Protests Bar U.N. Chief From Offices in Somalia : Africa: Hostile clan followers hurl rocks and fruit, cast doubt on peace talks starting today in Ethiopia.

Hostile demonstrators, hurling rocks, fruit and curses, ruined the visit to Somalia on Sunday of U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali by besieging the United Nations compound here and barring his access to it.

The demonstrators were protesting the U.N. chief’s efforts to mediate among bitter enemies in Somalia’s civil war. Their actions cast disturbing doubts on chances for peace from a U.N.-sponsored mass meeting of warlords beginning today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Boutros-Ghali was passing through Mogadishu en route to the Ethiopian capital where he is scheduled to open the meeting of representatives of 14 Somali clans and political groups whose conflicts have brought death and starvation to this country. The secretary general hopes the meeting will set the pace for Somali reconciliation.

The ugly reception he got from followers of one of the most prominent local clans highlighted the depth of the difficulties facing any effort to reconcile the ambitions and demands of Somalia’s battling rivals.

“Boutros-Ghali--Down!” shouted the crowd of several hundred, even as midday convoys of relief food passed by under protection of a U.N.-authorized force of foreign troops led by the United States. “We don’t want Boutros-Ghali!”

One of the many signs carried aloft by the screaming protesters accused the secretary general of being “the father of famine and death.”

Informed about the angry crowd, Boutros-Ghali announced that he wanted to meet the protesters, talk with them, enter the compound and finish his program. But the Marines’ commander here, Lt. Gen. Robert B. Johnston, told him, “I’m in charge of your security, and I say no.”

Later, the secretary general blamed the demonstration on Somalis who don’t want “the peace process to succeed” because, he said, they will lose their jobs as gunmen if it does succeed.

“I am optimistic,” he said at a news conference held at Mogadishu airport before his departure. “Tomorrow will be the beginning of the solution to the Somali crisis.”

Boutros-Ghali left here for the second visit of his day--a ceremonial stop in the small neighboring country of Djibouti--without his staff who were left behind in the U.N. compound, still trapped by the demonstrators who did not realize Boutros-Ghali had left Mogadishu.

The angry demonstration was organized on behalf of warlord Mohammed Farah Aidid, a former army general whose clan militia controlled the southern half of Mogadishu before the arrival last month of the U.S.-led joint task force of foreign troops. Aidid opposes any role for Boutros-Ghali on suspicion that the U.N. leader favors a rival clan leader, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, to be the future president of Somalia.

Nonetheless, Aidid has agreed to send representatives to the Addis Ababa meeting and may attend himself. His acceptance, made public in a statement, was full of harsh reservations. “The meeting is being organized by U.N. bureaucrats who have failed time and again to demonstrate any understanding of the intricate political situation. Their activities have been . . . meddling, secretive, divisive and partial.”

U.N. officials caution against too many expectations from the conference beginning today. They call it only a preparatory meeting to work out an agenda for a future conference.

The reception here for Boutros-Ghali, formerly an Egyptian diplomat, stood in sharp contrast to the generally favorable welcome given to President Bush by all factions in the capital during his visit here last week. Aidid’s group welcomed Bush on the grounds that he is neutral.

Many Somalis view Egypt with suspicion as a potential colonizer.

Fathi M. Hassan, Egypt’s ambassador to Somalia, noted that “Somalis are very suspicious; they each want the fruits of their battle, and the supreme harvest is the presidency.”

Bush’s visit lasted two days, during which he toured several famine relief centers and military outposts. Boutros-Ghali was able to visit for only four hours and tour only one relief site, a hospital and refugee camp 15 miles south of Mogadishu.

As he was preparing to return to the capital for lunch at U.N. headquarters and a meeting with reporters, a crowd led by a brass band and Aidid militiamen marched on the compound. They blocked the main entrance to the building, ripped down a U.N. flag, hurled stones and remnants of fruit that had been chewed on into the compound and kept up rhythmic chanting for almost three hours.

The demonstrators, misled by the arrival of a staff and press convoy at the building, thought that Boutros-Ghali was inside. They smashed windows on two of the arriving vehicles.

Inside the compound, staff members remarked on the irony of an anti-Boutros-Ghali demonstration on the day following the shooting death of a U.N. Children’s Fund fieldworker in the southern coastal city of Kismayu. The victim, Sean Devereaux, 28, a British citizen, was shot in the head by a lone gunman as he left his office.

Marine Col. Fred Peck, a U.S. military spokesman, had said earlier that one or more guards had killed Devereux because he wanted to cut their wages. But Peck subsequently said his information was wrong.

UNICEF pulled all of the rest of its international staff out Kismayu on Sunday, leaving a team of national staff to maintain essential services.

Motives for Devereaux’s killing were not yet clear, UNICEF officials said. Devereaux had spoken out publicly against a December massacre of political opponents carried out in Kismayu by a clan faction led by a self-styled colonel, Omar Jess. Jess is an ally of Aidid.

Fieldworkers frequently face threats from militia members and common bandits who try to shake them down for food.

The Aidid-Mahdi rivalry is one of the fundamental conflicts in the Somali civil war. Each comes from different branches of the same clan, and family competition is a key element in Somali life. Aidid believes that he and his followers bore the brunt of the fighting that drove Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre from the country in January, 1991. Mahdi, who once helped fund Aidid’s army, entered the fray late but was able to win backing in July, 1991, to be named interim president of a “new Somalia.”

Aidid insists that Boutros-Ghali, who was a top official in the Egyptian Foreign Ministry at the time, brokered Mahdi’s elevation.

Boutros-Ghali denied that he is partial to Mahdi. “Somalis will have to decide what they want,” he said. “Our presence (at today’s meeting) is only to assist rehabilitation. I will inaugurate the meeting, but they will discuss these problems.”

Boutros-Ghali has pressed for U.S. troops to disarm the Somali factions, a suggestion that further riles Aidid. Aidid believes that militarily, he is stronger than Mahdi. The Bush Administration has ruled out active disarmament, being content to have pushed the militias and roving gangs off the streets.