Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa
www.innercitypress.com/unsc3djibouti060208.html
DJIBOUTI, June 2 -- The Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia delegation meeting the UN Security Council laid down a condition for moving forward: there must be a timeline for Ethiopian troops to leave Somalia. Some saw this as a softening of the A.R.S. position, in which actual departure was the threshold for discussion. But who would replace the Ethiopians?
When A.R.S. vice-chairman Abdulrahman Abdishakur Warsame emerged from meeting with the Council to take questions, Inner City Press asked if the Alliance would support a UN Peacekeeping force in Somalia. Yes, he said, we would support that. But earlier in the day, the Council was told that there are no countries waiting to send troops. So what if the Ethiopians were "re-hatted" as UN Peacekeepers?
Inner City Press asked Abdulrahman Abdishakur Warsame about reports that the town of Baidoa, defended until now by Ethiopian troop and those of the Transitional Federal Government, is surrounded and about to fall. I am not in Baidoa, he answered. "You should ask the TFG." Inner City Press did ask, the TFG's minister of information. He did not deny the town might change hands. Instead he said that the TFG has taken the decision to "stop all operations," including apparently operations to defend Baidoa, and Jowar before it. What these talks can or do have to do with events on the ground in Somalia is not clear.
UK Ambassador John Sawers afterwards told the press that perhaps the A.R.S. representatives here in Djibouti are having to take into account the less flexible views of their compatriots still in Eritrea. Inner City Press' sources say that "the A.R.S. members in Eritrea are demanding that the breakaway group that is now in Djibouti return to Asmara for consultation. The ARS members in Eritrea are actually accusing the SRSG and these 'UN mediated talks' as a U.S. inspired program to divide the resistance." Al-Shabaab's representative was even more focused on Monday, saying that the UN is the U.S.. Djibouti is crawling with U.S. military presence; there's talk of beer in the Sheraton Hotel and even a red light district.
Footnote: U.S. Ambassador Wolff, meanwhile, took a surprisingly (but perhaps understandably) low profile in Monday's talks in Djibouti. France took an even lower-key approach: their Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert is skipping Djibouti and will fly directly to Sudan. Never a dull moment...
