Somali lawmakers reject troops, then fight
Posted on Thu, Mar. 17, 2005
RODRIQUE NGOWI

Associated Press


NAIROBI, Kenya - Somali lawmakers-in-exile fought each other with clubs, chairs and walking sticks Thursday after a hotly disputed vote rejecting the use of troops from neighboring countries in a force planned to secure a transitional government in Somalia.

Television footage showed Kenyan police intervening to stop the turmoil in the hotel where the lawmakers voted. Some legislators were later seen with head wounds as police confiscated clubs.

Some of the lawmakers had reacted angrily to the speaker of parliament's decision to allow lawmakers to vote by a show of hands instead of a secret ballot.

The contentious motion that was rejected would have allowed participation of troops from neighboring countries in a proposed regional peace support mission in Somalia.

Somalia has been without a central government since clan-based warlords overthrew the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. They then turned on each other, sinking the Horn of Africa nation of 7 million into anarchy.

Somalia's government and parliament are based in Kenya because the Somali capital, Mogadishu, is considered unsafe.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi denounced the vote as unconstitutional and accused powerful warlords-turned-Cabinet ministers and their allies of sabotaging efforts to restore order in Somalia.

"Warlords who sabotaged previous attempts to bring peace in Somalia are back again," Gedi told reporters.

Somali ministers, Islamic clerics, some residents and the U.S. State Department have warned that sending troops from neighboring countries would derail fragile efforts to end a 14-year civil war in the Horn of Africa nation.

Demonstrators and faction leaders in Somalia have repeatedly warned that they are prepared to shed blood if troops from neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya are deployed as part of the interim force that will go to Somalia ahead of a fuller African Union peacekeeping force.