UN envoy visits Mogadishu, discusses peacekeepers

MOGADISHU, Jan 18 (Reuters) A top UN envoy flew to Somalia's capital on Thursday to discuss deploying African peacekeepers in order to avoid a security vacuum after the defeat of Islamist fighters over the New Year.

It was the first visit by a senior UN representative since thousands of Ethiopian and Somali government troops last month ousted the Islamists who had run southern Somalia for six months.

Ethiopia is eager to pull out its troops as soon as possible but there are fears of a return to anarchy in the failed state unless they are swiftly replaced by African peacekeepers.

Francois Lonseny Fall, special representative of the UN secretary-general, flew into Mogadishu from Nairobi and sped to talks with Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, escorted by a heavily armed convoy of gunmen in pickup trucks.

Yusuf came to Mogadishu last week for the first time since taking office in 2004. Until the Christmas war the weak interim government was confined to the southern town of Baidoa and in danger of being overrun until Ethiopia intervened.

''The government was in Baidoa, now it is in Mogadishu. We need to protect them and also facilitate the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops. This is what everyone expects,'' Fall told reporters after meeting Yusuf in the whitewashed Villa Somalia.

He told Yusuf: ''I want to congratulate you. To see the president in Villa Somalia is a very important step. We have to move step by step and we need all efforts to get this country rebuilt.'' The bullet and shell-marked villa was the seat of former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre before his overthrow in 1991 plunged the country into 15 years of anarchy and bloodshed.

GUNMEN High on Fall's agenda will be plans to disarm thousands of gunmen, control a host of warlords responsible for years of chaos and develop a poor country broken by war.

''As you can see, reconciliation is going on. We are meeting all the faction leaders,'' Yusuf said before the meeting, accompanied by warlord Said Hersi, known as General Morgan.

''Today we are disarming them and I think everyone is very happy now,'' Yusuf said.

Fall added after the meeting: ''The president gave us an assurance that he would continue his efforts towards reconciliation.'' The UN envoy said the presence of a warlord at the talks was a good sign.

''The will of the international community and of the UN is to see a reconciled Somalia. The road is still long and we still have a lot to do.'' The Islamists, defeated by superior Ethiopian armour in a one-sided two-week war, have fled to Somalia's remote southern tip near the Kenyan border.

Yusuf faces the challenge of maintaining the relative stability in Mogadishu imposed by sharia courts, which made the Islamists initially popular with the long-suffering population.

The government wants peacekeepers in Somalia by February but most analysts say it will take far longer to organise and finance the mission, with many countries wary of committing troops.

Washington is pledging 40 million dollars for Somalia, 16 million dollars of which would help fund an African Union peacekeeping force approved by the UN Security Council before the war.

REUTERS SHB RK1503