NAIROBI, 20 March 2005 — Kenyan police said yesterday they had arrested a powerful Somali warlord and two members of Somalia’s exiled parliament after a bloody brawl on Thursday among MPs over the deployment of regional peacekeepers in the shattered country.
Warlord Musa Sudi Yalahow, who is also the Somali transitional government trade minister, was arrested in the Kenyan capital along with lawmakers Hussein Harale Adow and Maalim Mahamoud Mohammed, a police official said.
The official, who asked not be named, said the three were arrested on suspicion of involvement and incitement in Thursday’s fighting in the Somali parliament that left several people injured.
“We are investigating whether they were involved in the fighting. We are still pursuing others,” the officer said. The three were arrested after injured lawmakers lodged complaints.
The fighting broke out after more than 200 MPs gathered to debate the hotly contested issue of whether or not troops from Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya should participate in the force that is to be deployed by the regional InterGovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
Television footage showed soberly-dressed lawmakers punching each other and hurling seats, books, tables and drinking glasses in all directions in the incident that observers said deepened divisions among the fractious Somalis.
The chief mediator of the lengthy Somali peace process, Bethuel Kiplagat, said the three would be released if the complaints are withdrawn.
“If the complainants decide to drop the charges, then of course they will be released. The police hands are tied,” Kiplagat said, explaining that he would try to broker peace between the warring sides.
Somali government officials were unreachable for comment.
The warlords, including Yalahow, had opposed the inclusion of troops from the three countries in the peace mission that will help the Somali government relocate from Kenya, where it has been since it was formed several months ago.
Somali parliamentary speaker Sheikh Hassan Shariff Aden and Kenya’s ambassador to the Horn of Africa country, Mohammed Affey, were trying yesterday to secure freedom for the detainees.
Another warlord, Osman Ali Ato, said he had gone into hiding after receiving information that police were pursuing him.
“I have heard that they are looking for me too. Yalahow and I were not involved,” Ato said.
Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, his Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi, the cabinet and parliament are still in Kenya owing to insecurity in their homeland, despite their professed intention to return to Somalia.
The Horn of Africa nation has been in chaos and without any functioning central authority since the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 turned the nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by warlords.
On Friday, ministers from IGAD comprising, Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia and nominally Somalia announced that Uganda and Sudan would send the first peacekeepers.
Details are, however, still being worked out.
Hardline Islamic clerics, who exert considerable influence in the country, have vowed to oppose the whole deployment with militants warning that they would attack the forces.
Previous international attempts to secure peace in Somalia have failed with UN and US forays between 1993 and 1995 ending with their missions being sucked into inter-clan fighting that still rages on.
The clashes culminated in the death of about 140 UN peacekeepers, several US special forces members and thousands of Somalis.
