By Peter Heinlein | VOA
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia – [The Woyanne regime in] Ethiopia has agreed to a brief delay in its troop pullout from Somalia to allow the international community time to organize a replacement force. VOA’s Peter Heinlein in Addis Ababa reports the African Union is issuing an urgent appeal for manpower and funding to strengthen its badly understaffed AMISOM peacekeeping mission.
African Union Commission Chairman Jean Ping and Peace and Security Commission chief Ramtane Lamamra were in Cairo for talks with leaders of the League of Arab States.
Commissioner Lamamra is to fly on to New York later this week to consult with the U.N. Security Council and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
The hastily-arranged trip is aimed at generating financial support for a rapid increase in the size of the AU AMISOM peacekeeping mission. AMISOM has worked alongside Ethiopian troops to prop up Somalia’s fragile U.N.-backed transitional government.
In a letter sent to potential donors this week, Commissioner Lamamra said Uganda and Burundi, the two nations that supply almost all the 3,400 AMISOM troops in Somalla, had each offered to supply an additional battalion of 850 troops. Military analysts said such a manpower surge would just about make up for the departing Ethiopian contingent of about 2,000.
AU officials said one country, Norway, has given a tentative positive response, while others promised to have an answer within a day or two.
An Ethiopian A Woyanne foreign ministry official, who asked for anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly, said Addis Ababa the Woyanne tribal junta has agreed to push back its self-declared December 31 troop-withdrawal deadline by, at most, a few weeks, to allow time for the AMISOM replacements to arrive.
But the official emphasized that Ethiopian Woyanne policymakers are losing patience with the international community’s seeming lack of concern at the possible collapse of Somalia’s fragile transitional government, and the likelihood it would be replaced by an administration led by religious extremists hostile to the West.
Ethiopia Woyanne and other regimes in the East Africa regional group IGAD have also expressed frustration at the failure of the transitional government’s leadership to settle internal feuds that are undermining stability in the Horn of Africa.
Last month, IGAD ordered sanctions against anyone considered an obstacle to peace. The order did not name anyone, but officials said it was clearly aimed at transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf.
Ethiopia Woyanne sent troops to Somalia in December, 2006. They drove out an Islamic group that had imposed Sharia law over much of the lawless Horn of Africa nation, and installed a U.N-supported government. But in the two years since, the troops have become bogged down in fighting with an increasingly potent mix of Islamist and clan-based militias. The transitional government, meanwhile, has been unable to extend its authority outside of parts of the capital, Mogadishu and the central town of Baidoa.
An agreement signed in Djibouti in October between the transitional administration and an opposition faction called for a ceasefire that would pave the way for Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s withdrawal. But violence has continued, along with a surge in piracy off Somalia’s strategic seacoast.
The United Nations describes Somalia as possibly the world’s worst humanitarian disaster. The U.N World Food Program estimates 3.2 million people, or 40 percent of the country’s population are in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.
4 thoughts on “Woyanne to delay troop pullout from Somalia”
I wonder how much money and political support the US has offered for the Weyanes to prolong their stay in Somalia at the expense of the Ethiopian, Somali people’s life.
We are talking about Weyane! The flip flopper it self! I´m not wondered because I stopped to trust Weyane since 2005. Imagine that, what would happen to Weyane without Somalia. Our home is burning and the worlds attention on it is not welcome on Weyanes mind. That´s why Weyane without Somalia means loose face and power, so Weyane can´t leave Somalia even it´s too hot there because at home is more hotter. Weyanes policy was and is deceive the world and destroy the country and develop greater Tigray.
Have we seen the laws of weyane the criminal minority junta that is govening Ethiopia,by iron fist and military means not the group is powerful or has public support,but because its leaders are mercenaries of the west exclusively of the U.S.A.When this irresponsible organization is asked to stay and kill more somalis by his masters be it Norway or of course U.S his reply was yes sir.The blood that has been shed and is still been shed by the Somalis and by the many ethiopian soldiers doesn”t soften the heart of the weyane leader specially the ruthless Meles Zenawi.Weyane leaders are so ruthless and heartless they are willing to slaughter milliions of their fellow citizens or neighboring populace. Remember during the war with Eritrea they were sending their troops in human waves and so many perished mercllesly. They were and are proud of their actions which caused so many Ethiopian and Eritrea mothers to suffer and grief for so many years.Since weyane”s foundation is the west and U.S for now it is like a house of cards when its masters for some reason abandons it it will go down fast and at that moment there will be no mercy by the Ethiopan and neighboring populaation.
Great job Meles…..wait a bit longer our somolia brothers and sisters need us there for now.