Trouble brewing in Horn of Africa
2001-01-15 12:24
Mogadishu - Only weeks after the signing of a peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, tension is growing between Ethiopia and another of its neighbours.
Somalia's parliamentary speaker Abdallah Derow Isaak has blamed Ethiopia for an attack on Saturday in which he narrowly escaped death, Africa Online reported on Monday.
Somalia's Prime Minister, Ali Khalif Galeyr has also Ethiopia of training and supplying arms to militia opposed to the precarious Mogadishu government led by President Abdikassim Salad Hussan.
Ethiopia has always denied reports of military interference within Somali borders, but claims it is threatened by Islamic extremists based in Somalia.
Somalia's interim government was formed at a peace conference held in Djibouti last year.
A new analyses of the uneasy relationship between the two Horn of Africa countries, battered by years if drought and conflict, says: "The history of Somalia and Ethiopia is littered with distrust, animosity and war".
First Head of State in 10 Years
After 10 years of civil war, Somali representatives elected a new head of state, Abdiqasim Salad Hasan, Irin (Integrated Regional Information Network) reported.
Elected by a 245-strong clan-based Transitional National Assembly (TNA), the new Somali president was sworn in 27 August in a ceremony lead by the Djibouti president, and watched by international representatives, including heads of state from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen, and Sudan.
Three days later, Abdiqasim Salad made a triumphant visit to Mogadishu, the divided capital, ruined by years of fighting and the absence of government.
The election followed months of peace talks in Arta, some 30km south of the Djibouti capital, where the Somali National Peace Conference officially opened on 2 May in a huge military tent. The peace talks were initiated by Djibouti President Ismael Omar Guelleh and supported by the regional body Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Arta became a small part of Somalia for the months it took to agree on clan representation, parliamentary delegates, and the method of election.
From 20 August, Somali parliamentarians held night-long voting sessions, by secret ballot. Somali and Djibouti television and radio stations broadcast daily to Somalia, and showed presidential elections live to Mogadishu as they stretched into the early hours of 26 August.
The challenge to the new president now is to get national recognition. Two key administrations boycotted the Djibouti-hosted talks, as well as a number of Mogadishu-based faction leaders.
The leader of the self-declared state of Somaliland, in the northwest, Muhammad Ibrahim Egal told southern Somalis to "sort themselves out" and elect a leader with whom he would then hold talks. In the northeast, where Puntland declared itself an autonomous region, Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad has warned that the election of a new authority and president would spark a new round of civil war.
On his first trip to Mogadishu, President Abdiqasim Salad said Somalis wanted a united country, and while he would open a dialogue with some faction leaders, he would ignore others and deal "with the will of the people", Irin said.