IGAD technical committee to visit Somalia

The technical committee of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development's (IGAD) is expected to go to Somalia on Wednesday, a senior Kenyan official confirmed to IRIN on Tuesday.

The committee - which comprises the frontline states of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia - was established by the foreign ministers of the IGAD member states when they met in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, in February.

Its mandate includes monitoring the Somali peace process and drawing up the terms of reference for the forthcoming peace conference, determining the criteria for participation and deciding on the number of participants.

Only the representatives of Ethiopia and Kenya took part in the committee's last fact-finding mission to Somalia in April. Djibouti refused to participate, stating at the time that there had been insufficient preparation.

However, the Kenyan official said that "this time round we are hopeful Djibouti will join the mission". He added that the committee would be accompanied by the Kenyan special envoy for Somalia, Elijah Mwangale, who would be visiting the country for the first time.

A Djibouti foreign ministry official told IRIN that Djibouti's members "will be in Nairobi on Tuesday".

The committee, which has already visited Mogadishu, Baidoa, and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, would on this occasion visit Kismayo in the south, and Jowhar and Beledweyne in central Somalia, he said.

The Somali national reconciliation conference is due to be held in September, but IRIN's sources said this was in doubt as more time was needed to prepare. They pointed out that the technical committee had so far failed to come up with its report, which would have to be approved by the IGAD Council of Ministers, due to meet in August. "This does not leave much time to organise a conference of this magnitude," the sources said.

The situation was further complicated by the upsurge in factional fighting in the country over the past few months, said a regional expert.

"You had fighting in Mogadishu, Jowhar, Baidoa and Puntland, further fragmenting the factions there. The question for the committee now is whom to invite," he said. "It will take time for IGAD to sort out the question of representation, and September is too short a time for them to do that."

The talks, which are to bring together the Transitional National Government and other Somali parties, were first scheduled to take place in April, but have been repeatedly postponed.