MOGADISHU, April 25 (AFP) - Somali ministers and MPs on Monday spurned calls from President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and a United Nations-led body to return to exile in Kenya this week to attend a key meeting on relocating to Somalia.
In a bid to break a fractious deadlock over where and when the transitional institutions should move, Yusuf last week called on some 80 members of parliament and ministers (out of a total of 275 lawmakers) currently in Mogadishu to come back to Kenya and attend a final meeting on relocation.
They spurned the call and vowed to continue their attempts to pacify Mogadishu.
"That (going back to Kenya) would undermine our effort to pacify Mogadishu, which is a crucial part of the relocation of the Somali government," said MP Omar Hashi Aden, spokesman for a group of about 80 ministers and MPs currently in Somalia.
"It is unwise to scuttle our mission of making Mogadishu free from armed militia factions and freelance gunmen," he said.
Aden explained that the MPs, some of whom are also warlords, were suprised by the call that was also made by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee, a UN-led group of international aid agencies working in Somalia.
"How could they dare stop a pacification process. We were elected to
serve the people of Somalia and not to stay in Nairobi," Aden said.
"Neither the Somali officials nor the outsiders talked to us about what we are doing before they came up with the idea of (our) leaving Mogadishu and returning to Nairobi. It is very big error," Aden said.
Over the weekend, Aden's group formed a committee of 13 militia commanders tasked with supervising the withdrawal of gunmen from the capital.
"We shall also put in place a joint military team to guard the streets of Mogadishu. That's our main task, not staying in Kenya for nearly three years," Aden said.
Among the warlords in Mogadishu are Trade Minister Musa Sudi Yalahwo, National Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, Public Works Minister Osman Hassan Ali Atto, Religious Affairs Minister Omar Mouhamoud Finish, and the Minister in charge of Militia Demobilization Mohamed Botan.
"The priority is to secure Mogadishu in order to ensure the relocation is a success ... we are at a critical juncture to win peace," Afrah told AFP. "We are inviting the international community, who are based in Nairobi, to come here and see progress that we are making rather than telling us return."
The warlords accused Yusuf and Gedi of failing to handle the relocation issue.
"We came to Mogadishu (on our own iniative) after top government leaders failed to relocate us home in order to serve the Somali people, who elected us," Aden added.
Yusuf and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi want to move the government to the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar due to continued insecurity in Mogadishu, a proposal which has drawn heavy criticism from their rivals, many of whom are warlords who currently control the capital.
The group left Nairobi weeks ago without the consent of the president or prime minister.
The controversy over the move and the composition of a proposed regional peacekeeping mission tasked with assisting the government's move resulted in a fist fight between Somali lawmakers in Nairobi last month.
Bullet-scarred Mogadishu has been a hub of instability in Somalia which has been ruled by fractious warlords since the Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre.
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