Somali Leader, in Kenya Exile, Asks U.N. to Help Disarm Militias

Nov,21.2004 Radio Free Somali (RFS)

Somali Leader, in Kenya Exile, Asks U.N. to Help Disarm Militias
By MARC LACEY

Published: November 20, 2004

AIROBI, Kenya, Nov. 19 - The newly installed president of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, used a rare appearance before the United Nations Security Council here on Friday to request an international peacekeeping force to help secure the country.

Reiterating a plea he made to the African Union recently, Mr. Yusuf said he needed outside financial support - and as many as 20,000 foreign troops - to disarm the gunmen who have ruled over the country since the last real government fell in 1991. Mr. Yusuf, who is in exile in Kenya, said he would supplement that outside force with an even larger contingent of newly recruited Somalis acting as police officers and soldiers.

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"Restoration of peace and security is one of the first challenges of the new Somali government," Mr. Yusuf said.

But Council members, some of them hesitant to put Mr. Yusuf on the agenda at all, rebuffed the request for outside troops and called on the Somali leader to work to unite the country first. They did back the idea of an African observer mission to assess the situation on the ground.

"The Security Council stresses that it is the responsibility of all Somali parties to work together to consolidate the gains made so far and to achieve further progress," John C. Danforth, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said in a statement approved by the rest of the Council.

The British ambassador, Sir Emyr Jones Parry, was more blunt. Addressing the possibility of a peacekeeping force, he asked: "What peace are we going to keep?" As for a stabilizing force, he said: "To stabilize what?"

Somalia remains a patchwork of fiefs divided among armed militias representing the various clans. The chaos has raged for 14 years, and the dangers remain so great that Mr. Yusuf himself has yet to set foot in the country since his Oct. 10 election.

Still, the country has made progress. Months of peace negotiations in Kenya that involved hundreds of Somalis from all walks of life have succeeded in recent months in producing a 275-member parliament as well as a transitional president.

Mr. Yusuf, a former warlord from the country's north, has a five-year term of office, a tenure designed to put the wayward country on the path to nationwide elections. One of Mr. Yusuf's first acts was to pick a prime minister from a rival clan, which diplomats saw as a positive sign. Ali Mohamed Ghedi, the prime minister, will announce a cabinet by the end of the year, which will require a significant balancing of rival clans.

The neophyte government has much to prove. Diplomats said Mr. Yusuf had tried in vain in recent months to visit the United States, where some officials remain suspicious of his ability to unite the country given his past as a militia leader.

Mr. Yusuf's appearance before the Security Council was something of a coup, as he tries to gain international backing for the rebuilding of Somalia. Mr. Danforth, who holds the rotating presidency of the Council, moved the meeting from New York to Nairobi to focus more attention on the long war in Sudan.

But he and others came under pressure to add Somalia to the agenda and to give Mr. Yusuf a speaking role.

"Just the fact that he sat before the Council and addressed them was an important moment for the peace process," said Winston Tubman, the special representative for Somalia from the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan.

Mr. Yusuf's problems are many. He must attempt to reconcile a country awash in weapons and with far too much experience in solving disputes violently. Mr. Yusuf's government has yet to leave Kenya because of security concerns.

And even Kenya has proven dangerous. Earlier this week, two men with automatic weapons invaded the yard of Mr. Yusuf's suburban Nairobi home only to be rebuffed by heavily armed Kenyan police officers.

Whether the intruders' aim was robbery, as Mr. Yusuf contends, or assassination remains under investigation.

But Mr. Yusuf, who was swarmed by bodyguards as he entered the Nairobi headquarters of the United Nations, said he did not intend to preside over a government in exile. As early as January, aides say, he intends to begin moving the government to Somalia.

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