As Its Lawmakers Squabble Abroad, Somalia Suffers
NAIROBI, Kenya — The Somali government is not to be found in the chaotic, gun- infested streets of the capital city, Mogadishu, but in the marbled lobbies and plush hotel rooms of this foreign capital.
Somalia has survived the 14 years since it plunged into civil war without any central government. Successive efforts to create one have failed. Somalis now are trying once more, and the effort is again being plagued by internal feuding.
Several deadlines to relocate the government from Kenya to Somalia have come and gone. On Thursday, two years into the latest effort, Somali parliament members based in Kenya punched and smashed chairs and walking sticks into one another during a row over whether foreign peacekeepers should be deployed in their country.
The divisions deepened Monday when 10 government ministers walked out before a Cabinet vote that called for another city to become the capital temporarily because Mogadishu was too unsafe.
Somalia erupted into civil war in the early 1990s, and in 1993, 18 U.S. Army Rangers, part of a mission to enable humanitarian aid, were killed in a battle with the militia of warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid. His son, Hussein Mohammed Aidid, is one of the leading figures in the new government.
In the years of war and chaos, the country has been torn into small fiefdoms controlled by rival warlords, all with armed militias.
In October, a parliament meeting in Nairobi elected a president, who in turn appointed a prime minister. In January, the prime minister named a Cabinet consisting mainly of warlords. But despite international support for this latest peace process, there are increasing doubts as to whether the government can hold together. Many fear that if the effort collapses, it will be a long time before the international community is willing to invest in another push for peace.
Pessimism has grown because of the government's slowness to relocate to Somalia, the failure of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi to visit Mogadishu during a recent trip to the country and bitter disagreements over whether to allow peacekeepers from neighboring countries.
There are four big clans in Somalia and various smaller clans and sub-clans. The fighting and rivalries run along clan lines, and loyalties run deep. A person's clan is the basis of his identity and defines his home territory.
