Adow said.
The Islamists have declared holy war against Ethiopian soldiers said to be in Somalia and have accused Kenya of bias as it supports the government’s call for regional peacekeepers, also backed by Ethiopia.
Mainly Christian Ethiopia denies reports it has as many as 8,000 soldiers in Somalia but acknowledges sending military advisers to help protect the government from ‘jihadists’ some of whom are accused of links with Al Qaeda.
Earlier Sunday, Adow said the Islamists also rejected the mediation of Kenya, which was appointed this month to co-chair the negotiations with the Arab League that had been the sole mediator at two previous rounds.
‘We demand the exclusion of Kenya,’ he told Mogadishu’s HornAfrik Radio. ‘The government of Kenya is not neutral in the Somali conflict and its presence will not be accepted by the Islamic courts.’
Kenya was named co-chair after the transitional government accused the Arab League of bias toward the Islamists.
Kenya currently holds the presidency of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a group of seven east African nations that brokered the formation of the government in 2004 and now plans to send peacekeepers there.
But the bloc is deeply split over the proposed mission, with members Eritrea and Djibouti opposing the force; Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, the Somali government in favor; and Sudan backing off earlier support.
The Islamists have vowed to fight any foreign troops on Somali territory.
Some countries, notably the United States, fear that Ethiopia and Eritrea, who fought a bloody 1998-2000 war over their border that is still unresolved, have turned Somalia into a proxy battleground for their dispute.
UN experts say Eritrea has sent arms to the Islamists and Asmara on Sunday hotly rejected claims it had 2,000 troops in Somalia, maintaining the allegation was a US-inspired ‘act of pure defamation.’
‘This campaign and continuous lie is a fabrication of the US administration,’ the Eritrean foreign ministry said, accusing Washington of supporting alleged Ethiopian plans to invade Somalia.
‘The truth behind this campaign is to cover up the US government’s plans and war it is carrying out in Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general through its agent, the (Ethiopian) regime,’ it said in a statement posted to its website.
Somalia has been without a functioning central administration since 1991 and the government has been wracked by infighting and its inability to assert control over much of the country.
It now faces increasing threats from the Islamists, who seized Mogadishu from warlords in June after months of fierce battles and now control almost all of southern and central Somalia where they have imposed strict Sharia law.