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Nairobi, April 29, 2004 (IRIN) – A group of faction leaders who abandoned the current Somali peace talks in Kenya have said they will hold a separate conference inside Somalia to discuss peace in the war-torn country instead of returning to Nairobi as requested by regional mediators.
However, a source in the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) who is involved in the talks dismissed the planned conference in Somalia. "There is no other conference inside or outside Somalia," he said. The final phase of the peace talks would open "on 6 May as announced by the [Kenyan foreign] minister", he stressed.
The IGAD source said that "if they [the faction leaders] don't return, the process will not stop for them. We cannot allow few individuals frustrated by lack of support from their own clans to hold the Somali people's future to ransom."
He warned that IGAD, which is overseeing the talks, would seek the support of the UN Security Council "and identify those obstructing the process so that appropriate action can be taken against them".
The faction leaders have been meeting in Jowhar, 90 km north of the capital, Mogadishu, Abdullahi Shaykh Isma'il, who is the current chairman of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council, told IRIN on Wednesday.
He said they had decided to hold the "third and final phase" of the peace talks inside Somalia, because the talks in Nairobi had "no Somali ownership". International observers, along with Djibouti and Kenya who are both members of the IGAD, were "trying to scuttle the process" he added.
Abdullahi Shaykh also accused some Somali leaders, "among them Abdiqassim [Salad Hassan, the president of the Transitional National Government]" of working against the interests of Somalis. He said the faction leaders in Somalia had called on all the delegates currently in Nairobi to leave for Jowhar to attend the conference.
"As soon as all the delegates are here, we will hold another consultative conference to fix a date and venue for the final phase of the conference, where a new Somali government will be elected," he added.
The leaders attending the Jowhar meeting include Muhammad Habeb, the self-styled governor of Jowhar; Shaykh Adan Madobe, the leader of a faction of the Rahanweyn Resistance Army (RRA); Gen Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi Morgan; and Abdullahi Shaykh.
The Jowhar meeting was convened by the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC). However, some SRRC members were absent from the meeting. One of them, Hasan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud, the leader of the RRA faction and a founding member of the SRRC, told IRIN earlier that he supported the Nairobi peace process.
The IGAD-sponsored talks began in October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of
Eldoret, but were moved to Nairobi in February 2003. They have been dogged
by wrangles over the interim charter, the number of participants and the
selection of future parliamentarians, among other things.
In a press release issued on 23 April, Kenyan Foreign Minister Kalonzo
Musyoka, who is the chairman of the IGAD ministerial facilitation committee,
set out a "time-frame" for the third and final phase of the talks, which is
to be launched on 6 May.
Statement By Somali Leaders' Committee
Mbagathi, April 27, 2004, Somali Leaders' Committee, PRESS CONFERENCE
Att: H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, President of the Republic of Uganda And
Chairman of IGAD
Att: H. E. Mwai Kibaki President of the Republic of Kenya
Att: Excellencies IGAD Head of states.
Att: Chairman of IGAD Ministerial Committee.
Att: Chairman of IGAD Facilitation Committee.
Att: IGAD Secretariat, Djibouti
Att: IGAD Partners Forum (IPF).
Att: The Secretary Generals of U.N; A.U. and Arab League
We would like to bring to your Excellencies attention and other involved
stakeholders that this Conference was successfully concluded on September
15, 2003 (Adoption of Transitional Federal Charter). It is, therefore our
view that runners with strange agenda deliberately sowed the seeds of
sedition to its current scrape. Our diligent stay in the Conference for the
last 18 months clearly shows our perseverance and genuine commitment towards
finding a workable solution for the plight that has befallen upon our
nation.
As the Leaders' Committee of SRRC, TNG-Origin, Regional Administration and
Civil Society; we have been surprised and once more deeply bothered by the
statement of Hon. Kalonzo Musyoka, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the
Republic of Kenya, regarding the Somali National Reconciliation Conference,
dated April 23, 2004.
To our dismay, this proposed roadmap does not take into account the
substantive issues that plague the continuation of the Somali Peace Process.
The roadmap is neither conciliatory nor a catalyst in sewing the messy
affairs of this conference. It is full of contradictory statements and
stratum of interdependent pledges with discretionary dates. Anomalous
adventures inform it to the detriment of shoring up the distraught Peace
Process. It undermines the role of the official delegates (366) who were the
bedrock of this Conference from inception. At the same time the roadmap
anticipates the fresh assemblage of unknown and unofficial proposed
delegates (constituent politicians) to be selected by traditional elders and
political leaders who are yet to come to the conference and who oppose the
whole thrust of the proposal.
This clearly implies that the conference is being reassigned back to the
boardroom for a new beginning as the very criteria of representation, which
has been dealt with in Phase I, is now open to question. Yet, under the same
breath the statement talks about the beginning of Phase III. If the criteria
of representation (Phase I) is subject to revision, and the number of the
delegates stipulated by the charter (Phase II) are now reducible, it clearly
indicates that we do not have a final closure handy in neither of these
historic achievements by the Conference. It only follows therefore, that
this roadmap does not sway minds in its claim of auguring the beginning of
Phase III.
It talks about financial constraint and budgetary deficit that made the
reduction of the number of delegates inevitable and the arbitrary dates
workable. The message is loud and clear that we are overstayed guests here
as IGAD has depleted the financial resources that were available for our
provisions. While we can be persuaded that money alone might be the
rationale behind the ills of this Process, it is a hard sell that money can
also be the single cure of this Conference.
Since the ownership of the whole process is not in our hands but driven by
impositions of instructive statements, the tents of the roadmap concur with
what we have been asserting all along that IGAD is in the plot of
sidetracking the formation of a broad-based government in Somalia. We are
under the impression that securing more funds for the process would not have
been a problem had it not been the management of IGAD playing a ricochet
game in facilitating the proceedings of the Conference. Even if one vouches
for that argument, it is enough reason to impulsively imperil whatever has
been achieved thus far.
With these concerns in mind, the way forward can be thought of within the
confines of the following options:
1. Continue the peace process:
a) By first solving the differences among the various groups in the draft
rules of procedure for the conference. It isn't true that all parties of the
conference participated in the drafting of the rules of procedure. I.e. No
signatory of this statement submitted any draft-rules of procedure to the
special envoy.
b) Then move to phase three and begin the distribution of the parliamentary
seats (275) to the sub-clans followed by the selection of the members of the
parliament by the Leaders and The politicians originally and officially
invited by IGAD and endorsed by the genuine traditional leaders. This will
not affect the timetable of the roadmap.
2. If IGAD facilitation committee can't comply with the above option, it is
our believe that the Peace Process can not be successfully concluded in its
current venue, since the IGAD Facilitation Committee is incapable of
employing their good offices for solving the sticky problems that confront
the Somali Talks. We therefore have no choice but to request IGAD member
states and the International community to rescue the Peace Talks and move
the remaining Phase to an acceptable venue.
Yours Sincerely,
The LIST OF SOMALI LEADERS COMMITTEE
Hassan Abshir Farah, TNG Prime Minister
Abdallah Derow Issak, TNA Speaker of the Parliament
Sharif Salah Mohamed Ali, Chairman of Civil Society Groups
Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, President of Puntland State
Eng. Hussein M. Farah Aideed, Co-Chairman of SRRC
Abdullahi Sheik Ismail, Co-Chairman of SRRC
Hilowle Imam Omar, Co-Chairman of SSRC
Ahmed Sheikh Mohamed (Lohos), Current- Co-Chairman of SRRC
Col. Hassan Mohamed Nur, Co-Chairman of SRRC
Abdulaziz Sheik Yusuf, Chairman SSNM/SNA/SRRC
Mohamed Adan Wayel, Chairman SPM/SRRC/Nakuru
Col. Hassan Abdulle Qalad, Chairman of HPA/SRRC
Mohamud Sayid Adan, Chairman of SNF/SRRC
Gen. Mohamed S. Hersi (Morgan), Chairman of SPM/SRRC
Mohamed Omar Habeb (Dhere), Chairman of Jowhar Admin.
Mohamed Osman Maye, Chairman SANU/SRRC
Sheikh Adan Mohmed Nur, Chairman RRA/SRRC
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