US embassy cable - 05NAIROBI4957

C O N F I D E N T I A L NAIROBI 004957 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR AF 
STATE PASS AID 
LONDON, PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHER 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/28/2025 
TAGS: PGOV, PTER, PREL, MOPS, ASEC, KPAO, SO, KE 
SUBJECT: SOMALIA PRIME MINISTER BY TURNS ACCUSATORY, 
RECONCILIATORY 
 
REF: (A) NAIROBI 4903; (B) STATE 174136 
 
SUMMARY 
-------- 
 
1. (C) Somali Prime Minister Gedi November 25 alternately 
accused the USG of abandoning Somalis to the killing 
clutches of Mogadishu warlords, and sought our advice on 
building a "third way" in Parliament -- depending on who was 
in the room.  He admitted he and the Jowhar TFG faction were 
taking liberties with the Transitional Federal Charter, and 
claimed to be the only man able to unite Somalia, but 
bemoaned his inability to bring together a session of 
Parliament.  END SUMMARY. 
 
FINALLY, A MEETING 
------------------- 
 
2. (C) Transitional Federal Government (TFG) Prime Minster 
Ali Mohamed Gedi met Somalia Watcher November 25 at our 
request, the first such face-to-face encounter the PM has 
accorded Somalia Watcher since February.  The meeting took 
place in the former Nairobi residence of the late SPLA/SPLM 
leader Dr. John Garang, apparently under lease to UNDP for 
Gedi's use (although rumors have Gedi pocketing the 
$1,300/month rent).  While the PM has spent 60% of his time 
in Jowhar, his family appears to reside in the house full- 
time.  Also in attendance was Mohamed Ali Nur, AKA 
"Americo", Finance and Administrative Manager, Liaison 
Office of the Prime Minister in Nairobi.  No other 
Transitional Federal Institution (TFI) members were present. 
 
3. (C) Gedi welcomed Somalia Watcher with the same 
affability he had shown us and other USG officials in the 
first months of his Ministry, expressing his regret that so 
much time had passed without an exchange of views.  For the 
rest of the hour-and-a-half meeting, he flashed between a 
hard-line defense of TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and 
the Jowhar faction's activities since June, and a pensive 
discussion of the barriers to success of the TFIs.  His 
switches seemed to be dictated by whether Americo was in the 
room or not. 
 
IN DEFENSE OF JOWHAR 
--------------------- 
 
4. (C) The PM's accusatory and defensive side took on the 
predictable hues of a "Yusufian" diatribe against the MPs 
and Ministers who have refused to join the Jowhar faction. 
Gedi decried the absence of an international community 
denunciation of the November 12 killings in Mogadishu of two 
children of one of the Parliament's Deputy Speakers.  He 
claimed that TFG Minister for Commerce and warlord Muse Sudi 
Yalahow had threatened to commit such an atrocity against 
any MP who "defected" to Jowhar, and wondered at the lack of 
subsequent international condemnation.  Gedi also accused 
the USG and UN Security Council of seeking to leave Somalia 
defenseless in a hostile neighborhood via the UN arms 
embargo.  He opined it seemed that the world wanted him to 
sit quietly and wait for the warlords to come kill him, and 
declared that he and his colleagues in Jowhar simply could 
not take such a passive position.  The USG's comparative 
silence left him wondering if in fact the U.S. wanted 
governance at all for Somalia.  Such silence seemed to him 
particularly striking in light of a real terrorist threat -- 
to which he gave responsibility for the November 6 attack on 
his convoy in Mogadishu.  "You only tell us that we must go 
catch the bad guys -- not about how we are supposed to 
survive the effort." 
 
HOW TO CREATE A "THIRD WAY" 
---------------------------- 
 
5. (C) Gedi seemed to revert to his old NGO personality, 
whenever left alone for a few minutes.  He could slip 
seamlessly from a rant against the perfidious UN to 
 
plaintive discussions of how to unite the TFIs each time his 
aide left the room. 
 
6. (C) The PM on these occasions stated that his first 
priority was to set in motion a process leading to a full 
session of Parliament.  He claimed full awareness of the 
fact that many of the actions the Jowhar faction had taken 
since June were illegal under the Transitional Federal 
Charter.  "We cannot spend or commit funds without 
Parliament to approve expenditures," he pointed out, "and we 
cannot govern if we cannot spend."  He readily admitted that 
the coastal security contract his Minister of Fisheries had 
signed that morning was of questionable legality (see reftel 
A), but stated, "We have to do something about the theft of 
our natural resources -- and of course, about piracy." 
 
7. (C) PM Gedi brought up the Barre Hirale initiative, 
wherein the TFG Minister for Reconstruction and Resettlement 
has been seeking to convene a committee of MPs in Kismayo to 
discuss the modalities of a full session of Parliament. 
Gedi stated that the backers of the initiative appeared to 
be a group of MPs who realized that "they had made a very 
stupid mistake" in aligning themselves with one side or the 
other in the TFI division.  (He did not opine on whether his 
alignment was also a "stupid mistake".)  These MPs, 
according to Gedi, were seeking to form a "third way" in the 
center of the dispute.  The PM considered this to be the 
only hope for reaching a point where Parliament could 
actually convene. 
 
8.  (C) Somalia Watcher drew from the message that AF DAS 
Yamamoto had delivered to Yusuf on the margins of the United 
Nations General Assembly (reftel B).  Asking the PM to put 
aside the question of whether one TFI faction or the other 
was right or wrong, he repeated that: 
 
--   Our bilateral engagement will be part of a process 
based on opportunities presented through the framework of 
the TFIs. 
 
--   The USG does not support individual leaders or groups, 
and consequently we await evidence of positive relations 
among Somali leaders and their ability to cooperate for the 
good of the country. 
 
--   The most compelling evidence of positive relations 
would be the uniting of a parliamentary quorum across 
faction lines to meet, discuss, and resolve your 
differences. 
 
9. (C) Gedi heard this message without debate, agreeing that 
the parliament's legitimacy-in-numbers might reduce the 
current focus on individual personalities.  He expressed his 
doubts, however, that this might be successfully done.  In 
particular, he said he did not think he could migrate from 
the Jowhar faction to the "third way" center -- despite 
having earlier claimed (within earshot of others) that he 
was the only Somali politician capable of uniting all 
factions. 
 
COMMENT: 
--------- 
 
10. (C) The PM's nearly schizophrenic switches between "NGO 
Ali" and "Yusuf's Prime Minister" were dizzying.  The 
relatively opulent surroundings of his UN-financed digs gave 
pause, and certainly triggered curiosity as to where the 
funds flowing into the Jowhar faction from Italian bilateral 
aid or European Commission finances were finding their end 
use.  While wanting to believe that Gedi's apparently 
sincere and pensive moments were the true expressions of his 
political leanings, Post cannot rule out the possibility 
that his hard-line support for Yusuf is closer to reality. 
As with most things Somali, the reality is certainly a 
combination of these two extremes, and the PM will be 
susceptible to influence should the proper incentives and 
 
disincentives be placed before him.  Additional cash is 
probably not the answer, as Gedi appears to be living quite 
comfortably in a fully-furnished seven-bedroom house, well 
beyond the means of either a former large animal 
veterinarian's savings or of his office's legitimate revenue 
stream.  More likely to provide appropriate incentives might 
be help to the PM in finding a way out of the deadly cul de 
sac in which he finds himself.  END COMMENT. 
 
BELLAMY