MOGADISHU, 10 July 2005 — Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf has begun recruiting members for a security force to protect his new administration, despite angry opposition from powerful warlords in his Cabinet, officials said yesterday.
“It (recruitment) is officially starting today all over the country,” said presidential spokesman Yusuf Ismail Baribari. “It is a friendly force that will protect the civilians and embark on social needs such as road construction and water supply.” Recruits will be screened and trained before they are enlisted in the police force, prisons or the army, he said. Yusuf’s Transitional Federal Government marks the 14th attempt to re-establish government in lawless Somalia since 1991, when a coalition of warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and the country descended into anarchy.
Formed after peace talks last year, the faction-riven interim administration was initially based in Kenya. Yusuf returned to Somalia on July 1, basing his government temporarily in Jowhar, 90 kms (56 miles) north of the capital, Mogadishu, which remains too dangerous. He has said he will recruit and train militiamen to defend his government pending the arrival of regional peacekeepers.
But warlords in Mogadishu, some of them government members, have threatened to attack Jowhar if Yusuf takes troops there.
Rising tensions in the Horn of Africa country, which has been subject to a UN arms embargo since 1992, have prompted international donors to ask Somalis to refrain from hostilities.
Mohamud Abdullahi Jama, a Somali member of Parliament, said the government’s recruitment plans would further deepen rifts in Yusuf’s Cabinet and accused the president of recruiting only those who support him.
“We regard that as most unfortunate. What Somalia needs is reconciliation and peace,” said Jama, who belongs to a faction that insists Yusuf’s government should be based in Mogadishu, as stipulated in an interim constitution. But Baribari defended the government’s plans, saying the new force was not aimed at provoking a fight but to protect civilians and boost peace in the whole of Somalia. “It is normal for every country in this world to have a national security force. It is a positive step forward,” he said by telephone from Somalia. Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi traveled yesterday to the town of Galkayo, some 735 km north of Mogadishu, to meet the president and discuss the security situation in the country, officials said.
