Facing Down the Warlords.(interview with Somali Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh)(Brief Article)(Interview)

The New World Order was born in Somalia, and quickly died there. After dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991, rival warlords vied for power. Bandits and militiamen robbed everything of value, down to the copper electrical wire. International forces intervened to restore order and provide food to the starving, but the warlords again prevailed. After a 1993 fire fight in which 18 U.S. soldiers were killed, foreign forces withdrew. Now, for the first time in a decade, a provisional Somali government is trying to extend its authority across the country. Somali Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh, a former professor of public administration at Syracuse University, was in New York recently to solicit support from the United Nations. Over breakfast at his hotel, he spoke to NEWSWEEK's Jeffrey Bartholet. Excerpts:

BARTHOLET: You're alive. Is that a measure of success?

GALAYDH: Well, you don't take anything for granted in my neck of the woods, so staying alive is a measure of success, yes.

How many legislators or government officials have been assassinated?

Two.

What happened in the recent ambush [by militiamen] of the Parliament speaker?

The speaker of the Parliament decided to go to his hometown. He went there in consultation with the elders of the town, and they greeted him and they assured him that everything would be fine. But a splinter group from the faction that the speaker belongs to deceived the elders. "We want you elders to bring us together and mediate," they said. And they came with 10 technicals [gun-mounted trucks], and they started shooting. Unfortunately, about nine of the town's citizens got killed.