Somali News
Osman Auale
Somali peace prospects recede as rival clans split by Ali Musa Abdi
Tue 10 Feb 98 - 11:28 GMT
NAIROBI, Feb 10 (AFP) - Prospects for peace in Somalia receded
Tuesday as clans split over a conference which had been due to
start
next Sunday to set up a provisional government, but which now
appears set to be postponed or abandoned.
Awad Ashara, the official spokesman for the 26-faction National
Salvation Council (NSC), told AFP in Addis Ababa Monday that
holding
the conference in the southern town of Baidoa had become
"impossible."
That was because south Mogadishu-based warlord Hussein Mohamed
Aidid
had failed to fulfil a pledge to withdraw his militiamen from
the
disputed town by midnight on February 5, he said.
But north Mogadishu strongman Ali Mahdi Mohamed, one of the main
leaders of the NSC, told AFP by telephone on Tuesday that the
conference would be held "soon."
"If Aidid's men are in Baidoa, the conference cannot be held
there,"
he said.
Aidid himself issued a statement on Tuesday saying the process
of
withdrawing the confronting militias at Baidoa and encamping
them in
pre-designated sites was under way, as well as setting up joint
security forces to guard the conference.
Ali Mahdi, who came to an agreement last week with Aidid to
reopen
Mogadishu's main port and seaport and reunite the capital,
maintained that "sooner or later the conference will be held in
Baidoa."
The reopening of Mogadishu's port and airport, closed since UN
peacekeeping troops withdrew in March 1995, was set for
Wednesday.
But that reopening is likely to be delayed until a joint
authority
is established, sources told AFP.
This is at least the 13th attempt since the overthrow of
dictator
Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 to get the clans together to form a
government.
The groundwork was laid first at a three-month NSC conference in
Ethiopia which ended in January last year, then a six-week
conference in Cairo, which Aidid attended, and which ended last
December 22.
The Arab League agreed to finance the Baidoa conference -- a
bill
estimated at 4.5 million dollars -- but Egypt's involvement in
the
peace process brought objections from Ethiopia, which accused
the
Cairo government of trying to "hijack" it.
The NSC had planned to hold the Somalia conference in the
northeastern town of Bossasso last June, but Aidid objected, and
the
Cairo conference switched the venue to Baidoa, which Aidid's
father,
the late General Mohamed Farah Aidid, captured from the local
Rahanwein clan in September 1995.
The Rahanwein Resistance Army, which has been skirmishing with
Aidid's militiamen at Baidoa since its fall, announced on Sunday
that they would boycott the conference because Aidid's men were
still there, and secessionist "Somaliland" in the northwest is
also
refusing to take part.
Two members of the five-man presidential council of the NSC
walked
out of the Cairo talks and said their powerful Darod factions
would
not go to Baidoa.
The split in the NSC leaves three of the presidential council --
Ali
Mahdi, Osman Hassan Ali "Atto" (based in south Mogadishu) and
Abdulkadir Mohamed Aden Zobe (based in Baidoa) supporting the
conference, and the two Darods, Colonel Abdullahi Yousuf Ahmed
(based in the northeast, and the current chairman) and General
Aden
Abdullahi Nur "Gobyow" (based in the south) opposed to it.
The other factions are also split, sources told AFP Tuesday.
Aidid, Osman Atto and Ali Mahdi all belong to subclans of the
Hawiye. Zobe is a Rahanwein, but a member of a faction opposed
to
the Ranhanwein Resistance Army.
Ahmed told AFP by telephone from Addis Ababa Tuesday that the
Cairo
talks "shattered all the efforts and hopes for reconciliation
and
created confusion as well as renewed hostility among the Somali
factions."
He accused Egypt of supporting Aidid.
Italian Foreign Minister Lamberto Dini, whose country is the
main
contributor to the Somalia Aid Coordinating Body, comprised of
international aid agencies, noted last month that the Cairo
accord
did not involve all Somali factions.
"We have to accept that unanimous agreement has not yet been
reached," he said.
©AFP 1998
©
Osman Auale
Sceptics Abound as Somalia Tries 12th Peace Bid
Reuters
10-FEB-98
By Nicholas Kotch
NAIROBI, Feb 10 (Reuters) - Since Somalia sank into civil war
and
anarchy in 1991, 11 peace agreements have come and gone.
So the burden of proof in predicting the life expectancy of the
12th
deal lies squarely with those who signed it -- chiefly the clan
leaders who control Mogadishu, the dangerous and divided
capital.
A similar onus rests with Egypt and the Arab League, the brokers
of
the ``Cairo Declaration'' signed on December 22 last year after
41
days of negotiations.
The sceptics are legion. They expect the bitterness of the past
seven years and the unbridled ambitions of rival militia leaders
to
ensure that the eight-page Declaration joins its predecessors in
the
cemetery of Somali rhetoric.
A strong dose of regional intrigue -- with largely Christian
Ethiopia said to be ready to resist what it sees as Arab
interference in its unstable neighbour -- will also put paid to
the
latest peace initiative, the sceptics contend.
History says they are right. And yet a couple of dimly
glimmering
signs of hope suggest they just might be wrong.
``There is some evidence of peace breaking out in Mogadishu,''
said
a leading Somalia-watcher in Nairobi.
The Kenyan capital is a refuge for thousands of Somalis and a
listening post for the small army of foreign diplomats and aid
workers whose official business is helping to restore peace and
security to Somalia.
It is too dangerous for them to live in Mogadishu. For them, the
really positive news so far is that the Green Line, which
divides
enclaves run by rival warlords, is slowly coming down. Treading
gingerly, residents are crossing and trading. Peace rallies are
being held.
The next goal is the reopening of the capital's seaport and
international airport, closed since 1995 when the last U.N.
peacekeepers fled the city under U.S. military protection.
To share control of the port would require an unprecedented
display
of good faith from the three big men of Mogadishu's deeply
divided
Hawiye clan -- Hussein Aideed, Ali Mahdi Mohamed and Osman
Ato --
who back the Cairo plan.
The return of commercial vessels will inject money and
confidence
into the city's devastated economy and be rightly portrayed by
Egypt
and the Arab League as proof of progress.
``If the Egyptians can pull that off, that would be a major
achievement for the peace process,'' a senior diplomat
commented.
A small vanguard of Arab League officials is in Mogadishu to
encourage and monitor the step-by-step process.
Diplomatic sources in Cairo told Reuters on Monday that a
``reconciliation committee'' was heading that day to the
provincial
town of Baidoa, 260 km (160 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, to
try to
set up an all-important peace conference.
``Although there might be some delay in implementing the Cairo
accord, steps are being taken along the right path to full
implementation,'' the sources quoted Mohammad Mustafa, Egypt's
ambassador to Somalia, as saying.
Despite denials from Aideed's camp, a delay in the Baidoa talks
is
inevitable, analysts say. Under the Cairo deal they were due to
start on February 15, 10 days after Aideed had withdrawn his
militia
from the town and handed security to an inter-clan force.
On Tuesday, five days behind schedule, his men were still there.
Aideed's spokesman in Nairobi, Abdulatif Mohamed, told Reuters
the
talks were not in jeopardy and would go ahead.
But he said planners were now expecting up to 2,500
participants,
instead of the 465 delegates mentioned in the Cairo Declaration,
with each major faction leader entitled to contribute 200
militiamen
to the joint force in charge of security at the talks.
Analysts accept that lasting peace in Somalia requires huge
numbers
of clan leaders to talk for days or weeks on end. The organisers
hope the bill will be paid by Arab states.
But to recruit and place trust in a multi-clan force in 10 days
is
too tall an order, they say.
The Baidoa conference's vast mandate includes forming a
transitional
government with a 13-member presidential council.
Assuming the talks happen, the next obstacle is to persuade the
powerful anti-Cairo group to get on the bandwagon.
So far, both President Ibrahim Egal of the self-declared
Somaliland
Republic and the main leaders of the Darod clan have resolutely
opposed the peace agreement as an Arab-backed bid to unite the
Hawiye at the expense of other Somalis.
``The sharing of the national cake must be done on the basis of
clans,'' General Aden Gabyow, one of the Darod leaders, said
after
Cairo.
Diplomats say Ethiopia, Somalia's western neighbour, is angry
that
its African-backed peace initiative has been shouldered aside by
the
Arab League.
They say Addis Ababa fears the creation of a government in
Mogadishu
that might bolster support for pro-Islamic groups in Ethiopia.