Somali leaders met with regional government ministers on Tuesday to try to find a way to empower Somalia’s United Nations-backed government, which watched from the sidelines as a fundamentalist Islamic militia battled warlords and seized its capital.
The summit in the Kenyan capital was part of an international diplomatic effort to restore a government to Somalia. The rise of the Islamic militia, which the US accuses of harbouring al-Qaeda terrorists, has added urgency to efforts to help a country that has been in chaos for more than a decade.
Somalia’s interim president and prime minister, whose government is based in Baidoa, Somalia, 250km from Mogadishu, the Somali capital, flew to Nairobi early on Tuesday. They refused to answer questions before the meeting with representatives from the eight other nations that make up East Africa’s Inter-Governmental Authority for Development.
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf also met with the European Union’s commissioner for development and humanitarian affairs, Louis Michel.
Kenya’s ambassador to Somalia, Mohammed Affey, said Somalia’s neighbours wanted to find ways to strengthen Yusuf’s government so that it can bring about peace and stability. Somalia has been without an effective central government since 1991, when largely clan-based warlords overthrew long-time dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on one another.
Three years after the transitional government was formed in Kenya, it has been unable to establish its authority in Somalia. It is weakened by internal rivalries and includes many of the warlords blamed for tipping the country into chaos. The Islamic leaders portray themselves as a new force capable of restoring order.
”The strategy is to strengthen the government, strengthen the federal institutions and to [encourage] dialogue, because this is a government of national reconciliation,” Affey said.
In another diplomatic effort, the US State Department announced it was forming a Somali Contact Group on Thursday in New York to address the Somalia situation.
Yusuf’s government has been unable to enter the capital because of security concerns. He has asked for regional troops to help his government take control of the country, but leaders of the Islamic Courts’ Union, which now controls Mogadishu, have rejected the idea of foreign troops in Somalia.
Affey said that while the Islamic Courts’ Union — which includes extremists with alleged links to the al-Qaeda terror organisation — has considerable power, it has internal divisions and diplomats hope to persuade at least some of the Islamic leaders to back the government.
”The Islamic Courts’ Unions is not a monolithic system,” he said.
”There are many groups within the union whom the government can make quick business with and consolidate its support in the capital.”
Affey did not dispute the allegations that some Islamic militants have been harbouring al-Qaeda terror suspects.
”Somalia, having had no [government] system, can be a haven for any sort of criminal activity,” he said. ”The faster the government moves to the capital and establishes itself, the better it will be for the region and the international community.”
He called on the US and the international community to support regional solutions to the problems in Somalia by backing Yusuf’s transitional federal government.
”They must partner with us and have a common strategy and vision toward stabilising the country,” Affey said. ”Any party of any government that works outside the federal institutions undermines what we have achieved in the region.” — Sapa-AP