omali government affirms no organization allowed attend the reconciliation conference

By Aweys Osman Yusuf

Mogadishu 18, March.07 - The Somali government revealed on Saturday that it would not be involved in the Somali national reconciliation conference due to be held in Mogadishu.

Somalia’s foreign minister, Ismail Hurra Buba, told Shabelle in an interview yesterday that the reconciliation conference did not mean that the routed Islamists and the government would sit and negotiate. “The Somalia national reconciliation meeting is not for particular groups or organizations. It is open for all Somalis to come together, to reconcile and decide the future of this country,” he said.

He said the Somali transitional government would neither attend the meeting nor permit people to attend it as an organization. “People who pose as an organization will not partake in the conference. The conference is intended for all Somalis as individuals to come together,” he said.

He pointed out that the government had the economic resources to fund the meeting. “We have the international financial backing. We have estimated that about $40 million would need to be spent on the process and it will be done,” he said.

Somali president Abdulahi Yusuf and his Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi are top government leaders anticipated to chair the national reconciliation conference. Buba said these two leaders would contact with people they see as vital to the meeting.

He dismissed the international conditional backing for the interim government, indicating that Somalia needs no conditional financial assistance to make sure that the meeting takes place.

Late last month president Yusuf announced that the reconciliation conference would happen in the anarchic city on 16 April and would go on in two months.

Somalia’s transitional government was formed with the help of the international community in Kenya at the end of 2004 after prolonged negotiations among the country’s warlords.

Source: Sh.M.Network

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