Somalia Talks Fail; Some U.S. Troops to Leave

Somalia peace talks collapsed Sunday, and faction leaders went home, raising the risk of the country’s abandonment by world donors who have warned that continued fighting could lead to an aid cutoff.

Meanwhile, in Washington, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin said Sunday that the United States will withdraw about 2,500 of its 8,200 troops in Somalia by Christmas.

“Between a quarter and a third of them will be out of the country” by Dec. 25, Aspin said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But Aspin said the soldiers may not be back in the United States with their families in time for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

Gen. Mohammed Farah Aidid, leader of one Somali group, accused the United Nations of contributing to the collapse of the talks by inviting some of his rival faction leaders to form a government without him.

Aidid heads the Somali National Alliance, a coalition of three groups opposed to 12 factions led by the general’s rival, Ali Mahdi Mohamed.

The talks began Dec. 4, when Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi rounded up all the key figures and hoped to get Ali Mahdi and Aidid to meet. They never did, though their representatives in a joint team worked out some proposals.

The proposals, all favored by Aidid, included doubling the 74 representatives to a proposed transitional national governing council and getting community leaders to elect the members.

The joint team also proposed that U.N. forces in Somalia only handle humanitarian assistance.

The peacekeepers have been criticized by Somalis, Western aid organizations and others for deviating from their humanitarian mission by mounting aggressive military campaigns that have resulted in scores of civilian casualties.

Aidid accused Ali Mahdi’s camp of rejecting the proposals, wrecking the talks.

In March, the 15 factions had agreed that district and regional councils would elect members of the national council, which would govern and function as the Horn of Africa nation’s legislature.

Ali Mahdi’s 12 factions said in a statement Sunday that the talks failed because Aidid’s group demanded a revision of the March agreement, which also provided for the disarming of clan militias and a cease-fire.

But Aidid claimed that his side had made concessions by accepting the district and regional councils, but the other side had made none.

Aidid previously had rejected the councils as being handpicked by the United Nations.

“We have every reason to believe that this was due to a foreign interference,” Aidid said of the breakdown in the talks.

He said a U.N. representative was in Addis Ababa during the talks and invited some leaders of Ali Mahdi’s 12 allied factions to form a government without the general.

The talks came after a three-day, U.N.-sponsored humanitarian conference on Somalia during which international donors warned Somalia’s factions that they risk losing aid unless the fighting stops.

War, disease and famine killed 350,000 Somalis in 1992. An international effort helped ease the famine, but violence and political squabbling have continued.

On the news program, Aspin reiterated the U.S. commitment to withdraw all its troops by March 31, which raises the prospect of more turmoil.