Somalia’s transitional leaders met in Nairobi on Friday in a bid to restore order to a heated parliamentary debate over a controversial peacekeeping mission to their anarchic country that degenerated into a bloody brawl, officials said.
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was consulting with Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi, members of the Cabinet and other politicians as well as powerful Somali warlords to agree on a way to move forward following the fight between rival MPs, they said.
”The president is monitoring the situation very carefully and has expressed his sorrow for what happened,” said Yusuf Ismail Baribari, a spokesperson for the president.
”He is also appealing for political dialogue and harmony so that the best interests of our people in the transitional institutions of Somalia will prevail,” said Baribari.
The brawl erupted late on Thursday at a Nairobi hotel where Somali MPs were debating whether to allow troops from neighbouring countries — specifically Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya — in the peacekeeping mission being organised by the East African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad).
Rival MPs in the clan-based Parliament — which along with the transitional government is still based in Kenya for security reasons — threw punches and hurled seats, books, tables and drinking glasses at one another after lawmakers opposed to the participation of the three nations appeared to have won a vote.
At least one MP was seriously injured and several others slightly wounded in the fisticuffs that each camp blamed on the other.
”This is not the way to exercise democracy,” Baribari said of the fighting which highlighted the interclan violence that has wracked the war-ravaged, lawless Horn of Africa nation for the past decade and a half.
”Peaceful and constructive dialogue is the best way to protect the interests of our nation, our people and especially the most vulnerable people who have suffered for 14 years,” said Baribari.
He and others said the fighting had marred efforts to restore a functioning and democratic government in Somalia, which has been ruled by warlords with no central authority since the ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
”People can oppose something even loudly, but not resort to such aggression,” Baribari said. ”Who is responsible for the injured people? This is not a Somali way of behaving.” – Sapa-AFP