Somalia

[Liibaan]

Somali president in talks U-turn

Somalia's interim President Abdullahi Yusuf has dropped his opposition to talks in Sudan with Islamist leaders who control the capital, Mogadishu.

He boycotted talks with the Union of Islamic Courts, accusing them of breaking a previously agreed ceasefire.

 

But he was urged to reconsider after pressure from the parliamentary speaker and diplomats meeting in Belgium.

 

The International Contact Group, made up of western and African countries, rejected sending foreign peacekeepers.

 

Meeting in Belgium, it issued a final communique urging broad-based talks among all Somali groups.

 

It backed training and equipping a Somali army and police force, but did not endorse an African Union plan to deploy troops to the country in support of President Yusuf.

 

 

The president's weak, UN-backed government wants peacekeepers and a lifting of the weapons ban to rebuild security forces.

 

But Islamist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys has said there is no need for peacekeepers, as the UIC have reunited the capital under their control after 15 years of anarchy and conflict.

 

Mr Aweys has denied US accusations that he and the UIC have links to al-Qaeda.

 

He also criticised the UN Security Council, which last week said it would back moves to lift the arms embargo and send peacekeepers.

 

"The problem of Somalia is not a lack of weapons, but a lack of peace and understanding of each other," he told the AFP news agency from his home in Galgadud, central Somalia.

 

Conflict fears

 

The UIC controls much of southern Somalia but another Islamist leader, Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed has been quoted denying reports the Islamist forces were planning to attack the government at its base in Baidoa, 200km from Mogadishu.

 

 

"We are making it clear that we are not planning to attack Baidoa, Kismayo or any other third region in the country. We want to work with whoever who wants to return peace to Somalia," he said, according to the Somalia's Puntlandpost website.

 

Some fear that Somalia could descend into renewed conflict between the UIC and the government, possibly involving regional and international players.

 

Eritrea is accused of arming the UIC, while Ethiopia is seen as close to the government.

 

The UIC has accused Ethiopia of already sending troops to Baidoa but both governments have repeatedly denied such claims.

 

The International Contact Group was set up by the US after the Islamists seized Mogadishu last month.

[Liibaan]

Islamists, Somali govt can never agree, says warlord

Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:54 PM GMT

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By Guled Mohamed

 

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's interim government and the Islamists who now control Mogadishu can never share power because they have conflicting ideologies, a recently defeated top warlord said on Saturday.

 

Fired National Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah -- until last month one of Mogadishu's biggest warlords -- said Somalia's future looks very bleak as a result.

 

"The government wants to govern by the charter while the Islamic Sharia courts want to rule by the Koran. There is no way they will ever agree," Qanyare told Reuters in an exclusive telephone interview.

 

In February, the Islamist Courts Union -- from which the Islamist movement sprang -- attacked Qanyare and eight other warlords just hours after they had formed the "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism."

 

After months of battles that killed at least 350 people, the Islamist militias ran Qanyare and his allies out of the capital on June 5.

 

The Islamists went on to seize a strategic swathe of Somalia that has made them the prime challenge to the authority of the government, forced to base itself in the provincial town of Baidoa because it lacks the strength to enter Mogadishu.

 

The government has rejected a second round of Arab League-brokered talks in Khartoum with the Islamists, due on Saturday, and many fear that another war in the Horn of Africa country will be the inevitable result.

 

"I am really sorry for the Somali people. Whenever one problem ends, another one starts. The future does not look very good," said Qanyare, speaking from his rural home Dirin, 500 km (310 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu.

 

Islamist militias tried to attack him there late on Wednesday, killing two of his fighters and one civilian. But five Islamists were killed by a land mine blast.

 

Qanyare and three other warlords who were dissident ministers in the government were fired from their posts because of the fighting.

 

Days after their defeat, the regional peace-making body, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) slapped Qanyare and the other alliance warlords with an east African travel ban and asset freeze.

 

"They have to clarify what problem we have created," he said. "They are saying there are terrorists in Somalia and those who fought them committed an offence. Now who is right and who is wrong? This is what I don't understand."

 

The Islamists are busy chasing out the last remnants of the coalition and last week ejected its sole defiant member, Abdi Awale Qaybdiid, after two days of gun battles that killed at least 140 people and wounded scores.

 

Though Qanyare followed many other warlords in handing over his fighters and about 100 technicals -- pick-up trucks mounted with heavy weapons -- to the Islamists, he said he would not give up his remaining arsenal.

 

"It is my personal property. I bought them in the market," he said, referring to Mogadishu's Cirtogte gun market where machineguns, missiles and other weapons are sold.

 

"I don't want to attack anybody or to fight anyone. These weapons are for my own personal safety," he said.

 

Qanyare and other warlords were widely despised by ordinary citizens in Mogadishu, who suffered extortion, murder and rape at the hands of their fighters after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991 and anarchy was unleashed.

 

Many believe the self-styled anti-terrorism coalition was funded by U.S intelligence, but Qanyare denied that.

 

"People who wanted to put a scar on the coalition claimed that America was funding us. That is not true," the 65-year-old former policeman said.

 

He said the alliance was finished. "We were defeated maybe because of lack of coordination or support. I have no intention of returning to Mogadishu," he said.

[Liibaan]

Somaliland says Somalia unrest helps statehood bid

07 Jul 2006 12:22:58 GMT

Source: Reuters

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Background

Somalia troubles

More By Alistair Thomson

 

DAKAR, July 7 (Reuters) - International unease over last month's seizure of Somalia's capital Mogadishu by Islamists may help the self-declared breakaway republic of Somaliland in its quest for international recognition, a Somaliland minister said.

 

Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 when President Mohammed Siad Barre's overthrow plunged the Horn of Africa state into chaos. The country was then carved into fiefdoms by warlords who were forced out by the Islamic Courts Union in June after heavy fighting.

 

Somaliland's government and its supporters say their enclave has maintained relative peace and stability while Mogadishu has become a byword for violence and chaos, and that this should be rewarded with greater international recognition.

 

"Somehow the bad news travels faster. I think the (recognition) process should have been accelerated long ago, but now with the situation in Mogadishu, that is happening," Somaliland's Information Minister Abdillahi Duale told Reuters.

 

"We are not taking advantage of what is happening unfortunately in Somalia. That is not the point, what is the point is that we have a legitimate case," Duale said in a telephone interview from Gambia, where he spent last weekend lobbying delegates at an African Union (AU) summit.

 

No foreign governments have recognised Somaliland, but diplomats say some governments in east and central Africa have privately supported the independence bid.

 

But there has long been a preference in Africa -- stemming from the AU predecessor the Organisation of African Unity -- to keep the borders defined at independence intact, for fear of opening the floodgates to a host of secessionist claims.

 

Somaliland President Dahir Rayale Kahin's government says it has a special case since Somaliland, formerly ruled by Britain, was independent from June 26, 1960, until it voluntarily joining the rest of formerly Italian-ruled Somalia on July 1.

 

Somalia's transitional federal government, which now only controls the small town of Baidoa, has said it opposes the breakaway move by Somaliland.

 

GROWING SUPPORT

 

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank said in a May report that support was growing for Somaliland's statehoood case, but it added that without a negotiated separation the dispute risked descending into violence.

 

Duale said during the AU summit in Gambia he and Finance Minister Hussein Ali Dualeh had met several African foreign ministers, some African leaders, Britain's Africa minister David Triesman and a U.S. State Department delegation.

 

"All in all we have been quite satisfied with our dealings. We were not expecting at this stage outright recognition, but it was brought up at the ministerial level meetings. A number of countries brought it up and it was discussed," Duale said.

 

But he disagreed strongly with the call by the AU Peace and Security Council for the United Nations to relax an arms embargo to allow Somalia's transitional government to build up its security forces and pave the way for a regional peace force.

 

"In every household there are at least six guns, big or small, so you're talking about a country that is already awash with weapons. It's beyond reason to believe that the AU and the international community is encouraging (ending the embargo)," Duale said of Somalia.

 

"We are not out to take action against anybody, but if we feel our peace is threatened, then we will not hesitate to take action against them," he said.