MPs Return to Somalia, Cabinet Backs Peace Force

Sun Feb 6, 2005 10:49 AM ET

By Mohamed Ali Bile

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - The Somali government took a fresh step toward establishing itself on home soil on Sunday when a second team of officials including a senior minister flew from Kenya to Mogadishu to assess security in the failed state.

Five thousand Somalis who had waited six hours cheered when 50 MPs including the speaker of parliament and the national security minister entered a Mogadishu stadium, the second team of MPs to arrive in a week to ready the government's return.

"We did not expect such huge numbers of people," a delighted Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, speaker of a 275-member assembly formed at peace talks in neighboring Kenya, told the crowd.

"This encourages us that Somalis want peace and government. It was not true when people said Somalis refuse to be governed."

"The government should come to Mogadishu. They are welcome," read banners waved by ululating women as traditional dancers bowed and leapt. Similar scenes had greeted a team of lawmakers who returned home on Thursday.

Many of the MPs are expected to return to Kenya later this week to report on security conditions to Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi.

Created at peace talks across the border because of security problems at home, their transitional federal government aims to end fighting between militias who have ruled Somalia since warlords ousted military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.

Diplomats say the re-establishment of the government in Somalia is a key condition for foreign donor funding for its attempts to rebuild an effective national administration.

The cabinet on Saturday backed a plan for the deployment of up to 7,500 foreign peacekeepers drawn from members of the African Union and Arab League and will submit its decision to the parliament for final approval, a minister said.

"The concept of the Peace Support Mission will be to assist the government in peace-making and protecting assets of the government such as the port, airport and other sensitive sites," information minister Mohamud Ali Jama told Reuters.

The mission might also have a training and peace monitoring role. The expanded cabinet sitting, including ministers of state and deputy ministers, voted for the plan by 63-9, he said.

The government is Somalia's 14th attempt at creating an effective central administration since 1991 -- to date an effort that has been repeatedly torpedoed by warlords who carved the country of about 10 million into clan-based fiefdoms.

The topic of foreign peacekeepers is controversial in Mogadishu. Unidentified gunmen have carried out a string of recent murders of security or education experts, killings widely seen as signs of opposition from a determined minority to Yusuf and his plan to bring in foreign troops.

Among Sunday's delegation was National Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah who told the crowd: "All these thousands of people want international African forces to come to Somalia."

Qanyare is one of several powerful Mogadishu faction leaders serving in the cabinet who will be required to disarm their militias as the new government strives to rebuild a national security force with the backing of foreign peacekeepers.

Somali intellectual Ahmad Warsame, reflecting widespread suspicion of neighbor Ethiopia, told Reuters: "African forces should come here. They are welcome. But not Ethiopians."

Somalis resent what they see as attempts by Ethiopia to dominate the Horn of Africa and install a client regime in Mogadishu. Ethiopia, a historic competitor of its Muslim neighbors, is wary of overt Islamist influence in the region.

© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.