Moscow International Service (in Somali) 1600 GMT

It is a week since the formation of the interim government in Somalia. It announced that its greatest obligation was to find ways and means of bringing about peace and national unity in the country. It is not clear, however, what the relations between the biggest fronts that defeated the regime of President Mohamed Siad Barre are.

Our commentator Vladimir Borisov, commenting on the matter, said that the question of whether the new interim government will have the power to ensure the unity of the people and country of Somalia is the most important and most worrying. It is clear today that the civil war waged by at least seven armed fronts against President Siad Barre has not ended with the collapse of that regime.

While the guerrillas of the United Somali Congress (USC) celebrated in devastated and ruined Mogadishu, the leaders of the other fronts immediately expressed their objection to the first steps taken by the new government. These fronts cannot yet accept the appointment of Mr. Ali Mahdi Mohamed, the new president, by the USC, and the way the new government was named.

After Omar Arteh Ghalib, the famous politician, distributed the new government posts and presented them to the public, with special respect for the USC and the Somali National Movement (SNM), it was to be expected that the Somali Patriotic Movement would get angry at the composition of the new government. Nevertheless the biggest problem is now posed by the SNM, which together with some of the other fronts’ external leaderships, denounced the quick appointment of the president as a violation of previous agreements. The SNM has its own special policy. Likewise, said our commentator, another worry is the position of the SNM leadership who announced that they would install their administration in the north.

As the SNM implements this, we received reports saying that the SNM is now looking at ways of putting the whole of the north under its hold, through military means. The dangerous situation in the country is clear to everyone. It can be said that there are two great conflicts now. First, the conflict and misunderstanding among the fronts, and then the struggle between the nontribal civilian opposi-tion and the leaders of the armed fronts. Nonetheless, the essence of the conflict is the danger weakening and hanging over the Somali nation.

_{FBIS-SOV-91-031-S, 14 Feb. 1991, pp. 66-67}