Somalia apologises over hotel chaos

By Ken Ramani

The Somalia Government has apologised for the fracas that erupted last month during a parliamentary meeting in Nairobi.

The State minister in the Office of the President, Dr Khalid Omar Ali, says the incident "was unfortunate".

"Members of the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia are offering an unreserved apology to the Somalis, Kenya and the international community at large," said Ali.

The decision to give the apology was reached last Friday during a meeting at a Nairobi hotel attended by 160 MPs out of 275 in the Somali Parliament.

The minister explained that the fist-fight that broke out at the Grand Regency Hotel on March 17 was occasioned by the postponement of a motion on the order paper presented by the Prime minister, Ali Mohammed Ghedi.

Scores of MPs were hurt during the incident. Three days later, a Cabinet minister and three MPs were detained by Kenyan police but were released later after the complainants accepted to have the matter amicably.

The subject matter of the motion was the approval by Parliament for deployment of the African Union and Arab League forces in the war-torn country ahead of the relocation

of the government from Nairobi.

During the Friday meeting, the MPs accused the Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden of making several mistakes since he was elected to the Chair.

They claimed that he had divided Parliament into groups and himself sides with one, contrary to parliamentary procedures that require neutrality from the Chair.

The MPs demanded a written apology from the Speaker and asked him and his two deputies to immediately establish a national working committee and secretariat of Somalia parliament.