In a statement issued in Nairobi, Kenyan capital, the Secretary General’s Special Representative for Somalia, Francois Lonseny Fall, told members of the UN Security Council in New York that the rise of ‘ hardliners’ within the Islamic Courts poses a serious threat to the peace process and to the country’s Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) in particular.
Fall told the Council on Monday that expectations raised by the June 22 Khartoum meeting between the three main leaders of the TFIs and a delegation of the Islamic Courts, under the auspices of the League of Arab States, had been quickly eroded by cease-fire violations.
At least 140 people have been killed in two days of fighting in the Somali capital, which ended after one of the city’s last holdout warlords surrendered to Islamist militias, according to hospital sources.
Against the backdrop of renewed fighting in Mogadishu since the weekend, the UN envoy said that finding a compromise during a second round of discussions scheduled for Khartoum on Saturday would be difficult, given the fact that the Islamic Courts no longer hid their aspirations of ruling all of Somalia.
On Monday, Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi said his government would not hold direct talks with leaders of the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts (SCIC), accusing them of breaking a cease-fire agreement.
But Fall noted that although a semblance of peace and security had returned to Mogadishu and the surrounding areas before the latest round of fighting, some of the Islamic Courts had begun to assert versions of Shariah Law and security in Mogadishu and militias of the three defeated warlords of the anti-terrorist alliance, continued to hold onto small sections of the city.
“The murder on June 23 of Martin Adler, a Swedish journalist on assignment in Mogadishu, had also raised concerns about security for foreigners in the city,” Fall said.
The humanitarian situation in the country remained grave, he said.
According to the UN envoy, armed conflict in Mogadishu had exacerbated an already dire situation in a country where coping mechanisms are overstretched.
“Although timely rains had averted a possible famine in some areas of southern Somalia, the situation demanded reinforced and sustained efforts to address vast humanitarian needs and southern Somalia would remain in a state of humanitarian emergency at least until December 2006,” Fall said.
Among the worst affected, were some 250,000 Somalis now internally displaced within Mogadishu itself, he added.
Source: Xinhua, July 12, 2006
