''The example of neighbouring Somaliland appear to indicate that, perhaps, greater consideration should be given to the fact that "self government"....Carlo
- In November 2001, as newly appointed head of the Italian Diplomatic Delegation for Somalia, in Nairobi, I began a very active participation in a Peace Conference which was designed to complete Somalia's transition to stable, credible and internationally recognized Government.
This lengthy and complicated peace progress, which lasted well into the year 2004, was fatally marred, in my view, by some hasty decisions taken at its very conclusion. These took little account of the lengthy and patient negotiations which had preceded them and possibly were dictated by funding problems, as well as strong pressure by the Ethiopian Government, eager to reach a conclusion seen as favourable to Ethiopian interests. The end result, therefore, appeared to me, already then, as fundamentally flawed, and unlikely to bring more than a temporary respite to the political turmoil in Somalia. Even so, it is disheartening to realise that all those months of careful, finely-balanced talks, with their dramatic and at times highly emotional interludes, would end up with the current situation, in which, eight years on, little significant political progress is visible.