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The US Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer said: “We urged the Ethiopian military not to go into Somalia.”
This is acknowledged by Ethiopian officials, who say the then head of US Central Command, General John Abizaid told them the invasion would be a mistake, and warned that Somalia would become “Ethiopia’s Iraq.”
Others analysts are not so apocalyptic. Ethiopia argued it had no alternative but to confront the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) after it took power in Mogadishu in mid-2006, because of the Islamists’ alleged links with al-Qaeda.
The declaration of a jihad against Addis Ababa by UIC leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys was seen as the last straw.
Human cost
But even if the UIC was routed, it has now re-formed and has banded together with other forces in the Eritrean-based Alliance for the Liberation of Somalia.
Sally Healy of the Royal Institute of International Affairs argues that even if Ethiopia has made some security gains, the suffering of ordinary Somalis has been disproportionately high.
“The cost for the people of Mogadishu has been unacceptable,” she says.
This reflects the view of the United Nations, which now considers Somalia the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa.
Peter Smerdon of the World Food Programme says it will have to try to feed at least 1.2 million Somalis during 2008.
“More than 600,000 people were forced from their homes in Mogadishu in 2007 by fighting and the worst cereals harvest in 13 years in Middle and Lower Shabelle, traditionally the most agriculturally productive regions of the whole country,” Mr Smerdon says.
He warns the numbers needing food aid could well rise if there is continued insecurity and any kind of repeat of the floods and bad harvests seen in recent years.
New initiative
So how might the Somali crisis be resolved?
Ethiopia has said it would consider withdrawing its troops if an international peacekeeping force were put in place, but United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has said the situation in the country makes such a deployment “neither realistic nor viable”.
The UN believes a new initiative is required, bringing together Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and the opposition.
This proposal was put forward by the UN’s senior Somali official, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, when he addressed the UN Security Council earlier this month.
“These discussions should preferably be held in a location close to Somalia or in one where most observers following the situation in the country are based,” he said.
“I am preparing the agenda, identifying a possible list of participants, and the timing for this process.”
Sally Healy says this is really the only way forward.
Until an exit strategy can be achieved for Ethiopia, its troops will remain in occupation of the country – providing a cause around which the Islamists can rally.
“The Somali people must create a situation that would allow the Ethiopians to leave,” she says.
But 16 years after the country last had a functioning national government, there seems little prospect of President Abdullahi Yusuf asserting control of the whole country in 2008.
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Source: BBC
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