SOMALIA: Preparations for relocation to Mogadishu on track, say officials

[QabiilDiid]

SOMALIA: Preparations for relocation to Mogadishu on track, say officials

NAIROBI, 14 Feb 2005 (IRIN) - The interim Somali government, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is continuing its plans to start relocating to Somalia on 21 February despite the killing of a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) journalist in Mogadishu last week, the prime minister's office said.

 

"The plan to relocate the government to Somalia is still on track," Abdurrahman Ali "Malaysia", the special adviser to the prime minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi, told IRIN on Monday.

 

The first group of cabinet ministers that is expected to leave for the Somali capital, Mogadishu, will be led by the deputy prime minister, Hussein Aydid. The "prime minister will definitely be in Mogadishu within the next five days", Ali said.

 

"The PM [prime minister] was horrified by the killing of [Kate] Peyton and has condemned the killing," Ali added.

 

Ali quoted Gedi as saying: "If those responsible were expecting to scare us, then they are mistaken. We will not be deterred. We will return to Mogadishu."

 

If all goes according to plan, "most of the cabinet and government should be in Mogadishu by 10 March", he added.

 

Peyton, 39, was shot on Wednesday in front of her hotel as she got into a car. She was rushed to a local hospital and died there later, a local journalist who was at the scene at the time, told IRIN last Thursday.

 

"I don't want to speculate about who killed Kate Peyton, but there are certainly groups who have an interest in painting Mogadishu as a dangerous and unstable city," Matt Bryden, the director of the International Crisis Group's Horn of Africa Project, told IRIN at the time.

 

No one has so far claimed responsibility for Peyton's death and the motive is yet unknown. The latest killing was preceded by the killings of four senior Somali police and/or military officers since September 2004 by unidentified gunmen.

 

All the Somali victims have, at one time or another, called for the deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia and had served under the transitional national government, according to local sources.

 

The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has been unable to relocate, citing security considerations. However, it has come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to relocate.

 

The transitional federal parliament elected Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as president on 10 October. The election marked the culmination of a two-year reconciliation conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development that brought representatives from various clans and factions together.

 

Military experts from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were expected in Mogadishu on Monday to assess the situation ahead of the proposed deployment of a peace support mission to the war-torn country.

 

IGAD, whose members are Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda, sponsored two years of peace talks between various Somali clans and factions that culminated in the formation of the transitional government.

 

On the sidelines of the recently concluded African Union summit in the Nigerian capital of Abuja, the IGAD heads of state, who met under the chairmanship of the Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, committed to send a peace support mission to Somalia to assist the peaceful establishment of the transitional government in Mogadishu.