Somali president leaves exile in Kenya for home: lands in Djibouti

[AYOUB]

Somali president leaves exile in Kenya for home: lands in Djiboutiby Ali Musa Abdi

 

NAIROBI, June 13 (AFP) - After months of delay and unmet pledges to return home, Somalia's government-in-exile finally began to leave Kenya Monday but a new hitch emerged as the president departed, but never arrived on Somali soil.

 

After a lavish send-off ceremony hosted by Kenyan leader Mwai Kibaki, Somali transitional president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed boarded a plane for Somalia but overflew his home country and landed in neighboring Djibouti.

 

An AFP correspondent in Djibouti confirmed Yusuf's arrival there, which Somali officials in Nairobi explained as a technical mishap.

 

The officials blamed darkness and a lack of facilities at the airport in Yusuf's alleged intended destination, the town of Jowhar, and insisted the incident would not compromise the government's long-awaited return to Somalia.

 

"The president was not ending exile in Kenya by going to another country," one official told AFP. "This was purely a technical issue ... there are no political complications as such to his landing in Djibouti."

 

But the development highlighted the difficulties in the relocation of the government which has been based in Nairobi since its creation nine months ago amid a bitter internal dispute over the move home.

 

And it appeared to confirm doubts that Kibaki's Monday good-bye party would not mark the reestablishment of a central authority in the lawless country where anarchy has reigned for the last 14 years.

 

Clashes over where the government should move and intense pressure from its Kenyan hosts to leave have left the penniless administration with no clear base in Somalia yet nowhere else to go.

 

Even before Yusuf unexpectedly arrived in Djibouti, the senior Somali leadership, riven by infighting between rival clans and warlords, was set to settle in different locations, many of them outside their home country.

 

Even if he had landed in Jowhar, Yusuf had planned to spend only several hours there before embarking on an extended tour of Arab nations and had stressed that the government's relocation depended on foreign aid.

 

"Somalia cannot stand alone unless supported by the wider international community and the region," he said, a day after declaring parliament in recess for two months and told lawmakers to be "brave and go home."

 

But Yusuf's dismissal of the legislature was immediately challenged by the parliament speaker and his call for bravery muted by the announcement that he would be visiting Gulf states with no set date to return home permanently.

 

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Gedi assured Kibaki and others at the reception that the government would indeed be moving home after spending much of the last year holed up in Nairobi hotels.

 

But while Gedi plans to go to Somalia by the end of the week, officials said his current itinerary calls only for a three-day visit to Jowhar and Mogadishu after which he is to depart for locations unknown.

 

About 100 of the 275 Somali lawmakers are now in Mogadishu, including speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden, who said Yusuf had no right to dissolve parliament and announced that lawmakers would meet in the capital on June 25.

 

Aden is one of the main proponents of moving the government to Mogadishu and is fiercely opposed to Yusuf and Gedi's plan to relocate first to Jowhar and Baidoa due to security concerns in the bullet-scarred capital.

 

In a bid to assist the government's oft-delayed relocation, east African governments agreed to send a peacekeeping force to Somalia and at the weekend asked the United Nations to lift a 1992 arms embargo to ease the mission.

 

The seven-member Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Sunday asked the world body "to expedite the lifting of the arms embargo to allow for the deployment" of the force.

 

The first troops in the operation -- to be known as IGASOM -- are to come from Sudan and Uganda but the two countries have recently balked at sending soldiers because of the security situation in Somalia and a lack of funds.

 

The Horn of Africa country has been without an effective government since 1991 when strongman Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled, plunging the nation into anarchy.

 

amu-kh/mvl/sj

 

Copyright © 2005 Agence France-Presse

Received by NewsEdge Insight: 06/13/2005 16:52:38

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[AYOUB]

President fails to arrive in Somalia, plane diverted

14 Jun 2005 10:03:04 GMT

 

Source: Reuters

 

MOGADISHU, June 14 (Reuters) - The plane carrying Somalia's president had to be diverted from landing in his country, and instead flew to Djibouti after he bade a formal farewell to his government's temporary home in Kenya, officials said on Tuesday.

 

Reuters erroneously reported on Monday that President Abdullahi Yusuf had arrived in the Somali provincial town of Jowhar, after earlier in the day leaving Kenya to set up his government on home soil.

 

Yusuf had been due to land on Monday night in Jowhar and spend the night there, said Dahir Mire, permanent secretary in the office of the president.

 

But the plane was delayed in leaving Kenya, and approached Jowhar after nightfall.

 

"The pilot had to divert the plane to Djibouti because the airstrip in Jowhar has no lights," Mire said.

 

Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, tasked with ending fighting between rival clan warlords, had remained in Kenya since its formation at peace talks last year due to disputes about where inside the country it should be based.

 

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki hosted a farewell party for the Somali government on Monday.

 

Presidential spokesman Yusuf Ismail Baribari said the pilot of the plane decided not to risk the landing and headed for the nearest airport with night landing facilities, in neighbouring Djibouti.

 

"The president really wanted to spend even a night in Jowhar," Baribari said.

 

Officials say Yusuf will return from a planned tour of several Gulf countries, that was to begin in Qatar on Tuesday, in about two weeks.

 

Baribari said the president would begin touring Somalia after his arrival to start his day-to-day work as president.

 

Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi is expected to leave Kenya for Mogadishu on Thursday.

 

Yusuf's government is the 14th attempt to restore effective administration to Somalia since it collapsed into chaos after the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.

 

Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people since then in the country of up to 10 million.

 

(Additional reporting by Guled Mohamed in Nairobi)

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[AYOUB]

For Somalia’s President, There’s Still No Place Like Home

Joyce Mulama

 

NAIROBI, June 14 (IPS) - For the moment, it is the homecoming that wasn’t. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf left Kenya Monday to relocate his transitional government to Somalia. However, the flight carrying the head of state was subsequently diverted to Djibouti.

 

Reports indicate that poor runway lighting in the southern Somali town of Jowhar prevented the plane from landing. A far larger threat, however, is posed by the lack of security in Somalia, where central government collapsed in 1991 when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted by tribal factions.

 

The current, interim administration was only established in 2004, after about two years of talks held in Kenya under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). (This regional organisation comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.)

 

Ongoing concerns about the lack of stability in Somalia, which has been divided into fiefdoms by competing warlords, prevented the country’s new parliament from returning home after the election of Yusuf last October.

 

The administration has been operating in exile, from the Kenyan capital of Nairobi. However, regional and international pressure for it to take up the challenge of returning home has been growing.

 

"I can confidently report to you today that the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia is relocating to Somalia as of today," Yusuf said Monday at a farewell party for his government, hosted by Kenyan officials. The event, which took place in Nairobi, was also attended by diplomats and IGAD country representatives, amongst others.

 

Afterwards, Yusuf and a seven person entourage of political and economic advisors left for the airport, accompanied by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki.

 

"The rest of the ministers will follow tomorrow, and everyone will have gone by Friday," said Yusuf Baribari, a spokesman for Abdullahi Yusuf. "It is a great feeling...At long last we are going back to our country to fulfill our duties."

 

These optimistic statements aside, Somalia’s government is divided over where it should be based.

 

Yusuf and his allies, who enjoy little support in the capital of Mogadishu, have insisted that the administration set up operations in Baidoa – also in southern Somalia – and Jowhar. A move to the capital would take place once Mogadishu was deemed sufficiently secure.

 

This policy has been endorsed by a majority of legislators in the 275-member parliament, who voted for the government to have offices in Baidoa and Jowhar, and a liaison office in Mogadishu. However, a sizeable minority of parliamentarians is said to be pushing for an immediate return to the capital. These legislators include faction leaders who control large parts of Mogadishu.

 

The situation is further complicated by the fact that parliamentarian Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade, who also controls Baidoa, is opposed to having the government relocate to this city – apparently because it may lead to him losing power in Baidoa.

 

Last month, fighting erupted in the city between forces loyal to two ministers, Sheikh Aden Madobe and Hassan Mohammed Nur Shatigadud, and Habsade supporters – claiming 13 lives. Madobe and Shatigadud support the president’s decision to relocate to Baidoa.

 

Reports indicate that Habsade also fears the city’s proximity to neighbouring Ethiopia could be to the advantage of Yusuf, accused by some of being an ally of Addis Ababa.

 

Relations between Ethiopia and Somalia have long been acrimonious. Somalia invaded the ****** region of Ethiopia during the 1970s, and Addis Ababa is said to have supported Somali rebels in later years.

 

In March, Somali legislators voted against a deployment of about 10,000 IGAD peacekeepers in their country, on the grounds that it might include Ethiopian troops. East African foreign affairs ministers apparently decided, later, to avoid deploying soldiers from Somalia’s neighbouring states in any peacekeeping mission to the war-torn country.

 

Addis Ababa has reportedly been accused of providing military support to Yusuf so that he could attack Baidoa – a charge Ethiopian officials deny.

 

Matt Bryden, an analyst at the International Crisis Group (ICG) who deals with the Horn of Africa, told IPS that opposing factions in the Somali parliament urgently needed to resolve the dispute over government headquarters.

 

"We need the two sides to come together, talk and reach common ground. With two groups with dissenting views about the capital…we do not have a functioning government in Somalia," he said Monday. The ICG is a Brussels-based think tank.

 

"It looks as though the president is moving independently. It is a real risk if the two groups do not dialogue," Bryden added. "IGAD must advise President Yusuf to reach out to the opposing side in order to reunify the TNG (transitional national government). If this does not happen, it will be the beginning of the end of the government."

 

The need for channels of communication to be kept open was also emphasised by Francois Lonseny Fall, the United Nations special representative to Somalia.

 

"We hope that that the Transitional Federal Government will use this opportunity to further the process of institution building and promoting peace through intensive dialogue on several issues, and in particular on where to relocate to inside Somalia," he said at the farewell party.

 

Under the agreements negotiated in Kenya, Yusuf is to govern Somalia for five years after which a general election will be held.

 

Thousands of lives are said to have been lost during the past decade in Somalia, while many citizens have been displaced or forced to flee their country. (END/2005)

[Baashi]

^

 

Ayoub, are u on overdrive gear goin’ for overkill . Your enthusiasm and hope to see this president succeed in taming your beloved Somalia has been noted .

 

It’s not a spin (here I’m getting inventive by the day) to say that the president is at home. For Djibouti is one of the corners of our eternal Somali peninsula (the white star on the blue background stands for something after all ). He told Kibaki that he’s goin’ home and by God he did . Waxaa la yiri news have reported that Kibaki dismissed the whole thing by making the point that his colleague doesn’t have control over that corner of his homeland.

 

On a serious note though, the explanations we've heard from the TFG Nairobi faction so far do not add up.

[AYOUB]

Originally posted by Baashi:

Your enthusiasm and hope to see this president succeed in taming your beloved Somalia has been noted

[/QB]

Baashi I'm more impressed by Omaar Geelle, how about something to be called Greater Djibouti?