Sunday, 19 February 2012
Constant infighting, rampant corruption and bloody attacks by Islamist Shebab insurgents have undermined Somalia’s unelected Transitional Federal Government (TFG), whose Western-backed mandate ends in August. (File photo)
Constant infighting, rampant corruption and bloody attacks by Islamist Shebab insurgents have undermined Somalia’s unelected Transitional Federal Government (TFG), whose Western-backed mandate ends in August.
Somalia’s president, the presidents of the breakaway Puntland and Galmudug regions, and the commander of the powerful anti-Shebab militia Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa signed the deal under U.N. auspices.
A new 225-member lower house -- including at least 30 percent women -- will be nominated by “traditional elders assisted by prominent civil society members,” the agreement reads, released late Saturday after a three-day meeting.
The agreement is the latest among more than a dozen attempts to resolve Somalia’s more than two decade-old civil war, with the country split between rival factions and pirate gangs who hijack ships far across the Indian Ocean.
In addition, a 1,000-member upper house -- the National Constituent Assembly -- will be nominated by agreement signatories “assisted by traditional leaders and civil society” groups. The upper house too must include at least 30 percent women.
“To ensure trust in the federal parliament, members must be patriotic, honest and of good standing in Somalia society,” the agreement reads, noting that anyone guilty of “serious crime or crimes against humanity” will be barred.
“They must respect and uphold the rights of all Somalis and demonstrate tolerance towards all,” says the deal, signed in the northern town of Garowe.
Somalia collapsed into feuding between rival warlords, clans and factions after dictator Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991. Its Western-backed interim government controls only limited areas.
The insurgents continue to hold swathes of central and southern Somalia but are being squeezed out of some areas by Kenyan and Ethiopian troops, which have launched incursions inside Somalia in support of the beleaguered government.
On Saturday the al-Qaeda allied Shebab rebels warned they were intensifying a bombing campaign in the war-torn capital Mogadishu, a day after detonating a car bomb at a police station.
Shebab spokesman Sheikh Abdulaziz Abu Musab said the extremist Islamist fighters had prepared a string of suicide bombers in their battle to topple the weak Western-backed government, and the African Union troops who guard it.
A string of blasts including roadside bombs and grenade explosions that have rocked Mogadishu in the past six months since the Shebab left fixed positions and switched to guerrilla attacks.
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