BAIDOA, Somalia, Aug 2 (AP) — Somali leaders were struggling to regroup Wednesday after 29 politicians left the government, saying the virtually powerless administration should reconcile with Islamic militants who have taken over the capital.
“The prime minister has failed to talk to the Islamic union,” said Hasaan Abshir Farah, one of six ministers who stepped down overnight from Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi’s government. Five resigned Tuesday and 18 resigned late last week.
The former ministers and deputy ministers have not resigned their parliamentary seats.
For the time being, Gedi’s government is not threatened because he has the support of more than half the 42 full ministers, as stipulated in Somalia’s transitional charter. Of the 29 who have resigned so far, only 11 are full ministers. The rest are deputy ministers.
The leader of the Islamic Courts militia, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, said on local radio late Tuesday that the former ministers were welcome in his group.
Militans assure aid agencies
In Mogadishu, on Wednesday, the U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Eric Larouche, and other U.N. officials met with high-level officials of Aweys’s group.
The officials sought to reassure Larouche that the Somali capital is now safe and the U.N. can resume its aid work there that has been suspended for years, said a source close to the courts, who did not want to be identified further because of the sensitivity of the discussions.
The administration was formed two years ago with the support of the United Nations to help Somalia emerge from more than a decade of anarchy, but it has no power outside its base in Baidoa, 250 kilometers (150 miles) from the capital, Mogadishu.
It also has been wracked by infighting. On Wednesday, President Abdullahi Yusuf said a delegation was heading to Khartoum, Sudan, for peace talks with the militants. But Gedi said the Arab League mediators had postponed the talks, and it was unclear whether the militants even planned to show up.
“I don’t know why this team is going to Khartoum or who they would represent,” Gedi said.
U.S. says al Qaeda protected
The government has watched helplessly in recent months as Islamic militants seized the capital and much of southern Somalia, imposing strict religious courts and raising fears of an emerging Taliban-style regime.
The United States accuses the group of harboring al Qaeda leaders responsible for deadly bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
On Tuesday, Yusuf told Baidoa residents they have a week to give up their weapons, after which “every single gun” will be seized by force. Somalia’s government has no military, but relies on a militia loyal to Yusuf for security.
He did not say why his government had decided on the measure now, but two lawmakers have been shot here over the past week, one fatally.
The United States and other Western powers have cautioned outsiders against meddling in Somalia, which has no single ruling authority and can be manipulated by anyone with money and guns. But there is little sign the warning has been heeded.
A U.N.-imposed arms embargo has been in place since 1992, but all sides in the Somali conflict have violated it.
Source: AP, Aug 2, 2006
