Rebuild Somalia, president urges warlords

Friday February 25, 2005

Somalia's president today urged the warlords and militias who have run the country for the last 14 years to put down their guns and work together to rebuild it.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed yesterday returned to Somalia for the first time since he was elected for a week-long visit to assess the country's security situation and speak directly to the electorate.

His transitional federal government has functioned from neighbouring Kenya since it was formed in October.

Thousands of residents lined the 10 miles of road between Jowhar and the airstrip and many more waited at the residence where the president was expected to stay, the IRIN news agency quoted a journalist based in the town as saying.

Mr Yusuf told a crowd of thousands that his government was committed to relocating to the capital, Mogadishu.

Jowhar, 55 miles north, has been considered as a temporary capital if the rival militias controlling Mogadishu make the city too dangerous for that purpose in the short term.

"You have told me you want to become the new capital until Mogadishu is pacified," Mr Yusuf said. "I want to tell you that the capital of Somalia is Mogadishu ... and we are going there to change the situation in Mogadishu."

"It is now time to put down our weapons and stand side by side in rebuilding our nation," Mr Yusuf added, after watching a play about Somalis' suffering during the conflict. His speech was broadcast live on local radio.

Somalia has endured 14 years of anarchy, during which time its 7 million people had no effective central government.

Clan-based warlords overthrew the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 but then turned on each other. Since then, two groups have formed effectively autonomous regions within Somalia - Somaliland and Puntland - while regions in the south have been fought over by rival factions.

Mr Yusuf is on a six-town meet-the-people tour of Somalia with his prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, to assess conditions for relocating Somalia's government and parliament, formed after intricate and difficult negotiations in Kenya last year.

The pair will visit Mogadishu, where residents are eager to see the government take office. However, some residents in the capital are opposed to government plans to bring in African peacekeepers to protect the government.

Bitter memories linger of the deployment of US and UN troops in the 1990s, which sparked some of the worst fighting in Somalia's conflict.

"We know that 98% of the people of Mogadishu want peace. When we are fighting for the rights of our people the few evil ones cannot overcome us," Mr Yusuf said.

"I am courageously telling you that we have called for foreign troops' deployment in Somalia for the sake of peacekeeping and peacemaking in Somalia, and a few individuals cannot stand in our way," Mr Gedi told Jowhar residents.

On February 5, Mr Gedi's cabinet asked the African Union and the Arab League to send between 5,000 and 7,500 troops with a one-year mandate to protect the government as it organises a police force and army.

Days later, the African Union Peace and Security Council authorised a regional grouping to deploy a peace support mission to Somalia.

Since the government announced its request there have been several demonstrations against foreign troops in Mogadishu and other towns in southern Somalia.

Mr Yusuf and Mr Gedi left Jowhar with their 47-member delegation this morning to go to the western town of Belet Weyne, about 200 miles north of Mogadishu.