Somali speaker proposes regional force if leaders fail to disarm gunmen

11 Feb 2005

MOGADISHU, Feb 11 (AFP) - Somalia's parliament speaker on Friday said the planned regional peace mission should be deployed in Mogadishu if Somali leaders "fail" to disarm gunmen roaming in the country without a government for 14 years.

"Security in Mogadishu is showing us that there is need for disarmenent. If the Somali leaders here fail to do, then we need outside forces to help us stablise," speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden told reporters here, shortly before departing to Nairobi, where he is exiled.

"The only way to avoid intervention forces is for the people of Mogadishu to honour their pledge of giving up their weapons to the Somali government," he added.

"Mogadishu will remain the Somali capital if all its people are disarmed. All weapons and rival militias should be relocated outside the capital at defined places," he said.

Aden, who returned with nearly 50 lawmakers to Kenya, was in the bullet-charred capital for six days to assess the situation ahead of the relocation of the Somali transtional government from exile in Kenya.

The African Union has authorised the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) to deploy a peace support mission in Somalia to assist the country's transitional government gain a foothold in Mogadishu.

Forces from some IGAD nations, which groups Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Djibouti and Sudan, will initially provide troops and equipment for the mission, ahead of a proper AU force.

The Somali governement approved last week the decision to deploy a regional force but the decision will have to be approved by the country's parliament.

Somalia plunged into chaos after the fall of President Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Since last October, Somalia has adopted political institutions -- president, government, parliament --, but the latter remain in Nairobi for security reasons.

amu-bkb/nb AFP