Somalians agree to end hostilities, Islamic militants excluded
August 8, 2007 (NAIROBI) — Delegates at a Somali reconciliation conference have signed a truce _ but it does not include the Islamic militants who have been waging an insurgency.
The agreement was signed last week and took effect Aug. 1, which has now been designated a “national day of forgiveness,” Mohamed Ali Nur, Somalia’s ambassador to Kenya, said Wednesday.
Nur did not say how the truce would be enforced, but said Somalia’s Islamic militants “are not for peace,” referring to continuing attacks on Somali government soldiers and Ethiopian troops in the capital.
“We want to isolate them,” Nur told journalists in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
In recent weeks, Mogadishu increasingly seems seized by an Iraq-style guerrilla war. Islamic militants vowed to wage an insurgency when they were toppled in December by Ethiopian troops supporting the government.
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
The weak government convened a national reconciliation conference in July after several delays because of infighting and violence in Mogadishu. It is aimed at helping the country heal the wounds of 16 years of conflict and is a key requirement of a transitional charter that led to the formation of the latest government in 2004.
Conference delegates have completed the first phase, focused on Somalis forgiving each other for past grievances and atrocities, Ambassador Nur said. The next phase will involve political issues, he said without elaborating.
Nur also said that the transitional parliament will debate legislation Wednesday to guide future oil exploration deals and to set up a state-owned company, the Somali Petroleum Corp.
Somalia is believed to have oil deposits on land and offshore but no government since the country got its independence from Britain and Italy in 1960 has ever been able to determine the size or type.
Nur declined to say whether the government is already working on plans to get a group of Kuwaiti and Indonesian investors to invest in and help set up the Somali Petroleum Corp.
(AP)