The rift between Transitional Federal Government (TFG) members of parliament (MPs) has increased in recent weeks and reached a critical point after some parliament members declared that they will hold a presidential election before June. Those MPs who 'fired' Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden as speaker of parliament and elected Madoobe Nunow Mahamad held a meeting in Mogadishu this week and declared that they are accepting applications for presidential candidates. This challenge to TFG authority leaves the government in a difficult position as it prepares for the TFG to take a permanent status in August.

The parliament is divided into two groups, one group recognizes Sharif Hassan as the speaker of the parliament, while the majority regards Madoobe Nunow as their speaker. Despite the protests of the parliament, the international community and the UN supports Sharif Hassan as the speaker.

The spokesman for the parliamentary 'election committee', Ismail Mahamad Nuur, told Somalia Report that the election for the presidency will take place on April 30th, and he added the committee agreed to bring forward the presidential election, which was previously scheduled for June. “The issue is holding the election and preparing well. We don't have time to waste, so the election committee has declared that the candidate can forward the application. The deadline for application will be April 21st, after that we will go straight to the election,” said Ismail.

Ismail Nuur said the committee will review the applications for candidacy and those qualified will be invited to present their agenda for the country in parliament. “As described in point 40 of the TFG charter, the qualification of the candidate are that he should be a Somali national, Muslim, more than 40 years of age, healthy and have no criminal charges, be well-behaved, educated, experienced and strong enough to lead the country. He should forward his application, cover letter and two pictures and should pay a registration of $2,000,” he told Somalia Report.

Ismail argued that the current president and the prime minister have failed to lead the country, and parliament cannot stand back and watch the country decline, and this election will select a respectable and reliable leader. “The causes that forced us to stage this election are that we saw the problems ahead of us, and we are calling for Sheikh Sharif and Abdiweli to not involve anything that can bring harm to the nation. Their time has expired; if they want another term, then they should run in the presidential election, since they can be elected again,” he said. “On April 30th, the election will take place, no one can postpone it. The only way it can be halted is if the parliament approves, as it is the most powerful agent in the country,” Ismail added.

Ismail called for neighboring countries and the United Nations to listen to the voices of the Somali people and the parliament, and stop supporting those individuals who are creating chaos and unrest in Somalia. “For example Sharif Hassan, although we replaced him, he is still supported by them. He can’t enter the parliament and yet he thinks somehow going from one place to another acting as our leaders will make him a speaker of the parliament? The real speaker is the one who was elected and currently in parliament, namely Madoobe Nuunow,” Ismail told Somalia Report.

Spokesman Ismail insists they cannot recognize the government represented by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, arguing that Kampala accord was illegal. “The biggest problem was caused by the illegal agreements which were signed. For example the Kampala accord, which was signed by the two Sharifs, and that agreement which was brought in front of the parliament are totally different and we were cheated. After we realized we addressed our concerns to the international community and the UN. We do not expect anything from international law, we have to abide with Somali law and that is the way Somalia can achieve victory.”

There have been proposed discussions between the rebelling MPs and the current government which ended in failure. President Sharif Ahmed, PM Sharif Hassan as well as the Puntland administration, Galmudug and government militias of Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa (ASWJ) collectively signed the Mogadishu, Garowe I and Garowe II agreements, which establish the basis for the transition to a permanent government. According to those agreements, the election of the president is scheduled for June, but MPs supporting Madoobe Nuunow as speaker are adamant that the election should be held at the end of April.

The head of United Nations Political Office for Somalia (UNIPOS) Augustine Mahiga, has accused those MPs opposed the 'Road Map' of creating chaos in the country and of working for former PM Farmajo to regain power, but Farmajo has denied those accusation. This political deadlock will continue, as the TFG charter describes the parliament as the highest authority in the country, while parliamentary members have strongly opposed senior TFG leaders and the UNIPOS office as interfering in their legitimate authority.

A three-day anti-piracy conference was begun on Sunday in Eyl, in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. According to Puntland officials, the discussions were successful in developing a strategy for fighting piracy.

The Puntland Minister for Sea Transport and Ports Said Mohamed Raage hosted the delegation, which included members of Puntland ministries including ministry of security, ministry of interior as well as United Nation (UN) agencies such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), UN Development Program (UNDP) and UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS).

The Puntland Marine Police Force (PMPF) recently established a base in Eyl, and the headquarters are currently under construction. The delegation wen on a tour of the site, and also visited a police station, a local hospital ad other local villages.

“The meeting is well organised, and our aim is to discuss dealing with the increase of piracy in the region, and how the pirates can be eliminated,” said Abdikadir Ali , a Puntland official in their anti-piracy office. Ali told Somalia Report that pirates have undermined the reputation of the region and created insecurity. “We are calling on the pirates to surrender, or else they will face the consequences. We are also urging Galmudug state to fight pirates,” he said.

Puntland has long been the regional frontrunner when it comes to Somalia’s on land counter-piracy operations, and international actors have offered substantial financial support to aid those efforts.

Earlier this month, the administration welcomed a 33-person delegation from Europe, which was seeking to understand more about Puntland’s counter-piracy efforts, and to discuss United Nations Security Council Resolution 2015, which recommends a system whereby pirates jailed abroad can be transferred to Puntland’s prisons. Through the UNODC, the EU has donated $10 million to Puntland’s efforts to modernize and build prisons. Currently, prison conditions are assessed to be below acceptable EU standards, and so it would be deemed a human rights abuse to relocate pirates jailed in other countries to Puntland.

Days prior to the EU delegation visit, Puntland officials held a meeting with a NATO team, during which they agreed to process and imprison pirates detained by NATO counter-piracy forces.

Somalia Report is monitoring the outcomes of the meeting.

On February 28, Somalia Report interviewed the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, in his Mogadishu office. In his comments Mr. Mahiga referred Somali members of parliament as future war criminals, accused former Transitional Federal Government (TFG) prime minister Mohamed Farmajo of clawing his way back into power, and referred to the TFG Islamist faction Ala Sheikh as al-Shabaab militants without the arms. The remarks drew intense criticism from TFG President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed—who described Mr. Mahiga's clothes as having "fallen off" (in other words, that he had embarrassed himself)—as well as the Somali press.

In an open letter to the Somali people on March 9, the SRSG indirectly addressed the remarks he had made in our interview:

"I remain deeply concerned by the conscious efforts by groups and individuals to derail the Roadmap, engineer another extension of the transition and to obstruct inclusiveness which the Roadmap and the Garowe process seek to accomplish.

I regret that my comments have been interpreted in some quarters as anti-religious and counter to freedom of political expression as well as a criticism of the Executive Branch of government. I apologize for any misunderstanding. On the contrary, my goal was to highlight the dangers inherent in any one group exerting undue political influence due to their proximity to political power. Over the past week, I have had a series of productive and enlightening discussions with religious leaders, elders and statesmen concerning the Al-Sheikh group and their interpretation of Islam. In these discussions, my interlocutors confirmed their support to the Roadmap process and, for my part, I reaffirmed my enduring commitment to the overall success of the Somali peace process. I encourage and welcome political pluralism in the runup to ending the transition in electing the next leadership as well as of the post-August dispensation."

This week, Somalia Report interviewed former PM Mohamed Farmajo, with the aim of giving him a chance to respond to Mr. Mahiga's allegations, as well as discuss his political aspirations for the August national elections.

Mr. Farmajo, are you intending to run for the TFG presidency in August?

I haven’t come to that decision yet. I will cross that bridge when I come to it.

Hopefully what we can do first is come together and organize, after which we will decide as an organization what we will do next as far as taking part in the election process.

Can you tell us more about the political party you have recently created, Tayo?

We call ourselves Tayo, a nickname that means “quality.” When I was prime minister, I assembled a very technocratic cabinet. We did everything in a different way: established a budget, started paying civil servants and soldiers, even established a veterans’ center.

We created a center for 400 orphans who had lost their parents in the war. We brought back SNTV (Somali National Television) for the first time in 20 years. We repaired roads, schools, hospitals. We showed ourselves to be workers.

We ended the culture of impunity, established that people who commit crimes should be punished, and that someone who kills should be executed. As a result, soldier-on-soldier killings went way down.

We increased morale by paying salaries, which is why were able to defeat the extremists. When I first came, they were one kilometer away. Their bullets reached my window.

All of this was unorthodox, something people had not seen before. People thought we were “quality” - that we were professionals and technocrats. By using this name we don’t have to explain who we are — it’s self-evident.

What we are planning to do is to announce our platform on March 31st in Minneapolis, Minnesota, when we will share with the public what we are planning to do and what the organization stands for.

We came to the conclusion that it’s time to have an organization, so we can take part in the election process this August.

In his interview with Somalia Report SRSG Augustine Mahiga suggested that you were "fighting tooth and nail" to stage a comeback, and were orchestrating a takeover of parliament. How do you respond?

I was shocked to read that, and it was unexpected, because usually you’d expect someone in that high caliber position to employ diplomatic language. Of course we expect of him to be more neutral. The language he used was not healthy, to tell you the truth.

And I’m sure his colleagues at the UN may not be proud of someone who makes such high level decisions speculating on what’s not true.

The SRSG seemed to suggest that you had a hand in the recent formation of the Islamist party Daljir, which comprises, amongst others, the Ala Sheikh faction. Is he correct?

Ala-Sheikh has been part of the government. They have members in parliament, they are close to the president, and they are not a violent group. And anyone who is not violent should express their views in a democratic way — that’s what democracy is all about. People will decide who they vote for, and who they can elect — maybe based on religious beliefs, maybe secular beliefs, maybe character. But that’s is not the decision of Mahiga or anybody else — that is up to the Somali people.

As far as my involvement, there is none. I’m not a member of that. At same time, I would welcome anyone who would start an organization who wants to participate in the Somali democratic process peacefully. That excludes Shabaab, or any other organization that promotes violence.

To answer, I was not expecting these sorts of comments. I would expect that kind of language from someone who’s part of Somali political activities — even though I’ve never been affiliated with any religious organization — but certainly not from anyone representing the Secretary General.

Do you feel that the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) unfairly took sides against you during the horse trading that led to the Kampala Accord?

Mahiga played a very active role. That’s how I would like to end this specific question. Because I don’t want to be part of a war of words in the media. I don’t want to discuss it any more.

But he played a very, very active role, and a time will come that I will publish a book that will explain step-by-step what happened, but I don’t want to discuss it further now. I want to take the high road.

Are you worried that the SRSG might try to impede your potential presidential bid?

Any future Somali leader should be decided by the Somali people. We need to have a government by the people and for the people, not to be decided by the foreign agents. In order to have peace and stability in the country the Somali people have to decide what type of leader they want to have.

Any UN representative or member of the international community should play a neutral role in the Somali political process. To help Somalia stand on its own feet again, but not engage in political activities, otherwise they will lose focus and their mission. Their mission is to bring peace and stability, and to bring the different groups together so they can negotiate.

So I think they should facilitate that, but if you take one side against the other, you will lose the essence of neutrality and credibility, and I don’t want that to happen to Mahiga or anyone else.

What is your view on the outcome of the London conference

The London conference was a success. Over 50 countries gathered to discuss issues. Great Britain is finally using its prestige to end the crisis in Somalia.

However, you can bring a horse to the water but you can’t make it drink. The Somali people should take advantage of this opportunity to pull together and find solutions for our country. Vulnerable women and children have suffered for over two decades. It is time to say “enough is enough” and to act together and do what we can in order to help our nation.

I’ll ask you the same question I asked the SRSG: do you think August will bring an end to the “transition,” or will it go on indefinitely?

I think we have been in this transitional period for over 10 years, and during that time we've had about nine prime ministers, so that we’ve had roller coaster governments, with no continuity.

I believe that the international community has clearly articulated its demand to end the transitional government by this August, and I hope that comes to fruition because we need a permanent and stable government that will not change every year. The way it’s been is that every year there’s been a new prime minister, and that means a new government that starts from scratch. It causes stagnation.

That’s not a way to build a stable nation. To build a stable nation you need continuity, something to build on.

I believe the transition should end, as the US Secretary of State Madame Hillary Clinton has sufficiently talked about. As well, every leader has articulated that the transitional government should end, and I hope it does. I hope there will be a new beginning.

Now that al-Shabaab is being pushed back in many regions, who will fill the power vacuum?

One thing I’m always in favor is recruit and train the Somali national army, so they will effectively fight their enemies. That is something that should be worked on in the long term.

The short term is what you hear going on—these skirmishes taking place near the Kenyan and Ethiopian borders.

That’s the short term. The long term is to increase the quality of the TFG forces so they will be able to fight effectively against al-Shabaab.

Thank you, Mr. Farmajo.

Somalia Report also spoke to Somali transitional member of parliament Awad Ahmed Ashareh, who requested the opportunity to respond to SRSG Mahiga’s comments. Ashareh has served as an MP for seven years, and currently chairs the Parliamentary Committee for Information, Culture, and Heritage.

Thank you for granting me this chance to respond to your article, “Chatting With Mahiga.”

Mr. Mahiga’s statements were offensive, lacking in diplomatic awareness and also reflects his not knowing why he’s there. He’s in Somalia to facilitate the conflict resolution and try to bring together those who are having conflicts.

So his statement is absolutely against that mission, number one.

Number two, he accused some parliamentarians of being warlords, others spoilers. We want Mr. Mahiga to clarify these statements, and we want to tell him that we have the right to oppose any statements or programs or intrigues that are against the sovereignty of Somalia, and the well-being of the Somali people.

I was disappointed also with the statement of the president, who said that “the clothes fell from Mahiga.” That was not the right approach. He could have used a better way: his foreign minister could have summoned Mahiga to his office and asked him to clarify whether he said these statements or not. And then, if he confessed, they could have declared him a persona non grata. He has damaged the image of the Somali state, since Villa Somalia represents the Somali state, which he accused of harbouring "unarmed Shabaab" groups. So we feel that labeling of the president as a harborer of al-Shabaab damages both the integrity of the president and the state of Somalia.

And it's also an insult to AMISOM (African Union peacekeepers), who are fighting against al-Shabaab. AMISOM's mission is to fight al-Shabaab, and Mahiga is implying that they are protecting them, since they are defending the president.

So if Mahiga admitted to these statements, he should have been declared persona non grata by the president?

No, not by the president, by the government.

I was also astonished that the government has not taken measures to address these labeling and abusive statements. So I’m urging the foreign minister to take the necessary measures to safeguard the dignity and the integrity of Somali citizens.

What measures, exactly?

I recommend that he calls Mr. Mahiga, and if he fails to respond, he could write a letter to the Secretary General, stating that his representative failed to comply with the Charter of the United Nations. As we are a member of the United Nations, we deserve respect and mutual cooperation.

Mr. Mahiga also expressed strong views that the parliamentary impeachment of the House Speaker Sharif Hassan Aden was illegitimate. What is your response?

He has no right, because parliament works according to the (Transitional Federal) Charter as well as the rules of procedures.

The ousted speaker (Sharif Hassan Aden) has created conflict in the parliament by instigating and sending some MPs to fight within the parliament. So he has to take responsibility for damaging the image of the parliament as well as being involved in the confrontation that occurred...

The situation is very critical, and it was embarrassing how Mr. Mahiga was taking sides. He met four days ago with the current speaker (Madobe Nunow Mohamed) and the deputy speaker, and asked them to hand over the program of the parliament for the coming months.

He has met several times with the current speaker, telling them confusing statements.

What sort of statements?

That I will reveal later.

Some people think that these statement are coming from the United Nations, because Mahiga is working for the United Nations. And there’s a hidden agenda in place.

Mahiga always says that parliament doesn’t back the Roadmap (to end the transition), that’s not true. We just want to legalize it, make sure it goes through the government.

The way Mahiga is handling the constitution is illegal. The process is half-cooked, because they’re not taking the input of the parliament. The public has not had any input.

Thank you, Mr. Ashareh.

In a much-feted ceremony on January 24, the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS), headed by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) for Somalia, Dr. Augustine Mahiga, relocated permanently to Mogadishu.

While in Mogadishu earlier this month, Somalia Report editors Jay Bahadur and Venetia Archer interviewed SRSG Mahiga about the peace process, al-Shabaab, and his personal interest in Somalia.

How have things been going since you arrived in Mogadishu to stay?

I seriously feel my deployment was long overdue, and I am already starting to feel the need for daily interaction with Somali interlocutors and partners. There are issues that make a whole world of difference to address on the ground rather than addressing them on the telephone and with the occasional visit.

Yesterday, I was with the PM (Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed) and we were going through the work program on what it’s going to take to complete the transition, including implementation of the Roadmap and Garowe principles, in that we have to work almost around the clock on a daily basis.

It’s not only the need for consultations, but meticulous planning and execution of the work program around the constitution, the drafting, the formation of the constituent assembly to adopt the constitution, and thereafter all the reforms related to parliament. We need to bring all these processes much closer to the people. So far, though we have the signatories of the major actors, the challenge we have is to bring the Roadmap and the Garowe principles to the grassroots, and this will be reflected in the formation of the constituent assembly.

We are thinking about bringing close to 1,000 participants from the grassroots, and these would need to be drawn from the very basic communities around the different regions.

How will members of the constituent assembly be selected?

This is what I’m saying, it needs meticulous planning. The starting point will be clan elders, and around the clan elders, we will have to consult from community level with civil society.

There will also be a representative body that will establish the criteria for the people who need to be brought in and consulted — women’s leaders, youth, on down to the communities. It’s going to be very time-consuming and has to be very carefully done.

We really should have begun several months ago, but we needed to be here in Mogadishu. We need to hold extensive consultations with the regions, including, against tremendous odds, the areas still controlled by al-Shabaab. There are ways of bringing in the elders in a secure way.

How precisely is this done?

I don’t want to go into details, because I would be risking the lives of people.

But wouldn’t there be reprisals for the people you bring in to consult?

We have to take the necessary precautions, but people do come in and out of the Shabaab controlled areas, and we have to weigh the cost of their participation against the reprisals, as you say. If the danger is too high, we don’t want to expose people unnecessarily. But we’ve done this before... we try to protect their identities, their movements, and we think this is the only way to bring in the inclusiveness and participation of this political process, in the most trying of circumstances.

What is your stance on the current wrangling over the speaker of parliament? If constitutional law is an important step along this path, why is the new speaker elected by the parliament being ignored by international actors?

I think anyone who has been following the wrangling — “wrangling” is a better word than “parliamentary crisis” — the manner in which this wrangling has been carried out leaves a lot to be desired.

We are all taking cues from the government, the cabinet and the national security council, which declared those elections null and void. First of all, the numbers are highly disputed. Although there is this number thrown around, 280-something — but the new speaker actually got no more than 130 votes, and the other votes went to other candidates within that group.

Then there is evidence that this election was not free and fair, it was marked by violence. Indeed, people were beaten and thrown around. The vote was by a show of hands, and there is enough evidence to show that some people raised two hands.

The legality of the process according to the government and those who witnessed it is also disputed. The rebel parliamentarians claim to have obeyed the procedures of the (Transitional Federal) Charter. The speaker claims that this was non-procedural, that it was against the Charter. There are certain procedures by which you can oust the speaker. This was done in his absence and those procedures were not followed.

But we were all guided by the Kampala Accord, which extended the transition by one year. There was an understanding that both institutions, parliament and the executive, should refrain from motions of impeachment or dismissals of parliament, in order to get a modicum of stability in this one year and allow the Roadmap to proceed. But the genesis of this crisis was precisely to go against the letter and spirit of the Kampala Accord.

What guarantee do you have that this process will not be hijacked, that the transition will not continue indefinitely? What makes this new transition any different?

We started it in a different way, in that until June last year the transition was a closed door affair — it was just a exercise monopolized by the government and the parliament. But then it was riddled with a lot of internal crises, the height of which was in February when parliament declared itself extended for three years, and this created a rift and broken communications between the executive and legislature, until the Kampala Accord healed this.

We were approaching the end of the transition. So through the Kampala Accord and Roadmap, we said, “let us bring the element that has consistently been missing in the Somali peace process: inclusiveness.”

So we sat down and said, under the current situation in Somalia, how do we make this current peace process different, and who do you bring in to meet the requirements of at least a minimum of inclusiveness? Let’s bring in the regions: Puntland, Galmudug, ASWJ (Ahlu Sunna wal Jamaa) — though the latter is a military movement, not yet a political movement.

How do you decide which individuals represents those regions? For example, the ASWJ leadership is quite fractured.

Yes, the leaders of the three factions of Ahlu Sunna were invited to come to sign up for the Roadmap. The regions we bring in have functioning governments: Puntland is a government. Galmudug is a government. I wish there were more governments.

You look for whatever organized society or group there is. That is what we tried, to make this process a little different, rather than being an exercise of the two Sharifs.

Do you think the recent proliferation of mini-states within Somalia: Khatumo, Ras Aseyr, and so on, will harm the peace process?

It is both healthy, but at the same time, risky. Because they’re spontaneous, organic, but what we need now is very quickly to define a framework and procedure for establishing these states. The process of constitutional drafting is precisely going to answer this, because the number one topic in the draft constitution is federalism.

These states are healthy. They are proving that Somalia cannot be ruled from a central authority. This anarchy, or semi-anarchy, in Somalia for 21 years has shown that a centralized state cannot work — first of all, it was at the root of the collapse of the state.

In this vacuum, there have been all sorts of attempts, be it warlords, or clans, or what have you. But this idea of "building blocks" has proved through practice to be the viable way forward. We cannot continue to ignore this.

Are there serious discussions about trying to negotiate with the nationalist elements of al-Shabaab, split them off from the more hardcore elements and bring them into the peace process?

The Shabaab, ideologically, are not amenable to power-sharing politics. There is ideological purity, and that’s why they rejected the Djibouti agreement. They’ve rejected all other overtures to come into the political process. But the internal dynamics of the Shabaab are fundamentally guided by radical Islam, by the al-Qaeda global agenda. That’s why they’ve had internationalist fighters join them — jihad is an international undertaking.

But there are also nationalists, and when the military pressure was building around them, some of the nationalist elements were beginning to send signals, and people were hoping that there would begin to be a peeling off. As we begin to see the cracks developing between al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam, al-Shabaab moved quickly to absorb Hizbul Islam, to contain those elements. We know the moderates have been eliminated, if not absorbed.

After the battle for Mogadishu, following which some neighboring countries have come into Somalia, that has really galvanized whatever fissures were developing within the Shabaab. I think Shabaab has rallied around that kind of ideology as part of a defensive mechanism.

So I’m not sure at this time. We’re not getting any further signals of internal fissures within the Shabaab.

The Security Council, regionally, in all kind of meetings we have repeatedly sent these messages. In fact the messages have been quite measured: renounce violence. We’re not saying put down your arms — just renounce violence, and the rest will follow by way of negotiations. But they have always said no.

I couldn’t see Khrushchev or Brezhnev striking an ideological bargain with Carter or Ford before perestroika. There were fundamental changes that had to happen. My inner feeling is that any war, any ideological difference, at the end of the day will end up on the table for negotiation. We haven’t reached that stage, but talking to TFG leaders, they think the way to pursue a negotiated settlement is when you build up enough military pressure.

But the pitfalls, the roadblocks to the peace process are not only caused by the Shabaab. It is the vested interests in the status quo. There are entrenched, vested, short-term interests, whether business or political, whether warlords, but there are people who definitely gain.

What about the politicians themselves?

Yes, they are the people who really have a vested interest. The whole thing with the crisis of parliament... First of all they are contested numbers, but behind the numbers there are the vested interests! Behind those numbers is “we don’t want change, we want the status quo.” Behind those numbers there are the warlords, the spoilers.

These people have no future. These people have a future in the status quo. These people will have to protect themselves against the ICC (International Criminal Court) one day.

The former PM (Mohamed) Farmajo is fighting tooth and nail to stage a comeback, and to stage a comeback, I think any savvy politician starts by controlling parliament. And we have evidence of him even bringing forward some people to contest the speaker position.

There is a palace coup that has taken place in Villa Somalia. The Ala-Sheikh group is back in power, which should not be downplayed. The Ala-Sheikh group by definition never wanted any power sharing, they are against the Roadmap because of its inclusiveness to bring in the regions, to bring in Ahlu Sunnah, to bring in civil society.

They are not very different than the Shabaab, except that they don’t take up arms. But for them, the fundamentals are the ideological purity, and they’ve reached a point where they have successfully staged a comeback, and they have just created a forum, which they have formed under Farmajo: an Islamic organization which they are going to transform into a political party.

What is your personal interest in Somalia? What drew to you to the Somalia question?

Politically, intellectually, all my adult life I’ve been involved with it intellectually. I’m an academic, teaching at the University of Dar es Salaam in issues of regional integration and conflict resolution. This has been my preoccupation, and frankly whether I worked for the UNHCR (UN High Commissioner for Refugees) in some of the most persistent conflict areas — in Liberia, in the Great Lakes — I feel that peace is a commodity that needs to be treasured and brought anywhere.

It is not only a passion but I think I’ve internalized, both intellectually and in practice, this issue of resolving conflict. I hesitated to take this assignment, very much. But when I knew it was close to my region, close to my home, and I know even how the region is being impacted negatively by the Somalia issue, I felt had a mission, a call, a vocation to try to do the job.

But I’m really mindful that I cannot solve the problem alone... It’s a process, a conflict that has gone on for 20 years. It’s like a relay, if you reach a point where you have to pass on the baton to others, but when I’m in it, I want to do my best to see how far I can bring it to a different state from where I found it.