Alarmed by the increasingly bitter dispute over the relocation of the Somali transitional government, United Nations chief Kofi Annan is urging a ”serious dialogue” between rival factions to resolve the row that threatens peace hopes for the lawless nation.
In a report to the UN Security Council, the secretary general said it was critical for the now homeless government to move to an agreed destination after the departure of most members from exile in Kenya earlier this month.
Without such a step, the government, created with great fanfare last year in Nairobi after an extended mediation process, risks losing what little trust the Somali people and international community have in the administration, he said.
Left unresolved, the dispute could escalate the clan and ethnic violence that has shattered the conflict-ravaged, anarchic nation for the past 14 years since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammad Siad Barre, Annan said.
”It is of utmost importance that the Transitional Federal Government and transitional federal institutions relocate to Somalia,” Annan said in the report, released at UN headquarters in New York on Wednesday.
”To rebuild trust with the people of Somalia and the international community, Somali leaders must begin a serious dialogue to heal their divisions and end the controversy over the relocation of the fledgling government and its institutions from Kenya to Somalia,” he said.
”It is clear that the government’s relocation plan has been fraught with controversy and opposition, which could assume the divisions along clan and regional lines,” Annan said.
The report was issued following the failure of the latest attempt to resolve the government relocation crisis between Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden.
Yusuf and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi want to set up their administration in the regional towns of Jowhar and Baidoa, but Aden and many powerful warlords are insisting on the traditional capital of Mogadishu.
As a result, the factions have pitched camps in various towns in the country, home to about 10-million people, with Gedi in Jowhar, 90km north of the capital and Aden and others in Mogadishu.
Since Yusuf left Kenya earlier this month, he has not stepped foot in his native country and is currently in Yemen, which hosted the failed attempt to resolve the matter last week.-Sapa-AFP