VARIOUS: Somalia President Abdullah Yusuf says there will be Somalia reconciliation congress in weeks

Record ID: 452136

  • Title: VARIOUS: Somalia President Abdullah Yusuf says there will be Somalia reconciliation congress in weeks
  • Date: 23rd February 2007
  • Summary: (AD) LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM (FEBRUARY 22, 2007) (REUTERS) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SITTING FOR INTERVIEW HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING: "We are intending to start this congress within two, three weeks. We will start at national level and go down to regional and local levels ... down to grassroots. Because our people fought hard against each other, we slaughtered each other," YUSUF SITTING (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING: "But nobody up to now brought the whole people in one congress. We will discuss it there with the people about how to forget and forgive among other things and the start of rebuilding Somalia as a sovereign state." HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING: "Disarmament has started. Up til now it is voluntary. We have completely disarmed former warlords and when I will be back we will continue to disarm the population, on a voluntary basis for the time being. But if (people) won't disarm voluntarily we will do (it) by other means." PIN ON LAPEL (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING (ABOUT CLOSING OF GUN MARKETS): "The whole of Somali is armed, there are big markets for weapons. And this cannot continue forever. We have to disarm." QUESTION FROM OFF: DOES THAT MEAN THAT YOU WILL CLOSE THE BIG GUN MARKETS? "Of course! Not only markets but we have to disarm individually also." YUSUF SITTING AND TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING (WHETHER HE CAN GUARANTEE SECURITY IN MOGADISHU): "Of course, yes. We are organizing, training and equipping our own security forces." HANDS (SOUNDBITE) (English) SOMALI PRESIDENT ABDULLAHI YUSUF SAYING. "Our government is born from that process. In the last two and a half years we were trying to pacify the country. But we had many many trouble makers in our own country."
  • Embargoed: 10th March 2007 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVAR5GGULRYZS91K8EMMOI45ZWS
  • Story Text: Somalia's president said on Thursday (February 22, 2007) he will hold a national reconciliation congress within weeks which will be open to all clans in the chaotic country struggling to restore order after a December war.
    "We are intending to start this congress within two, three weeks," President Abdullahi Yusuf told Reuters in an interview.
    "We will start at national level and go down to local and regional levels ... down to grassroots. Our people fought hard, we slaughtered each other ... we have to discuss how to forget and forgive."
    Somalia's transitional government, with Ethiopian airpower and armour, ran an Islamist movement out of Mogadishu in late December, ending its six-month rule of the capital and much of southern Somalia.
    The Islamists who survived scattered back to their clan areas and have vowed to fight an insurgency against the government and a planned 8,000-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping force.
    The government also faces the threat of well-armed criminal gangs and warlords who hope to regain turf lost when the Islamists took control of Mogadishu in June.
    Experts say the unrest has little chance of abating until the government reconciles with clans who feel excluded from the political process. Western diplomats have pressed Yusuf to convene a reconciliation meeting.
    Yusuf said disarmament was progressing in Mogadishu, where Ethiopian soldiers are helping the government to hold the capital amid daily mortar attacks and gunfights.
    "Disarmament has started. Up til now it is voluntary. We have completely disarmed former warlords and we will continue to disarm the population, on a voluntary basis for the time being. But if (people) won't disarm voluntarily we will do (it) by other means," he said.
    Asked whether he would close down the city's busy gun markets, Yusuf said: "Of course."
    Yusuf said Ethiopia's troops would withdraw when the African Union peacekeeping force arrived and said he was confident the Somali government could control Mogadishu without the help of its neighbour.
    "Of course, yes. We are training and equipping our own security forces," he said.
    The Ugandan, Burundian and Nigerian troops who will deploy in Somalia will be heading into a country that resisted order and authority for 16 years of anarchy since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's ouster in 1991.
    Insurgents have threatened to attack any peacekeepers who arrive in the country. But Yusuf said he believed the presence of foreign troops would not further aggravate the situation or undermine his position.
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