U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 21
20 - 26 January 2001


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: Ethiopia denies reports of shootings
SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: Government condemns alleged action
SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: UN "concerned" over reports
SOMALIA: Faction leaders object to planned UN presence
SOMALIA: Senior UN official unwanted in Somaliland
SOMALIA: Leaders in south plan new region
SOMALIA: Speaker condemns proposed southern region
ETHIOPIA: Government seeks "eradication" of Al-Ittihad
SUDAN: Missionaries say "liberation" a farce
SUDAN: Ummah Party rejects cooperation with government
SUDAN: DUP to participate in government
SUDAN: Bombings in the south "regular throughout 2000" 
DJIBOUTI: US ambassador on hijacked Yemeni flight

SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: Ethiopia denies reports of shootings

Ethiopia has angrily denied press reports that its troops shot and killed
at least two Somali demonstrators during anti-Ethiopian protests near the
border between the two countries. Mengistu Ayalew, a spokesman for the
Ethiopian Embassy in Nairobi, told IRIN that "the Ethiopian military
presence in Somalia is imaginary - we are not there, and we do not commit
atrocities". 

The reports claimed Ethiopian troops had killed an unknown number of
people in Bulo Hawa, near the border, just inside southern Somalia.
Witnesses were quoted as saying Ethiopian soldiers fired warning shots
over the heads of a crowd protesting against the military presence of
Ethiopia in the region, an allegation Addis Ababa has consistently denied.
According to residents, the incident began after a crowd began throwing
stones at the troops. Local sources told IRIN that at least two people
were killed in the incident and several others injured. There has been
increasing unrest in the border region since the Somali Transitional
National Government (TNG) "sent out feelers" to visit the area, over which
Mogadishu has traditionally had little influence. Towards the end of last
week, soldiers had begun confiscating communication equipment, including
radios, and requisitioning vehicles, local sources told IRIN.

SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: Government condemns alleged action

The TNG said in a press statement released in Mogadishu on 22 January that
five people - two women, two men and a child - had been killed in the
incident, which, it said, was triggered by a pro-Somali demonstration. The
TNG said it sent condolences "to our civilian victims in Bulo Hawa town
and [we] strongly condemn the villains who committed such hostile,
murderous and cowardly actions against the Somali people". It called on
the UN, the OAU, the Arab League, the EU and the regional
Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to "stop Ethiopia's
aggression against Somalia". Ethiopia should immediately pull out "armed
units illegally stationed in Bulo Hawa, Luuq and Doolow districts in the
southwestern Gedo Region of Somalia", the statement said. Last week,
Ethiopia issued several statements saying the Somali accusations were
false. 

SOMALIA-ETHIOPIA: UN "concerned" over reports

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative to Somalia, David
Stephen, has said he is concerned over persistent reports of an Ethiopian
military presence in Somalia. He told IRIN he had sent a report to the UN
headquarters in New York, USA. "These reports are of deep concern to the
United Nations Political Office in Somalia. We have no independent
capacity to verify them, however, but I have made a full report to New
York."

SOMALIA: Faction leaders object to planned UN presence

Opposition leaders in Somalia have sent a joint letter to UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan and representatives of UN offices in Somalia,
objecting to proposed UN operations in Mogadishu and southern Somalia. The
letter reminded the UN that military and humanitarian intervention in
Somalia in 1993 ended in peacekeepers becoming "embroiled in an
increasingly bloody conflict with Somali militias". It said there was no
legitimate authority in Somalia and that the interim government - referred
to as the Arteh group - had not established itself in the capital.

Signed by five Mogadishu-based opposition leaders, the letter dismissed
the peace talks held last year in Djibouti. It warned of "weapons and
ammunition, which the Arteh group are now unloading in Kismaayo port
(southern Somalia)". "We are questioning... how much good that UN office
in Mogadishu will do?" The statement, which was also copied to the OAU,
the secretary-general of the Arab League and IGAD, was signed by Muhammad
Kanyare Afrah, Haji Muse Sudi Yalahow, Mawlid Ma'an Mahmud, Husayn
Muhammad Aydid and Usman Hasan Ali Ato.

The UN Security Council recently invited the Secretary-General to propose
a UN peace-building mission for Somalia to assist the TNG with
reconstruction and development. 

SOMALIA: Senior UN official unwanted in Somaliland

The UN Secretary-General's special representative for Somalia, David
Stephen, has been declared "persona non grata" by the self-declared state
of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia. The parliament of Somaliland declared
the UN envoy banned last Saturday, according to local Radio Hargeysa, the
BBC and international news agency reports. He was accused of
"misrepresenting the truth in Somaliland and the political realities in
Somalia", Radio Hargeysa said, according to a report monitored in Somalia
by Agence France Presse (AFP). 

A UN spokesperson in Nairobi told IRIN that the Somaliland administration
had not contacted the UN, and that it was established UN policy not to
react to press reports. The spokesperson said the UN "deplored attempts to
personalise serious political issues". Regarding the status of the
territory - which has received no official recognition since declaring
unilateral independence in 1991 - the spokesperson said the position of
the UN was clear: "The commitment to the unity and territorial integrity
of Somalia was reaffirmed by the Security Council in its Presidential
Statement dated 11 January." One regional analyst told IRIN that
Somaliland supporters in the diaspora had used the internet in recent
weeks to attack senior UN officials, including Stephen, and that the move
"came as no surprise". 

SOMALIA: Leaders in south plan new region

Political and faction leaders of southern and southwestern Somalia have
met in El Berde, Bakool Region, to discuss establishing an autonomous
region. The meeting was attended by the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA),
Somali Patriotic Front (SPM), Somali National Front (SNF) and Southern
Somali National Movement (SSNM), according to a statement released by the
leaders on Monday. The meeting was also attended by Colonel Abdullahi
Yusuf Ahmad, leader of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland,
northeastern Somalia, the statement said.

The leaders said they were going to discuss the establishment of a
self-governing regional state, and reconciliation among communities in the
six regions of the south. A published agenda said the meeting would also
address "security issues arising out of the forcible occupation by
non-native militias, and the new threats of destabilisation by the Arta
faction [a reference to the TNG] in Mogadishu". The agenda said national
reconciliation should be based on the principle of "building blocks" 
(regional administrations) and a federal system of government.

The opposition leaders condemned "armed aggression, naked destabilisation
acts and provocations of the Arta faction", and called for an
all-inclusive reconciliation conference. They warned that if the UN and
Arab countries continued "unbalanced political and financial" support for
the TNG, this would reignite civil war in Somalia. The statement, which
thanked the governments of Ethiopia and Kenya for their "positive and
necessary role" in reconciliation, was signed by Shaykh Adan Muhammad Nur,
acting chairman of the RRA. 

However, Muhammad Ibrahim Muhammad, the second deputy chairman of the RRA,
told IRIN in a telephone interview from Baidoa, the regional capital, on
Thursday, that the opposition leaders had failed to reach agreement on the
setting up of a new autonomous regional southern state. Ways of doing so
would be discussed at a subsequent meeting, he said. 

SOMALIA: Speaker condemns proposed southern region

The Speaker of the Transitional National Assembly (TNA), Abdallah Derow
Isaq, has criticised the proposed establishment of a southern regional
state.  Derow said the idea would not succeed because it did not originate
with the people of the area, according to 'Xog-Ogaal', a Mogadishu-based
daily, on Tuesday. The concept of the proposed region was "the brainchild
of foreign countries", and would not work without indigenous support, the
paper quoted the Speaker as saying, in a report monitored by the BBC. 
Derow said that opposition faction leaders heading the meeting were not
from the southern region.

ETHIOPIA: Government seeks "eradication" of Al-Ittihad

An Ethiopian senior government official has said that the Ethiopian
government considers the "eradication" of Al-Ittihad al-Islami, a hardline
Islamic group, a test of credibility for the Somali TNG. Executive member
of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), Sibhat Nega, said that
Ethiopia had "repeatedly tried to wipe out the group inside Somali
territories and to destroy its strongholds", according to a report by the
pro-government Walta Information Service on 18 January, monitored by the
BBC. A former secretary-general of the TPLF - one of the most important
groups within the ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front
(EPRDF) - Sibhat said that Ethiopia considered the "Somali-based
Al-Ittihad al-Islami movement one of the most dangerous terrorist groups
in the region that fans extremism and terrorism." The "eradication" of the
group would be the first test for the interim Somali president, Abdiqassim
Salad Hassan, to prove he was "capable of safeguarding the interests of
Somalia and its neighbours", said the report. Ethiopia could only judge
Salad after it had witnessed "tangible improvement in the security and
stability of Somalia and the region at large", he said.

SUDAN: Missionaries say "liberation" a farce

Missionaries working in southern Sudan said that the war was no longer one
for liberation. In a statement sent to IRIN, 30 Comboni missionaries
gathered for an annual assembly said they had come to the unanimous
conviction that the war in Sudan was "not any longer a struggle for
freedom of the Sudanese people and for the defence of human rights".  The
statement said that after working in the "liberated areas" of southern
Sudan, they had come to the unanimous conviction that the war in Sudan had
become "immoral and a tragic farce". They said religion was distorted and
misused as a means for other interests, and that the war had become "a
struggle for power, business and greed". The statement said the number of
victims of the war had increased and that "humanity in Sudan is getting
lost". "Corruption, tribalism and fratricidal hatred are fostered... The
word "liberation" is abused... [with] northerners against southerners,
northerners against northerners, southerners against southerners, Nuer and
Dinka are fighting against Arabs. Nuer and Arabs are fighting against
Dinka. Dinka against Dinka. Nuer against Nuer..."

The missionaries said that aid was prolonging the war. "NGOs and churches
prolong the fighting through the relief aid that unknowingly supports also
the warring factions," the statement said. It appealed to all sides to put
down weapons and intensify mediation for peace, and said the "political
and economic powers of the world" should give up greed and self-interest
to stop the war. The Italian Catholic Comboni missionaries, named after
the first bishop of Khartoum, have had a long history of involvement with
Sudan. 

SUDAN: Ummah Party rejects cooperation with government

The leader of the opposition Ummah Party (UP), Al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, has said
that he will not take part in the new government without a political
agreement. Mahdi, a former prime minister, told journalists that the
government was "totalitarian", Reuters said on Monday. In a press
conference, he said: "We cannot continue to negotiate with the government
indefinitely and we have decided irrevocably not to take part in this
totalitarian government." He said the UP had reached deadlock with the
government, but gave no details. Some UP officials had said the UP would
only join a coalition after a comprehensive political settlement had been
reached. 

SUDAN: DUP party to participate in government

A senior member of the opposition Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), Dr
Ahmad Bilal, has said that his party will participate in the next
government of Sudan. Bilal said his party was in full agreement with the
ruling National Congress party with regard to policies and programmes, the
official Sudanese news agency (SUNA) reported on 21 January. Bilal said,
however, that the nature of his party's participation had not been
discussed or detailed, and that the matter was being worked out at
committee level, SUNA said. 

SUDAN: Bombings in the south "regular throughout 2000" 

Sudanese government planes bombed civilian and humanitarian targets in
southern and central Sudan 152 times last year, according to the US
Committee for Refugees (USCR). Last year's bombings meant that aerial
attacks occurred on average nearly three times a week during 2000, the
USCR stated. USCR Executive Director Roger Winter visited southern Sudan
in January, where he investigated a new bombing site in the Bahr al-Ghazal
area and spoke to civilian survivors. "The Sudanese government's objective
seems to be to push people from their homes in preparation for a large new
military offensive, and to depopulate areas to begin exploitation of
expanded oilfields," Winter said in the report.

The USCR statement, released on Monday in Washington DC, USA, said there
were eight confirmed attacks on civilian and humanitarian targets in the
first three weeks of this year. It accused the government of using larger,
more powerful bombs and helicopter gunships in some of its most recent
attacks. Humanitarian sources told IRIN that there was concern over
significant population displacement due to a "major military offensive by
the government in the south".

DJIBOUTI: US ambassador on hijacked Yemeni flight

A Yemeni airliner on which the US ambassador to Yemen was travelling was
hijacked on Tuesday and flown to Djibouti, where the incident was
resolved. The Boeing 727 was on a domestic flight, carrying 91 passengers
and 10 crew members, when it was hijacked by a pro-Iraqi Yemeni national.
The plane landed in Djibouti airport at 12:15 p.m. local time (09:15 GMT),
a local journalist told IRIN.

Shortly after landing, the Djibouti authorities started negotiating with
the hijacker, and persuaded him to release the passengers, including the
US ambassador. In exchange the hijacker demanded fuel to fly to Baghdad,
Iraq, Djibouti sources told IRIN. The hijacker was described as having
been armed with a "pen-shaped pistol". 

Djibouti Minister of Interior Abdullah Abdullahi Miguil told the press
that during negotiations with the hijacker, crew members overpowered him.
A flight engineer was slightly injured during the scuffle, he added. The
minister said the hijacker was handed over to the Djibouti security forces
and was being interrogated. The authorities have not released the identity
of the hijacker, nor is it known if he was aware that the American
ambassador was on board, Djibouti sources told IRIN.

Nairobi, 26 January 2001


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