Monday, May 22, 2006
BAIDOA, Somalia (AP) — Somalia’s Cabinet has suggested only Ugandan and Sudanese peacekeepers come to the lawless Horn of African country to try to improve security, hoping to overcome lawmakers’ objections to allowing in armed outsiders.
Out of 60 ministers who attended a Sunday Cabinet meeting, 54 voted in favor and six against the peacekeeping proposal, government spokesman Abdirahman Nur Mohamed Dinari said Monday.
The Cabinet’s decision has to be ratified by parliament before the government can make an official request to Uganda and Sudan for peacekeepers.
Parliament had rejected a 2005 Cabinet request to the African Union and Arab League for peacekeepers amid fears such a mission would include peacekeepers from neighboring Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya.
Somali lawmakers argued that the neighbors could not be neutral because they had engaged in previous wars or clashes with Somalia.
The Cabinet asked the African Union and Arab League to send between 5,000 and 7,500 troops with a one-year mandate to protect the government as it organizes a police force and army. The African Union endorsed that decision and authorized the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development group, or IGAD to set up the mission. The group, which mediated talks to form Somalia’s current transitional government and parliament, has offered to send peacekeepers if Somali leaders agree on a proposal.
Somalia has been without effective government since 1991, when largely clan-based warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another. The transitional government, weakened by internal rifts, has made little progress toward asserting any authority in the country.
Allowing peacekeepers into Somalia was among the issues that divided the Cabinet last year. Some warlords-turned-ministers said Somalia did not need outside help. They went to Mogadishu to prove they could make it secure but have not succeeded.
Parliament and the government now meet in the southern town of Baidoa, and Cabinet members said they are no longer divided.
Since the peacekeeping proposal was first raised, security has deteriorated further in Mogadishu.
More than 140 people — most noncombatants caught in the crossfire — were killed in eight days of fighting in Mogadishu this month between Islamic militias and a rival alliance of secular warlords.
The rivals signed a cease-fire on May 14 but over the weekend appeared to be preparing for another round of violence.
Source: AP, May 22, 2006
