NAIROBI : Somalia's new parliament was due to be inaugurated on Sunday at UN offices in Nairobi, marking a major step towards ending 13 years of anarchy in the Horn of Africa country, chief mediator Bethuel Kiplagat said.
"Definitely, the members of the Somali parliament will be sworn in tomorrow (Sunday) after 22 months of negotiations," Kiplagat, a long-serving Kenyan diplomat, told AFP.
The Transitional National Federal Assembly (TNFA), whose inauguration has been put off three times since July 31 because of inter-clan disputes, will have 275 lawmakers.
The swearing-in will be the third major event in the process, since October 2002 when a ceasefire was signed and the agreement of the federal charter (a draft constitution) in January 2004.
"The swearing-in ceremony of members of TNFA of Somalia is a landmark achievement of peace in our region," Kenyan Regional Cooperation Minister John Arap Koech told the delegates and diplomats who have been observers in the convoluted peace process.
"By reaching an agreement in this crucial organ of governance, the Somali people have reaffirmed their desire for an all-inclusive transtional federal government firmly grounded on democracy and the rule of law," he added.
The peace process has reached a point of no-return, Koech said, explaining that: "We cannot envisage anything short of a successful completion of this process."
But dozens of women delegates demonstrated at the venue of the peace talks in the southern outskirts of the Kenyan capital, accusing mediators and Somali male delegates of sidelining them.
Some of the placards they carried read: "Women form 50 percent of Somali population and deserve better representation. IGAD (Inter-Governmental Authority on Development) is creating enemies among Somalis."
The talks are being mediated by the east African IGAD authority.
Somalia plunged into anarchy and bloodletting in 1991 with the toppling of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
There followed 13 years of factional bloodletting that turned Somalia into the archetypal "failed state" and prompted botched military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations and the United States from December 1992 to 1995.
More than a dozen previous attempts have been made to negotiate an end to Somalia's anarchy and restore a functional government, but few have brought in so many different players.
The current round of peace talks, which started in October 2002, is in its final phase, with delegates attempting to hammer out how to share power among five major Somali clans before electing a transitional president.
On July 8, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan visited the delegates in Nairobi and encouraged them to find an agreement on the power-sharing issue, which was the last sticking point in the efforts to restore normalcy in the restive and split country.
Shortly after Barre's exit, Somaliland declared its own independence to the northwestern part of the country, but the international community has refused by recognise it. And in 1998 a Puntland, a region in the northeast, also declared its autonomy.
Somaliland, which has established its own tools of nationhood, refused to participate in the talks.
- AFP