A longstanding representative to the UN for Somalia says she no longer considers the Somali Transitional National Government (TNG) as being representative of the nation, and has asked the UN to withdraw its support for it. Fatun Mohamed Hasan, charge d'affaires for Somalia in New York, has asked the Secretary-General not to accept the nomination of a new Somali ambassador, presented last month by the new authority.

While critics of the TNG say this is serious blow to its credibility, supporters say the real issue revolves around dilemmas of property and payoffs to "officials" who represented the nation during the 10 years it was without a government.

The charge d'affaires for the UN permanent mission for Somalia in New York wrote to the UN Secretary-General asking him not to accept the new representative nominated by the TNG. Fatun says in her letter - made available to the media - that the nomination should not be accepted, on the basis that it will only serve the interests of one political group, and not the nation. She explains the sudden reversal of her previous position - including her official role in submitting the nomination - that public support for the TNG is dwindling.

The TNG has "mistaken the token support of the international community for a form of recognition to legitimise its... coercive and often sly methods and means to seek national political control". Her letter argues that while international recognition for the new authority may have increased, public support and enthusiasm for it in Somalia has decreased.

In her letter, Fatun accused the TNG of "using the token support and encouragement of the UN and many regional and subregional groups as an end in itself". She said the authority had lost touch with the core of the civil society groups which had been pivotal in the peace process that got it elected, and that it lacked public accountability. Describing the authority as "neither representative nor responsible", she said the TNG had come to view itself as the government of the day, despite the lack of public support and territorial control. She decried the TNG's failure to constitute the National Reconciliation and Property Restitution Commission, and described its foreign policy as destructive - "causing a relapse to the pre-Arta regional tensions and conflicts".

The letter concludes with an appeal to UN member states to exert pressure on "all the Somali political groups, factions and regional administrations, including the TNG, to continue the process of peace and reconciliation".

According to TNG sources, however, the real issue at stake is money. When a new ambassador was nominated, Fatun said she needed to be paid for the 10 years of service she had given following the collapse of the former government of Muhammad Siyad Barre in 1991 up to the time of the election of the TNG in Arta, Djibouti, in August 2000. Resistance from Fatun began after the TNG asked her to vacate the embassy house she had occupied free of charge for 10 years to make way for the newly appointed ambassador, sources said.

After the 1991 collapse of the Somali government, when numerous clan-based factions carved up the country, embassies abroad "basically got taken over by whoever was lucky enough to hold on to them", Somali sources said. Some embassies are now the subject of court cases and eviction orders; others have been abandoned and run down.

The TNG's prime minister, Ali Khalif Galayr, told IRIN in an interview not long after his appointment that there were about 26 embassies before the civil war broke out, some of which still had staff in 2000 "holding the fort". He said the TNG had begun working on repossessing the buildings and appointing new staff. "In all the countries I know of, the individuals who are there, we are in touch with, and they are loyal to our government," he said. [See http://www.reliefweb.int/IRIN/cea/countrystories/somalia/20001120.phtml for full interview]

In the case of the charge d'affaires for the UN permanent mission, duties were effectively performed by Fatun - who is held in high regard by many within the UN, as well as by various Somali leaders and representatives, diplomatic sources said. "Throughout that decade when Somalia had no government, Fatun would carry on receiving documents, turning up to meetings, meeting people and occupying the embassy," one source said. When the TNG was elected, she performed all the necessary duties to ensure newly elected Abdiqassim Salad Hassan attended the UN General Assembly Millennium Summit and the UN General Assembly general debate. Last month, in a letter, she duly forwarded the nomination of a Somali ambassador from Abdiqassim. But she told the Secretary-General on 4 September that "it saddens me very much to inform you that I intend to challenge that same letter... although this action may have had no precedent in the history of the UN".

Diplomatic sources in New York said the letter was seen by some as part of a strong opposition lobby, spearheaded by supporters and political activists of Somali opposition groups, including the self-declared state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia. The campaign may reinforce international "nervousness" about the new government, the source said. But as the TNG had been accepted by the UN credentials committee of the General Assembly last year, it was unlikely to be rejected when it reapplied, because it had retained general support from Africa and non-aligned countries on the committee, UN sources said.

Nairobi, 7 September 2001