Word: aidid
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...beleaguered residents of Mogadishu had brief cause for rejoicing last week. Under the gaze of TV cameras, Somalia's leading warlords, Ali Mahdi Mohammed and General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, jointly announced that the so- called green line dividing the capital into separate sectors under their respective control had been abolished. Thousands of men and women cheered as the two rivals promised that for the first time in more than a year, people were free to travel across the capital. "Today is a great day," declared Ali Mahdi, whose gangsters control the northern part of Mogadishu. "Starting from this minute...
...leaders, businessmen and doctors, were reportedly dragged from their homes and shot during several nights of terror. The killing spree was said to have been ordered by Kismayu's de facto boss, the warlord Colonel Omar Jess, who belongs to the rival Ogadeni clan and is an ally of Aidid's. According to an American diplomat, Jess may have ordered the massacre to consolidate his control over the city before relief forces arrived in Kismayu...
...warlords' struggle for power that must be settled before peace can return to Somalia. Robert Oakley, the U.S. special envoy, believes Ali Mahdi and Aidid may actually turn out to be irrelevant to an eventual political solution. "Right now they are factors in the political landscape," he says. "But the Somalis don't like domination by a single political party. When people aren't fighting, they don't need military alliances." A former Somali journalist puts the issue in blunter terms: "The U.S. has to deal with these people to stabilize the environment in the short term. But when peace...
...Mahdi and Aidid, meanwhile, are trying to create new images of themselves as politicians and statesmen. Last week's green-line rally marked the first time since the two sides went to war more than a year ago that they have appeared together at a public gathering. Since the Marines landed, however, they have had several private meetings. Both grandly declared that the day of rule by rifle was over. "I believe only in democracy," said Ali Mahdi in an interview with TIME at his seaside villa in Mogadishu. "Every Somali has the right to be President. If left...
...rhetoric is suspect, however, since the warlords' rivalries simmer on. Ali Mahdi blames continuing violence along the green line on looters from Aidid's sector. He also charges Aidid with having started the civil war that has killed tens of thousands and left Mogadishu in ruins. Because Aidid is a military officer, Ali Mahdi argues, he should be disqualified as a possible future leader of the country. "We do not want another general in charge of Somalia," he says, referring to Mohammed Siad Barre, whose corrupt, quasi- Marxist regime was overthrown in January 1991 after Ali Mahdi, Aidid and others...