By Aweys Osman Yusuf

Mogadishu 02, July 2007 - Some of Mogadishu scholars have expressed their political views on the upcoming national reconciliation conference which many suggested it should be comprehensive.

Mohammed Hassan, a Somalia scholar, based in the Somali capital, said the reconciliation conference will achieve no tangible results if that happened.

"The solution for Somalia's political crises is to make the conference political rather clan-based reconciliation because the government needs to include the opposition groups in the assembly in order to get out of the lawlessness and mayhem in our country today," he said.

He said the venue where the reconciliation conference is held should be a neutral place, giving the routed Union of Islamic Courts leaders the chance to participate in the assembly.

"It is always necessary to make the conference political. The government should announce changes towards the conference before its deadline, July 15, is reached," he said.

Also Asha Ahmed Abdalla, a Somali lawmaker, told Shabelle by the phone from the parliament's temporary base of Baidoa, 245 kilometers south of Mogadishu, the Somali capital, on Sunday that the government should negotiate with its opposition to finalize the country's political confrontation.

She said Somalia's clans had no rancor against one another. "I believe that the country's reconciliation is to be political rather than clan-based and all the opposition groups should have the right to attend it," she said.

"There are no Somali clans that have conflicts among them. Somalia now needs a political solution, not a clan based reconciliation conference," she added.

She said Somalia's traditional elders did not fight one another, opposition groups were those who fought to participate in the country's management. She urged the Somali transitional government to respect the transitional charter.

The Somali government insists that the representatives of all clans in the country will be gathering in the convention, refusing political groups to take part in it, despite international pressure on President Yusuf's young administration to hold an all-inclusive reconciliation conference.

Source: Sh.M.Network