African peacekeepers would worsen Somali crisis - faction

[Suldaanka]

NAIROBI (Reuters) - African nations will worsen Somalia's crisis if they send in peacekeepers before the government has solved a row over where it should be based, one wing of the divided administration said on Friday.

 

"Any deployment without a solution of this dispute is not helpful and will contribute to the crisis," Deputy Prime Minister Mohamud Ali Jama said by telephone from Mogadishu.

 

Jama, also information minister in the Horn of Africa country's embattled administration, speaks for a Mogadishu-based faction that opposes President Abdullahi Yusuf's plans to base his administration outside the capital in Baidoa and Jowhar.

 

Jama was commenting on the Africa Union's approval of a plan to send more than 1,000 troops to help Yusuf's government relocate from Kenya where it has worked since it was formed there at peace talks last year.

 

In Addis Ababa, the 53-nation AU authorised the east African peace body, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), on Thursday evening to send a peace force to Somalia to help the government establish itself. It did not say where the force would be stationed.

 

The force of about 1,700 Ugandan and Sudanese troops would protect the government and help with disarmament, the AU said.

 

AU peace and security chief Said Djinnit said the force would deploy "within weeks" but acknowledged there was no money as yet to fund it and he appealed to the international community to provide financing.

 

Jama said the move was premature because it did not have the agreement of all players in the government.

 

"If IGAD deploys troops in Baidoa and Jowhar without a consensus they will do so at their own risk. It will encourage one side to pursue its unilateral ambitions and discourage dialogue and reconciliation," Jama said.

 

"COULD BE THERE BY TONIGHT"

 

In Kampala, an army spokesman said 800 Ugandan troops were ready to be sent to Somalia, and were waiting for the final order to deploy from IGAD countries.

 

"If they gave us the word this afternoon, we could be there by tonight," Major Shaban Bantariza said. "We have fixed our logistical requirements and now we are just waiting for the political green light from our ministers and heads of state."

 

Yusuf says Mogadishu is too dangerous to serve as an initial base. The heavily armed warlords whom Jama speaks for want Yusuf to come to Mogadishu, saying they can take care of security.

 

"The Mogadishu faction does not speak for public opinion in the capital, where people are tired of roadblocks, militia taxes and terrorism," an aide to Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi said. "We are packing our bags to leave Kenya."

 

At the core of the dispute is mistrust among many warlords, especially those based in Mogadishu, of the intentions of Yusuf's main foreign sponsor Ethiopia, Somalia's historic foe.

 

Many among the overwhelmingly Muslim 10 million population are hostile to what they see as attempts by their big, nominally Christian-led neighbour to dictate events in the region.

 

Regional tensions rose sharply this week when a group of Somali MPs accused Ethiopia of sending troops across the border to back militias friendly to Yusuf. Ethiopia denies the charge.

 

Somalia 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.

 

"The peace process is on the brink of collapse," said Matt Bryden of the International Crisis Group. "We could well be past the point of repair."

 

Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan plans to leave leave Kenya on Sunday and install a rival assembly in Mogadishu, a move diplomats said would institutionalise the rift in Yusuf's cabinet. He earlier said he planned to leave on Saturday.