Demobilisation lans....

Some 2,000 militiamen have already been demobilised and are now undergoing retraining in special camps in the Somali capital, Mogadishu - the shell-pocked city they once dominated.

Senior UN official Randolph Kent told a press conference in New York on October 11 that the process held out "optimism" for the new government of Abdiqasim Salad Hasan, elected interim president this August at the Djibouti-hosted Somali peace talks.

The Nairobi-based UN Resident and Humanitarian Co-ordinator said Interim President Abdiqasim aimed to create a force of 5,000 police officers, and that the business community in Mogadishu had offered to fund the demobilisation process.

A Committee of National Security CNS was set up by the new government in September to demobilise thousands of young gun men who attached themselves to factional clan leaders after civil war erupted in 1991.

"This is a generation who have not known education, and have not known peace," humanitarian sources said. Head of the committee General Muhammad Nur Galal said, in a telephone interview from Mogadishu, that during the first three weeks of the committee being operational: "We have encamped 2,300 militia and 110 'technicals' (jeeps mounted with heavy weapons)".

He went on to say that the CNS had also recalled former police officers. "So far we have registered 1,900 former officers," he said. Galal said the immediate target was "5,000 police and militia, and 150-200 technicals by the end of October".

But there have been complaints about the recruitment tactics of the CNS, sources in Mogadishu said. Critics said the committee was encamping and recruiting on a clan basis.

A business source said recruitment on a clan basis was "a mistake". "It is what got us into this mess in the first place," he said.

Galal acknowledged militias were being recruited and encamped along clan lines, but said it was necessary in the initial stages to "bring in" militias through co-operative clan leaders.

"Once we have them all, we will certainly put them together," Galal said. He said some clan militia had already been put together and were undergoing retraining as one group.

According to Galal, the committee had been overwhelmed by the number of people coming to a few established demobilisation centres.

He said: "We don't have the absorption capacity, nor the financial support to demobilise all the militia that want to be demobilised". He said if there were sufficient funds: "We could probably demobilise everyone".

Critics in Mogadishu, however, do not agree with Galal. Sources in Mogadishu complained that it was "wrong" of the commission to concentrate primarily on encamping militias who have been working for the business community and the Islamic Courts - both strong supporters of the new interim president.

A business source said the Committee should be "going after the warlord militias and those of freelance clans, not the government's base support".

Residents hoped that the recruitment drive would encourage militia from opposing factions to abandon their leaders, reducing the typical but deadly skirmishes that plague the capital.

Publication date: October 16, 2000