Somali Lawmaker Inks Pact With Islamists

A Somali lawmaker bypassed the government and signed an agreement Saturday to end hostilities with the country's powerful Islamic militia, a symbolic gesture that is unlikely to have any real effect.

Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden has made freelance peace initiatives before with the Islamists, but the government says he no longer acts on its behalf. He is considered the government's most sympathetic leader to the Council of Islamic Courts.

The pact - which pledges to halt military action and resume peace talks - comes one day after President Abdullahi Yusuf said peace talks with the Islamists are no longer an option, warning that the group is allowing al-Qaida terrorists to "set up shop" in the Horn of Africa.

"This is a new chapter and part of the terror group's plan to wage war against the West," Yusuf told The Associated Press from his office in Baidoa, about 155 miles from Mogadishu.

Tension has been mounting in recent weeks between the government, which has international recognition but little actual authority, and the Council of Islamic Courts, which controls most of southern Somalia. The United States has said the Islamic movement has links to al-Qaida, an accusation Islamic leaders have repeatedly denied.

The Islamic Courts movement has vowed to launch a holy war starting next week unless Ethiopian troops supporting the government leave Somalia. Ethiopia, a largely Christian nation, fears the emergence of a neighboring Islamic state and has acknowledged sending military advisers - though not a fighting force - to help the government.

The pact signed Saturday calls for "rejecting any interference in the internal Somalia affairs by the neighboring countries," a clear reference to Ethiopia.

Also Saturday, witnesses in Baidoa - the only town controlled by the government - said Ethiopian troops fired at a civilian truck when it failed to stop at a roadblock, killing one person.

Naimo Abukar Hassan, a passenger, said the driver lost control of the vehicle, "then we were under fire."

Somalia has not had an effective government since warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, plunging the country into chaos. The government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but it has struggled to assert its authority in the face of the increasingly powerful Islamic council.

Experts fear the conflict in Somalia could engulf the already volatile Horn of Africa. A recent U.N. report said 10 nations have been sending weapons to the warring sides.

War would hit an already devastated country where one in five children die before age 5 from preventable diseases. The impoverished nation also is struggling to recover from the worst flood season in East Africa in 50 years.

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AP writer Ahmed Al-Haj contributed to this report from Aden, Yemen.

 

Source: AP, Dec 16, 2006