A huge blow to Somalia peace hopes.

[Somali_Patriot]

New Blow To Somalia Peace Hopes

 

The rift at the heart of Somalia's transitional government has further widened, with the speaker of parliament saying he will relocate to Mogadishu.

 

Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan says he will leave Kenya, where the president is based, on Sunday and is trying to convince other MPs to go with him.

 

Mr Adan is allied to the warlords who control the capital and oppose President Abdullahi Yusuf. Somalia has not had a functioning national government for 14 years.

 

President Yusuf was elected by the transitional parliament last October after two years of talks aimed at ending the warfare and anarchy.

 

Peacekeepers

 

Correspondents say Mr Adan is likely to try and set up a rival administration to that led by Mr Yusuf. More than 80 MPs, including the warlords, are already in Mogadishu but it is not clear whether Mr Adan will succeed in gathering a quorum there - 138 members of the 275-strong parliament.

 

RIVAL CAMPS Pro-president - Baidoa

 

President Abdullahi Yusuf

Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi

Mogadishu warlord Hussein Aideed

 

Anti-president - Mogadishu

 

Parliamentary speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan

 

Mogadishu warlord Mohammed Qanyare Affra

Mogadishu warlord Osman Ali Atto

Mogadishu warlord Muse Sudi Yalahow

Baidoa warlord Mohammed Habsade

 

There have been reports that the rival camps are massing weapons around the town of Baidoa, which is where Mr Yusuf wants to set up his government.

 

He says Mogadishu is too dangerous but Baidoa is controlled by a warlord allied to Mr Adan. On Thursday, the African Union voted to send 1,700 peacekeepers to Somalia, however, they will not go if it is not safe and the money for their deployment is not yet in place.

 

Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi, who is allied to President Yusuf, told the BBC that he wants the peacekeepers urgently, so the government can return to Somalia by the start of June. He said the peace force should start by disarming the militiamen in Mogadishu but the capital's warlords are opposed to a peace force.

"Armed groups are ready to disarm but we need a third party to gather for us the weapons until we train the militias and former police," he told the BBC's Network Africa programme. Foreign donors, who have bankrolled the long peace talks, are pressing the transitional government to relocate to Somalia.

 

Warlords unite

 

In Washington, the United States and the European Union this week released a joint statement voicing their concern at the lack of progress.

Facts and figures about life in Somalia

At-a-glance "

 

The Somali reconciliation process is at a critical stage. There is an urgent need for a viable agreement on relocation and security," it said. Mogadishu warlords Mohammed Qanyare Affra, Osman Ali Atto and Muse Sudi Yalahow, who have spent years fighting each other, said that they would this week start withdrawing their forces from the capital and setting up a single militia force.

 

They say this will restore security in Mogadishu and remove the need for peacekeepers. But some government officials fear that the force could be used against them, if relations continue to deteriorate.

 

Source:BBC News

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The tyrant of Puntland is ruining the peace process with his totalitarian idiotology. Once a mahber always a mahbar I say. I still can't believe that some of you guys actually thought that the guy who first picked up an AK47 and fought against the Somali people was actually going to restore peace. He is one of the primary reasons of Somalia’s downfall, and his true colors have been shown. Luckily there are still some wadanis(I mean warlords ) in this corrupt government who will fight against the tigres(the backbone, arms, and legs), the SSDF-landers (the mouth-piece), and the RRA (the i.diot's who so willingly give their land to be the battleground).