Somali government to end exile ‘without further delay’: president

NAIROBI, March 8 (AFP) — Transitional Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed on Tuesday told the Kenyan hosts of his government in exile that his administration would relocate to lawless Somalia “without any further delay.”

In addition, he reaffirmed the need for a controversial regional peacekeeping mission — opposed by Somali warlords — to help the government get a foothold in the war-shattered nation when it moves.

However, Yusuf, who along with other Somali officials has made similar unfulfilled pledges in the past, offered no hint as to when the relocation of the government might actually take place.

The latest vow came in a meeting between Yusuf and Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki in Nairobi, where the Somali government has been located for security reasons since its creation in October, according to Kibaki’s office.

Yusuf “announced that his government currently based in Nairobi will relocate to Somalia without any further delay,” Kibaki’s office said in a statement released after the meeting.

The Somali president — who last week wrapped up a fact-finding mission to Somalia, his first visit home since taking office — said any delay in the relocation could hurt support he had found for the government.

He “told President Kibaki that the people of Somalia were eager to embrace his government, hence any delays in re-location would compromise the positive mood,” the Kenyan statement said.

Kenyan officials have been putting pressure on Yusuf, his transitional Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi and other officials to move the government from Nairobi to Somalia for some time.

According to the statement, Kibaki told Yusuf that the relocation was necessary as soon as possible in order to give the government legitimacy.

Kibaki “emphasized the need to re-locate to Somalia to avoid any references of the ‘government in exile’,” it said.

Somali leaders have several times since December announced the imminent relocation of the transitional government but each time the target date has passed without action.

Previous unmet timetables have set January, mid-February and early March as dates for the move but many Somali analysts believe the relocation cannot realistically begin until July or August.

The government, which has no security force of its own, has requested and received African Union (AU) authorization for the deployment of regional peacekeepers to support the move.

But plans for the mission are still in their infancy and have drawn skepticism and outright hostility from some quarters.

Senior east African military officials are currently meeting in Uganda to discuss details of the force, including its size and budget, but powerful Somali warlords have objected to the participation of troops from some neighboring countries and threatened to resist.

The United States and the United Nations, which were involved in disastrous stabilization missions in Somalia in the early 1990s, have each expressed concern about the composition of the force.

But in his comments to Kibaki, Yusuf insisted on the necessity of an operation that will initially be run by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda.

Yusuf “said there is need for a peace support mission to be deployed to Somalia,” the statement from Kibaki’s office said.

Somalia has been awash in lawlessness and anarchic violence for 14 years since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre turned the Horn of Africa nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by violent warlords.