Somali Opposition Convenes in Asmara

MISNA
6 September 2007

The Conference of members of the Somali opposition, including leaders of the Islamic Courts, politicians that left the transitional government, civil society representatives and numerous figures of the Somali Diaspora from around the world, opens today in Asmara, Eritrea. Originally set for last weekend, the conference was postponed for logistic problems. The organisers referred that the meeting, named the Somali Congress for Liberation and Reconstitution, will focus on “how to create national unity and reconciliation among the Somali people, in order to stop the violence caused by the foreign occupation”.

The organising committee anticipated that at the end of the Congress the participants will present “a new political platform to serve the national interests of Somalia”. Today’s meeting in Asmara was planned as a sort of counter-assembly organised by all parts excluded from the Somali peace and reconciliation conference wanted by the transitional government and international community, which concluded last week in Mogadishu. Marred by the absence of nearly all protagonists of the anti-government front, the Mogadishu conference, with six weeks of debates, did not in fact produce the desired results. The Asmara conference, on the other hand, aims to create an opposition coalition of the vast front contrary to the administration of the Somali transitional federal government (TFG) in power since December 2006, when backed by Ethiopian troops it ousted the Islamic Courts and seized control of the country.