Somalia Faces Fallout of 2014 and 2023 Defence Deals with Ethiopia

[Deeq A.]

Agreements the Federal Government of Somalia unwittingly signed with Ethiopia in 2014 and 2023 continue to haunt President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

Mogadishu (PP News Desk) —  Ten years ago, the Federal Government of Somalia signed a bilateral agreement with the Government of Ethiopia to deploy Ethiopian troops in designated parts of Somalia, particularly in Gedo. The agreement stipulated that Ethiopian troops would operate outside AMISOM. The agreement paved the way for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s 2015 visit to Mekelle in the Tigray region of Ethiopia to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). President Mohamud donned a TPLF cap and was pictured holding a TPLF flag. He praised the “legacy of Meles Zenawi.”

The bilateral agreement repealed the 2008 agreement between the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, which had resulted in the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia in 2009. In 2017, the TPLF-controlled EPRDF lobbied for the re-election of President Mohamud, but he lost the 2017 presidential election held in Mogadishu.

Hailemariam Desalegn was the Prime Minister of Ethiopia when Somalia signed a bilateral agreement with Ethiopia to deploy Ethiopia troops in Somalia.

In December 2023, the Federal Government of Somalia upgraded the 2014 bilateral agreement by signing a defence pact with Ethiopia. Relations between Somalia and Ethiopia soured in 2024 after the maritime Memorandum of Understanding was signed in January 2024 by Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, and the President of the secessionist Somaliland administration, Muse Bihi Abdi. The Federal Government of Somalia excluded Ethiopia from the African Union Support Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM), the new peacekeeping force to operate in Somalia from 2025.

Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, used the 2023 defence pact with Somalia as a means to sign a maritime Memorandum of Understanding with the secessionist Somaliland administration in January 2024.

Foreign policy and legal advisers to President Mohamud turned a blind eye to loopholes that Ethiopia exploits when deploying more troops in Somalia against the wishes of the Federal Government of Somalia.

The Federal Government of Somalia has repealed neither the bilateral agreement nor the defence pact with Ethiopia. Like Kenya, Ethiopia invokes self-defence reasons to justify keeping its forces in Somalia to fight Al-Shabaab. The institutional incapacities of the Somali government and its power struggles with Federal Member States give Ethiopia leverage.

In 2022, when Villa Somalia organised an opposition group against the South West State, President Abdiaziz Laftagareen went to Ethiopia and signed a security pact with the Somali region of Ethiopia. A similar security pact is reportedly being negotiated between Jubaland State and Ethiopia. Agreements the Federal Government of Somalia unwittingly  signed with Ethiopia in 2014 and 2023 continue to haunt President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.

© Puntland Post, 2024

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