ETHIOPIAN FOREIGN MINISTER OUTLINES ETHIOPIAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ADDIS ABABA 002170 SIPDIS SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR AF DAS YAMAMOTO AND AF/E LONDON, PARIS, ROME FOR AFRICA WATCHER E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/09/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV ET SO SUBJECT: ETHIOPIAN FOREIGN MINISTER OUTLINES ETHIOPIAN INTERESTS IN A STABLE SOMALIA Classified By: CHARGE D'AFFAIRES VICKI HUDDLESTON. REASON: 1.4 (B),(D) . ¶1. (C) SUMMARY. Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin briefed Charge and CODEL Payne on his recent trip to Baidoa to mediate among the president, prime minister, and parliamentary speaker of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG),who had been divided over whether to engage in dialogue with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC). According to Seyoum, the TFG has now agreed to a dialogue with the UIC. TFG leaders also announced to parliament their agreement to reduce the size of its cabinet by two-thirds, to recruit additional civil servants so that government ministries can function, and to present a three-month plan of action for parliamentary review. Ethiopia continues to advocate for an IGAD peace support mission to intervene in Somalia, citing the need to strengthen the capacity of the TFG. FM Seyoum and his deputy highlighted Ethiopia's strategic interest in promoting stability in its eastern neighbor, particularly as Ethiopia was home to more than 3 million Somalis. Seyoum said Eritrean support for the Union of Islamic Courts was consistent with Eritrea's support for Ethiopian insurgent groups, and was intended to destabilize Ethiopia. Seyoum urged the international community to support the immediate deployment to Baidoa of an IGAD peace support mission. FM Seyoum's comments on the current state of U.S.-Ethiopian bilateral relations will be reported septel. END SUMMARY. ¶2. (U) On August 7, Charge, deputy pol-econ counselor, and Pickering Fellow accompanied Congressman Donald Payne and House International Relations Committee staff Ted Dagne to a dinner meeting with Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, State Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Tekeda Alemu, MFA Director General for Europe and America Ms. Almaz Ameha, and MFA Counsellor for Legal Affairs Dr. Menelik Alemu. -------------- -------------- DISAGREEMENT OVER UNION OF ISLAMIC COURTS DIVIDES TFG -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) FM Seyoum said he tried to find the Kenyan foreign minister, currently chair of IGAD, to lead the mediation effort between Transitional Federal Government of Somalia President Abdullahi Yusuf and Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, on the one hand, and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Ghedi, on the other, but that the Kenyan FM had not been available, due to preoccupation with domestic issues. Seyoum discussed how leaders in the TFG had mutually agreed to reconcile their differences and to appoint new government ministers, following his August 5 visit to Baidoa to mediate among them. Seyoum said that the governor of Baidoa had sought his intervention, as frustrated residents feared insecurity were the TFG to collapse. ¶4. (C) According to Seyoum, PM Gedi had been "at odds" with President Yusuf and Speaker Adan's support for engaging in dialogue with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC),avoiding both for the last three weeks in an attempt to ostracize them. Now, there was agreement to talk with the UIC. Parliament and cabinet had been split over whether to engage in talks with the UIC, Seyoum said. Seyoum said the mass resignation of approximately 40 ministers from a total cabinet of nearly 105 had been intended to cripple the PM, while PM Ghedi, in turn, had sought to have his supporters resign from standing committees in parliament in order to undermine the speaker. PM Ghedi had tried to replace ministers who had resigned, but had failed to follow procedure, by not seeking approval from either President Yusuf or parliament for new appointees. Payne noted that in the past, the TFG President had sought to appoint ministers unilaterally. Undermining the Transitional Charter threatened to lead to the collapse of the Transitional Federal Institutions, Seyoum said. Following 13 hours of negotiations, the three leaders had joined hands and addressed parliament on August 7, receiving a standing ovation while urging their respective supports to put aside their differences. Only four of 250 parliamentarians had abstained, Seyoum said. ¶5. (C) The TFG had now agreed to reduce its cabinet to only 31 ministers, Seyoum said, and would present a plan of action ADDIS ABAB 00002170 002 OF 003 to parliament which called for concrete tasks to be completed within the next three months. In three months, parliament would decide whether to extend the TFG for another three months, he said, noting that PM Ghedi had offered to resign if parliament found the TFG wanting. Seyoum said that despite his personal involvement in the talks, he was cautiously optimistic: Somalis never failed to sign an agreement, he said; the problem was implementation. -------------- CONCERN ABOUT TFG'S LACK OF CAPACITY -------------- ¶6. (C) FM Seyoum complained of the "inefficiency" of the TFG. "They have done nothing," he said, except remain in Baidoa or tour foreign capitals, while, in contrast, the Union of Islamic Courts was "highly motivated" and actively mobilized people. Authorities in both the strategically important Juba valley region (Kismayo) and Puntland had pledged their support for the TFG but had received little assistance in return, he said. The TFG previously had 103 cabinet ministers, but none had any staff. "The TFG needs to think seriously about functioning," he said, "but there is not bureaucracy to function, so they have to create it." The recent agreement called for the TFG to recruit at least 15 civil servants for each ministry, he said. Charge noted the need to win hearts and minds among the Somali people, not just to look at Somalia solely in terms of combating terrorism. ¶7. (C) In response to Charge's observation that IGAD's August 1 ministerial communique on Somalia (forwarded to AF/E) did not publicly acknowledge differences among IGAD members on whether to deploy a peace support operation in Somalia (IGASOM),FM Seyoum underscored the urgency of deploying such a mission. While some argued that foreign troops in Somalia could unite forces opposed to the TFG, what forces in Somalia were not already united, he asked rhetorically. Seyoum stressed the need to convince the UIC of the necessity of negotiation, rather than using military means to change the political situation. Negotiation would help rid Somalia of hard-liners, he said, both within the UIC itself as well as UIC supporters in Somalia's transitional parliament. Seyoum noted that commercial traffic between the UIC's base in Mogadishu and the TFG in Baidoa continued unabated; Speaker Adan was a Hawiye Habr-Gedir from north Mogadishu who visited often, he said. ¶8. (C) The recent assessment mission to Somalia organized by the African Union, IGAD, UN, and the League of Arab States had found that only the UIC and its leaders in Mogadishu opposed Ethiopian participation in a potential peace support operation, Seyoum said. "People insisted, 'we want Ethiopia,'" Seyoum asserted, adding that a previous assessment conducted in late 2004 had reached the same conclusion. -------------- -------------- SOMALIA'S STABILITY OF STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE TO ETHIOPIA -------------- -------------- ¶9. (C) State Minister of Foreign Affairs Dr. Tekeda Alemu (Seyoum's deputy) underscored the strategic importance of Somalia to Ethiopia. Drawing a parallel between Eritrean and Ethiopian interests in Somalia was "unfair," as was talk of a "proxy way," he said, particularly as only Ethiopia shared a common border with Somalia. Given threats made by UIC head Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, "Addis Ababa's engagement should be given the benefit of the doubt," Tekeda said. Alluding to Djibouti's opposition to the deployment of foreign peacekeepers in Somalia, Tekeda noted that Djibouti remained sheltered from 12 years of instability in Somalia, as it shared a common border only with Somaliland. ¶10. (C) CODEL Payne noted that Ethiopian relations with Somalia predated the UIC. Asked to elaborate on Ethiopia's strategic interests in Somalia, FM Seyoum responded that Ethiopia wanted to see "a friendly government, not a puppet government." A regime that provided national security and stability "is good enough," Seyoum said. In contrast, the status quo (i.e., a nation with no authority) was a "worst-case scenario." Ethiopia's borders with Somalia were ADDIS ABAB 00002170 003 OF 003 more porous than those of Kenya or Djibouti; Ethiopia was also home to more than 3 million Somalis, who had been welcomed and never put into camps, Seyoum added. After Somalia itself, Ethiopia stood to gain the most from Somali stability, Seyoum said. -------------- ETHIOPIA FEARS ERITREA BECOMING "ROGUE STATE" -------------- ¶11. (C) FM Seyoum questioned why the Government of the State of Eritrea (GSE) had decided to ally itself with the UIC, given the Union's Islamic extremism. Ethiopia had a genuine concern about Eritrea becoming "a rogue state," Seyoum said. The GSE's decision to do so "showed the frustration of the regime in Asmara," he said, and highlighted the GSE's desire to draw Ethiopia into war. Seyoum said it was the GSE's strategy to "destroy the EPRDF" (Ethiopia's ruling party) by working with its enemies. Eritrea was supporting not only the UIC, he said, but also the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD) party in the United States and the Netherlands, as well as the insurgent Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF). Eritrean support of the UIC had to drain the GSE's resources, and Ethiopia suspected other countries were providing the GSE with external aid, he said. -------------- -------------- U.S. PARTLY TO BLAME FOR CURRENT SITUATION IN SOMALIA -------------- -------------- ¶12. (C) State Minister Tekeda lamented that the United States had not supported the consensus among IGAD countries in March 2005, which at that time included even Eritrea, to support the TFG. Instead, the United States had backed warlords who contributed to "the mess" that might have been avoided, Tekeda said. Noting that he had personally participated in numerous meetings on Somalia in 1992-1993 with U.S. Special Envoy Robert Oakley, Tekeda asserted that the United States did not take Ethiopian positions on Somalia seriously. In 15 years as an Ethiopian diplomat, Tekeda said he had "never seen effective cooperation" between Ethiopia and the United States on Somalia. A former MFA director for Africa during the previous Derg regime, Tekeda said there was no comparison between the former military government's policy toward Somalia and that of the current GOE. Internal factors within Somalia were to blame for previous instability, he said, whether in 1964 or 1977. ¶13. (C) COMMENT: FM Seyoum's apparent success in mending rifts among the TFG's leadership highlights the important diplomatic role that Ethiopia can play in bringing stability to its eastern neighbor. Seyoum's comments on the need for stability in Somalia underscore Ethiopia's perception that it must remain a bulwark against Islamic extremism in the Horn of Africa. END COMMENT. HUDDLESTON