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October 13, 2003
I. Introduction
1. The present report is submitted pursuant to the statement of the President of the Security Council of 31 October 2001 (S/PRST/2001/30), in which the Council requested me to submit reports at least every four months on the situation in Somalia and the efforts to promote the peace process, including updates on the scope and contingency planning for launching a peace-building mission for Somalia.
2. The report covers developments since my previous report, dated 10 June 2003 (S/2003/636). Its main focus is the progress made and the challenges faced by the Somali national reconciliation process at Mbagathi, Kenya, as well as the support given to it by the international community, under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and its Kenyan chairmanship. The report also provides an update on the political and security situation in Somalia and the humanitarian and development activities of United Nations programmes and agencies.
II. Somali national reconciliation process
3. By mid-June 2003, the plenary of the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference had endorsed the reports prepared by five of the six reconciliation committees, namely, those on disarmament, demobilization and reintegration; land and property rights; economic recovery, institution-building and resource mobilization; regional and international relations; and conflict resolution and reconciliation.
4. Disagreements in the committee on federalism and a provisional charter prevented it from concluding its report. The major points of disagreement centred on the length of the transitional period, the members of Parliament and the modality for their selection, the timing of the establishment of a federal system of government and the status of the existing regional and local authorities, in particular, "Somaliland".
5. On 1 July, President Mwai Kibaki of Kenya announced the appointment of Mohammed Abdi Affey, a former Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs, as Kenya's Ambassador to Somalia. Mr. Affey is assisting Bethuel Kiplagat, the Kenyan Special Envoy for Somalia and Chairman of the Conference. He will work from Nairobi until it is possible to move to Mogadishu.
6. On 5 July, after three weeks of intense negotiations, the Somali Leaders Committee at the Conference reached an accord that was expected to be part of the draft charter. It was agreed that a federal system of government, to be called the transitional federal government, would be formed in Somalia during a four-year transitional period. The process of federalism would develop gradually and be completed within the first two and a half years of transition. The Parliament would comprise 351 members, 12 per cent of whom would be women. The signatories to the Eldoret Declaration (S/2002/1359, annex) and political leaders at the Conference, in consultation with traditional leaders within their respective clan structures, would select the members of Parliament. In addition, the transitional federal government would immediately initiate a dialogue on national unity with "Somaliland". The 5 July agreement was put before the plenary and adopted by acclamation.
7. The President of the Transitional National Government, Abdikassim Salad Hassan, criticized the 5 July agreement, claiming that it would divide the country because it would implicitly recognize "Somaliland".
He said that his Government would not be party to such a process. He also disowned the signatures of the Prime Minister of the Transitional National Government and Speaker of the Transitional National Assembly, whom he had designated as leaders of the delegation of the Transitional National Government to the Conference. He argued that they had acted contrary to the official position of his Government, which had been formally submitted to Mr. Kiplagat. He also contended that only traditional elders should select the members of Parliament, since it had been agreed that clans would be the basis for representation. He objected strongly that Arabic had been placed with English as one of the two second official languages, instead of being placed on the same level as Somali as one of the two first official languages of the country.
8. Other Somali leaders also denounced the 5 July agreement. Among them were Musse Sudi ("Yallahow") and Colonel Barre Aden Shire of the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA). They stated that the agreement had been signed in the absence of some important leaders, such as themselves, and therefore could not be binding. They subsequently declared that they had withdrawn from the Conference.
9. The 5 July agreement sharpened the differences between Mr. Hassan on the one hand and his Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Transitional National Assembly on the other. Mr. Hassan suspended his participation in the Conference and returned to Mogadishu on 30 July. A session of the Transitional National Assembly was convened in Mogadishu on 9 August, with 124 out of 245 members in attendance, and it voted for the removal of the Prime Minister and the Speaker.
10. Discussions on four different versions of the draft charter continued from 5 July until 15 September, and the IGAD Technical Committee, with the support of international observers, strived to address the concerns raised by some Somali leaders. The fourth version of the draft charter was circulated on 19 July by Mr. Kiplagat. It raised the status of the Arabic language and affirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia. A fifth version of the draft charter circulated on 1 August removed the call on the future transitional federal government to enter into immediate negotiations with "Somaliland".
11. The fifth version of the draft charter was debated in the plenary, article by article, by those who continued to attend the Conference until mid-August. Mr. Kiplagat commissioned a group of Somali lawyers, who were also members of the plenary, to rearrange the text of the draft charter, taking into account the issues debated in the plenary. A Kenyan constitutional expert chaired the work of the group and prepared the sixth and seventh versions of the draft charter. However, differences remained on both the content and the modalities for the implementation of federalism during the transitional period.
12. Members of the Technical Committee, Kenyan officials, my Representative and international observers made several efforts to persuade Mr. Hassan and other Somali leaders to return to Mbagathi. However, at a press conference on 9 September, Mr. Hassan, Mr. Sudi ("Yallahow"), Osman Hassan Ali ("Atto"), Mohamed Ibrahim Habsade of the Rahenwien Resistance Army (RRA) and Colonel Shire (JVA), who had been meeting in Mogadishu, expressed dissatisfaction with the proceedings at the Conference and stated that in order to restore "Somali ownership" of the process, the chairmanship of the Conference should be transferred to a Somali citizen. They were of the view that the drafting of the charter should be done anew by the Somalis themselves, possibly assisted by foreign experts, and that reconciliation among the Somali clans that had experienced a setback as a result of the Conference should be realized before any genuine peace process could take place.
To be continued.
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