Word: yusuf
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President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, 74, acknowledged to the country's parliament that Somalia was paralyzed and that there was nothing more he could do. "As I promised when you elected me on Oct. 14, 2004, I would stand down if I failed to fulfill my duty. I have decided to return the responsibility you gave me," Yusuf told them. "I said I will do everything in my power to make government work across the country. That did not happen either." That statement may just be a late contender for 2008 Understatement of the Year. At the very least...
...Yusuf had opposed Prime Minister Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein's bid to sign a peace deal with some moderate Islamists in June. The President then tried to fire the Prime Minister, a move that was rejected by parliament. Pressure had been building for months for Yusuf to step down, and the infighting between government officials (whose power extends to one town - Baidoa - and a few square feet of Mogadishu) looked like the last straw. "President Abdullahi Yusuf has marginalized large parts of the population and exacerbated divisions," think tank International Crisis Group wrote in a recent report. "The latest...
...that's just what happened. It would be hard to believe that Yusuf was not forced out or given some financial incentive to leave, or both. The U.S., which had backed Yusuf for years, gave him the usual platitudes but signaled it was ready for a new approach. "We support and respect President Yusuf's decision to resign as President of the transitional federal government and welcome his commitment to continue supporting the Djibouti peace process," State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said. "We acknowledge President Yusuf's contributions to long-term peace and stability in Somalia...
Duguid did not detail those contributions, and almost anyone would be hard-pressed to do so. Yusuf, a former Somali army officer, later became one of the country's most powerful warlords and had forced the previous Prime Minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, to resign after a political struggle. He has enormous power because he comes from one of Somalia's biggest clans, the Darod, and carries the implicit threat of a new outbreak of clan fighting wherever he goes...
...Somalia They Have a Government? A political feud has roiled this East African country ever since President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed abruptly fired Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein on Dec. 14 over disagreements on how to negotiate peace treaties among factions inside the country. Claiming that Yusuf had no authority to fire Hussein, Somalia's parliament and neighboring Kenya have rallied to Hussein's side, while a defiant Yusuf announced he is appointing a new Prime Minister. The power struggle belies the fact that the central government controls only a tiny slice of the country. Warlords, Islamists and the pirates...