Diplomats Emphasize Need For All-Inclusive Talks On The Future Of Somalia
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DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, February 9, 2007 – European, African, Arab and U.S. diplomats on Friday emphasized the need for all-inclusive talks on Somalia's future to ensure stability in the nation and support its transitional government.
Those talks should include prominent Somali warlords, leaders of the breakaway Somaliland region and leaders of the ousted Islamic movement, Tanzania's Foreign Minister Bernard Membe said during a one-day meeting in Tanzania's capital of the International Contact Group on Somalia.
Efforts to stabilize Somalia have taken on added urgency since December, when a government offensive backed by Ethiopian forces routed the radical Islamic movement that had taken control of much of Somalia's south.
The African Union has appealed for 8,000 peacekeepers for a mission to Somalia to prevent a return to violence as Ethiopian troops withdraw, but so far it has received pledges for only half that number.
Ethiopia says it cannot keep its forces in the country for much longer, and has already began pulling some forces out.
Membe called on Somalia's two-year-old transitional government to "establish broad-based and representative institutions and an all-inclusive political process as envisaged in the federal charter," Membe told the meeting.
He said the international community should not allow Somalia to slide back into the anarchy seen in the past 16 years, since the 1991 overthrow of longtime dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre by warlords.
In the past month, however, violence has risen in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, with daily mortar attacks reported, but so far few casualties.
The government "needs to be strengthened and given capacity to address the common problems of the Somali people," Membe said.
U.S. President George W. Bush plans to raise money for Somalia, in addition to the US$40 million (euro31 million) already pledged by the U.S. in political, humanitarian and peacekeeping assistance to the country, according to Jendayi Frazer, the top U.S. diplomat to Africa.
"Security in Mogadishu is key to stability in Somalia and the Horn of Africa in general," said Frazer, the assistant U.S. secretary of state for Africa.
About 600 supporters of Somalia's Islamic movement held a rally Friday in Mogadishu to protest plans to send peacekeepers to Somalia, the presence of Ethiopian forces in the country and what they said was American support for the Ethiopians.
They burnt American and Ethiopian flags, and one masked man told the rally that Ethiopian soldiers would be attacked in their hotels.
The protesters chanted "Down with America, down with Ethiopia," and "We want Islamic courts back, they brought peace and security." They also carried banners denouncing the proposed AU peacekeepers to Somalia.
"We will not allow our people to be slaughtered," read one placard, in reference to the bitter memory Mogadishu residents have of a U.N. peacekeeping mission that failed in the early 1990s, when Mogadishu saw a lot of violence.
Some of the women protesters wore white bands, inscribed with the words "God is Great," wrapped around their heads. Some young men wore red turbans.
The rally was held in the northeastern Hurwa district of Mogadishu, which is considered a hotbed of support for the Islamists.
Source: The Associated Press
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