MOGADISHU: Somalia’s President Sharif Ahmed said yesterday he accepted a proposal by local and foreign religious leaders for a truce with Islamists and the implementation of the Shariah.
The religious leaders are trying to mediate between the government and its foes, who have ramped up their onslaught against the new president.
“I met with religious leaders and elders and accepted their demand for a cease-fire and reconciliation with the opposition members and I call on all opposition parties to halt the unnecessary violence,” Ahmed told reporters.
“The mediators asked me to introduce the Islamic Shariah in the country and I agreed,” he added.
The Shabaab militia and other Muslim fighters have waged battles against the government and its allies. At least 30 people were killed this week in the bloodiest clashes since the president was elected Jan. 31.
They have vowed to fight on until all foreign forces in Somalia withdraw and the Shariah is imposed. The African Union peacekeepers, whom they have also repeatedly attacked, are the only foreign troops in the country after Ethiopian soldiers pulled out last month.
“We asked the president to implement the Islamic Shariah in the country and accept mediation,” said Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, chairman of Somalia’s Union of Islamic Scholars. “He agreed and we hope this will end the violence in the country.”
The proposal to introduce the Shariah would have to be ratified by Parliament.
The president also said that the government had relocated to Mogadishu from neighboring Djibouti, which hosted United Nations-brokered talks that led to his election. The new government, which comprises 36 ministers, began work yesterday, Ahmed said.
“We hope all differences will be resolved peacefully,” Ahmed told journalists at a news conference at the presidential palace. The president declined to give any other details about the truce.
Islamic Party spokesman Sheikh Muse Abdi Arale said his group respects the elders and things are moving in the right direction.
“Elders are making efforts to end the hostilities in Mogadishu and the sides have accepted and welcomed our effort,” Ahmed Diriye Ali, one of the mediators, told The Associated Press.
The president said his government has asked the AU peacekeeping force to keep away from residential areas when it makes any counteroffensives after coming under attack, “so that we can save civilian lives.”
“AU troops are here to help us and once we restore order and can do without them, we will ask them to leave,” Ahmed said.
The United Nations yesterday urged Somalis living abroad to condemn violent insurgents and support Ahmed’s new administration. In an open letter to the Somali diaspora, UN envoy Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah said the return of ministers to Mogadishu proved progress toward peace was being made faster than most Somalis or the international community had dared hope.
“Please tell those wanting Somalia to remain a divided country at the bottom of the heap to stop and focus on the peace process, on themselves, on their families and people to whom they bring only misery,” Ould-Abdallah said.
More than 16,000 civilians have been killed in Somalia’s two-year-old insurgency, one million have been driven from their homes, more than a third of the population depend on aid, and large parts of the capital lie empty and ruined by shellfire.
