Somali PM to return home for meet-the-people tour

Tue February 22, 2005

By William Maclean

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi will go home from Kenya for a meet-the-people tour on Wednesday but has no plans of staying for good to establish his government, officials said.

Several teams from Gedi's fledgling administration have made visits home from Kenya this year to assess security to prepare for their eventual return to the lawless Horn of Africa nation.

The Transitional Federal Government (TFG), tasked with bringing order to a country broken by 14 years of strife between rival clan-based warlords, has remained in Kenya's relative safety since its formation at peace talks there last year.

"Prime Minister Gedi will be leading a high ranking delegation on a meet-the-people mission to south/central Somalia and (the Somali region of) Puntland from Wednesday, 23 February, 2005," a government statement said.

"The relocation plan is a process which aims at open dialogue with diverse social groupings such as the elders, women, youth, political, business and religious leaders as well as other civil society organisations. (Gedi's) team will meet various representatives of these groups."

Diplomats say they expect Gedi's team to assess security in various regions on the week-long trip and also to visit the capital Mogadishu, Somalia's most dangerous single place.

After Gedi's return to Kenya the TFG would decide where it should be based -- officials say Mogadishu may be too dangerous initially -- and where AU peacekeepers should be deployed.

The TFG, Somalia's 14th attempt at effective central administration since 1991, is trying to arrange sufficient protection to enable it to establish its authority and begin disarmament of its many militias.

Gedi had said on Feb 9 that he would go home for good on Feb 21 provided sufficient donor funding was available.

Gedi's boss, President Abdullahi Yusuf who also remains in Kenya, has asked African and Arab states to supply 7,500 peacekeepers to help disarm militiamen roaming the capital.

An African Union (AU) team has been visiting Somalia this month to prepare for the deployment.

A bombing killed two people and wounded six in Mogadishu last week during the visit by the AU experts, but security experts have yet to establish whether there was any link between the blast and the presence of the AU in the city.

Several militant Islamist groups in Mogadishu as well as two of Gedi's own cabinet ministers have said there is no need for foreign peacekeepers. However many Somalis say they would tolerate foreign troops temporarily provided they do not come from "frontline" states like Ethiopia, Djibouti or Kenya, all of which have histories of conflict with Somalia.