Somali leader returns home from Kenya

Mon June 13, 2005

By Guled Mohamed

NAIROBI (Reuters) - President Abdullahi Yusuf arrived in lawless Somalia from neighbouring Kenya on Monday to set up his government on home soil, saying he was confident of ending the infighting that had delayed the move for nine months.

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, tasked with ending fighting between rival clan warlords, had remained in Kenya since its formation at peace talks last year due to disputes about where inside the country it should be based.

Yusuf, speaking at a farewell party thrown by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki, said he was confident of overcoming the often bad-tempered divisions inside his clan-based government.

"Today the delicate process of instituting a national government for Somalia is now complete and ready to resume the urgent tasks that await it inside Somalia, and I personally will start this relocation today," he said before taking a flight to the provincial town of Jowhar.

"We will overcome the divisions. Together we will co-operate with our people for the interest of our country."

Witnesses said Yusuf arrived in Jowhar, where he was expected to stay the night before departing on Tuesday for a tour of several Gulf countries.

Officials say that there was no date yet for when Yusuf will return from the Gulf tour nor when he would start day-to-day work in the country as president. His Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi is expected to leave Kenya for Mogadishu on Thursday.

Yusuf's government is the 14th attempt to restore effective administration to Somalia since it collapsed into chaos after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.

Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then in the country of up to 10 million.

RIFT REMAINS

Yusuf and Gedi made a meet-the-people tour of Somalia in February but later returned and worked from Kenya as a rift opened between them and some warlords who serve in the cabinet.

A pro-Yusuf faction of the government wants the administration to be based temporarily in the provincial towns of Baidoa and Jowhar, arguing Mogadishu is too dangerous.

It has arranged for a 1,000-strong force of Ugandan and Sudanese peacekeepers to deploy in Somalia to restore order and help establish the government, which has no revenues of its own.

An anti-Yusuf faction of ministers who have their powerbases in Mogadishu says the government should go straight to the traditional capital. They dislike the idea of foreign troops and have begun their own effort to withdraw gunmen from Mogadishu.

At the core of the dispute is mistrust among many warlords, especially those based in Mogadishu, of the intentions of Yusuf's main foreign sponsor Ethiopia, Somalia's historic foe.

Many among the overwhelmingly Muslim population are hostile to what they see as attempts by their big, nominally Christian-led neighbour to dictate events in the region.

East African countries have urged the United Nations to lift an arms embargo on Somalia to enable the Ugandan and Sudanese troops to deploy. No date has been set for their arrival.

Without foreign peacekeepers, Yusuf fears militia rule in Somalia will prevent ministers and their teams from carrying out their work in safety, free from violence and extortion.