Somali warlords return key sites

Tue, 08 Feb 2005

Warlords in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday started handing over key state installations occupied by their gunmen to an official Somali delegation that is negotiating the relocation of the country's national administration from exile in Kenya.

Warlord Hussein Mohammed Aidid's Somali National Alliance (SNA) faction handed over the presidential palace in southern Mogadishu and asked President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed's government to return and occupy it "very soon."

"With respect, we hand over the presidential palace and ask the government to return very soon. Mogadishu is safe and SNA is ready to assist in maintaining security," SNA's top gunman Akbar Ganey said.

Aidid himself is a deputy prime minister in Yusuf's government.

Seaport handed over

Commander Mohammed Jama Nur, now a lawmaker, also gave up control of the Mogadishu seaport and handed it over to Somali parliament speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden, who is leading a delegation of around 70 lawmakers.

"The port is now officially handed over to the government," Nur said.

Operations at the port collapsed in 1995 when United Nations peacekeepers and United States rangers fled amid an escalation of animosity with the local warlords, who grabbed control after the ousting of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.

President Yusuf, elected last October, his government led by Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi and the parliament have been based in Nairobi amid continued fears of instability in their country of 10 million people.

It is not clear when the government will actually relocate, but pundits who pore over African political calendars have pencilled the second quarter of 2005 as the likeliest period.

AFP