[dehai-news] (IO) Sheikh Sharif dismisses ARS move to sack him as 'null and void'


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From: Biniam Haile \(SWE\) (eritrea.lave@comhem.se)
Date: Tue Jul 22 2008 - 17:55:57 EDT


Somali's Fractured Opposition
 
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies, Tue. Jul. 22, 2008
 

MOGADISHU - In a sign of a major crack, the Eritrea-based members of the
Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) decided on Tuesday, July
22, to choose a new leadership for the umbrella opposition group.

"Now I Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys am the chairman of the executive
committee as well as the general head," Sheikh Dahir Aweys, who is on
the US and UN lists of Al-Qaeda associates, told Reuters by phone.
 
The ARS members based in Eritrea decided to name Aweys as a replacement
for moderate Sheikh Sharif Ahmed who attended UN-brokered peace talks
with the interim government last month.
 
"Sheikh Sharif was replaced because he and his group hated and left the
Somali Re-Liberation group in Asmara," Aweys charged.
 
Ahmed and former parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, the head
of the ARS represented the opposition in signing a number of agreements
with the government at UN-sponsored peace talks in Djibouti on Monday,
June 9.
 
Ismail Adow, the assistant chairman for public affairs for the ARS said
the group ousted Sheikh Sharif because he had been absent from the
opposition's headquarters in Asmara.
 
"(He) has violated many important rules and has also been away for about
three months," he said.
 
"Fifty members were present today while another 30 voted through
emails."
 
Formed last September as an umbrella for resisting Ethiopian forces, the
ARS comprises politicians from a wide spectrum, including liberals and
nationalists.
 
It is dedicated to ending Ethiopia's military intervention in Somalia,
ravaged by violence since Ethiopian and government troops ousted the
Islamic Courts.
 
More than 8,000 civilians have been killed and 1 million forced from
their homes because of the fighting.
 
Fractured
 
Sheikh Ahmed, who was chairing the group's meeting in Djibouti,
dismissed the move.
 
"What they have said is null and void," his spokesman Suleiman Olad
Roble told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
 
The ARS central committee, led by Ahmed, endorsed over the weekend in
Djibouti a June 9 cease-fire agreement reached with the Somali
government.
 
But Aweys rejected the truce, insisting the ARS was committed to driving
out Ethiopian forces.
 
The two fell out after Ahmed decided to participate in UN-sponsored
peace talks in Djibouti to seek an end the Somali fighting that has
raged since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
 
Numerous internationally-backed peace-making initiatives have failed
since the desert country plunged into lawlessness 17 years ago.
 
Meanwhile, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Somalia
warned that international donors had funded only about a third of a $637
million aid appeal for Somalia, where drought, violence and record food
prices threaten a disaster.
 
"We're now estimating that by the end of the year 3.5 million people
will need assistance.which is a frightening figure to have to deal
with," Mark Bowden told reporters.
 
"We fear that we're moving into a very acute crisis in Somalia over the
next few months.we need far more support externally to be able to do
what is probably one of the most difficult relief jobs going in the
world at the moment."
 
At the start of this year, the United Nations estimated that 2.6 million
Somalis were in need of emergency aid.
 
Most aid agencies have discussed suspending operations in parts of
Somalia hit by mounting violence and a recent wave of assassinations
targeting senior local humanitarian workers.
 
The UN World Food Program (WFP) has warned that the violence threatens
to wreck all efforts to resolve a humanitarian emergency that could soon
rival the country's famine in the early 1990s when hundreds of thousands
died.
 
 

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