Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05NAIROBI4957
2005-11-30 12:22:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Nairobi
Cable title:  

SOMALIA PRIME MINISTER BY TURNS ACCUSATORY,

Tags:  PGOV PTER PREL MOPS ASEC KPAO SO KE 
pdf how-to read a cable
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RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHINGTON DC
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RHMFISS/CDR USSOCOM MACDILL AFB FL//POLAD//
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHINGTON DC
C O N F I D E N T I A L NAIROBI 004957 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF
STATE PASS AID
LONDON, PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/28/2025
TAGS: PGOV PTER PREL MOPS ASEC KPAO SO KE
SUBJECT: SOMALIA PRIME MINISTER BY TURNS ACCUSATORY,
RECONCILIATORY

REF: (A) NAIROBI 4903; (B) STATE 174136

SUMMARY
--------

C O N F I D E N T I A L NAIROBI 004957

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF
STATE PASS AID
LONDON, PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/28/2025
TAGS: PGOV PTER PREL MOPS ASEC KPAO SO KE
SUBJECT: SOMALIA PRIME MINISTER BY TURNS ACCUSATORY,
RECONCILIATORY

REF: (A) NAIROBI 4903; (B) STATE 174136

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) Somali Prime Minister Gedi November 25 alternately
accused the USG of abandoning Somalis to the killing
clutches of Mogadishu warlords, and sought our advice on
building a "third way" in Parliament -- depending on who was
in the room. He admitted he and the Jowhar TFG faction were
taking liberties with the Transitional Federal Charter, and
claimed to be the only man able to unite Somalia, but
bemoaned his inability to bring together a session of
Parliament. END SUMMARY.

FINALLY, A MEETING
--------------


2. (C) Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Prime Minster
Ali Mohamed Gedi met Somalia Watcher November 25 at our
request, the first such face-to-face encounter the PM has
accorded Somalia Watcher since February. The meeting took
place in the former Nairobi residence of the late SPLA/SPLM
leader Dr. John Garang, apparently under lease to UNDP for
Gedi's use (although rumors have Gedi pocketing the
$1,300/month rent). While the PM has spent 60% of his time
in Jowhar, his family appears to reside in the house full-
time. Also in attendance was Mohamed Ali Nur, AKA
"Americo", Finance and Administrative Manager, Liaison
Office of the Prime Minister in Nairobi. No other
Transitional Federal Institution (TFI) members were present.


3. (C) Gedi welcomed Somalia Watcher with the same
affability he had shown us and other USG officials in the
first months of his Ministry, expressing his regret that so
much time had passed without an exchange of views. For the
rest of the hour-and-a-half meeting, he flashed between a
hard-line defense of TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and
the Jowhar faction's activities since June, and a pensive
discussion of the barriers to success of the TFIs. His
switches seemed to be dictated by whether Americo was in the

room or not.

IN DEFENSE OF JOWHAR
--------------


4. (C) The PM's accusatory and defensive side took on the
predictable hues of a "Yusufian" diatribe against the MPs
and Ministers who have refused to join the Jowhar faction.
Gedi decried the absence of an international community
denunciation of the November 12 killings in Mogadishu of two
children of one of the Parliament's Deputy Speakers. He
claimed that TFG Minister for Commerce and warlord Muse Sudi
Yalahow had threatened to commit such an atrocity against
any MP who "defected" to Jowhar, and wondered at the lack of
subsequent international condemnation. Gedi also accused
the USG and UN Security Council of seeking to leave Somalia
defenseless in a hostile neighborhood via the UN arms
embargo. He opined it seemed that the world wanted him to
sit quietly and wait for the warlords to come kill him, and
declared that he and his colleagues in Jowhar simply could
not take such a passive position. The USG's comparative
silence left him wondering if in fact the U.S. wanted
governance at all for Somalia. Such silence seemed to him
particularly striking in light of a real terrorist threat --
to which he gave responsibility for the November 6 attack on
his convoy in Mogadishu. "You only tell us that we must go
catch the bad guys -- not about how we are supposed to
survive the effort."

HOW TO CREATE A "THIRD WAY"
--------------


5. (C) Gedi seemed to revert to his old NGO personality,
whenever left alone for a few minutes. He could slip
seamlessly from a rant against the perfidious UN to

plaintive discussions of how to unite the TFIs each time his
aide left the room.


6. (C) The PM on these occasions stated that his first
priority was to set in motion a process leading to a full
session of Parliament. He claimed full awareness of the
fact that many of the actions the Jowhar faction had taken
since June were illegal under the Transitional Federal
Charter. "We cannot spend or commit funds without
Parliament to approve expenditures," he pointed out, "and we
cannot govern if we cannot spend." He readily admitted that
the coastal security contract his Minister of Fisheries had
signed that morning was of questionable legality (see reftel
A),but stated, "We have to do something about the theft of
our natural resources -- and of course, about piracy."


7. (C) PM Gedi brought up the Barre Hirale initiative,
wherein the TFG Minister for Reconstruction and Resettlement
has been seeking to convene a committee of MPs in Kismayo to
discuss the modalities of a full session of Parliament.
Gedi stated that the backers of the initiative appeared to
be a group of MPs who realized that "they had made a very
stupid mistake" in aligning themselves with one side or the
other in the TFI division. (He did not opine on whether his
alignment was also a "stupid mistake".) These MPs,
according to Gedi, were seeking to form a "third way" in the
center of the dispute. The PM considered this to be the
only hope for reaching a point where Parliament could
actually convene.


8. (C) Somalia Watcher drew from the message that AF DAS
Yamamoto had delivered to Yusuf on the margins of the United
Nations General Assembly (reftel B). Asking the PM to put
aside the question of whether one TFI faction or the other
was right or wrong, he repeated that:

-- Our bilateral engagement will be part of a process
based on opportunities presented through the framework of
the TFIs.

-- The USG does not support individual leaders or groups,
and consequently we await evidence of positive relations
among Somali leaders and their ability to cooperate for the
good of the country.

-- The most compelling evidence of positive relations
would be the uniting of a parliamentary quorum across
faction lines to meet, discuss, and resolve your
differences.


9. (C) Gedi heard this message without debate, agreeing that
the parliament's legitimacy-in-numbers might reduce the
current focus on individual personalities. He expressed his
doubts, however, that this might be successfully done. In
particular, he said he did not think he could migrate from
the Jowhar faction to the "third way" center -- despite
having earlier claimed (within earshot of others) that he
was the only Somali politician capable of uniting all
factions.

COMMENT:
--------------


10. (C) The PM's nearly schizophrenic switches between "NGO
Ali" and "Yusuf's Prime Minister" were dizzying. The
relatively opulent surroundings of his UN-financed digs gave
pause, and certainly triggered curiosity as to where the
funds flowing into the Jowhar faction from Italian bilateral
aid or European Commission finances were finding their end
use. While wanting to believe that Gedi's apparently
sincere and pensive moments were the true expressions of his
political leanings, Post cannot rule out the possibility
that his hard-line support for Yusuf is closer to reality.
As with most things Somali, the reality is certainly a
combination of these two extremes, and the PM will be
susceptible to influence should the proper incentives and

disincentives be placed before him. Additional cash is
probably not the answer, as Gedi appears to be living quite
comfortably in a fully-furnished seven-bedroom house, well
beyond the means of either a former large animal
veterinarian's savings or of his office's legitimate revenue
stream. More likely to provide appropriate incentives might
be help to the PM in finding a way out of the deadly cul de
sac in which he finds himself. END COMMENT.

BELLAMY