New Somali parliament brings hopes of peace

Members of a new transitional parliament for Somalia were sworn in yesterday - a key step toward establishing Somalia’s first national government since 1991.

But a dispute over who has the right to select representatives from one of the country’s clans threatened to scuttle the peace process, mediators said.

The new parliament is the product of nearly two years of talks in Kenya among clan leaders, religious leaders and warlords.

And while foreign officials at the ceremony hailed the creation of the new parliament, they pressed for a speedy resolution to one key hurdle – a dispute over who will choose lawmakers from one of the largest clans.

“This is not an easy moment for me, as I stand before you seeing that the light at the end of the tunnel we have been going through is not far from us,” said Kenyan diplomat Bethuel Kiplagat, the chief mediator at the talks, the latest of numerous attempts to bring peace to Somalia.

“If we have gone this far, for God’s sake, let’s finish the race,” Kiplagat told the Somali clan leaders, warlords and religious leaders who attended the ceremony at the United Nation’s sprawling campus on the edge of Nairobi.

Somalia descended into chaos after clan-based factions ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and then turned on each other, transforming the country of seven million people into a patchwork of fiefdoms.

An attempt in 2000 by Somali elders, businessmen and religious leaders to form a government failed largely because warlords refused to recognise the administration and relinquish their weapons.

Instead, they continued battling with each other, and the government never controlled more than a small portion of Mogadishu and other parts of Somalia. The government’s mandate expired in August 2003.

“It is very important to disarm the armed groups. That is the first step to be taken,” Abdirashid Mohammed, one of the new lawmakers said. The new government “may not work” if the groups are not disarmed, he added.

There was no timetable for when the parliament would return to Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and begin official duties.

Lawmakers in the new parliament were selected under Somalia’s clan system, and each of the country’s four major clans has 61 seats in the assembly. A coalition of smaller clans is sharing 31 seats. Women are slated to make up at least 12% of the parliament’s members.

The legislature will have a five-year term and select a national president, the country’s first since 1991.

But a dispute over who would select 59 of the representatives of the Darod clan, one of the major clans, threatened to undermine the 275-member parliament’s authority.

Abdullahi Yussuf, a Darod who controls the central Puntland region, wanted more say in choosing the Darod representatives, an official said on condition of anonymity.

Yussuf and other Darod leaders were not available for comment, but Mohammed, the lawmaker, called the dispute ”very small” and said it would soon be settled. He did not elaborate.

Kiplagat said the parliament would not be able to begin work until the Darod dispute was resolved.

The European Union, China and Kenya have financed the talks.

The senior EU representative at the swearing-in ceremony, Italian Ambassador Carlo Calia, said of the dispute: “We are at the point of endangering three years of work.”

“We really hope that this occasion, which from original points of view is historic, is not lost for minor or petty questions,” he said.

The talks began in October 2002 under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a group of seven eastern African countries.

Throughout the talks, Somali delegates – including warlords, politicians and women’s groups – have haggled over details of the process, and there have been numerous walks-outs.

But in January, Somalia’s warlords and traditional leaders at the talks approved a charter for a transitional government.

Despite the progress, the earlier delays are a major reason the conference has run a deficit which has seen hoteliers and other service providers at times stop delegates from using their facilities.