Somalia PM wants dialogue; 6,000 dead this year

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's new prime minister called on Sunday for dialogue with Islamist-led opponents to end an insurgency that a rights group says has killed nearly 6,000 civilians so far this year.

The Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation said it had verified 5,930 deaths, 7,980 people wounded, and 717,784 displaced from their homes, in a year that saw the toppling of an Islamist movement, followed by an insurgency.

In some of his first public comments on the conflict, Somalia's new prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, said he was open to talks with an Eritrean-based opposition alliance.

"We are ready to speak with the Asmara group as long as they are ready to discuss with us," Hussein told Kenya's NTV news in an interview to be broadcast later on Sunday, referring to an opposition umbrella organisation based in Eritrea.

"We are not naming anyone from the opposition leaders, but we are ready for positive advice and criticism."

it's a failed policy, because Defense broke the ICU, which had fixed most of the broken part.

bastards

4 Ministers Resign in Somalia

By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN – 2 hours ago

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Four Somali Cabinet ministers have resigned less than 24 hours after they were appointed, saying their clan is not adequately represented in the new prime minister's government.

The resignations late Monday are a blow to Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, who took office last month pledging to work for reconciliation in a country struggling with an Islamic insurgency and clan divisions.

"We feel that there is scorn against our clan, which violates the power-sharing system our government is based on," said Hassan Mohamed Nur, who resigned as minister of national security. He and the other ministers who resigned are members of the Rahanwein clan, one of Somalia's four major clans.

Somalia's transitional charter, established 2004, requires the equal representation of the four main clans and a minor one in government. The prime minister was careful to ensure the clans were represented in appropriate numbers, but some lawmakers were disappointed they did not get key posts.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment on the resignations.

Meanwhile, violence continued to rock the capital. Early Tuesday, two brothers were killed and their father seriously wounded when a mortar slammed into their home, witnesses said.

On Monday, the United Nations' top humanitarian official appealed for more help for Somalia, which the U.N. says faces Africa's biggest humanitarian crisis. John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs, said aid agencies are struggling to operate because of violence.

"There is a (humanitarian) response but it is not adequate. It is terrible over here," Holmes told reporters after landing about 30 miles southwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

Ethiopia came to the aid of Somalia's government last December to rout the Council of Islamic Courts militia. The Islamic group's fighters have since launched an Iraq-style insurgency, and gunbattles, grenade and mortar attacks have devastated this seaside capital. Thousands of civilians have been killed or forced to flee the war-ravaged capital.

Somalia has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991, then turned on one another. The government was formed in 2004 with the support of the U.N., but has struggled to assert any real control.

Somali president flown to Kenya hospital amid walkout

BAIDOA, Somalia, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Turmoil struck the Somali government on Tuesday as a fifth minister resigned in a power-sharing dispute a day after being appointed, and the president was urgently flown to a hospital in Kenya's capital.

A security official described President Abdullahi Yusuf, 72, as being in a "serious condition" when he arrived in Nairobi from neighbouring Somalia on Tuesday.

But the government and diplomats played down the threat to his health.

"He is not as serious as we thought. He was not carried by an ambulance. He went in his Mercedes to the hospital," Ali Mohamed Sheikh, chief of protocol at the Somali embassy to Kenya, told Reuters.

Yusuf is a long-surviving liver transplant patient and for years has flown abroad for specialised treatment. He had been due to go to London for a checkup this week.

Government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon said: "I guess he is just tired because he had a long meeting with the prime minister last night, but he is not in a serious condition."

Five ministers have quit the cabinet of new Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, striking a blow to his plans to unify a government paralysed by infighting for nearly three years.

Deputy minister for religious affairs, Sheikh Jama Haji Hussein, said he resigned after talking to elders and politicians from his Jarerweyne sub-clan, a part of the Fifth clan -- a catch-all grouping of Somalia's smallest clans.

"The clan that I hail from has always been discriminated (against) and has never been given its fair posts in any government formed in Somalia from the day the country gained independence," he told reporters in the southern town of Baidoa where parliament sits.

CLAN CLASHES

Hussein's government is the 14th attempt at establishing effective central rule since clan warlords toppled military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

The clan issue -- paramount in Somali life and politics -- has beset the interim government since it was formed at peace talks in Kenya three years ago.

Four ministers from the Rahanwein clan -- one of the big four clans -- quit late on Monday, including National Security Minister Hassan Mohamed Nur Shatigadud.

"We decided to resign because we, as Rahanwein, have been scorned and we have not been given our fair share in Nur Adde's new government," Shatigadud told a news conference, referring to the premier by his nickname Nur Adde.

The squabbling highlights the difficulty of Hussein's task to unite the lawless Horn of Africa country whose 10 million citizens are more likely to pledge allegiance to their clan than a national government.

Hussein's inauguration last month was seen as an opportunity for reconciliation in Somalia where fighting between government troops and Islamist insurgents has killed almost 6,000 civilians, and uprooted hundreds of thousands this year.

On Sunday, Hussein named what he said was an "all-inclusive" cabinet.

Formed in 2004, the interim government was created on a "4.5" clan formula -- by which major positions were shared between the four main clans and the Fifth clan.

Many ministers returned from earlier cabinets, and only a handful came from outside the parliament -- permitted for the first time by constitutional change made earlier this year in hope of bringing on board more experienced technocrats.

"We gave the government an opportunity to inject fresh blood from outside parliament but it has not. We feel the prime minister was misled," said a senior parliament figure who spoke on condition of anonymity.

We have Gates in Djibouti, Rice in Addis Ababa, General Kip Ward there last month....we doubled our aid to Ogaden even as Ethiopia continues to wage carnage across the area..lovely people, but hey Ethiopia is an ally in the war on terra. Of course Somaliland is also located in a prime spot to watch the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden..

The four- pronged strategies for recognition

Since its declaration of secession from Somalia, the secessionist enclave based in Hargeisa has been following, inter alia, a four-pronged strategy for gaining recognition from the international community as an independent country separate from Somalia: These strategies are:

A concerted worldwide public relations campaign;
Aiding and abetting the continued collapse of the Somali State;
Maintaining close alliance with Ethiopia and disowning common Somali bonds;
Extending its control to the recalcitrant regions of Sool, Eastern Sanaag and Cayn (SSC).
i) Public relations campaign

http://www.geeskaafrika.com/somaliland_20nov07.htm

Somali leader still in hospital; Islamist rejects talk
Wed Dec 5, 2007 7:47am EST

By Guled Mohamed

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf spent a second day in hospital on Wednesday with what government sources called a minor chest problem but others described as very serious.

In a tumultuous week for Somali politics, an exiled Islamist leader rejected a call by Somalia's new prime minister for talks to try to stem a year-long insurgency that has killed some 6,000 civilians.

And the prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, was considering his next move after the resignation of five ministers from a cabinet he named only on Sunday -- the latest blow to efforts to unify a government paralyzed by years of infighting.

At Nairobi Hospital, Somali Ambassador to Kenya Mohamed Ali Nur said the president -- who gives his age as 72 but is said by some to be nearer 80 -- was having a "routine check-up" before seeing doctors in London where he had a liver transplant.

"We don't like the allegations (that his condition is worse)," he said. "I can tell you that he is OK, he was actually exercising."

Two sources close to the president said Yusuf had a chest complaint that was being treated prior to the stress of intercontinental travel.

Having lived with a transplanted liver for nearly 13 years, Yusuf routinely flies abroad for check-ups and what might be a normal malady in others his age must be closely watched.

But a diplomat tracking Somalia said officials were hiding the truth after Yusuf was flown into Nairobi on Tuesday.

"He is very, very bad. His stomach is inflated 10 centimeters and he is permanently on an oxygen mask," he said, citing conversations with Somali officials on Wednesday.

If anything were to happen to Yusuf, Somali parliamentary speaker Sheikh Adan Madobe would take over for 30 days while a successor was found, according to the government's charter.

U.S WANTS "BROAD" GOVERNMENT

In Eritrea, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, chairman of the opposition Alliance For the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) and considered a relative moderate among the Islamist movement, scoffed at the new prime minister's call for dialogue.

"Our problem is not with the old prime minister or the new prime minister. Our problem is Ethiopia's occupation," he said.

Ahmed's Islamist courts' movement ruled Mogadishu for six months last year, until it was routed by Ethiopia's army backing forces from the interim Somali government.

Hardline Islamists have led an insurgency against the government and Ethiopian troops throughout 2007.

U.N. officials say the humanitarian situation is Africa's most extreme, with red tape and restrictions hampering aid to the one million people uprooted by the fighting.

But restrictions on U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) aid to the Lower Shabelle region were lifted on Wednesday, a day after the Somali government blocked two shiploads of food to the area.

Regional governor Abdulqadir Sheikh Mohamed said the government security agency had reached an agreement with WFP.

A WFP official in Nairobi confirmed the ban was lifted.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a brief trip to sub-Saharan Africa, was due to meet Hussein in Ethiopia, with a message for the prime minister to promote inclusive government.

"It's got to be broad," she said. "The extremists are going to have to be set aside. The problem is not to call everyone extremists who are in the opposition."

more

Top US diplomat for Africa meets Somaliland leader

By Hussein Ali Nur

HARGEISA, Somalia, Feb 3 (Reuters) - The top U.S. diplomat for Africa met with the leader of the breakaway Somali republic on Sunday to discuss security in the war-wracked Horn of Africa region, the highest ranking U.S. delegation to visit Somaliland.

U.S. Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer told reporters Washington would "continue working with Somaliland authorities on stability and peace," shortly after meeting President Dahir Kahin Rayale.

The United States has long seen the lawless Horn region as strategically important and a breeding ground for militant Islamists seeking to launch attacks on U.S. interests.

Somaliland, in the northwestern corner of Somalia, broke away in 1991, when warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, and plunged the country into gun-fuelled anarchy.

It argues it should be given sovereignty since it has held democratic elections and achieved stability that has eluded the rest of a country largely torn between rival warlords.

But no nation has yet recognised Somaliland's claim to self-rule for fear of setting a precedent for other regions in Africa who might want to unilaterally declare autonomy.

"We will continue to work with the leaders of the African Union to recognize the decision that they would make on Somaliland's recognition and independence," Frazer told reporters.

Earlier this month, Rayale met with senior U.S. officials in Washington.