Somalia peace talks collapsed
2006-11-02 13:43
Khartoum - Somalia's weak government and its powerful Islamists on Thursday traded barbs a day after peace talks aimed at averting a full-scale war in the country collapsed.
As threats of war mounted at home, mediators downplayed fears that the failure to launch peace talks in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, would stoke further unrest.
Despite intense last-ditch intervention by diplomats, the Islamists refused to participate in the talks until Ethiopian forces deployed in Somalia pull out while the government rejected the mediator's plea for a formal delay in negotiations.
A government delegate Hamdi Ibrahim said: "The conference was a disaster because the Islamic courts brought conditions that were unacceptable for the mediators and the government.
"The whole idea was to block the peace talks and they (Islamists) are opting for military solution in order to seize Baidoa."
Both sides 'interested in talks'
But, the Islamists said the talks collapsed because Ethiopia refused to heed calls to pull out thousands of troops deployed to protect the government in Baidoa, 250km northwest of the capital, from a feared Islamic advance.
Ibrahim Hassan Adow, the chief Islamic delegate, said: "There were no conditions by the Islamic courts that undermined the talks. Both sides were interested in talks, but the (Ethiopian) incursion should be blamed.
"The government made a mistake by inviting Ethiopia to occupy our country."
They swapped accusations as tension mounted in southcentral Somalia, where the rivals reinforced their defences, a day after artillery, rockets and mortars were fired into the air in shows of force over a 20km no-man's land separating them near Baidoa.
All feared a full-scale war that could embroil the Horn of Africa region in conflict, drawing in arch-foe neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea, who were accused of backing the rival Somali factions.
Ethiopia and Eritrea were suspected by many to be using Somalia as a proxy battlefield for their unresolved 1998-2000 border war and there were fears that they could be drawn into a conflict between the Islamists and Somali government.
Somalia had been without a functioning central administration since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre and the government had been wracked by infighting and its inability to assert control over much of the country.