This week's topic in Somali politics:
A new opportunity for Ethiopian troops to withdraw from Somalia
There is no doubt that the Ethiopian’s military intervention in Somalia’s civil war was the biggest mistake the Addis Ababa administration made about Somalia’s political interference in the last ninteen odd years the Ethiopian governmnet was enjoying with Somalia’s turmoil.
Ethiopia had an opportunity to invade Somalia with the help of US’s Bush administration and other Western powers, but now it does not have the power to remain in Somalia, as the situation becomes more complicated and no sign of Somali government that can put up with the every strengthening Somali Islamist militias.
The time is now telling us that Ethiopian’s military power can not impose the TNG government on the people of Somalia nor it can completely eradicate the Somali Islamists in Somalia, the Ethiopian government declared ‘a threat to its security.’
With the lost of perhaps more than two thousand of Ethiopian troops in Somalia and the lack of the capability to combat Islamists in all regions of Somalia, Ethiopians are desperate to withdraw and they can not wait AU troops to replace them in the small area they control with the TNG and its affiliated militias.
Somali analysts agree that Ethiopia’s intervention has created a new situation that the ‘moderate Islamists’ can share power with the TNG, while its actions in Somalia also created a new wave of fierce Somali Islamist hardliners that won’t accept any peace agreement with the TNG and its allies and will not stop the war until they realized what they see as ‘Islamic Sharia rule’ imposed on Somalia.
There is now a new window of opportunity rising once again for the Ethiopian government, - this time it is how to get out of Somalia and leave to other Somali Islamist group to sort out the group that threats the whole region, the Alshabab group.
And that opportunity is unfolding the new phase Somalia has entered- the mistrust among Somali Islamists and the new fighting between or within Somali Islamists, whatever group they might be. This obviously will give Ethiopian a chance once again to backup one Islamic friendly faction against the other, just as they have done in the past when they supported one warlord over the other in Mogadishu during the warlord era and the Somali Islamists were not in Somalia's political arena.
As Somali analysts predict, the Ethiopian troops won’t need to remain in Somalia in order to defend from potential Islamist threat to their country as they claimed when they invaded Somalia two years, there is now a new situation changing the face of the war in Somalia.
Alshabab, or ‘The ‘Islamic’ Youth’ which the Ethiopian prime minister declared the group that “forced the Ethiopian defense forces to enter into war in Somalia’ is now in war with one of its ally in the former UIC, and this is creating a situation Ethiopians can withdraw from Somalia without worrying about Alshabab taking over Somalia. Analysts believe this is an opportunity the Ethiopian troops can grasp by withdrawing its troops and leaving Somalia in a new war within its various factions.
Will the Ethiopian government grasp this opportunity the very Islamist group it was at war with has given it or will it keep its troops in Somalia with a situation it can not emerge as the winner, this remains to be seen.
Xogtamaanta staff
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Ethiopian Troops pack up in Somalia
Xogtamaanta.com- 01/01/09 There are reports from Mogadishu on Ethiopian troops preparing to leave parts of Somalia on the day they were supposed to complete their withdrawal.
Ethiopian troops were expected to leave Somalia when enough AU troops arrive in Somalia, but the AU failed to bring the troops needed in Somalia and eyewitness in Mogadishu report no sign of Ethiopian troops leaving the Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The Ethiopian withdrawal is over due when look at the Djibouti peace accord between the TNG and the Alliance for the Re-liberation Somalia (ARS).
“There are military trucks of full of mattresses and personal belongs moving from outside Mogadishu and these seem to be Ethiopian troops preparing to withdraw,” said an eyewitness in the town of Afgoe, north of Mogadishu.
Some fear the Ethiopian withdrawal could lead to a new war and power struggle between moderate and hardline Islamist groups and the TNG, others say it could make it easier for a peace agreement between moderate Islamist group and the TNG government.
The Ethiopian invasion in Somalia to prop the TNG government two years ago was deeply unpopular with many Somalis. Various Islamist and nationalist groups now control much of southern Somalia. The TNG Government forces only control parts of Mogadishu and the town of Baidoa.
Sheik Muktar Robow, the leader of the hardline Alshabab said his forces would continue to fight government troops even after the Ethiopian troops leave and until Islamic Sharia law was imposed on all Somalia.
"We will not stop fighting even if the Ethiopian troops withdraw because our aim is to implement Islamic law across Somalia," he said in a press conference in Mogadishu.
President Abdullahi Yusuf was forced to resign this week after a power-struggle with his prime minister, and reportedly Ethiopian government was disappointed by Mr. Yusuf’s failure to bring peace and his refusal to sit with more moderate Islamist for negotiations.
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Al Shabaab and its top leaders, which are on Addis Ababa and Washington's list of foreign terrorist groups, and other more moderate rebel Islamist groups hold large swathes of south and central Somalia, it is feared Mogadishu and Baidoa will fall and will plunge Somalia futher into anarchy if Ethiopia withdraws its troops from these cities by the end of December 2008.
It is believed more than 15,000 civilians have been killed during the two-year insurgency, more than half a million people displaced and more than third of the population in southern Somalia need emergency aid in a humanitarian crisis that has been described as worst than Dafur.
Somalia’s president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is expeced to resign soon, after failing to restore stability and accused of hindering Djibouti peace process. His Ethiopian closed ally, IGAD members and Western countries put pressure for his resignation.
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