NAIROBI, 23 January 2005 — The Somali government yesterday described as “barbaric” the desecration of an Italian cemetery in the bullet-scarred capital of Mogadishu, saying it had sent an army general to negotiate the withdrawal of gunmen from the area.
“The area where these graves are located was given to Italy by the Somali government and is in essence its property,” Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi told a press conference in Nairobi.
Describing the relations between the two nations as “deep-rooted”, Gedi said: “These warm relations... will not be shaken by this cowardly, despicable and barbaric act and crime against humanity caused by a few opportunists.”
The gunmen under orders from religious courts dug up the cemetery in the Suka Hola neighborhood in south Mogadishu on Tuesday and threw the remains into a trash-dumping zone along the city’s southern Indian Ocean shore. Volunteers have since collected the remains and stored them at an undisclosed location. The gunmen, who still control the cemetery, allegedly wanted to clear the site of non-Islamic elements and to make way for housing to be built on the grounds. “We have assigned a superior military officer, Gen. Mohammed Nur Galal, who supports the government, to oversee the withdrawal of gunmen from the area and to start reburying,” Gedi added.
Galal, a power broker in the former regime of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre, is respected in Mogadishu for slipping into a quiet life after the latter’s ouster brought chaos to Somalia.
The Somali government, still exiled in Kenya since its formation last year, has no control over freelance gunmen in the shattered nation, equipped with a fearsome array of firearms and ready to carry out any assignment for pay.
On Friday, Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Rome’s envoy to Somalia, Francesco Lanata, visited an Italian war memorial church in central Kenya in a bid to defuse tension between the lawless country and its former colonial master.
The desecration of the colonial-era site prompted protests from Rome and Catholic church groups that demanded the return of the remains and their proper reburial.
Yusuf told the Italian news agency ANSA: “It was necessary to immediately show our outrage at this barbaric act committed in Mogadishu which is not only anti-Islamic but represents an attack on our good friend Italy.” Dozens of fractious militias have been the de facto rulers of Somalia since 1991, when a militia coalition ousted Barre and ushered in an era of anarchy.
Gunmen told residents near the cemetery in south Mogadishu that the courts ordered them to clear the site of non-Islamic elements. But a number of high-ranking court clerics have denied that.
