19 May 2007 04:14

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  • Title: [SW News] (AFP)Western diplomats warn warlords against Mogadishu insecurity
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  • Date :[2 Mar 2000]

Western diplomats warn warlords against Mogadishu insecurity

Western diplomats warn warlords against Mogadishu insecurity Agence France Presse English Wire , Thursday , March 2, 2000 , 15:25 GMT MOGADISHU, March 2 (AFP) -- Two western envoys currently in Mogadishu to discuss peace prospects with warlords and civic leaders warned Thursday that the Somali capital will receive no international aid before order is restored. Italian envoy to Somalia Francesco Sciortino and European Commission representative J. Duarte de Carvalho said that while inter-clan fighting persisted, the international community will not reopen offices here. Mogadishu has been divided and ruled by ruthless warlords from rival clans and freelance gunmen since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in January 1991. The two envoys held talks with warlord Ali Mahdi Mohamed and other leaders, who have accepted peace proposals for Somalia by made by President Ismael Omar Guelleh of neighbouring Djibouti. However, rival warlords Mohamed Qanyare Afrah and Hussein Mohamed Aidid, who oppose the Guelleh proposals, refused to meet the western emissaries. "Inter-clan armed rivalry, abduction and destruction or looting of property are hampering the efforts to assist the Somali people in Mogadishu,"Sciortino told journalists. He added that the international community could setup offices in Mogadishu for security reasons. Qanyare told AFP by telephone that his faction and its allies had no faith in the Djibouti peace plan. They therefore refused to meet Sciortino and Carvalho because "they represent ideas that would not be accepted by our supporters". Warlord Musa Sudi Yalahow, who controlssouthwest Mogadishu, also failed to meet the two envoys, who have in the past two days been meeting civic leaders, professional figures and the heads of Islamic Courts which control parts of Somalia. Meanwhile, the "Parliament" in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, in the north of the Horn of Africa nation, hasalso ruled that any Somalilander who attends a peace conference in Djibouti, scheduled to be held in April, would be guilty of "treason." Demonstrators in Somaliland, which seceded from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, but has yet to be recognised by the outside world, burnt the Somali flag at the weekend and chanted slogans against the Djibouti peace plan. Guelleh's initiative to end more than nine years of clan warfare in Somalia and to set up a transitional government with a president, parliament and a prime minster, has been seen as the country's best hope for peace by the international community and unarmed Somalis. str-amu/lto/nb


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