No call no show and violence, Postpones Somali Reconciliation Conference(NY Times)

[Xargaga]

Jeffrey Gettleman

Monday, July 16, 2007

 

 

 

NAIROBI (New York Times) - A national reconciliation conference that diplomats have described as a make-or-break opportunity for Somalia's troubled transitional government has opened in Mogadishu. But it barely got off the ground. Top opposition leaders did not show up, and the session was quickly postponed.

 

The conference organizer, Mohammed Ali Mahdi, a former warlord, greeted about 1,000 delegates who had gathered in an old police warehouse in Somalia's bullet-pocked capital Sunday, saying: "I urge you to rise above your respective clan and subclan in order to bring normalcy to our country."

 

But then he adjourned the meeting until Thursday, saying he wanted to wait for more people.

 

Somalia's transitional government seems on the brink of disappearing into the same vortex of violence that has consumed 13 previous transitional governments. Even as the delegates were meeting on Sunday, mortars could be heard nearby.

 

"It's true, we're seeing another Baghdad in the making," said a Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of diplomatic protocols. "But if this conference produces a road map, albeit with a few simple priorities, there's a little hope."

 

Somalia desperately needs that hope. Since 1991, when the central government imploded, it has been a stateless mess of warring clans, blown-up buildings, starving people, and no clear path forward.

 

The national reconciliation conference was supposed to bring the warring factions back together. The plan was to invite 1,325 elders from Somalia's dozens of clans and subclans and have them meet for at least 45 days to discuss clan differences, disarmament and radical Islam, a growing issue since an Islamic government briefly took power last year.

 

"Our hope is that the tribes will forget all their wars from before," said Abdi Haji Gobdon, a transitional government spokesman, before the conference.

 

But the Islamists and hard-core members of opposing clans, who are thought to be the backbone of the growing insurgency - are boycotting.

 

"The government doesn't have a political vision for the country, they are not following a just process for the distribution of resources, and the president is using his militia as a clan militia," said Mohammed Uluso, a former agricultural minister and leader of the *** clan, which remains mostly hostile to the government. "So, no, we don't feel there's any reason to attend this conference and lend it legitimacy."

 

Ibrahim Hassan Addou, the former foreign minister of the Islamist movement that briefly controlled the country for part of the past year, said that until the Ethiopian troops that returned power to the transitional government left Somalia, the Islamist leadership had no interest in attending a conference.

 

"Somalia is under occupation right now, and people are not free to express their views," he said by telephone from Dubai. "So what's the point?"

 

Ethiopia invaded in December, with covert American help, and ousted the Islamic movement, which had managed to pacify much of the country.

 

Ethiopian and American officials had accused the Islamists of harboring terrorists.

 

Since then, the Ethiopian forces occupying Somalia have been struggling with an Iraq-style insurgency that has quickly progressed from drive-by shootings to suicide attacks and cellphone-detonated bombs. Mogadishu is so dangerous again that other nations hesitate to send peacekeepers. Despite pledges from African countries to send 8,000 soldiers, only 1,600 Ugandans have shown up so far.

 

The transitional federal government, a UN creation that has never had much grass-roots support, seems stuck in a rut. Its job is to shepherd the country toward elections in 2009. But it has yet to register voters or even organize a census. Piracy off Somalia's 1,880-mile coastline is a serious issue again, threatening to cut off crucial food deliveries to a population that is often just a few handfuls of grain away from famine.

 

Part of the problem is that the transitional government does not act like the multiclan outfit envisioned by the United Nations.

 

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, the transitional president, is a former warlord with one of the two biggest clans in Somalia, and many Somalis, especially in Mogadishu, see the transitional government as revenge for the early 1990s, when warlords from the rival ****** clan ran members of Yusuf's ***** clan out of Mogadishu.

 

Tensions between the two large clans ave dominated modern Somali politics.

 

"Elders used to solve the problems among the tribes long ago," said Bile Mohamoud Qabowsade, a ***** delegate. "So this conference may pave the way for a lasting solution among Somalis."

 

But the conference cannot succeed if representatives of major groups do not attend. Another possible reason that they stayed away is that the conference was to be limited mostly to clan issues and not political ones. Had the government opened the possibility of picking a new prime minister or discussing more equitable ways of sharing revenues from Mogadishu's port, more opposition members might have come.

 

Source: NY Times, July 16, 2007

[Xargaga]

Its reallysad . and seems now the Us mainstream media is out to expose the whole sham.

[Faarax-Brawn]

The NYT is being misled by jihadist & qarandiids into believing this reconciliation will not take place.

 

The NYT is agaisnt the govt!

[Xargaga]

I just was waiting for Duke to comment on this , but instead meesha wuxuu lawareegaya hebel Beeldaaje oo wax uu isagu daaqo mooyane wax uu daajiyo jirin.

[Kashafa]

"Somalia is under occupation right now, and people are not free to express their views," he said by telephone from Dubai. "So what's the point?"

What's the point, indeed. You, unwashed Xabashi heathen, invade and occupy my country using extreme prejudice, annihilate my capital city, setup a proxy client administration that does your bidding, and then invoke said proxy admin to set-up a reconcillation conference that will only be attended by dhabo-dhilifs and their breed ?

 

Heh. You must be smokin that green, Xabashi. Aniga iyo athiga qoriga caaridheesa aa naga dhaxayso(Get one of your yes-men to translate that for you.)