One of
the main arlords controlling a strategic port city in Somalia
has left a conference in Djibouti aimed at restoring a government
to his country, a senior official said on Monday.
"It is
true that he has left," conference chairman Hassan Abshir
Farah told journalists, referring to warlord "Colonel" Ahmed
Omar Jess from the city of Kismayo.
"He thought
the conference offered little to warlords, there was no reason
for him to stay.
But he
wasn't angry and still supports our work," said Farah. Jess
was one of just a few warlords who was attending the reconciliation
conference, sponsored by Djibouti President Ismael Omar Guelleh.
The conference
has concentrated on Somalia's civil society rather than on
the warlords who have controlled patches of the country since
the 1991 fall of president Mohamed Siad Barre.
Sources
close to the talks said Jess left because fellow members in
his Darod clan refused to reserve part of the clan's quota
of seats in the transitional parliament for some of his gunmen.
The gunmen
belong to the Ogaden sub-clan, the sources said. Another clan,
the Rahanwein, has put off submitting its own list of parliamentary
nominees because warlord Hassan Mohamed Nur, better known
as Shatigudud, who leads the Rahanwein Resistance Army, asked
for some seats for his men, according to the same source.
"Warlords
are welcome, but nobody can offer them particular posts because
it is up to the conference to decide," explained Abshir. Once
the parliament has been formed, this body will then nominate
a transitional president.
On Monday
morning, a group of minority clans handed in their list of
nominees to the organisers of the talks. Other groups have
either nearly completed the task or are still negotiating.
Each
major clan has a quota of 44 legislators while the minorities
and the women's group gets 29 and 25 seats respectively
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