|
Somalia agrees to troops
22/05/2006 21:25 - (SA)
Nairobi - Somalia's cabinet has approved a
plan to allow peacekeepers into the country, a contentious
issue at the heart of a paralysing rift in the government.
The decision, made on Sunday in the temporary government
headquarters in Baidoa, was approved by all 34 cabinet members
who were present. The remaining eight ministers, including four
Mogadishu warlords who oppose the plan, did not attend.
Those four warlords are busy in a growing battle with
Islamist militias - who also oppose foreign peacekeepers - for
control of the capital Mogadishu, which has killed at least 250
people in three bouts of fighting since February.
"The national security plan, which in part includes the
deployment of peacekeepers to Somalia, was endorsed by the
cabinet yesterday," government spokesperson Abdirahman Dinari told
Reuters by phone from Baidoa.
The peacekeepers would come from Sudan and Uganda. Arms embargo
The deployment requires UN security council approval,
because it would involve an exemption from an arms embargo in
place since 1992. It also requires parliamentary approval.
A widely disregarded arms embargo prevents troops from moving there with their weapons and the
United States has promised to veto any embargo waiver for
foreign peacekeepers.
The last time the interim government's parliament voted on
the peacekeeper proposal, lawmakers brawled and threw chairs at
a posh Nairobi hotel in a fracas captured on video and broadcast
around the world.
Somalia has been without a central government since the 1991
ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre by warlords, who have
since maintained a state of anarchy with perpetual turf battles
across the nation of 10 million.
|
News
