The European Union on Tuesday warned Somalia’s bickering leaders to resolve a long-running and deepening dispute over the seat of the lawless nation’s transitional government or lose out on much-needed aid.
The ongoing crisis between rival factions of the government and fractious warlords threatens to escalate to armed conflict and has discouraged donors from contributing to the reconstruction of the war-shattered state, it said.
”The leaders have some differences that are not fully encouraging aid to Somalia,” British envoy David Bell told a meeting of EU diplomats and senior Somali government officials in the Kenyan capital.
”In order to attract donations there should be unity and understanding among leaders,” said Bell, who chaired the meeting in his capacity as a representative from Britain, which currently chairs the 25-nation European Union.
”They are not divided factions but members of the Somali government are having some disagreement in ideas,” he said.
”Their differences are not however stopping all aid but some donations require inclusivity.”
Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who along with President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed heads one faction in the dispute, acknowledged the split but maintained it was not an insurmountable obstacle to restoring stability to the country which has had no functioning central authority for the past 14 years.
”There is no article in the Koran or the Bible that tells us human beings must have the same ideas on all issues concerning their lives,” Gedi said in a response to Bell’s comments.
”Differences on issues are obvious everywhere but we are not divided,” he said, stressing that he and Yusuf were looking for a peaceful ways to bridge the differences that have cast doubt on the credibility of his government.
The split pits Gedi and Yusuf against influential Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and the powerful warlords who control Mogadishu.
Gedi and Yusuf say the capital — the epicentre of the anarchy that engulfed Somalia since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre — is too insecure for the government to base itself there.
Since the government decamped from exile in Kenya in June, the pair have been holed-up in the relative safety of Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu, where they have set up shop.
Meanwhile, Aden, a number of Cabinet ministers, lawmakers and warlords are operating from Mogadishu where they insist the government must be.
Aden, who is also currently visiting Nairobi but has resisted outside attempts to broker a meeting between himself and Gedi, repeated his demands that Mogadishu be the seat of any Somali government.
”The government has a responsibility to pacify Mogadishu but if it relocates somewhere else that will alienate the people in the capital and may lead in to action that are good for reconciliation,” he said.
On Sunday, Gedi said his administration would control most of Somalia and Mogadishu itself within three months but did not elaborate on how that would be achieved.
Somalia needs massive amounts of international assistance if it hopes to reconstruct and rehabilitate its war-devastated infrastructure and return to relative normalcy.
The European Union is now the largest institutional donor to both the transitional government — which was created last year in Kenya — and to international relief efforts. – Sapa-AFP