Publication date: Monday, 2nd April, 2007
Aforwerki denies backing Islamists
By Emmy Allio and Agencies President Yoweri Museveni returned from Eritrea yesterday on a trip one of his officials said was intended to persuade Asmara to drop backing for the Somali Islamists. Asmara, which opposes Uganda’s mission in Somalia, denies arming the Islamists. “President Museveni is attempting to bring President (Isaias Aferworki) on the same page as other regional leaders,” Uganda’s state minister of regional cooperation Isaac Musumba said. “Aferworki wants leaders to recognise the Islamic Courts Union as the legitimate government in Somalia but other leaders recognise the Transitional Federal Government,” he added. Museveni on his way back from Asia spent a night in the Red Sea port city of Massawa in Eritrea to discuss the worsening situation in Somalia, which saw the first Ugandan peacekeeper killed on Sunday. The body of Lance Corporal Wilberforce Rwegira arrived in Mbuya military Hospital in Kampala yesterday afternoon. Rwegira was killed by a mortar while guarding the Presidential Palace in Mogadishu, called Villa Somalia. Five other Ugandans got wounded in the attack. They are being treated in Nairobi Hospital, which has a partnership agreement with the African Union to treat injured soldiers evacuated from Somalia. The wounded soldiers are identified as Maj. Dancun Kahoma, Lt. Martin Okello, Lance Cpl. Fred Mayende, Cpl. Frank Mugume and Pte. Michael Bamutende. Meanwhile, Mogadishu residents buried their dead and ventured onto the streets for the first time in five days yesterday during a lull in battles pitting Ethiopian and Somali troops against Islamist and clan insurgents, Reuters reports. One landmine exploded in south Mogadishu as a government convoy passed, while four civilians were shot dead by Ethiopian troops after ignoring an order not to cross the road. But the capital was generally quiet after four days of ferocious fighting that residents say killed several hundred people, while the hospitals were overwhelmed with the wounded. The United Nations said 47,000 Somalis have fled Mogadishu in the last 10 days, bringing the total to 96,000 since February. International reaction to the flare-up in Somalia has been muted, with little from Western capitals beyond vague calls for reconciliation and condemnation of shelling of civilian areas. The International Contact Group on Somalia, which includes the United States, European and African nations, is due to meet in Cairo today. But analysts said foreign nations were increasingly at a loss how to handle Somalia. “They’ve supported African peacekeepers, but that’s made no difference. If anything, it’s inflamed the situation by giving the Islamists a sitting duck target,” said one diplomat. “Now they’re pinning their hope on a reconciliation meeting that looks doomed before it’s started,” he added of a planned April 16 meeting of elders, politicians and former warlords. While the massive shelling across the city of recent days had stopped on Monday, a landmine hit a convoy including the government’s chief of military staff in south Mogadishu. Military sources said there were no injuries. Leaders of the city’s dominant Hawiye clan said they had reached a ceasefire on Sunday with Ethiopian troops, which had sent in reinforcement over the weekend. Hundreds more Ethiopians were seen arriving in the city. With dozens of rotting bodies still in the streets, it was impossible to calculate an exact death toll from what the Red Cross called Mogadishu’s worst fighting in more than 15 years. Somali reporters have seen scores of dead, Ethiopia says it has killed 200 insurgents, and residents say they believe several hundred people - mainly civilians - have died. As Somalis stepped cautiously out of their homes to check on damage, stock up on food, and see friends or family, some began burying the corpses virtually where they found them. “They are digging shallow graves by the road,” local reporter Mohamed Noor Sharifka said. While Addis Ababa seems determined to finish off the rebels in Mogadishu, many experts say the attacks could have the opposite effect, turning Somalis further against their Christian-led neighbour, or drawing in foreign Muslim jihadists.
The New Vision.
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