SOMALIA - BAIDOA STALEMATE CONTINUES

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 002767 SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPT FOR AF/E AND A/S FRAZER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PINR SOCI MOPS SO SUBJECT: SOMALIA - BAIDOA STALEMATE CONTINUES REF: A. NAIROBI 2652 ¶B. NAIROBI 2681 ¶C. DJIBOUTI 991 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: A five-day face-off in Baidoa, the seat of the parliament, between Transitional Federal Government (TFG) President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Nur Adde continued December 11 with the estranged leaders showing no willingness to compromise. Yusuf and Nur Adde have reportedly met once since Nur Adde followed the President to Baidoa. At that December 7 meeting, Yusuf continued to insist that he would not accept Nur Adde's proposed cabinet (Ref A), and that the November 25 Djibouti communique (Ref B) was a non-starter. (In a separate, December 9 meeting with the Ambassador, Puntland President Hersi backed co-clan member Yusuf in rejecting the communique's call for an expanded parliament.) Nur Adde told us that he planned to remain in Baidoa until at least December 14, and that he hoped to engineer parliament's approval of his cabinet. Yuuf, who canceled his planned participation in the December 10 - 11 Nairobi piracy ministerial, seemed determined to wait by Nur Adde's side. Both TFG leaders have been wooing the parliamentarians who have been trickling back to Baidoa. Speaker Sheikh Aden "Madobe," after initially siding with Yusuf over fears that he might lose his position if a new leadership was elected, has reportedly sided with Nur Adde after receiving assurances that fellow clan members were not gunning for his speaker's seat. End summary. Yusuf Searches for a Strategy -------------- ¶2. (SBU) After days of unhappiness following the signing of the November 25 Djibouti communique that called for the creation of a working group to explore doubling the size of the parliament, extending the transitional government's mandate by two years, and possibly electing new leadership, Transitional Federal Government (TFG) President Abdullahi Yusuf threw down the gauntlet by issuing on November 3 a press release that called, on behalf of Puntland, for a new reconciliation process. Yusuf then traveled to Djibouti (Ref C),where he asked for, but did not receive, the support of President Guelleh. On December 5, the President flew to the seat of the transitional parliament, Baidoa, and, according to TFG Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein "Nur Adde," "began bribing parliamentarians" with money he received from Libya. Nur Adde Presses Parliament -------------- ¶3. (SBU) In a December 6 conversation, a composed Nur Adde told Embassy that Yusuf's presence in Baidoa would not stop him from flying there on December 7 in an effort to win parliament's approval of his transitional cabinet. Nur Adde at that point was confident that parliament speaker Sheikh Aden "Madobe" would "back the Djibouti process," by which he meant the provisions of the November 25 Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) - TFG communique that called for doubling the size of the parliament, extending the mandate of the transitional institutions by two years, and choosing a new leadership. (In the days following the November 25 communique, Madobe had unexpectedly seemed to side with Yusuf. Some observers suspected he was worried that he would not remain speaker if a new leadership was chosen. Others thought that Yusuf could have been successful in bribing the Speaker.) Yusuf - Nur Adde Meet -------------- ¶4. (SBU) On December 7 in Baidoa, Yusuf and Nur Adde held their first face-to-face meeting since the Prime Minister traveled to London in an unsuccessful attempt to win approval of his cabinet on November 8. Contacts in Yusuf and Nur Adde's camps confirmed that Yusuf remained unwilling to accept Nur Adde's nominees, and that Nur Adde refused to back down. Since that meeting, the President and the Prime Minister have each had long meetings with larger groups of parliamentarians and, no doubt, many one-on-one sessions. The fact that Yusuf, Nur Adde, and Madobe separately celebrated Eid-ul-adha on December 8 was read by observers as further confirmation that there was little prospect for the NAIROBI 00002767 002 OF 002 TFG. Parliament Tied to Djibouti Process -------------- ¶5. (SBU) In conversations over the last five days, members of parliament in Baidoa have told us that a majority of their colleagues support the November 25 communique, although there appears to be a consensus that an additional 275 MPs is too many, and an insistence that the 4.5 formula for clan representation be used in selecting new MPs. (The ARS leadership has assured us privately, and ARS Chairman Sheikh Sharif has said publicly, that it would observe the 4.5 formula.) As one parliamentarian told the Embassy, "we understand that we will lose (our jobs) if the Djibouti process fails." Those parliamentarians more closely aligned with Nur Adde were, as expected, extremely critical of Yusuf's behavior while in Baidoa: "He knows only one word: 'no,'" one said. Still, a vocal minority in Parliament worry that the understandings reached in the communique negotiated by Nur Adde and Sheikh Sharif amount to a sweeping victory for the Hawiye clan. Puntland President Explains Yusuf -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In an extended, December 9 conversation, President Hersi of the semi-autonomous Puntland region offered Ambassador Ranneberger his best gloss on Yusuf's thinking. The TFG President was not opposed to Djibouti, Hersi insisted, but Yusuf knew "others" were using money to influence the Parliament, and that's why he was in Baidoa. The principle Nur Adde had used in selecting his cabinet was "loyalty, not competence," the composition of the TFG's High-Level Committee was "flawed," and the November 25 communique was an "agreement between two people (Nur Adde and Sheikh Sharif),and both of them were of the same sub-clan." In opposing the communique, and Nur Adde's cabinet nominees, Hersi maintained that Yusuf was protecting the interests of Puntland. ¶7. (SBU) Hersi then offered a more detailed critique of the communique. He joined consensus among deputies in arguing that 275 is too many slots to add, and he worried that only members of the Hawiye clan would be appointed by the ARS. These and other "mistakes" could have been avoided, Hersi said, if the UN SRSG Ould-Abdallah had allowed Yusuf to fly to Djibouti. ¶8. (SBU) Special Envoy for Somalia John Yates pointed out that the November 25 document was not an agreement, and that a joint working group was to use the communique in making its recommendations to the parliament within thirty days. S/E Yates noted that the ARS had pledged to use the 4.5 formula in recommending members for parliament, and he pointedly noted that Nur Adde had made numerous efforts, all of them rejected, to reach out to Yusuf. ¶9. (SBU) Ambassador Ranneberger urged Hersi to lobby Yusuf to cooperate in advancing the Djibouti process. "It is important for the TFG to unite, and work with the ARS," he said, or al-Shabaab will continue to gain ground in Somalia. He also reassured Hersi that the principle of federalism was enshrined in the Transitional Federal Charter, and had not been at issue in the discussions about the Djibouti process. Comment -------------- ¶10. (SBU) It appears that neither the TFG President nor Prime Minister has been able to win a clear advantage in Baidoa, although Nur Adde told us recently that he is still hopeful that parliament will approve his cabinet by December 14. Even if it approves the cabinet, it is uncertain what that might mean for the recommendations coming out of the Djibouti process. With Yusuf giving every sign that he intends to resist a unity government and playing the clan card to prevent perceived gains in the TFG, it appears that he is stymieing progress on the Djibouti Agreement at every turn. RANNEBERGER