UN threatens security council action if Ethiopia intervenes in Somalia

[Uthman1]

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

 

UNITED NATIONS — A UN security team plans to visit Somalia and hold talks for the first time with its new leaders, the Joint Islamic Courts, which vanquished a US-backed warlord alliance and now in control of much of the northeast of the Horn of Africa nation.

 

"We don't have a lot of information on the courts. We don't know exactly what their intentions are," Francois Lonseny Fall, the special UN envoy for Somalia, told reporters on Monday, June 19, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

 

"We are encouraging Somalia's transitional government to enter into a dialogue with the courts," he added.

 

The UN envoy said the security team will pave the way for a visit to Jowhar, about 90 kilometers north of the capital Mogadishu, by another UN team that will discuss the humanitarian needs of the Somali population with the JIC leaders.

 

They want to "see how we open the roads for humanitarian access to humanitarian agencies," he added.

 

Somalia, one of the poorest nations in the world, needs an injection of $326 million to stave off famine, UN officials reported earlier.

 

More than two million people out of an estimated population of 10 million are already on food aid.

 

Political Talks

 

The envoy said the UN would later decide, after consultations with Somalia's east African neighbors, whether to hold political talks with the JIC leaders.

 

A source close to the JIC has told IslamOnline.net that the US embassy in Kenya had officially notified the courts of Washington's desire to enter into a dialogue to stabilize the country.

 

The source said a US delegation is expected to arrive soon in Mogadishu to tackle with JIC leaders a host of issues that are a cause for concern to Washington.

 

Since February, the JIC has led a series of battles against the US-backed Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT), which ruled Mogadishu and parts of Somalia since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

 

After seizing Mogadishu early this month, JIC fighters swiftly marched northwards, overrunning Jowhar and a string of other small outposts in Hiiraan region without heavy resistance.

 

Risky Intervention

 

The UN envoy has also warned against an Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia, seeking urgent Security Council action against such an action.

 

"We are at a critical time," Fall told reporters.

 

"If something is not done now, this conflict might have some regional dimension and the Security Council needs to take action."

 

JIC leaders said Ethiopian troops were moving toward the strategic town of Baidoa, some 250 kilometers from Mogadishu and seat of the interim government.

 

Addis Ababa has denied the accusation, saying it had only reinforced troops near its common border with Somalia.

 

The UN envoy said he was not in a position to confirm reports that Ethiopian troops had crossed into Somalia but said there were indications that both the Ethiopians and the JIC were moving forces toward the common border.

 

"There are (troop) movements from both sides," Fall said, pointing to reports of tens of truckloads of Ethiopian troops and artillery heading to the Somali border and of JIC fighters rushing to the frontier.

 

The JIC fighters should stop their troop movements to the border "because there's a risk that if they move close to the border, the Ethiopians might react," Fall said.

 

"Ethiopia is (showing) a lot of interest in the situation in this part of Somalia, particularly Baidoa," he added.

 

Fall spoke to reporters after briefing the 15-nation UN Security Council, which is struggling with a statement on Somalia.

 

Council diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no decision had been made on whether to support the African Union's push for peacekeepers in Somalia, in part to protect the transitional government.

 

The AU said Monday it wanted to send a mission to Somalia to assess the need for a peacekeeping force in the country shattered by 15 years of civil war.

 

The seven-nation east African grouping, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), is planning to dispatch a peacekeeping force to Somalia.

 

But it has run into problems ranging from an existing UN arms embargo on Somalia to opposition from the JIC.

 

Both the African Union and United Nations support the transitional federal government.

 

That administration, the 14th bid to restore central rule to Somalia since 1991, has been unable to enter the once warlord-controlled Mogadishu.