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African Summit Marks Somalia's Comeback
By Juliette Hollier-Larousse
NAIROBI (AFP) – Somalia, for the first time since 1991, will attend a summit meeting of a prominent African grouping, the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), at its eighth such gathering in Khartoum this week.
Somalia' seat at the summit will be filled by transitional President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, who was appointed by a national assembly set up during a reconciliation conference sponsored by Djibouti and backed by IGAD.
For most of the 1990s, Somalia had no president or central government. Instead, a variety of warlords carved up the country into personal fiefdoms, frequently battling with rivals.
The summit begins in the Sudanese capital on Thursday, in the absence of Daniel Arap Moi and Yoweri Museveni, the presidents of Kenya and Uganda, both IGAD member states.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, there will be a meeting of foreign ministers of the seven member states: Djibouti, Kenya, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Djibouti and Sudan have officially recognized Salat as president of Somalia.
There is, however, fierce opposition to Somalia's new institutions from warlords and leaders of the northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland, which have respectively declared independence and autonomy from Somalia proper.
Accordingly, the new government is keep to solicit as much support as possible from IGAD and its member states. Last week, Salat traveled to the Ethiopian capital, where he obtained a degree of backing from the government.
Addis Ababa described the Djibouti initiative as a "major achievement" that "needs to be completed by bringing into the peace process the other Somali parties that did not participate at the conference."
A week earlier, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi received Somaliland's "president", Mohamed Ibrahim Egal.
On Monday, Somali Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh met in Nairobi with Moi, who is frequently in touch with Somalia's faction leaders.
While falling short of overtly recognizing Somalia's institutions, the Kenyan president welcomed the "reconstruction of a government" in Somalia.
He went on to stress, however, that "peace and security... should be the commitment of all leaders."
Kenya "has no objection in Somalia joining international and regional organizations or re-establishing an embassy in Nairobi," said Moi.
According to a source close to Galaydh, "most IGAD members have shown their willingness to back Somalia's participation in the summit."
Eritrea has expressed its backing, said the source, noting that Uganda was the only IGAD member not to have made any comment.
Aside from Somalia, the meeting is also expected to focus on the civil war in Sudan, where IGAD is mediating between the Khartoum government and rebels in the south.
The thawing of relations between Sudan and three of its neighbors, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Uganda, seems to have facilitated the organization this summit.
Among those expected in Khartoum are President Issaias Afeworki of Eritrea and Ethiopia's Meles. These neighboring states have been observing a ceasefire since June, after two years of war.
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