Envoy urges less haste in finalising peace accord

The ambassador of Somalia to the UN has stressed that peace in Somalia will depend on whether Somalis really want a deal and whether the international community will be able to support the outcome of the peace talks currently underway in Kenya. Ahmed Abdi Hashi told IRIN that any peace deal on establishing an all-inclusive government should be reached by consensus among all the delegates. “It should be a transparent, power-sharing agreement that can be enforced,” he stated. He also warned of the dangers of implementing an accord without complete, simultaneous disarmament throughout the country. “There should be a commitment by the AU [African Union] to organise a peacekeeping mission for Somalia,” he said. “We suffer from the continued neglect of the international community.” Hashi expressed concern that the facilitators of the peace talks were trying to “rush the process”. Kenya, under the chairmanship of Ambassador Bethwel Kiplagat, is hosting the talks which are steered by a technical committee made up of Somalia’s neighbours – Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti – under the auspices of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD). Some members of the TNG, including President Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, have expressed their opposition to a peace deal, signed on 5 July, describing it as an attempt to "dismember Somalia". The accord, signed by the opposition Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC), the G8 faction leaders, and some members of the TNG, is supposed to be incorporated into an interim charter to govern the country. According to sources in IGAD, it was signed by all "relevant groups" who agreed that it was a "compromise" document from two opposing viewpoints. Hashi believes that the issue of representation, along clan lines, at the talks "continues to plague" the conference and has "raised political temperatures". “We are grateful to Kenya as the moderator,” he said. “But if the process is rushed, any agreement will unravel, Somalia will fall apart, and no-one will touch it again.”