SOMALIA: In a sweltering, bombed-out grain silo here, a group of leaders is plotting the birth of a nation. Or, more accurately, the rebirth of one.
After 15 years of anarchy, a fledgling Somalian parliament formed outside the country is meeting for the first time on Somalian soil in this crumbling southern city. The transitional government is the latest in a string of attempts to restore law and order to the Horn of Africa nation that fractured in the collapse of the dictatorship of Maj Gen Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and the international intervention that followed.
Outside the makeshift parliament, piles of rubble and dilapidated buildings line dirt streets. Electricity and water remain scarce. Militiamen roam the streets in trucks mounted with anti-aircraft weapons.
But none of that seemed to detract from the heady mood of the lawmakers, who were appointed during a peace conference in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital, in 2004.
This is their Philadelphia, they said, a historic gathering of leaders from small independent fiefdoms who are working to set aside their differences. It's too soon to say whether they will write a new chapter in Somalian history, or end up another footnote.
"This time is going to be different," promised Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, speaker of the Somalian parliament, during an interview inside his new office, where the lights flickered on and off. "The reconciliation is going on. We are sorting out our differences."
Events on the ground raised doubts about that. Even as parliament members were debating a new national security plan, battles raged in the capital, Mogadishu, between warlords and Islamists. More than 70 people were reportedly killed, and hundreds fled their homes.
The government has yet to form an army, and a United Nations arms embargo prevents it from training and equipping soldiers. So the government could do little more than appeal for calm.
In the south, 1.4 million Somalis require emergency food and water because of a drought, but the government has no income. To date, it has lived off handouts from the international community. China donated $100,000 in December. The European Union committed $85 million (€69 million), but it has yet to be delivered. The UN Development Programme is paying the lawmakers' $1,100-a-month salaries.
Many in Somalia fault the international community for not doing more. "There's a lot of talk about rebuilding Somalia, but fewer concrete steps in that direction," said foreign minister Abdullahi Sheik Ismail. "There's a culture of indifference and apathy. We have been left to our own disaster."
The US, in particular, has drawn scorn from Somalian leaders. Members of parliament complain that US counter-terrorist campaigns are undermining the government by forging relationships with warlords to gather intelligence and pursue suspects inside Somalia.
The 275-member parliament was selected by Somalian clan leaders. Parliament chose the president, who appointed the prime minister, who formed the government. Most of the new cabinet consists of the same warlords and clan leaders who have been fighting over Somalia since 1991. The new interior minister is Hussein Aidid, son of the Mogadishu warlord sought by US marines in the 1993 Black Hawk Down disaster, when 18 US servicemen died.
Sheik Aden, the speaker, is a former livestock exporter from the Bay region in south-central Somalia. President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed spent years in prison for battling the Barre regime before emerging as head of the Puntland semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia. Prime minister Ali Mohammed Gedi was a vet and university lecturer.
The rest of parliament is rounded out with tribal chiefs, military leaders from the previous regime and refugees who returned from the United States, Canada and Europe. At least a half-dozen members claim US citizenship.
The last time they met was in Kenya in 2005, and it ended in a brawl. The parliament session inside a Nairobi hotel degenerated into fistfights and chair-throwing, and police had to break it up. Kenyan officials, who had played a key role in creating and hosting the transitional government, nudged the Somalis out. They left behind a trail of unpaid hotel bills.
However, the two sides announced a reconciliation in January, giving the government new momentum just as some were predicting its demise.