Weekly Bulletin of IRIN Radio Service (August 22nd, 2002)

IGAD MINISTERS TO MEET ON SOMALI PEACE PROCESS Foreign ministers of Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya are to meet shortly in Kenya, possibly as early as Friday, to prepare the upcoming Somali peace conference. The meeting in Kenya was originally scheduled for last week. The three countries have been mandated by regional body IGAD to take the lead in preparing for the Somali reconciliation conference. The ministerial meeting is expected to discuss the report of an IGAD technical committee that recently visited Somalia. A source involved in the Somali peace process told IRIN that the ministers were also expected to discuss the number of participants to be invited to the conference, and set a definitive date for it. Kenyan Foreign Minister Marsden Madoka told the press last week that the peace conference would take place in the Kenyan town of Eldoret on September 16th and last two weeks. However, the conference has been subject to continual postponements. The technical committee, comprising members from the same three front-line states, has been charged with drawing up the terms of reference of the peace conference, determining the criteria for participation, and deciding on the number of participants. RESERVATIONS ON PEACE CONFERENCE The chief of cabinet of Puntland leader Col Abdullahi Yusuf told IRIN on Tuesday Puntland was worried that the upcoming Somali peace conference in Kenya was being rushed. Isma'il Warsame said there should be thorough preparations if the conference was to succeed. He said the regional body IGAD, which is organizing the conference, should also send more missions to Somalia to explain about the conference, and that it should involve all civil society groups. Warsame also expressed concern that the criteria for participation were not clear. This comes as Mogadishu-based faction leaders also expressed what they called serious reservations about how the conference was being prepared, including the fact that the faction leaders had not been consulted. Muhammad Qanyare Afrah, speaking also on behalf of faction leaders Usman Hasan Ali Ato, Umar Mahmud Finish and Mawlid Ma'ane, said there must be agreement on participation and on the goals of the conference if it was to succeed. KILLING OF TRADITIONAL ELDER WAS UNINTENTIONAL, SAYS PUNTLAND The killing of a traditional elder in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland was accidental, Isma'il Warsame, chief of cabinet of the Puntland leader Col Abdullahi Yusuf, told IRIN on Monday. Sultan Ahmad Mahmud Muhammad, better known as Sultan Hurreh, had opposed Abdullahi Yusuf. Warsame said Sultan Hurreh had died in a shoot-out between his guards and security forces who were trying to arrest him for association with extremist elements. The Puntland leader’s chief of cabinet told IRIN his death was unintentional, and that the Puntland authorities regretted it had happened. However, a journalist eyewitness, who requested anonymity, told IRIN that the killing of Sultan Hurreh had been deliberate. The source said militia opened fire on Sultan Hurreh, and that his guards did not put up any resistance as they were surrounded. SEAFARERS RIGHTS GROUP CALLS FOR INTERVENTION ON SOMALIA A seafarers rights group on Wednesday called for immediate international intervention to free six Georgian seamen held by armed militia in Somalia’s Puntland region, according to Agence France Presse. A spokesman for the Seafarers Assistance Programme said in Mombasa that the lives of the captives were increasingly in danger. He said he had information that the crewmembers were being held in various locations in the coastal village of Bareda, near Bossaso, and that their captors were threatening to kill them unless a six hundred thousand dollar ransom was paid. The seamen were taken captive on July 30th when their Panamanian-registered tanker was hijacked. Last month a Greek insurance agency covering acts of war said it paid four hundred thousand dollars ransom to free 23 crewmembers of a Cyprus-registered vessel. The International Maritime Bureau has warned ships to steer clear of Somalia’s waters because of increased piracy incidents. RACISM ON THE RISE, SAYS UN EXPERT Racism is on the rise, while tougher anti-immigration measures give the impression that an iron curtain is falling between the North and South of the planet, says a United Nations human rights expert. In a report this week, Maurice Glèlè-Ahanhanzo of Benin links rising xenophobia and anti-Semitism to the success of extreme right parties in some countries. He says it may also be the consequence of the terrorist attacks of September 11th, which seem to have engendered a stigmatization of Muslims and Arabs, seen as hand in glove with the terrorists. The report says numerous allegations point to rigorous treatment awaiting travellers from countries of the South in the consulates of the North, extreme selectiveness in granting visas, and frequent instances of racial profiling in the airports of the latter countries.