Djibuti - playing it safe just like the Swiss do in Europe

[Somali_Friend]

Somalia’s Islamists and IGAD to convene in Djibouti

 

 

Mogadishu 30, Nov.06 ( Sh.M.Network) – An Islamist delegation of seven individuals led by senior Islamic Courts leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed has flown to neighboring Djibouti where meeting orchestrated by Djibouti government between Somalia’s Islamists and member states of Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD, is expected to take place.

 

Speaking to reporters at Mogadishu airport, Sheik Sharif said their trip was to hasten diplomatic dialog with IGAD over the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops inside Somalia.

 

Ethiopia is a member state of IAGD.

 

“If IGAD needs to be neutral in Somalia’s internal conflict, it should force Ethiopia to pull its military forces out of Somalia”, Sheik Sharif said, thanking Djibouti and Qatar for their of supporting the tightening of the arms embargo on Somalia after UN Security Council unanimously approved the resolution of keeping arms embargo on Somalia in place.

 

He denied that several countries supplied Islamic Courts with weapons and money. He pointed the UN report recently posted on the internet fake and baseless. UN report revealed ten countries involved in arming Somalia’s challenging groups.

 

He also denied that foreign fighters do fight alongside Somalia’s Islamic Courts. “American accusations on us that we harbor foreign Islamists are absolutely wrong”. He said, welcoming the resolutions of the UN Security Council on stiffening the arms embargo on Somalia.

 

Somalia’s parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden has landed at Mogadishu airport, returning from Djibouti as Aden said he went to Djibouti to work with Djibouti government over reconciling the Somali government and the Union of Islamic Courts.

 

Somalia Union of Islamic Courts executive council leader Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed along with Islamist entourages gets on board a plane at Mogadishu airport Thursday. Sharif headed for neighboring Djibouti to attend a meeting orchestrated by Djibouti between IGAD and Union of Islamic Courts. Thursday, Mogadishu 30 November 2006.

[Somali_Friend]

How did Djibuti outsmarted Eritrea?

 

Eritrea got too greedy and wanted to cut off Djibuti from Ethiopia and become the sole port facility for Ethiopia, through Assab.

Does anyone remember Assab now? hardly.

When Eritrea failed in its war with Djibuti then it moved on to make trouble with another competitor, Sudan. That also failed to materialize. On the contrary Sudan built a new dry port just for Ethiopia.

Djibuti and Sudan serve different parts of Ethiopia and they are not in direct competition.

 

Djibuti completely and fully engaged Ethiopia commercially and security.

That became the death of Assab. Now the cranes are rusted and the whole port is dead.

 

Djibuti cannot rest on its seat, there are new kids on the block. Somaliland and Puntland. They both have already taken a chunk of Djibuti's monopoly, thus the interest of Djibuti now on a counter to slow or stop the competition. The counter force is now in Mugadishu.

 

If Djibuti makes it out of this challenge with the minimum loss navigating between Ethiopia, Somaliland, Puntland and the rest of Somalia, then Djibuti will have graduated into the smart countries club.

[General Duke]

In Eritrea one of the dumbest regimes in history exists today.

[Somali_Friend]

Originally posted by General Duke:

In Eritrea one of the dumbest regimes in history exists today.

They violated your signature quote. The Northern ethiopians don't go after revenge. They left free half a million Mengistu army to fend for themselves and take care of their families except for a few top officials that were ordering and sometimes doing the butchery.

Eritrean leader still wants to revenge for the embarassment he got in 2000 when the ethiopian army sneaked on donkey and mules through mounainous area and made useless the miles and miles of eritrean trenches and tanks defence line.

 

Assab is now pretty much useless. It will need billion dollar complete reconstruction and re equip the whole thing. Where as Djibuti can't expand and modernize fast enough for the ethiopian market.

 

The dumbest thing Eritrea is doing is keeping 300,000 of its working age citizens in army service for all these years on top of the army. where as ethiopia only has 120,000 as per Janes defence. Every now and then ethiopia makes some excercises with elite commandos near eritrea and eritrea gets so worked up now there is no gas for civilian use in the country.

They forget that ethiopia can raise a million man army in short order - easy to do when one has 80 million people.

One generation like this and eritrea is pretty much gone down the tube, and when their dictator is gone it will be the congo.

 

People win or lose have to learn to move on to doing some construction and attend to life's needs. War is terrible and it has to be as short as possible. Eritreans take pride for fighting the longest time, forgetting that the fighting is done for getting peace at the end of it or getting something better at the end of it.

[Chimera]

Woyane-Friend the only country that received an embarrassment in 2000 was Ethiopia when 123 000 of it's soldiers were slaughtered on the orders of Meles (how Istubid can you get using human wave attacks in the 21th century lol) when invading a sovereign country (where was that 1 million man army you always talk about?? ohhhh i get it they went to a million different places BUT Eritrea lol)

 

and Djibouti outsmarted nobody a cripple Ethiopia simply had nobody to ship it's goods or receive food aid through.

 

the Fact that you pay high fees to use Djibouti's beautiful port is a clear indicator that this picture your painting of a Ethiopia being East africa's most eligible Bachlor is nonsense

 

Q: But you think the Port of Djibouti is quite expensive for Ethiopia?

 

A: It is indeed. But I hope on due course, we will rationalize the economic value of our cooperation and hope to see that as we go along we should continue to discuss this and rationalize them in a framework.-Seyoum Mesfin

 

Seyoum hopes

 

you hope

 

everyyyyyybody Hopes....lol

 

the simple fact is Djibouti got you by the balls

 

you can go to my brothers with their beautiful ports in Somaliland or my home region in Puntland but the ports their aren't on the same level as djibouti yet and therefore shipments will take longer and time is something you don't have with this negative trade deficit you've been suffering from this last year

 

so you will continue to pay big fees to Djibouti and play it ''Safe''

 

and about Eritrea it doesn't need you it just opened and expanded it's Massawa port( the booming port you seemingly have left out of your post when you were painting that oh so grim picture of Eritrea's doom :rolleyes: ) and made it a Free Zone one

 

Landlocked Uganda has allready strengthened ties with Eritrea to us it's Massawa port and the two countries no longer have to get visa's

 

the Massawa port also increases Eritrea's trade with Middle Eastern countries

 

source

 

Eritrea in the beginning of the 90's signed a free zone pact with you but then in the mid 90's it made you pay even higher fees to use assab and Massawa than your paying Djibouti today(unbelievable but true)

 

it introduced ''Nafka'' and you began to panic

 

the monetory union before favoured Ethiopia because Birr is the currency of the National bank and the fact that Eritrea with it's nafka currency demanded parity with the Ethiopian birr in bilateral trade caused your leaders great concern and you began to pay with hard currency(dollar) and then you invaded and got slaughtered

 

the worst of all was when Meles signed Badme over after fighting a long gruesome war with Eritrea

 

just like that.

 

Maybe all the rebels should simply ask the clown and he might sign O-gadenia and Oromia over aswell

 

just like that lol

 

Originally posted by General Duke:

In Eritrea one of the dumbest regimes in history exists today.

with people like you i ask myself do they think before they ''write''?? if so do they re-read what they have ''typed''?? if yes is their logical thinking gone that made them hit ''reply''??

 

you support TFG blindly you have no cred to say wich regime is the dumbest or smartest!

[Somali_Friend]

David_Letterman,

 

The man in Djibuti is playing his cards very well and better than anyone else in the area.

Do you have anything against this statement?

 

Assab is rusted and sitting there. Eritrea begged the Americans to use it, they said NO and went to Djibuti.

Do you disagree with this statement?

 

Any African that can navigate his way between France and US in a small country has good grey matter between his ears. You know that some countries cannot even handle US and Britain let alone US and France.

Anything againts this?

[Chimera]

Originally posted by Somali_Friend:

David_Letterman,

 

The man in Djibuti is playing his cards very well and better than anyone else in the area.

Do you have anything against this statement?

my Djiboutian brothers are doing there thing

 

never denied that

 

Assab is rusted and sitting there. Eritrea begged the Americans to use it, they said NO and went to Djibuti.

Do you disagree with this statement?

being ''asked'' to make a base at one of your ports doesn't equall begging

 

not having the right equipment to establish a base in the assab port doesn't equall begging

 

so yes i disagree with that statement

 

Any African that can navigate his way between France and US in a small country has good grey matter between his ears. You know that some countries cannot even handle US and Britain let alone US and France.

Anything againts this?

well what can i say..the leader is a somali so ''no''

 

nothing against that

 

did i ever say anything coming close to denying that statement?? if so state them

[Fresh2Death]

In Eritrea one of the dumbest regimes in history exists today.

Duke, So they dumb because they are against Ethipoia and your uncle. Woow, sxb.

 

When we learn to live and respect each other regardless of differences in politics or whatever. You see thats our problem today, if we disagree then we can agree to disagree but instead we fight.

 

Republics and Democrats in States or anywhere civilized people live got so many regimes and they agree to disagree but they work for the common good of their respective country. But we in Somali can't manage to do that. But instead we fight against the other party and bad-mouth the other party who disagree with our party. Crazy I say.

 

You guys need a lesson in politics, and the basics of living as civilized and educated people.

[Somali_Friend]

Originally posted by Fresh2Death:

So they dumb because they are against Ethipoia and your uncle. Woow, sxb.

Eritrean president is dumb in comparison to djibuti, as the thread shows, but now also in comparison to Somaliland, Puntland and Sudan.

He has his port of Assab rusted and rendered useless just as Meles told him in 2000. "Assab will be watering hole for Camels" and it happened. Djibuti even agreed to privatize both the port and railroad, so that to assure ethiopia these facilities will run professionally and without political whim of leaders or ministers.

[General Duke]

Fresh, the Eritrean government had open hostility and even war with all ots neigbours. With Sudan, Yemen, Djibouti, Ethiopia and now its meddling in Somalia.

 

If it concentrated on builring up its nations poor infrustructure it would have achieved much more. Now its no more than a rogue state and a pariah. Thats whats so dumb about it. Sudan is booming with its oil money, aside from Darfur its doing better than ever before.

 

Yemen is stable and its economy is moving forward. Little Djibouti is also doing well.

Ethiopia thrashed Eritrea in the war and is the stronger regional player for it. Eritrea is isolated and all because of that tin pot dictator, Isiah.

[Somali_Friend]

Another brilliant move by Djibuti.

 

It gave ICU their goodbye. It satisfied and assured Ethiopia, they are on the same side. And above all it repaired its relations with TFG within 2 days.

Thats work well done. Everybody is happy and knows clearly about the other side.

A small country of Djibuti did give the US to go ahead at the UN. EU was told to just forget it, the ICU road is a dead end.

[Somali_Friend]

If Djibuti overplays its hand on this one, it could be the first casualty before Eritrea.

 

Both French and Americans can stay until their agreements under Somaliland.

[Somali_Friend]

Ethiopia, Djibouti sign 20 year port agreement

Ethiopia and Djibouti on November 18, 2006 signed a multi-modal transport agreement which enables the effective utilization of the port of Djibouti for the coming 20 years and a door-to-door cargo transit between the two countries.

 

According to the agreement, on which the House of Peoples' Representatives deliberated this Tuesday, L' Association des Transistors de Djibouti, of which the Maritime Transit Services of Ethiopia (MTSE) is a member, would be the only interlocutor of the carrier (which includes the Ethiopian Shipping Lines), for clearing and forwarding activities at the port of Djibouti.

 

 

The agreement gives to the Ethiopian Shipping Lines (ESL) the right to appoint and select an inland transport operator through open bid competition and designates it or any other subcontracted shipping company as carrier for Ethiopian import cargo.

 

 

It also allows for importers and exporters to enter into a multimodal transport contract for the afreightment of their shipment in conformity with the modalities the agreement itself provides for.

 

 

The agreement requires the two countries to establish and harmonize a strict regulatory framework as well as procedures for an effective implementation of the multimodal transport system.

 

 

The agreement states that the Djibouti Port Authority may allocate loading and unloading area for cargo and would use an electronic data exchange service in order to ensure an efficient communication according to the agreement. It further provides that both Ethiopia and Djibouti will apply the Customs Transit Protocol and implement the COMESA Single Administrative Document for customs transit declaration.

 

 

The agreement also stipulates that both parties will establish a comprehensive directive which governs liability of trucking companies.

 

 

For the purpose of following up on the execution of the agreement a joint technical committee consisting of seven members from the two countries would be established.

 

 

Disputes or differences that may arise in connection with the agreement will be resolved through negotiation at the level of a Joint Technical Follow-up Committee. A final and binding decision will be given through arbitration if negotiation fails.

 

 

Unless either of the contracting parties notifies the other in writing of the intention to terminate the agreement 3 months prior to its expiry date, it will be extended for an additional period of 20 years.

 

 

Both countries have the right to terminate the agreement before the expiry date. However, the provisions of the agreement will continue to apply to contracts concluded during the period of its validity but not fully executed on the date of its termination.

 

 

By Yohannes Anberbir