Published on: Thursday, February 13, 2003 |
Kuala Lumpur: Somalia which is yet to fully recover from years of civil war will nevertheless participate in the forthcoming 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit, Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar said.
Syed Hamid said Somalia would be represented by the new government elected some two years ago, which is also representing the country in the United Nations.
They are coming...they have got a new government, he told Bernama when asked whether Somalia would participate in the six-day meeting scheduled for Feb 20 to 25 at the Putra World Trade Centre.
Somalias clans and various factions elected Abdulqasim Salad Hassan as president of the country in August 2000 at the Arta peace conference in neighbouring Djibouti.
However Syed Hamid acknowledged that Somalia was still far from being stable.
They have been able to form a government. But (the country) is still unstable, said Syed Hamid.
Malaysia at that time had also welcomed the new government saying that all the factions should work towards restoring peace to end the suffering of the Somali people who also in the past had to face famine and other natural disasters.
Somalia, one of the worlds least developed countries, had been gripped in civil war and plunged into deep turmoil following the ouster of the government of General Siad Barre in 1991, who had come to power in 1969 through a military coup.
In May 1991, northern clans declared an independent Republic of Somaliland, comprising several regions but was not recognised by the international community. In 1998 another two regions were declared the autonomous state of Puntland.
Unifying the country and all the factions remain one of the biggest challenges for the 60-year-old President Abdulqasim, who once served as a member of Barres cabinet.
The presence of Somalis delegation at the KL NAM summit will definitely provide an opportunity for the new leadership to brief NAM members of the latest developments in the country of some eight million people.
Somalia is a founder member of NAM and attended the first NAM summit in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in September 1961 when the country was represented by the then president Adan Abdullah Osman.
In the past, NAM had urged Somali factions to end their internal conflict and try to bring about national reconciliation.
The movement established a Task Force on Somalia to convey humanitarian aid and during the chairmanship of Indonesia, special envoys on fact-finding missions on Somalia were sent in its efforts to bring political settlement to the Somali conflict.
The Republic of Somalia was formed following the merger of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland in 1960.-Bernama
