Somali ministers resign to help peace talks

By Guled Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Eighteen Somali ministers and other
top officials quit the interim government on Thursday and
lawmakers moved to oust the prime minister, in moves intended
to draw rival Islamists into peace talks and avert war.

Government sources said the maneuvers could open the way
for Islamists to take ministerial posts.

Power-sharing is seen as the best way to stop a descent
into war in the Horn of Africa nation.

The Islamists took Mogadishu in June and control a swathe
of the south, threatening the authority of a government set up
in 2004. It was the 14th attempt to restore central rule since
the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

In a consolidation of their power in Mogadishu, Islamist
militia on Thursday took over one of the city’s most famous
buildings, a Barre-era presidential palace called Villa
Somalia. It had been held by gunmen loyal to a defeated
warlord.

The Islamists inaugurated a new sharia tribunal, the
“Presidential Palace Islamic Court,” at the bullet-scarred,
hilltop mansion. Former fighters for the warlord joined
Islamist ranks, and an arsenal of weapons was handed over.

Lawmakers said a vote of no confidence in Prime Minister
Ali Mohamed Gedi had been presented to the parliamentary
speaker and would be debated on Saturday in Baidoa, seat of the
Western-backed interim authorities.

The list of high-level resignations included seven
ministers, seven assistant ministers and four state ministers.

“We have decided to vacate all the seats for the Khartoum
talks,” outgoing state minister of parliament and government
relations Abdirahman Haji Adan told Reuters.

The two sides held one round of talks in the Sudanese
capital last month before negotiations broke down. A new round
is slated for early next month.

ETHIOPIA LINK

Ahmed Abdirahman Mohamed, outgoing Assistant Minister for
Higher Education, said the government had compromised itself by
becoming too close to Ethiopia, which is believed to have sent
troops into Somalia to curb the Islamist expansion.

“(The government) was taking orders from Addis Ababa.
Somalis now have an opportunity to reconstitute their
government,” he told Reuters from Baidoa.

Regional diplomats believe offering the prime ministership
and some other ministerial posts to the Islamists could be the
only way to save a peace deal reached in 2004 in neighboring
Kenya.

But there is no guarantee the Islamists will accept such an
overture. Nor is it clear how long it might take to thrash out
a deal.

“The (no confidence) motion is supported and even funded by
Islamists who want to take the position once talks with the
government commence in Khartoum,” a government source said.

The government’s interim charter says that once a vote of
no confidence is passed against a prime minister, the president
is required to appoint a new one within 30 days.

The government boycotted the second round of peace talks
with Islamists in Khartoum this month in protest at alleged
violations of a pact against military expansion.

On the other side, the Islamists’ leader, hardline cleric
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, has ruled out a meeting unless
Ethiopia stops its “invasion” of Somalia.

“We don’t care who is removed and who remains in the
government. Our only worry is Ethiopia and until they get out,
we will not rest,” Aweys told Reuters on Thursday.

Ethiopia denies sending troops and on Thursday accused
neighbor and foe Eritrea of supplying arms to the Islamists,
including in a plane that landed in Mogadishu on Wednesday.

“Eritrea’s action … could escalate into violence in the
region,” said Information Ministry spokesman Zemedhun Tekle.

(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)