Sunday, March 22, 2009
MOGADISHU (Xinhua) -- An Islamic clerics group which support the Somali government have joined wide opposition against Somali government's request for the deployment of further African Union peacekeepers, the group's leader said Sunday.
Somali Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdulahi Oomar on Friday requested the United Nations Security Council to support the deployment of further three battalions from Uganda and Burundi, to reinforce the nearly 3,400 peacekeepers from the two countries now based in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad, chairman of the Somali Islamic Scholars Association, said Somali Islamic scholars were "unanimously opposed" to any further deployment of foreign forces in Somalia.
The scholars' group, which previously recommended to the Somali government that the African Union peacekeepers be sent back to their respective countries, is one of the staunchest supporters of the new government dominated by moderate Islamists.
"The scholars were surprised to learn that the government was requesting for more troops when what we expected of it was to send those already here back to their countries because that was our recommendation to the government," Sheikh Salad said at news conference in Mogadishu.
The influential Council of the Hawiye Clan Elders, have also condemned the request and demanded that the Somali government rescind from such a request.
Ahmed Diriye, spokesman for the council told local media that the call from the Somali Minister was "counter-productive and does not serve the interest of the national reconciliation process".
"We had an understanding with the government that it will not request more troops because the Somali people do not want foreign forces on our land, and because that is the justification for further violence in the country which we do not want. We can now do without foreign forces in our country," Diriye said.
The deployment of further peacekeeping troops in Somalia is a contentious issue because opposition groups have been using it as a rally cause in their fight against the AU peacekeepers in Somalia and, before their withdrawal in January, the Ethiopian troops were seen by many Somalis as enemy forces.
Local civil society groups and one opposition faction, Hezbul Islam, have also opposed the Somali government's call for the deployment of further peacekeepers in Somalia and they demanded that those already in Somalia be withdrawn.
Source: Xinhua, Mar 22, 2009