Outbreak of war in 24 hours: Europe can prevent catastrophe in Somalia!

The Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) has accused the European Union (EU) and the German government of not doing enough to prevent the war which is threatening in Somalia. "The Europeans are the most important trade partners and donor countries of Ethiopia and they can exercise more pressure on the government in Addis Abbaba to reduce the tensions between the neighbouring countries”, demanded the GfbV Africa expert Ulrich Delius on Monday. In particular, Ethiopia must withdraw its troops stationed in Somalia since they are not providing security, but increasing the tension between Ethiopia and Somalia.

"A new Ethiopian war would be a blow in the face for Germany, which has generously remitted debts in order to fight poverty”, said Delius. "This war will not only make millions of people even poorer, but unleash a humanitarian catastrophe of a gigantic scale.”

International conflict prevention has again failed miserably and even Europe’s crisis management is helpless and lacks ideas. As in the case of Darfur the EU seems to be content with "speeches of concern”, which do not impress either of the conflict parties. It is incomprehensible that neither a foreign minister from a EU state nor the EU Commissar for Foreign and Security Affairs, Xavier Solana, nor the EU Commissar for External Relations, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, have travelled to Addas Abbaba to tackle personally the problem of de-escalation. Contempt for Africa could hardly be shown more clearly, criticised the GfbV. It is true that the Security Council agreed to send a UN peace-keeping force to Somalia. But this decision was worthless since it was not promptly put into practice, with neither finance nor soldiers being available.

Ethiopia’s power elite have already sacrificed up to a hundred thousand human lives in an absurd static war from 1997 to 2000. Now a new Ethiopian war is threatening in Somalia with Eritrea, in which up to 17 states could be involved. Today already people in terrible conditions in many parts of Somalia and the bordering region of Ogadan in Ethiopia cannot be reached by humanitarian helpers. The extent of the famine is unimaginable if the sporadic fighting escalates into an open war.

Somalia’s radical Muslims threatened Ethiopia last week with war if the neighbouring country does not withdraw its troops from Somalia by 19th December 2006. Ethiopia sent soldiers to Somalia in August 2006 to combat Muslim movements supported by the enemy neighbour Eritrea.

Germany remitted Ethiopia debts of 67 million euros in December 2004. The G-8 states have remitted Ethiopian obligations of 3.3 thousand million euros in the past three years.