Somalia to Use Museveni Expertise for Peace

[Gabbal]

Kampala

 

SOMALI leaders are excited that President Yoweri Museveni will help speed up the restoration of peace in their country, reports Henry Mukasa.

 

Museveni, who took over the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)chair last week, is the new facilitator of Somali peace talks.

 

Dr Yusuf Omar Al Azhani, a member of the leaders committee at the Nairobi peace talks, said, "He (Museveni) is experienced. He is a hero. We are going to take the process that Uganda took so that our country is re-established."

 

Omar, also the legal adviser to the president of Puntland state, together with Lt. Gen. Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan, Mowlid Maan Mohamoud and Abdalla derow **** were addressing a press conference at Hotel Equitoria in Kampala on Saturday.

 

They were part of the delegation that attended the ministerial council that heralded the IGAD summit. Morgan is the chairman of the leaders committee at the Somali talks in Kenya. **** is its speaker and Mowlid is the chairman of the Somali Africans Muki Organisation (SAMO).

 

The Somali peace process has completed two stages so far, the cessation of hostilities protocol signed on October 27, 2002 and the nomination of reconciliation committees mid last month.

 

The 820 delegates meeting in Kenya are now grappling with the most delicate stage of selection of MPs, election of the chairman of the national assembly and a president of a government of national unity.

 

Somalia has not had an internationally recognised government since dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

 

The country's interim president, Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, who is recognised by IGAD and attended the summit in Kampala last week stormed out of the talks recently, protesting IGAD involvement.

 

But the delegates want IGAD heads of state to woo him back to the peace table.

 

"Somalis have suffered a lot. We are peace loving people and want to come back to the fold of IGAD as a responsible government," Omar said.

 

New Vision:

[wind talker]

Well that's just facinating. So we're to believe that a former rebel who employed "child soldiers" to take power is now the solution to Somalia's problems?

 

Whether its Museveni, Kibaki, Zenawi, or Gheele, is irrelevant. Somalia's problems are Somalia's problems. We're supposed to find solutions, without intervention from outside forces who more likely than not have their own hidden agendas.

 

Nice article tho. Peace.

[Liqaye]

Lt. Gen. Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan,

That in my opinion is were things start messing up, we can not expect any peace to be negotiated in somalia, how ever experienced and supportive the mediator if mass murderers such as Morgan are with in spitting distance of the confrence, let alone heading a PEACE delegtion.

 

As for museveni I agree with wind talker, he has been promising to crush an insurgency in the north of uganda, led by the most demonic man the world has ever known for the past 18 years.

Also i think he is a bit of an adventurer as shown by the way his country was used to disrupt the unity of a fellow african state the D.R.C so as to povide the west with cheap coltan , diamonds , and timber, for this almot 4,000,000 have died.

Admitedly Mr. Musevenis regime has been most helpfull to somali refugees in uganda, even his tribe the ankoles and their cousins the tutsi's believe that they are some how a lost tribe of somalia, and if the do not believe they can be easily convinced so.

But as wind talker said in the final analysis as long as somalis are misrepresented, at every meeting by these Kadadif warlords of the likes of the butcher of hargeisa, not even the most patient man in the world will save anything.