Warlord calls for landmine ban

2002-11-01 20:07

Kenya - Somali faction leader Hussein Mohamed Aidid on Friday urged rival warlords in Somalia to agree to a total ban on the use of landmines.

"I urge the Somali factions, which signed a peace deal at the weekend, to end the decade-old civil war in Somalia, to end the use of landmines to prove that they are against all kinds of violence," Aidid said in an interview on Friday.

"I am making a humane appeal for an end to the use of landmines, as women and children are prime victims," Aidid said, pointing out: "It has brought terrible human losses to nomads in the war-affected areas."

Aidid denied allegations by other warlords that he is among leaders of Somalia's warring factions that have received landmine consignments from neighbouring Ethiopia in the past several years.

"I swear it is not a bluff, my faction never used and will not not use landmines in future, as they have killed or maimed many Somalis and left scary memories in their minds that will not go away," Aidid said.

Landmine victims need expensive and specialised medical treatment, which is unaffordable in Somalia, Aidid said.

"A poor child whose limbs are blown off by a landmine can't have plastic surgery," Aidid said.

"If a child's smiling face is destroyed once by a landmine, it would be difficult to give back his or her natural beauty and strength."

He said the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) gives little help to landmine victims in Somalia.

Aidid, a US citizen and a former corporal in the US marines reserves, is chairperson of the United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance (USC/SNA) faction.

He is also co-president of the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), a grouping of Somali warlords established in Ethiopia in 2001 and opposed to the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG).

Aidid said tens of thousands of people have died because of landmines since 1977, when Ethiopia and Somalia went to war over Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden region.

"It is a pity that some factions use landmines in their fiefdoms at main entrance gates and in most highways to force commuters to use roads controlled by their fighters," Aidid said, without naming any faction.

However, the remark was probably a reference to the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RRA) and TNG fighters, who plant landmines on the edges of their territory to enable them to collect hefty taxes in the southern Wanlaweyn district of Lower Shabelle region.

Somalia has not had a fully functional government and has been ruled by clan warlords since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in January 1991.

Weapons of all kinds, including landmines, can be purchased freely at Mogadishu's weapons' markets, such as Bakara, while thousands more are imported into the country by the major clan and sub-clan warlords.

Aid agencies have removed landmines from parts of Somalia, mainly in the breakaway Republic of Somaliland, which seceded from the rest of Somalia five months after Barre was ousted. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA