Posted on 09/06/2006 3:41:54 AM PDT by Flavius
MOGADISHU • Anarchic Somalia lurched toward long-elusive stability after a interim accord between powerful Islamists and the weak government, but plans for regional peacekeepers appeared in tatters.
As Islamist and government leaders savoured their less-than 24-hour old deal, reached at Arab League-mediated talks in Sudan, east African leaders hastily cancelled a summit in Kenya called to discuss the proposed force.
And in Mogadishu, thousands of Muslims rallied against the mission, vowing that Somalia would become a “graveyard” for any soldiers sent by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad).
Around 7,000 demonstrators gathered in the capital to denounce any deployment of Igad peacekeepers, which had been requested by the transtitional government and endorsed by the African Union but vehemently opposed by the Islamists.
“We will not accept foreign troops in Somalia,” they yelled in the rally called by the city’s Islamic courts. “We shall fight against Igad troops.”
“If they forcefully deploy, graveyards of the Igad troops will litter Somalia,” said senior cleric Sheikh Omar Iman Abubakar of the Supreme Islamic Council of Somalia (SICS). “We will never allow a single soldier from a foreign country into our country,” he told the angry crowd. “We will fight against them until death.” Igad, which groups Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Sudan and nominally Somalia, has had much-postponed plans to deploy about 8,000 soldiers to support the Somali government. But the mission has split the bloc, notably with arch-foes Ethiopia and Eritrea, who are accused of supporting the rival Somali sides, taking opposite positions: Addis Ababa in favour and Asmara opposed.
And, the accord signed late on Monday in Khartoum between the administration and the newly dominant Islamists calls for the formation of a unified national army and police force and denounces all foreign interference in Somalia. The deal, which calls for power-sharing talks to begin at the end of October, made no mention of the peacekeeping mission but appeared to take Igad leaders by surprise as they prepared to meet in Nairobi.
Only three heads of state or government turned up—host President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia and Somalia’s interim president Abdullahi Yusuf Mohamed. The planned summit was then hastily transformed into a closed-door meeting on how to deal with the new developments, according to Kenyan officials who spent two days in talks with the Islamists preparing for the gathering.
But those talks ended with no change in the Islamists’ vehement opposition to the Igad force, which had been actively supported by the government, at least until the Khartoum agreement
Somali islamofacists deserve a serious killing.
Why don't we send Clinton and Carter there to fix it?
Another Islam-spawned war. What a surprise.
Multiculturalism. Right. When the islamofacists get their hands on our soft-headed multi-culturalists, there will be a lot of soft heads lying mushy all over the ground.
are you saying that islamic lands are not sensitive to other peoples feelings
or does one just get a rug and blanket for the wife upon entry in that paradise world
Although I've never been there this seems like a hell hole with nothing but dirty sand holding millions of people who's job is to procreate replace the ones they cannot feed - truly sad.
Clinton already gave it his best shot. I say we just relocate the entire UN Headquarters to the Mog.
Pretty close to how I imagine the place.
Hell on earth.
Not at all, our cowardly multiculturealists have finally found the ultimate in diversity, joy, the exact 180 of the American culture and are busy picking out their new Muslim names. Better to convert than lose one's head.
I think a lot of them don't think about converting. They think only of how much they hate America, capitalism and true individual liberty.
Like chickens squawking in the barnyard, they're not thinking past the next handful of leftist feed. I believe that for most of them, if they really ever took the time to sit down and think about the true consequences of the aid and comfort they are giving to the islamofacist enemy, they would have second thoughts.
The key word here, however, is think. They can take the time. They can take the time to sit down. But they seem congenitally unable to think.
Here's a must-read book that includes a bit on the mess in Somalia in
the 1990s:
"Out Of America"
by Keith Richburg
In the opinion of the writer (on assignment for The Washington Post)
at the time, the whole mess was a $3 billion fiasco.
And the writer had been in favor of intervention at the start of the
food crisis.
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