HENOK MERHATSIDK 1.pdf - Addis Ababa University

Government) and the establishment of TFG highly supported by Kenya”. He further went on
explaining that Kenya trained armed forces of the current government in Mogadishu.
Moreover, Kenya helped the involvement of Ethiopia in Somalia stopping the ICU. 11
According to Teshome, the Ethiopian government has shown extensive move for the Somali
peace process to the extent that sending its army to Somalia to protect the legitimate TFG
(Transitional Federal Government of Somalia). He also added that Ethiopia and Kenya
closely work hard to win the support of international community in order to extend their
financial and diplomatic supports for the TFG. 12 However, there are regional and global
actors concerns that Somalia is still in a state of chaos. Therefore, Somalis’ went to Djibouti
to sign peace deal once again in June, 2008. The participated Somali groups were the TFG
and the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS). The two groups had incompatible
interests. The former highly supports the presence of Ethiopian forces in Somalia for its
survival, whereas the latter, in contrast, strongly oppose it. In line with this, one writer put his
opinion as follows “Meles Zenawi did not decide to occupy Somalia for altruistic reasons out
of neighborly dutifulness. So it is virtually naïve to assume that he no longer has plans to
micro manage the rest of the commenced peace process, and keep on violating the arms
embargo” (www.atlantic.community.org)Despite resentment, sharp critiques and covert
involvement of other powers against Ethiopian intervention in Somalia, there are many
intimately related issues between the two countries. Firstly, Ethiopia has more than 4.3
million Somali population in its own territory and it fought with Somalia in two occasions:
1964 and 1977. Secondly, Ethiopian armed opposition groups such as OLF & ONLF made
stateless Somalia as a safe haven for their armed struggle of the EPRDF regime. Moreover,
radical Islamist groups such as Al-ithad repeatedly crossed Ethiopian border and launched
series of attacks on Ethiopian hotels and other targets. The formation of the UIC in
Mogadishu was also highly frightened the Ethiopian government since AIAI (Al-Itihad Al-
Islamya) that confronted the Ethiopia government known to have a lion portion in the UIC
(Yoh, 2003; Dagne, 2002:14-18).
2010.
11 Interview with Machani Nathan,First Secretary of Kenyan Mission in Ethiopia on Thursday 15/11/2010.
12 Interview with Teshome Shumbe an officer in MoFA,Neighbouring Countries Department on
December,2010.
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