FROM EIR DAILY ALERT
Somali Foreign Ministry Declares UN Envoy Persona Non Grata
Jan. 2, 2018 (EIRNS)—UN Special Representative Nicholas Haysom has been declared persona non grata by the Somali government, following his accusation that the government may have acted in “violation of international humanitarian law.” The Foreign Ministry accused him of meddling in the country’s sovereign affairs and “blatantly violating protocols.” Haysom has been occupying the post of the UN Special Envoy for Somalia since September 2018.
The incident that prompted the accusation was the government’s arrest of Mukhtar Robow, former leader of the terrorist Al Shabaab organization, who had very strong ties to Saudi Arabian supporters of terrorism. Robow had defected to the government in 2017 and then recently announced he was running for the presidency of the South West State in Somalia. The government maintained that he had no right to run for that position, and ordered his arrest after he refused to withdraw his candidacy. It accused him of arming his followers in the South West State, leading after his arrest to three days of violent demonstrations in the state capital of Baioa over Dec. 13-15 which left 15 dead.
Somalia has been part of a regional reconciliation effort, initiated by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali, to end the 20 years of war and hostility affecting Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, and Djibouti in the Horn of Africa. The reconciliation aims to stabilize the region, and thus allow for regional economic cooperation, in which all four countries are involved in the Belt and Road Initiative.
