News Analysis By Leo Odera Omolo In Kisumu City
The operations of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development {IGAD} might come to an immediate halt as a result of the on-going political wrangling among its three important member states. IGAD plays pivotal on major political and economic regional issues in this region. It was under IGAD’s auspices that Kenya brokered the volatile Sudan Peace that ended more than two decades of armed conflict between the northerner Arab Moslems and the black Christians in Southern Sudan..
The current hostilities, which is likely to put IGAD activities in jeopardy involves four of its principal member nations, namely Ethiopia, Kenya, Eritrea and the seemingly ungovernable Republic of Somalia.
President Mwai Kibaki, who is the current chairman of this important regional body is facing what African diplomats have described as ‘litmus test’. He is likely to suffer major political and diplomatic set-back as a result of the present stand off. The stand off came about following allegations that Eritrea is supplying the rebels and Islamist insurgents in Somalia, who are hell-bent on toppling the transitional government of President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed’s government.
A top IGAD’s meeting is expected to be held today on the sideline of the AU summit, which starts today in the Libyan City of Sirte. Libyan strongman Col Muamor El-Qadhafi is the current chairman of the African Unity {AU}.
IGAD ,according to African diplomats in Nairobi, has taken a hardliner stance on extremist Islamists and Eritrea, which it is being alleged is supporting them..Eritrea is a key member of IGAD. The same diplomatic sources say, Eritrea may be looking for a new theater for its continued hostilities with Ethiopia, a neighboring country whose forces had intervened and routed Islamists in 2006.The two countries are technically in a state of war.
A meeting of Igad’s Council of Ministers was held towards the end of last month[of May 2009},which petitioned the UN Security Council to impose the stiffest economic sanction against Eritrea, which is also a member of the same regional organization.
The situation is seriously aggravated by the mutual suspicion that has of late emerged between the Islamist terrorist groups fighting for the control of Somalia and Kenya. This is suspected to have something to do with the recent revelation by the United States that it has sent weapons worth USD 10 million as the emergency military assistance sought for by the embattled transitional government in Mogadishu. And the US, which maintains a very cordial and warm relationship with Kenya is understood to have sent weapons to Somalia with express permission of the UN Security Council, which had imposed strict embargo on military supplies to this war-torn African nation. The UN Security Council and the US government are said to have agreed on the waiver procedures.
The new weapons and ammunitions, whose quantity, the route used in supplying the military hardware has remained a top secret of the US .But the Islamist extremists in Somalia have been secretly pointing an accusing finger at Kenya as the conduit through which the US government channeled the Somalia bound military hardware.
The only IGAD member country, which is openly known to have sent its troops to Somalia is Uganda, and other sources believes the US might have sent its weapons by Uganda ,Uganda provided half of the 4,300 African Unity troops now charged with the responsibility of protecting key installations for the transitional government in Mogadishu.
On the other hand, neighboring Ethiopia has repeatedly made it clear that it has no wish of sending its troops to Somalia, but the Addis Ababa. regime is believed to be extremely worried and uneasy with unfolding situation in Somalia, and it is believed to have secretly dispatched a contingent of reconnaissance military teams to its port of the Ogaden region to vigorously monitor the movement of the Isamists Court in Somalia.
Prime Minister Meles Zanawi was last week quoted by major news agencies as saying that he never believe the transitional government of President Sheikh Shariff Ahmed’s government will not be overthrown by the Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab extremists groups. But he hinted that his country will not watch the situation from a distant, making it clear that Ethiopia was willing to support the government in Mogadishu to stabilize itself at any costs.
The security situation inside the war-ravaged Somalia is the most worrying issues in Eastern African region. Reports appearing in the media last week that the Islamist insurgents have started imposing Muslim Sharia laws inside the territories under their control has struck the civilized world like the Tsunami, especially the cutting off of the arms and legs of four young men allegedly convicted of petty offenses of theft
In an apparently clear message of their growing strength and determination to impose their rule on Somalia,the insurgents issued a stern warning to other suspected criminals of similar treatment..”We have carried out this sentence under the Islamic religion and any robber or bandit will face similar fate”, said a statement attributed to one Sheikh Ali Hussein Mohamed Fidow, al-Shabaab’s Mogadishu supreme leader.
According to press reports emerging from Mogadishu over the weekend,, young men who happened to be the first victims of the Sharia laws had been condemned earlier in the week . The amputation was postponed by the presiding judge of al-Shabaab criminal court until last Thursday morning when the condemned men were paraded in front of a huge crowd of people in Mogadishu area under the insurgent control.. The rebel soldiers proceeded to cut off right hands and left feet of the accused persons whose names were given as Ali Mohamud Geeddy, Osmall Khalif Abdule, Jeylani Mohamed Had and Abdulkhadir Adow Hirale. Eye witnesses told newsmen that the insurgents used long knives to cut off the body parts as punishment for theft. The men screamed in pain, and some spectators were reported to have vomited.
The Al-Shabaab has carried out executions, floggings and single limb amputations before, mainly in the southern port of Kismayo, which is close to the Kenya-Somalia border.
Entertainments such as movies and soccer games are banned in areas it controlls, while men and women cannot travel together using the same public transport. These primitive practices have shocked the Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Moslems, forcing thousands of them fleeing their homes to seek refugee in neighboring Kenya.
leooderaomolo@yahoo.com
Published July 1st, 2009 in Africa News
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