Text of open letter from Muhy-al-Din Ahmad Abdi, "representative in Italy of the self-proclaimed independent Somaliland", entitled: "He is an accomplice of the former dictator; we refuse to engage in dialogue with his government"; published by Italian newspaper 'La Stampa' on 6th September

First and foremost, the election of the new [Somali] president [Abdiqasim Salad Hasan] does not concern us directly because Somaliland did not take part in the Djibouti conference on reconciliation, either in terms of its administration or through representatives of its people.

What we were expecting to emerge from the talks in Djibouti was the birth of a government concerning only the south of the country (the former Italian Somalia) in order to then assess whether the conditions were there for a process of reunification to get under way in Somalia. If we found that the right conditions were not in place, we were planning to set out down the path of peaceful separation, as happened between Ethiopia and Eritrea in the past.

Unfortunately, the way in which the conference was handled forces us to change our previous plans since the organizers recruited as representatives of Somaliland certain people who are absolutely not representative of it and who, in all likelihood, are aiming to play a role in the new executive.

Our position is this:

1. We cannot engage in a dialogue with a government or a parliament that include personalities from Somaliland whom we consider to be traitors.

2. The government with which we could hold a dialogue must represent only the south of Somalia and it must enjoy both full control over its territory and the support of its population.

We wish to highlight the fact that most of those who took part in the conference are men who formerly belonged to Siyad Barre's dictatorial regime, and the fact that for some of them - for instance, for Gen Muhamad Hirsi Morgan or for Gen Muhammad Hashi Gani - a trial before the International Court has been sought on a charge of perpetrating extremely serious crimes against humanity and against the civilian population of Somaliland.

The people of Somaliland have not yet forgotten the mass graves, the slaughter of their near and dear ones, or the torture and humiliation that they have been forced to suffer: We do not believe that those who caused so much pain and so much destruction can rebuild Somalia.

Source: 'La Stampa', Turin, in Italian 6 Sep 00 p 10