Rokko Posted October 26, 2004 Somali leader rejects go-slow approach on U.N. aid Tuesday, October 26, 2004 at 14:58 ADDIS ABABA, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf rejected U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan's call to delay an expansion of aid to the broken country until security improved, saying he was keen to go home and start work. "We are not going to be a government of refugees and a government in exile," Yusuf, elected two weeks ago by Somalia's parliament in the relative safety of neighbouring Kenya, said at a joint news conference on a visit to Ethiopia on Monday. "If the idea is that the government should not move into Somalia until security is completely taken care of in Mogadishu, we do not see that it is a correct way to go," he said. Yusuf had said earlier in the day he aimed to have a trained army of 30,000 to overlook the country's security within a year. "Somalia is not Mogadishu alone. Somalia has many other cities. What the new government needs to do is to go inside and start working." Annan warned last week against a hasty expansion of U.N. nation-building activity in Somalia, saying there must first be more political progress and serious efforts by Somali leaders to improve security. Somalia collapsed with the ousting of military dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991. It disintegrated into warlord-run fiefdoms which flourished in the absence of a central authority. Analysts say Yusuf, who has yet to return home following his election, must build a government and exert control quickly or face failure. Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told the same news conference he agreed that the Somali government should move into Somalia at the earliest opportunity. "Somalia has got a very rare opportunity ... Somalia has taken a risk in establishing a government. The international community should also take a similar risk in making sure this rare opportunity is not squandered," Meles said. "I understand the Secretary General has to be realistic. But I also think that the international community should not wait for stability, before it can send a stabilising force, because that would be a contradiction in terms." Despite the new government's wish to stamp its authority on the country of more than seven million, the international community is wary of engaging in Somalia after a failed U.S. peacekeeping mission forced the United States and later the United Nations to withdraw in 1993. On Monday, Yusuf told an extraordinary meeting of the African Union's Peace and Security Council at its Addis Ababa headquarters that 20,000 peacekeepers were urgently needed to disarm an estimated 55,000 fighters and militiamen in Somalia. Source: Reuters Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
