Monday, June 12, 2006
Associated Press
Baidoa, Somalia – Somali lawmakers began debating on Monday whether to allow peacekeepers from a regional grouping into the lawless country, which has not had an effective central government for 15 years.
Parliament’s debate, taking place in Baidoa, 250km northwest of Mogadishu, follows the Cabinet’s approval of such a move on May 21 to improve security in the Horn of Africa nation.
On Monday, the Islamic Courts Union chairperson, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, told the British Broadcasting Corp’s Somali service that Islamic militias would oppose any peacekeepers entering Somalia.
The regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development group, or IGAD, which mediated talks to form Somalia’s UN-backed transitional government, is set to have an unscheduled meeting Tuesday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, to discuss developments in Somalia.
Louis Michel, the EU’s commissioner for development and humanitarian affairs, is also scheduled to hold meetings in Nairobi with Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, the current chairman of IGAD, and Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
In its May 21 meeting, the Cabinet backed only peacekeepers from Uganda and Sudan in a bid to overcome earlier hostility from lawmakers who last year voted down a similar proposal because it could have allowed troops from neighbouring Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti to be part of such a mission.
The lawmakers argued that the neighbours could not be neutral because they had engaged in previous wars or clashes with Somalia.
In February 2005, 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 organises a police force and army.
The African Union endorsed that decision and authorised IGAD to set up the mission. IGAD 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 that 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.
Since the peacekeeping proposal was first raised, security has deteriorated further in Mogadishu.
One of the secular warlords who lost control of Mogadishu to the Islamic militias vowed Sunday that the battle for Mogadishu was not over.
However, it was unclear how many fighters and weapons the defeated alliance had, and many of the US-backed warlords remain in hiding.
The threat came a day after Islamic fighters stopped showings of the World Cup soccer tournament, one of the first signs that the fundamentalist force now controlling nearly all of southern Somalia could install strict Islamic rule.
Muse Sudi Yalahow said that his group of secular warlords was regrouping to fight the Islamic militia, whom he accused of having ties to al-Qaida. US officials have said they supported the warlords’ fight against Islamic leaders sheltering three al-Qaida leaders indicted in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
The warlords’ leader is believed to be in Ethiopia seeking reinforcements.
The Islamic militias are controlled by the Islamic Courts Union, which is a fragile alliance of radical and moderate Muslim groups from different clans. On Saturday, its leader, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, denied that he wanted to impose a Taliban-style government and said: “We will accept the views of the Somali people.”
Ahmed said no one in his organisation had connections to al-Qaida.
“American concerns are based on misconception,” he said. “They used to take information from warlords… Islamic courts do not harbour foreign terrorists.”
Source: AP, June 12, 2006
