New government line-up grapples with Afar question

President Ismael Omar Guelleh has set up the second government of his six-year tenure by appointing a 20-member cabinet, which includes five new arrivals. Despite much speculation, however, the new arrivals do not include members from the former radical wing of the Afar-led Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD), which recently signed a long-awaited peace agreement with Guelleh, local sources told IRIN. As well as cold-shouldering the radical Afar group, the new line-up has also pushed aside Ali Muhammad Daoud, chairman of the moderate wing of FRUD. The moderate wing of FRUD is a grouping that gave up the armed struggle to sign a peace agreement on 26 December 1994. But while no radical FRUD members made it into the new government, four of the five new members of government are ethnic Afars. They include a member of the moderate wing of FRUD, Ismael Ibrahim Houmed, who becomes minister of justice. On 12 May 2001, former FRUD rebel leader Ahmed Dini signed a peace accord, which was seen as marking the end of a decade of political unrest and insurgency in the Afar-inhabited northern and southwestern regions of Djibouti. Humanitarian agencies said it would give a chance to "open up" the remote and underdeveloped north, where the population has suffered from war and political marginalisation. After the signing of the agreement, the two sides refused to give details of its contents, but Dini told journalists that it was centred on "decentralisation". He said the government had agreed to the setting up of more representative local bodies, and had promised to introduce "an unrestricted multiparty system" by September. Djibouti's current multiparty apparatus is confined to only four registered parties, which include the ruling Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progres, and the moderate wing of FRUD. At the time, Dini did not rule out the possibility that some senior members of his organisation might join the Djibouti government in the next cabinet reshuffle. The new members are of the government are, Justice Minister Ismael Ibrahim Houmed; Otban Goita Moussa, Minister for Youth and Sports; Dr Mohamed Ali Kamil, Minister of Health; Interior Minister Abdulkadir Doualeh Waiss; and Minister of State for International Cooperation Mahamoud Ali Youssouf.