The Nation (Nairobi)
August 1, 2004
Posted to the web August 2, 2004
Nairobi
Somali factional leaders were yesterday warned against defying decisions reached by an arbitration committee.
States in the region would slap sanctions on their travel and ostracise them, Cabinet minister Kalonzo Musyoka warned.
The Environment and Natural Resources minister, who chairs IGAD's facilitation committee on Somalia, said the process of restoring peace in the country was on course.
"No factional leader will be allowed to hold the process hostage. We must get this conflict behind us," he said at the NSSF Building which houses Kenya's embassy to Somalia.
He was accompanied by Ambassadors Ahmed Affey and Bethwel Kiplagat. "The region is talking the language of reconciliation and anybody who goes against the grain will not be welcome in these nations - Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan and Uganda," he said.
A meeting of IGAD's ministerial facilitation committee that was to take place yesterday in Nairobi has been pushed forward to Wednesday next week, he said.
The move, he said, was meant to give Somali clan more time to select 275 members of Parliament who will be inaugurated next week.
China has given the facilitation committee Sh8 million ($100,000) to finance the last phase of reconciliation talks.
Chinese ambassador, Mr Guo Chongli, while handing over the grant to IGAD's secretariat, said all countries should pull together and ensure peace is attained in Somali.
Mr Musyoka gave the five clans - Digil Mirifle, Hawiye, Darood, Dir and the Fifth - to submit names of their nominees to the committee by Monday.
Neighbouring countries, he said, stepped in to bring together warring factions that have been fighting each other for more than a decade.
"We only come in as interlocutors to unclog their problems," he said.