Somalia: Uncertainty Looms over Upcoming Talks
By George Okore
MOGADISHU--The respected anthropology Professor, who has been spearheading the breakaway, was sworn in during a weeklong meeting of Somalis in Nairobi. The region comprises Lower Juba, Middle Juba and Gedo, with an approximated population of 1.3 million people. The creation of semiautonomous region bordering Kenya is aimed at preventing the movement of Al Shabaab extremists within the region.
The autonomy, though supported by Kenya, is fiercely opposed by neighbours Ethiopia and Djibouti who fear that creating autonomies will inspire further demands and insurgency by other regions. It will also slow down the gains made by the Transition Federal Government (TFG). Somali’s Transition Federal Charter says that regional federates should be encouraged to help the government administer every region properly.
The move comes a week United Nations backed High Level Consultative Meeting scheduled for April 12 -13, 2011 in Nairobi to discuss how to end the transition arrangements in the former Italian colony, based on the Transitional Federal Charter and the Djibouti Agreement. Under the Transitional Federal Charter, the mandate of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was due to expire in August.
In early 2002, Somalia’s reconciliation agreement was hammered under the auspices of Inter Government Authority (IGAD). The constitutional deal midwifed in Kenya was called Somalia National Reconciliation Conference, which concluded in October 2004. A transitional government, the components of which are known as the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), was formed in accordance with the Transitional Federal Charter. The TFIs include transitional parliament, known as the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP), Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that includes a transitional president, prime minister, and a cabinet known as the "Council of Ministers."
For administrative purposes, Somalia is divided into 18 regions; the nature, authority, and structure of regional governments vary, where they exist. The TFG was established with a 5-year mandate leading to the establishment of a permanent government following national elections in 2009. In January 2009, the TFP extended this mandate an additional 2 years to 2011 and expanded to include 200 members of Parliament (MPs) from the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia and 75 MPs from civil society and other groups, doubling the size of the TFP to 550 MPs
Recently, the interim parliament extended the mandate of all transition institutions for another year, beyond the August deadline by which it was to enact a new constitution ahead of general elections. That move drew criticism from United Nations the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Somalia Mr. Augustine P. Mahiga, who said the decision was made in haste and without the required consultation on how to end the transition and on next steps. Other tasks which need to be completed during the transition period include political reconciliation and building civilian and security institutions.
According the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) headed by Mr. Mahiga, the main objective of the Nairobi meeting is to reinvigorate dialogue among Somali authorities to establish a common vision for moving forward. All Somalia leaders were expected to participate in the Nairobi conference on the transition process, although members of the interim Government had threatened to boycott the purely consultative meeting, where no decisions were to be taken event. “The meeting is an opportunity for the Somali leaders to share information on how regional partners and the international community can support the transitional activities’ he says.
Somalia – which has not had a functioning central government since 1991 – has been torn apart by decades of conflict and factional strife, more recently with al-Shabaab Islamic militants. The country is also facing a dire humanitarian crisis in which 2.4 million people are in need of assistance.