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No talks unless peacekeepers quit Somalia: opposition
Fri Apr 24, 2009 9:20am EDT
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By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia's hard-line opposition leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys said on Friday there would be no talks with the government until an African Union peace mission (AMISOM) quits the Horn of Africa nation.
Aweys, who is on the U.S. terrorism list for alleged links to al Qaeda, is an influential figure among Islamist insurgents fighting in the country, where about a million civilians have been driven from their homes by conflict in the last two years.
"Let AMISOM leave, then we shall have talks with our deceived friends, government officials," Aweys told a crowd of hundreds of opposition supporters gathered in Mogadishu.
He returned to the Somali capital on Thursday in his first known trip home since being ousted by an Ethiopian-led offensive in late 2006.
"AMISOM is not a peacekeeping force," he said. "They are bacteria in Somalia. Somalia has not yet reached peaceful agreement. So be patient. We are left with little time to fight and achieve our Islamic objective."
AMISOM, a 4,300-strong force of Ugandan and Burundian troops, faces near-daily rebel attacks in Mogadishu.
Aweys and the new Somali president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, headed the Islamic Courts Union which controlled Mogadishu and much of the south until Addis Ababa's December 2006 offensive.
They later split, with Aweys heading the hard-line Asmara-based Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS).
"This government is implementing the ideology we previously rejected: American and Ethiopian ideology," Aweys said on Friday. "We shall continue fighting."
AWEYS AS PEACEMAKER?
It is too early to judge whether Aweys could actually end up being a peacemaker for Somalia, one regional expert told Reuters, adding that exile in Eritrea may have mellowed him.
"The return of Aweys ... is a major boost for Sharif and his government," said Rashid Abdi, an International Crisis Group analyst for the Horn of Africa.
"If he is returning as a spoiler, then it's bad for Somalia. But if he is coming as a peacemaker, then Somalis will welcome him and who knows, he could be lifted from the (terror) list."
Abdi said Ethiopia would be keenly watching Aweys' return as he was one of the reasons it invaded Somalia in the first place.
Aweys has in the past claimed Ethiopia's remote ethnically-Somali eastern Ogaden region as Somali territory. No Ethiopian officials were immediately available to comment. Continued...
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