Somali warlords slapped with E. Africa travel ban

[SOO MAAL]

Somali warlords slapped with E. Africa travel ban

Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:58 PM BST

 

 

By Marie-Louise Gumuchian

 

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Seven east African nations placed travel bans on Somali warlords and froze their assets on Tuesday in an effort to push them into peace talks.

 

Kenya, where the seven nations comprising the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) met to talk about Somalia, last week banned the warlords and deported one.

 

"IGAD member states will apply the same sanctions against all warlords as has been applied by Kenya including (a) travel ban and freezing of accounts," a joint communique said.

 

Kenyan officials recommended the ban and asset freeze in 2003 during peace talks it hosted to form the Somali government, as a way to force the warlords to stay at the bargaining table, Kenyan intelligence sources said.

 

Many of the warlords have extensive business and property interests in IGAD members Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan. Somalia is the seventh member, but its interim government operates outside Mogadishu and has little power.

 

"We will not allow them to use our banks, we will not allow them to use our airports, we will not allow them to bring their kids to school here," Kenyan Foreign Minister Raphael Tuju said. "We will not allow them to enjoy the facilities in our five-star hotels when they create hell in their own country."

 

The ministers also said they would offer amnesty to those who used arms illegally to "terrorize and harm innocent civilians" who agree to surrender for dialogue within the framework of the interim Somali government.

 

The measure is a further blow to the self-styled coalition of anti-terrorism warlords -- widely believed to have been backed by Washington -- who this month lost control of the Somali capital they had lorded over for 15 years.

 

Militia loyal to Islamic courts seized Mogadishu after battles which killed at least 350 people, in some of the worst violence seen there since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre ushered in an era of anarchy.

 

COURTS POPULAR

 

IGAD ministers again urged Uganda and Sudan to mobilise peacekeepers -- approved by the body a year ago -- as part of a Somali government plan which was hotly disputed.

 

That would require an exemption under a U.N. Security Council arms embargo in place since 1992, which IGAD again urged the U.N. to grant.

 

Somali sources say the warlords have real estate, import-export and transport interests around east Africa and the Middle East, particularly Kenya and Dubai.

 

Two warlords contacted by Reuters earlier said they do not care about a ban.

 

"We stay inside Somalia, we have no more interest going to IGAD countries, and every country has a right to give and block visas," said one of them, Abdi Hassan Awale.

 

Some of the warlords have threatened to fight their way back, but look increasingly isolated despite the support they received from Washington earlier this year, analysts say.

 

So attention has shifted to the relationship between the interim government and the newly prominent Islamic Courts Union, which joins 14 courts with both moderate and hardline elements.

 

Despite early overtures on both sides, relations have stumbled over the thorny issue of foreign troops.

 

Warlords of the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism have said the courts harbour Islamic extremists, some linked to al Qaeda -- a fear apparently shared by the U.S. government. The courts have denied that.

 

Funded by local businesses and Somalis abroad, the courts are popular in Mogadishu for imposing a semblance of order in one of the world's most lawless cities, analysts say.

 

Somali experts say the courts are broadly moderate, but have a small number of radicals in their midst.

 

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed, Bryson Hull and Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi, and Mohamed Ali Bile in Mogadishu)

[SOO MAAL]

Mogadishu's Quiet But Future is Uncertain

 

The East African (Nairobi)

NEWS

June 13, 2006

Posted to the web June 13, 2006

 

By Abdulkadir Khalif, Special Correspondent

Nairobi

 

The expulsion of Somali business tycoon Abdikadir Hussein Shiry from Nairobi by the Kenyan government on grounds that he was involved in the destabilisation of Somalia, particularly Mogadishu, was received with mixed reactions in Somalia.

 

Many welcomed the move and commended the Kenyan government for no longer treating Somali warlords as dignitaries.

 

Others, however, saw the action as a plot organised by Shiry's political enemies in Somalia, especially from his own clan, who wanted him removed from the political scene.

 

Whatever the case, the action of the Kenyan government may influence some other countries and the international community to deal with violent elements, regardless of their political or doctrinal inclinations.

 

During a radio talk show, a caller said the Inter-Governmental Agency on Development countries, the African Union, the European Union, the United Nations, the Arab League and the United States should emulate Kenya's rejection of warlords, to boost the position of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, which has been unable to move from the provincial town of Baidoa to Mogadishu.

 

On February 18, a group of Mogadishu businessmen and warlords who are also ministers in the transitional government, formed a nine-member "peace restoration and anti-terrorism coalition." Their aim was to counter the growing influence of Islamists who were becoming a threat to the warlords.

 

Before then, Shiry was better known for his business empire than involvement in violent political manoeuvring. His deportation from Kenya should serve as a lesson to other warlords, whether secular or extreme Islamists who engage in violence. Mogadishu has experienced almost four months of fighting between heavily armed groups.

 

The leaders of the Islamic courts have vowed to establish an Islamic state, while the secular warlords were determined to uproot what they term as elements harbouring international terrorists linked to the al Qaeda network.

 

Dialogue has failed to resolve the differences in opinion as city suburbs were turned into killing fields with thousands displaced and businesses closed.

 

Sunday, June 5, was a milestone in the fight for Mogadishu as the last pockets of the secular warlords' militia were pushed out almost 20km out of the city to beyond the provincial town of Balad, north of Mogadishu.

 

Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, the leader of the Islamic courts network declared that the war was finally over with the defeat of what he termed as the "forces of evil."

 

Among the warring secular warlords in Mogadishu, were those who attended the Somali reconciliation conference at Eldoret in Kenya and signed a cessation of hostilities agreement renouncing violence.

 

The Islamist militia had the people's sympathy and support primarily because the populace was fed up with secular warlords who have been perpetuating clan hegemony and violence for over 15 years.

 

On the downside however, there is uncertainty and the word on the street is that the sheikhs led by Sheikh Sharif and an Islamic council and other stakeholders of the political affairs of Mogadishu are meeting to map out the next move.

 

Observers believe that the Islamists have limited options for manoeuvre. This because they have to respect the traditional Somali clan structure, which in many ways contradicts the dictates of religious principles. If some clan elders object to some aspects of what the clergy is doing, they may cause trouble by proposing counter opinions or even fresh hostilities.

 

The leaders' next hurdle is transferring the responsibility of establishing rule of law in the capital to the transitional government in Baidoa.

 

If experience is anything to go by, the Islamists need to act fast.

 

Aidarous Ahmed, a Mogadishu intellectual said, "Their biggest mistake would be to ignore the role of the transitional government, especially by committing acts that will link them with religious fundamentalists around the world, and not necessarily only al-Qaeda."

 

The Islamists should also not challenge the existence of the transitional government that enjoys the full recognition of the neighbouring states, the AU and to some extent the Arab League and the EU.

 

Such a move would be suicidal, considering that the US used just such an excuse to crush the radical Taliban in Afghanistan.