Newly appointed Somali Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh has made his first governmental appointment, naming Ismael Mahmoud Hourreh "Buba" as his foreign minister.
The full government Galaydh is due to form this week will be Somalia's first since the 1991 fall of president Mohammed Siad Barre.
Buba, who was sworn in before President Abdulkassim Salat Hassan on Sunday, left Mogadishu Monday to attend an Arab League summit in Egypt.
A member of the Issak clan, Buba was born in Hargessa in 1943 and studied at several universities in the United States.
From 1973 to 1975, he worked as a political analyst with the Arab League and in the early 1990s served as finance minister in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, an entity that rejects the ongoing reconciliation process in Somalia proper.
In 1995, the late General Mohamed Farah Aidid -- then Somalia's self-styled head of state -- offered Buba a ministerial portfolio responsible for demobilizing militias, a job he turned down.
The previous year, the regime in Somaliland sentenced Buba to death following his conviction in absentia on charges of treason related to inter-clan fighting in the secessionist territory.
He received a pardon two years later.
Over the weekend, Buba said he was determined to meet Somali warlords, most of whom have expressed vehement opposition to the reconciliation process which led to the formation of a transitional parliament and the appointments of Salat and Galaydh – MOGADISCIO (AFP)
© 2000 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
