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(AFP Photo) – Somali government vows to boost security as slain minister buried |
BAIDOA, Somalia (AFP) – Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi has vowed to boost security for government officials as thousands of visibly-shocked mourners buried a minister murdered in the government seat of Baidoa.
Addressing the mourners, who included President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, Gedi said the government would ensure that those who killed constitutional and federal affairs minister Abdalla Derrow Issak on Friday would be brought to justice.
“We will take adequate security measures in order to protect everybody in Baidoa, including politicians,” he said.
“I understand and feel the pain caused by the killing of the minister. We will get the killers sooner or later and justice will be served accordingly,” he said.
Gedi was speaking after Issak was buried in accordance with Muslim traditions in the dusty provincial outpost, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northwest of the capital Mogadishu.
“The people of Baidoa and Somalia should wait for the outcome of the investigations, which will be released when they are finalised,” said Gedi, whose government was plunged in turmoil on Thursday when 18 cabinet ministers resigned to protest last week’s deployment of Ethiopian troops.
In addition, it looked increasingly unlikely that the transitional parliament, which was scheduled to meet on Saturday to debate a vote of no-confidence on Gedi, would gather for the motion.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in the minister’s hometown of Hudur, the capital of Bakol region, to condemn the killing.
“We shall not retaliate by bullets for the killing of Issak but justice shall retaliate and the killer be punished,” one, Abdullahi Madeey, said.
“No need for prejudice and speculation. We need a real investigation into the matter,” he added.
Issak was shot three times by an unidentified gunman as he left a mosque on Friday. The attack came one day after the Somali government was plunged into crisis by the resignation of 18 ministers over Gedi’s policies, particularly his decision to call in Ethiopian troops to stave off a potential attack from a powerful Islamist union that has taken control of the capital.
The motive of the killing remained unclear but the country’s increasing powerful Islamic militia blamed its arch-foe Ethiopia for the first murder of a high-profile official in the 18-month-old Somali transitional government.
Speaking in Mogadishu on Friday, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, head of the executive committee of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS), appeared to put the blame on the Ethiopians.
The Islamists often refer to Addis Ababa, which backs the interim Somali government, as the “enemy of Somalia”.
Last week, Ethiopia sent troops into Baidoa, ostensibly to protect the government from a potential attack by the Islamists, drawing protests from sections of the fragile government.
Officials said lawmakers who tabled the no-confidence motion, pegged in Gedi’s faltering policies, were motivated by the presence of Ethiopian troops.
The increasing influence of the Islamists, who control the capital Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia, poses a threat to the powerless government.
During Issak’s funeral in Baidoa, a number of mourners spoke fondly of the late minister, who had been appointed to the cabinet late 2004, just months after the government was formed in Kenya.
“He was a national hero who championed the cause of peace and democracy. He died for our sake,” aged Baidoa resident Ahmed Dhere told AFP.
“He didn’t die fighting for wealth or any personal interest.”
Source: AFP, July 29, 2006
