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| Africa: Horn |
| Somalia orders rogue airfields closed |
| 2005-10-28 |
| NAIROBI, Kenya (Reuters) -- Somalia's government ordered two warlord-owned airports closed on Friday in an effort to boost its tax revenues, prompting an ally of the airstrips' owners to threaten to shoot down any plane diverting to obey the order. A government statement said it had informed trading partners Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates that the private airstrips at Daynile, outside Mogadishu, and at Merca, south of the capital, would shut from November 1. "We are closing these airstrips for security reasons, and some other airstrips in southern Somalia will follow as soon as possible," Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr quoted the statement as saying. "We contacted the (foreign) governments ... to discuss the support of Somalia's new government and resume the taxation system of the country, which collapsed during the civil war." The two airstrips are lucrative ventures run by militia bosses who have campaigned for months to persuade Ethiopian-backed President Abdullahi Yusuf to base his year-old transitional federal government in the capital, Mogadishu. Yusuf instead works from Jowhar, a town 90 kilometers (55 miles) to the north of the capital, arguing Mogadishu is too dangerous and that it is the base of many of his political opponents -- among them dissident ministers in his own government. The airport order prompted Mogadishu-based warlord and Commerce Minister Muse Sudi Yalahow to threaten to down any plane known to have diverted to other airports in compliance with the order. "We will shoot the planes trying to accept the new rules of airplanes," Muse Sudi said on Somali radio monitored in Nairobi. "If an airplane changes its usual flight, we will use the anti-aircraft missiles which we have," he said. Somali businessmen normally have the pick of about 240 bush airstrips to trade an array of produce -- including contraband and hard drugs -- without hindrance from any central authority. Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority official Anthony Mwandikwa confirmed that Kenya had received the Somali notification. Daynile and Merca's el-Ahmed airstrip are among the busiest and have proved lucrative for their owners, respectively Mogadishu militia boss and Internal Security Minister Mohamed Qanyare, and Islamist warlord Sheikh Yusuf Inda'adde. Qanyare declined comment. Inda'adde was not available for comment. Experts say both factions of the government are gearing up for a military showdown, and a U.N. report by a panel of experts said government ministers on both sides had bought large amounts of weapons in recent months. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #4 Somalia's got a government? When did that happen? Kleptocracies are like mold - they spring up in the right conditions. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2005-10-28 18:58 |
| #3 ...and can I get a bet down on "warlords"? I'll give the points. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-10-28 16:44 |
| #2 Land or Die! |
| Posted by: Shipman 2005-10-28 16:38 |
| #1 Somalia's got a government? When did that happen? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2005-10-28 16:00 |