Tuesday, December 19, 2006
By Hassan Yare
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BAIDOA, Somalia, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Guns were silent in the sole stronghold of Somalia's interim government on Tuesday as an Islamist deadline to Ethiopian troops to leave or face holy war passed with conciliatory signs.
Around the dusty agricultural trading post where Somalia's shaky government conducts business from a converted warehouse, residents reported calm despite the threat by the country's Islamist movement.
Nonetheless, the Islamists and Ethiopian-backed government troops remained dug in along a tense frontline just kilometres (miles) apart.
Baidoa is a potential ground zero in what many fear will become a regional war, sucking in Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea and spawning suicide bombings in east Africa.
The Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) said they wanted peace talks, and backed off a threat by defence chief Yusuf Mohamed Siad "Inda'ade" that gave the Ethiopians a week to leave -- thrusting war fears into overdrive.
"We want the talks to continue and the Ethiopian troops to leave," SICC spokesman Abdirahman Ali Mudey said. "We did not mean we will attack them if they don't pull out but that talks cannot go ahead unless they pull out."
Inda'ade has made inflammatory remarks in the past, and experts say there has always been a moderate-hardline split in the SICC, which kicked U.S.-backed warlords out of Mogadishu in June and have since taken over most of southern Somalia.
DEEDS, NOT WORDS
The government dismissed the deadline as the latest unfulfilled threat by the SICC, who had pledged jihad (holy war) against Ethiopians soldiers they view as invaders -- but then said they would only fight a defensive war.
"We only care about their actions and not what they say. As previously said by the president, we will not be the first to attack," Information Minister Ali Ahmed Jama "Jangali" said.
Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Solomon Abebe said it was up to the SICC to resolve a standoff Addis Ababa has been working to resolve peacefully: "On our part we've been patient knowing we benefit from peace rather than war."
Ethiopia says it has only a few hundred military trainers in Somalia. Military experts believe there are roughly 15,000-20,000 Ethiopian combat troops there.
One Western diplomat said more moderate thinkers in the SICC, which wants to impose Islamic sharia law to end 15 years of anarchy in Somalia, may have backed off to keep their advantages of territory and some international credibility.
"They have control of about 80 percent of south-central Somalia, so why get into a fight?" the diplomat, who is not authorised to speak to the press, told Reuters.
The hardline elements in the government on the other hand, the diplomat said, may be in favour of a war -- especially since the U.N. Security Council authorised a peacekeeping mission to support them. Many doubt that will ever get off the ground.
The SICC's territorial control has all but eclipsed the government -- which controls only Baidoa -- and dashed its plan to impose central rule missing since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
European Union development aid chief Louis Michel was due to fly to Baidoa on Wednesday to try and get the government and Islamists to agree to attend a fourth round of Arab League-mediated peace talks in Khartoum aimed at power-sharing. (Additional reporting by Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu and Guled Mohamed, Bryson Hull in Nairobi and Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)
Source: Reuters, Dec 19, 2006