Diplomats pledge support to Somali president as PM says dissolution of Cabinet ‘illegal’

Diplomats support embattled Somali president

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The international community pledged support for the Somali president Tuesday after he dissolved the Cabinet to overcome divisions that have paralyzed his administration in the face of an al-Qaida linked Islamist insurgency.

Fears that Somalia would become a base for terrorists and its dire humanitarian situation have already led donors to pledge millions of dollars to train 2,000 Somali soldiers, fund a 5,300-strong African Union peacekeeping mission and deliver aid required by nearly half the population.

“The President can count on the backing of the United Nations and the international community at this present juncture,” said the United Nations special representative for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah in a late Monday statement.

The dissolution of the government is a litmus test of whether President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a former Islamist fighter, can reform his administration to overcome deep divisions dating from its inception as a power-sharing alliance over a year ago.

The U.N.-backed government currently only controls a few city blocks in the capital of Mogadishu and has failed to deliver either security or services to its people.

The current turmoil is an opportunity for the president to remove some of those working against him, said one senior Nairobi-based Western diplomat who he spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

He repeated the pledges of support for President Ahmed, who he said had been hamstrung by the requirement to include several potential rivals in his original power-sharing government to ensure they didn’t wreck it. The diplomat added that some countries were discussing imposing targeted sanctions on those identified as opposing the Cabinet shake-up.

Among those who are unhappy is Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, the former prime minister, who held a news conference Tuesday to call the president’s decision “illegal” and insist he still held office.

The Somali transitional charter says the president may dismiss the Cabinet and prime minister if the government fails to obtain the required vote of confidence from Parliament. It does not say whether he may or may not dismiss the prime minister without such a vote.

Somalia is on its 15th attempt at a government since the country dissolved into civil war nearly 20 years ago. Previous temporary administrations have mostly dissolved in bickering, violence or irrelevance.

Part of the problem has been inconsistent levels of support from the international community, said Abdirahman Badiyo, a history professor at Mogadishu University.

“This government is doomed to fail. It can barely survive for few more months if the international community does not provide it with enough financial and technical support,” he said. “When the government was formed it was like a baby in an incubator. But the international community failed to bring it out of that incubator.”

The government’s dependence on the international community helps opposition groups who say it is a puppet of the West.

“Governments that depend on the international community’s support but lack local recognition will hardly achieve peace or succeed. The recognition should come from the Somali people,” said Zakariye Haji Mohamoud of the Eritrea-based opposition Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia.

Associated Press Writers Malkhadir M. Muhumed and Katharine Houreld reported from Nairobi, Kenya