http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E73CCFA0-7CFC-4171-A20E-3A4AB320A7F4.htm
Somalia calls for reconciliation
Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia's president, has announced plans to organise a
national broad-based reconciliation conference that would bolster
international efforts aimed at restoring peace in the chaotic nation.
Yusuf said: "Anyone who wants peace is our citizen and we are ready to
co-operate."
Europe, the US and Ethiopia had called on Somalia's president to open up
to as many factions as possible, particularly clan and religious leaders.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, urged the government to work with
other groups and avoid revenge or triumphalism.
An armed Somali group affiliated to the Islamic courts threatened to
fight any peacekeeping troops sent to their country as African leaders
struggled to put together an international force for Somalia.
AU peacekeeping
The European Union released 15m euros ($19m) to finance peacekeeping
operations, but leaders at an African Union summit on Tuesday were still
seeking the 4,000 troops they need to bring the projected force up to
strength.
A total of 8,000 troops are seen as necessary to fill a power vacuum
when Ethiopian troops pull out after having backed the interim Somali
government in a brief war that defeated the Union of Islamic Courts
movement, which had ruled much of the country for the previous six months.
Alpha Oumar Konare, the African Union commission chief, told the summit:
"If African troops are not in place quickly, then there will be chaos."
Delegates to the summit in Addis Ababa said Ghana, Algeria, Tanzania and
Zambia were considering whether to provide troops, but final pledges
might not be made at the talks. So far Uganda, Nigeria and Malawi have
promised soldiers.
Troops threatened
As the African leaders deliberated, the official Islamic courts website
posted a video message from the previously uheard of Popular Resistance
Movement, stating that any African peacekeepers would be seen as invaders.
"Somalia is not a place where you can come to earn a salary - it is a
place where you can die," said the group's message.
"The salary you are coming to look for here would be used to transport
your coffin back home."
A Somali government security official dismissed the statement.
The source, asking not to be named, told Reuters: "I don't think such a
group exists. They must be day-dreamers. The Islamists were totally
crushed. They can never resurface again."
The authenticity of the Popular Resistance Movement could not be
independently confirmed.
Ethiopia pullout
Since their defeat, the remaining fighters of the Islamic courts have
scattered to south Somalia but vowed a long guerrilla war, and there has
been a wave of low-level insurgency-style strikes on Ethiopian and
government targets in recent weeks.
Analysts fear Somalia could quickly return to the chaos that has scarred
it for 15 years if no force takes the place of the Ethiopians.
Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian president, said a third of his forces were
withdrawing from Somalia and he wanted the remainder out within weeks.
In the central Somali town of Baidoa, Ali Mohamed Gedi, Somalia's prime
minister, called for the implementation of the state of emergency law
recently passed by parliament.
He said legislators were moving around Baidoa in heavily armed vehicles
locally referred to as "technicals" contrary to a law which bans the
possession of arms.
Source: Agencies
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