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Islamist-Organized Rally Against Ethiopia and U.S. Draft Resolution Occurs in
Mogadishu

Shabelle Media Network (Mogadishu)
NEWS
December 4, 2006
Posted to the web December 4, 2006

By Aweys Osman Yusuf
Mogadishu
A huge rally against Ethiopian military intervention in Somalia and the US
backed draft resolutions that calls on lifting the arms embargo on Somalia
partially to let regional peacekeepers enter the country with arms has taken
place in the biggest stadium in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Monday morning.
Several thousands of people, most of them public school students with placards
written in anti-Ethiopian slogans and defense of Islam in the horn of Africa,
have partaken in the rally that ended in peace.
Senior Islamic Courts leaders have delivered speeches at the rally. Fuad
Mohammed Khalf, the Islamic Courts chair for education department, said,
"Muslim Jihadists around the world will be welcome to penetrate in Somalia if
United States makes UN member states to approve the draft resolution of lifting
the arms embargo on Somalia".
Among the Islamist speech deliverers was the Islamic Courts acting security
chairman, Sheik Muktar Robow Abu Mansoor, who instigated the Somali civilian
population to sacrifice their lives and properties in the name of Islam. He
said a holy war against the enemy of Islam is an obligation on every Muslim
individual.
Janaqow, the first chair Islamic Courts executive council, remarked that
lifting the arms embargo on Somalia would mean directly launching a war with
Somalia's Islamic Courts.
Most Islamist speakers at the rally concentrated on the arms embargo that was
imposed on the war ravaged country Somalia in 1991when flow of arms from
neighboring countries was substantial as the worst period of Somalia's civil
war was on then.
Both Somalia's challenging parties, Islamists and the federal government, were
accused of receiving various types of weapons from Ethiopia and Eritrea, two
long time rival enemies that fought their 1998 until 2000 border battles.
Eritrea is blamed for arming Islamists and having unknown number of military
forces in Somalia, while Ethiopia has several thousand troops in the country.
Both Ethiopia and Eritrea denied they have troops inside Somalia. Ethiopia said
it only had 200 military advisors and trainers to protect the weak government
in the small town of Baidoa, southern Somalia and thousands of troops that were
spread out along the border with Somalia.
Islamic Courts consultative leader Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys, who also spoke at
the rally said, "The world is refusing the verses of Koran that we took so the
all Somalis should be united to fight with any one harming our way of living,
in accordance to Islam", urging people to fight for Islam and become the
Muslims representatives in the Horn of Africa. "Justice is in Islam," he added.
The rally was the second of its kind to occur in the Somali capital Mogadishu
in less than a week.
Analysts fear that After 16 years of anarchy and civil war, Somalia will go
back to bloody war if the arms embargo is lifted and East African countries are
positioned inside the country whose thousands of civilian population have lost
their lives because of civil wars, diseases and famine.
Somalia has had no central effective government since 1991 when tribal warlords
ousted former revolutionary government.


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