Fri Mar 18, 2005 11:52 AM ET
By C. Bryson Hull
NAIROBI (Reuters) - East African peacemakers decided on Friday to send troops to Somalia from countries that do not border the lawless state potentially defusing a constitutional standoff in Somalia's interim government.
"There will be no personnel at all (from bordering countries). It is cognizant of the sensitivities of the people of Somalia," said Ugandan Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa of the decision.
Many Somalis, including influential warlords and militant Islamists, have promised to attack any troops from neighboring states -- especially from traditional rival Ethiopia -- if they deploy as part of a planned African Union peacekeeping force.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, backed by Ethiopia, wants 7,500 AU and Arab League troops to help secure Somalia so his government return home from Kenya, and has been adamant that border states be included.
But on Thursday a parliamentary majority voted against Yusuf's call in a vote Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi said was flawed and must be held again.
Somali lawmakers came to blows after the vote in the parliament, currently based in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
Television footage showed several MPs throwing metal chairs at each other, beating each other with walking sticks and others drenched in blood after being struck on the head.
The east African regional IGAD mediation body, after meeting for two days, took steps to defuse the situation on Friday by agreeing to limit its AU-backed deployment to troops from Uganda and Sudan.
It scrapped earlier plans to also send soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia as well, under pressure from donors who threatened to withhold the money required to fund the deployment if those three nations sent troops.
IGAD said Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia would only provide logistics and training.
VOTE DISRUPTED
The president has so far kept silent on the deadlock, and Somali observers said his decision to accept or reject the vote would be a major test of his leadership.
Created at peace talks across the border because of security problems back home, the transitional federal government aims to end factional fighting between militias who have ruled Somalia since warlords ousted military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
Somali politicians say there are rumors Yusuf, through the prime minister, would fire ministers who opposed his peacekeeper plan.
That could provoke political violence, since a number of those rumored to be targeted are powerful warlords from Mogadishu who spearheaded the opposition to border-state troops.
In a letter to Gedi made public on Friday, parliament's speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan, said that of 217 present, 156 voted against the presence of troops from border states. Fifty-five voted in favor and six abstained.
"Some of the members of parliament rushed to the podium where the speakers and his deputies were in order to disrupt and obstruct the smooth execution of the voting," Hassan wrote. "At that point, they destroyed the ballot box."
The brawl erupted after the speaker called a hand vote. Witnesses said the outcome prompted some MPs to begin punching each other.
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