Somali president seeks asylum

Jan 23, 2009

FORMER Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed wants to relocate to either Uganda or Ethiopia or to a country in the Middle East, the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, told the parliamentary committee on defence yesterday.

By Joyce Namutebi

FORMER Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed wants to relocate to either Uganda or Ethiopia or to a country in the Middle East, the Chief of Defence Forces, Gen. Aronda Nyakairima, told the parliamentary committee on defence yesterday.

Yusuf resigned on December 29, 2008 after having failed to sack Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein.

The speaker of the transitional parliament, Sheik Adan Madobe Mohamed, became the acting president.

Reports by AFP say Yusuf has been granted political asylum by Yemen.

“The president of Yemen granted Somalia’s president the right of political asylum last night,” the source told AFP on Wednesday.

Nyakairima did not tell the committee whether Uganda is willing to grant Yusuf asylum, but said the former president had said he would not become an obstacle to the dialogue that was going on in Somalia.

He was responding to concerns raised by MPs on Uganda’s presence in Somalia. Nyakairima and defence minister Dr. Crispus Kiyonga had appeared to brief the committee chaired by Mathias Kasamba (NRM) about the LRA and the operations in the DR Congo, Somalia and the overall security situation.

Somalia should have a new president by January 29, according to Kiyonga. He said Somali leaders were gathering in Djibouti to take appropriate steps to elect the president.

Kiyonga said Uganda had lost 10 soldiers and 12 others seriously injured in the two years the troops have been in Somalia.

The UPDF was deployed in Somalia on March 6, 2007 under AMISOM and it has been joined by troops from Burundi. The Ethiopian National Defence Forces withdrew from Mogadishu on January 15.

“That obviously left a big security gap,” said Kiyonga.

He said President Yoweri Museveni had consultations with his colleagues in IGAD and the African Union and also contacted the UN Secretary General and made it clear that “we still had a duty in Somalia.”

“He indicated our troops could stay on with AMISOM provided there was a broad-based government in Somalia, the mandate of AMISOM was renewed and further clarified, and that AMISOM was appropriately supported with resources.”

Nyakairima said by the time Ethiopia pulled out they were remaining with only two battalions in Somalia. He added that Uganda and Burundi would contribute one battalion each to replace the Ethiopians.

On where the troops will come from he said: “We will be rotating the earlier battalion that was there it still has its equipment. There is no extra cost.”
Kiyonga said the Ugandan troops have in a big way lived up to their mandate in Somalia.

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