|
Hundreds
of people took to the streets of Somalia's central town of
Baidoa on Saturday to demonstrate against Djibouti President
Ismail Omar Guelleh's peace proposals for Somalia, witnesses
said.
The demonstrators
marched through the main roads of Baidoa, 250 kilometres (156
miles) west of Mogadishu, chanting slogans accusing Gueleh's
plan of being irrelevant to the Digil-Mirfle clans dominating
the Bay region.
Local
authorities addressed the crowd and said that Guelleh's plan
to pacify Somalia had ignored the plight of the clans in Bay
and Bakol regions by not mentioning their lands "occupied"
by other clans.
"The people
of Digil-Mirifle clans would first make sure that they regained
their occupied lands from rivals," Rahanwein Resistance Army
(RRA) acting commander, Sheikh Aden Mohamed Madobe, told the
demonstrators.
The Digil-mirifle
clans, better known as the Rahanwein, occupy Bay and Bakol
areas lying in large parts of southern Somalia's Lower and
Middle Juba and Lower Shabelle regions The demonstration,
organised by RRA faction's civil group, was aimed at discrediting
a planned visit to Baidoa by a Djibouti government delegation,
currently visiting the Somali capital for talks with factional
leaders there over the proposed national reconciliation conference
to be held in Djibouti on April 20. Some respected clan elders
also attended the demonstration.
Bay regional
governor Mohamed Aden Qalinle said the the demonstration was
a message to the Djiboutian government on the extent of "people's
discontent here with Guelleh's peace plan." On Saturday, faction
leader Ali Mahdi Mohamed urged the Somali people to accept
the Djibouti peace plan.
Meanwhile,
a Djibouti delegation visiting Somalia was refused entry into
the self-declared Republic of Somaliland in northwest Somalia
and ordered to return home on Friday soon after landing at
Hargeisa airport.
The delegation
was to discuss the peace plan with Somaliland leaders who,
along with other major warlords in Somalia, have rejected
it
|
