Rebel Leader Gives Somali Talks a Boost

The Nation (Nairobi)
September 28, 2004

Nation Reporter
Nairobi

Somali faction leader Gen Mohammed Said Hersi, alias Gen Morgan, arrives for a press conference at Holiday Inn Hotel in Nairobi, yesterday. He said he fully supports the on-going talks in Kenya, and has nothing to do with the fighting in southern Somali that left over 100 people wounded.

The Somali peace talks got a boost, yesterday, after a key militia leader joined it.

Gen Mohammed Said Hersi, alias Gen Morgan, largely seen in the past as opposed to the talks, said he was fully behind them.

His forces have been fighting in the Kismayu area, and reports said Gen Morgan fled to Kenya after he was routed. But yesterday, he denied the claims, saying he has been for peace all along.

"I did not pull out of the peace conference. I had my delegates here," General Morgan said, adding that he left after the peace talks reached a sustainable stage.

The Horn of Africa country has been without a Government for the last 13 years, since the ouster of President Said Barre and his dictatorial regime.

Gen Morgan maintained that contrary to his critics and Press reports, he had never pulled out of the peace process brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), the UN and several key organisations.

Some Somali faction leaders are on record as objecting to plans for Gen Morgan's inclusion in the peace talks in Nairobi.

Their objections come after Kenya's envoy to the Somali peace talks Mohammed Affey invited Gen Morgan to the negotiation table, even as fresh fighting between militia factions threatened to derail the two-year peace talks.

Yesterday, Gen Morgan appealed to Igad and the international community to send a fact-finding mission to evaluate the damage done in southern Somalia.

Addressing an international press conference at Holiday Inn Hotel, in Nairobi, the faction leader, who was not among the 265 selected MPs, said: "We are calling on the Igad committee and the UN to take immediate steps to stop the genocide committed by militia forces from the following regions: Benadir, Lower Shebelle, Galguduud, Merka and Raskamboni of Lower Jubba region."

Gen Morgan accused some of the selected MPs of being behind the flare-up, saying, they were "terrorists.

But Gen Morgan had the support of another faction leader Hussein Farah Aideed, who was also selected as an MP. Mr Aideed announced that the peace talks would fail unless all the major parties to conflict are taken on board.

Mr Aideed, who is a presidential hopeful, called for the postponement of elections until all the contentious issues are resolved.

He claimed that the Federal Charter guiding the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference was flawed, and demanded that it be amended before elections are held.

There was a major breakthrough in the talks when delegates meeting at the Kenya College of Communications Technology agreed on the 265 MPs. They later elected Mr Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden as the Speaker of Parliament, on September 16. The MPs are expected to elect a President next month.

Yesterday, Gen Morgan defended the fighting, saying he had to protect his people.