ASMARA • Somali opposition figures, including top Islamist leaders, opened a 10-day congress in Eritrea yesterday with a call for a swift withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from their war-torn country.
Some 400 delegates gathered in the Eritrean capital for the meeting, which came exactly a week after the close of a clan reconciliation conference sponsored by the interim government and the international community in Mogadishu.
Sheikh Hassan Aweys, the overall leader of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) that briefly controlled large swathes of Somalia before being ousted earlier this year by Ethiopian-backed government forces, was present at the gathering.
Aweys, who was making a rare appearance after months in hiding, did not speak but another of the Islamist movement's top leaders addressed the gathering to press his demand for a rapid Ethiopian withdrawal.
"We hold this conference to establish a political organisation that liberates the country and ends the violence and chaotic situation," Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed said.
"We call upon Ethiopia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Somalia and stop its imperialistic adventure on our territory," the senior ICU leader added.
He warned that a prolonged conflict in Somalia would eventually spill over into neighbouring countries and risk setting the whole Horn of Africa region ablaze.
"We remind her (Ethiopia) that the longer the conflict goes on, the higher the risk it will engulf the whole region."
"The United States' foreign policy towards Somalia has been strangely confrontational. We call upon the United States to play a more positive role in the Somali conflict," Sheikh Sharif went on.
Sheikh Aweys and other members of the Islamic Courts Union are wanted by the United States over suspected links with the Al Qaeda network.
Washington backed Ethiopia's military operations in Somalia and toughened its stance against Addis Ababa's arch-foe and neighbour Eritrea, accusing it of arming Islamists in Somalia and elsewhere in the region.
The Islamist movement boycotted the Mogadishu conference, arguing that any peace efforts should take place only after an Ethiopian withdrawal.
Observers have expressed fears that the two back-to-back conferences would achieve little more than a consolidation of each of Somalia's feuding camps.
But former deputy prime minister Hussein Aideed said the opposition also had some soul-searching to do and should seek to adopt constructive measures towards peace.
"This meeting ... is not a meeting of Somali angels," Aideed said in his own opening speech.
"If we are to be honest to ourselves... we have all directly or indirectly been the cause of the ongoing insecurity in Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia. No one here from among the delegates can claim total innocence."
"I hope the meeting will not produce another outfit that becomes another rubber stamp (for) someone's... selfish power interests," he added.
