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U.S. Prosecutors To Retry Somali
Federal prosecutors told a judge yesterday that they will retry a local Somali community leader on five immigration charges that jurors couldn't decide during a trial last month.
Jurors convicted Omar Abdi Mohamed March 30 of lying in a citizenship interview about how many children he had and acquitted him of lying about a connection to two charities that the government says fund terrorism.
On the deadlocked charges, most jurors favored convicting him of lying about working for a City Heights mosque and the Saudi government and of having a fraudulently obtained green card.
The case is part of a controversial effort by federal prosecutors to pursue immigration charges against people whose names come up in terrorism investigations.
Mohamed, 43, of La Mesa, is not charged with terrorism, and jurors acquitted him of the most serious charges he faced. But the judge allowed prosecutors to use the word "terrorism" during trial.
In a brief hearing yesterday, a prosecutor said the government will retry Mohamed on the remaining charges.
In court papers, prosecutors said Mohamed lied about things that could have resulted in the denial of his citizenship application.
Judge John A. Houston scheduled a second trial for Oct. 17 and put off sentencing until after the pending charges are decided.
Mohamed faces deportation and five years in prison for each of the two charges for which he was convicted but would probably get much less time. He remains in jail without bail.
The judge barred lawyers from talking about the case.
Prosecutors said in court that the Western Somali Relief Agency, a charity Mohamed headed, received more than $330,000 from two international charities labeled as terrorist organizations after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But jurors said after their verdict that Mohamed didn't lie in 2002 when he said his charity didn't receive money from those groups because he was talking in the present tense and the support had dried up by then.
The remaining charges center on Mohamed's religious work.
Mohamed, a refugee from war-torn Somalia, came to the United States from Canada on a religious worker visa in 1995.
When he applied for a green card, he submitted letters from the iman of the Masjidul Taqwa mosque in City Heights and said he would be teaching Arabic there.
Prosecutors said Mohamed never worked at the mosque and lied when he said he did in a citizenship interview years later. Mohamed also didn't disclose he got about $100,000 in $1,700 monthly payments from the Saudi government's Ministry of Islamic Affairs, prosecutors said.
Mohamed also worked as a teacher's aide in an elementary school for the San Diego Unified School District.
Posted on Saturday 30th April at 15:15:58 Five Killed When Ship Capsizes Off Somalia
LONDON, April 30 (Reuters) - U.S. and German warships rescued 89 people when a vessel capsized 25 miles off Somalia's coast but five others were killed, the U.S. military said on Saturday.
The warships, on anti-terrorism operations, found the vessel did not appear to be seaworthy and was taking on water when they investigated it on Friday after it failed to respond to routine queries, the military said in a statement.
"In the process of providing assistance to the passengers, the vessel capsized and sank," said the military, adding the ship appeared to be a dhow.
"The master of the vessel claims that there were 135 people on board and coalition maritime forces, including SH-60 Seahawk helicopter aerial reconnaissance support, are conducting a search for the unaccounted for personnel."
Three U.S. warships and one German frigate were involved in the rescue operation.
The military said the incident was being investigated.
Posted on Saturday 30th April at 15:12:57 UN: 30,000 Facing Famine In Djibouti, Says FAO
Rome, 29 April (AKI) - As worsening drought conditions threaten tens of thousands of people in the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti with famine, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization on Friday launched an urgent appeal for nearly four million dollars. The funds are needed, the FAO says, to provide veterinary services and food and water for livestock following three consecutive failed rainy seasons in the tiny Muslim nation.
Delayed rains and erratic rainfall patterns have been insufficient to replenish water catchments or regenerate pastures in the country, FAO said.
All water catchments in the northwest and southeast of the country are practically dry and the UN is seeking a total 7.5 million dollars to combat the severe food crisis now menacing some 30,000 people in the country, the UN agency reported.
Overgrazed pastures and depleted water resources have contributed to widespread livestock deaths and a significant decline in milk production. The remaining animals are in poor condition, mainly due to parasites and diseases such as pneumonia.
"These pastoralist families are dependent on their livestock for food and income," said Fernanda Guerrieri, Chief of FAO's Emergency Operations Service. "Many have lost their entire herds, leaving them with nothing to eat or trade," she added.
Thousands have already fled to urban areas in search of assistance, and those families remaining need rapid support, Guerrieri said, adding that reseeding of pasture lands and food-for-work programmes were essential steps to rehabilitate Djbouti's farming families.
Posted on Friday 29th April at 20:13:22 Somali Officers Arrested
Three Somalian naval officers who illegally detained Thai crewmen in Somalian waters to demand a ransom of 32 million baht, have been caught by an international force and handed over to Thai authorities.
Jose Abdulahi, 22, Mahmud Abdulahi, 22, and Joseph Adden K, 39, were yesterday taken for a press conference at the Crime Suppression Division.
Items seized from the suspects were four AK assault rifles, 207 rounds of ammunition and three magazines. The three were caught in Somalian waters on March 17 by an international force operating in the area, led by US naval vessels, when they were contacted for help. They were later handed over to Thai police.
Earlier, Vichart Sirichai-ekkawat, 53, owner of Sirichai Fisheries Co in Samut Sakhon province, had lodged a complaint with the CSD that his 26 crewmen on board the Sirichai Nava 12 vessel had been illegally detained by three Somalian navy officers in Somalian waters. The three suspects had been sent by Somalian authorities to provide security to the Thai vessel fishing in the special economic zone under an agreement between Mr Vichart's firm and Somalian authorities in Somalia's Bosaso port in November.
Mr Vichart told police that he was contacted by Watchara Ampai, the skipper of another boat, in March that all crewmen of the Sirichai Nava 12 had been illegally detained by the three Somalian officers, who demanded a ransom of $800,000 (about 32 million baht) in exchange for the release of the crewmen.
Pol Col Anuchai Lekbamrung, CSD deputy commander, said the suspects have been charged with illegal detention and holding other people for ransom.
Posted on Friday 29th April at 20:10:15 Somali PM Flies To Capital To Solve Rift
Mogadishu - Somalia's prime minister flew to Mogadishu on Friday for the first time since his appointment last year to try to sort out a rift in his government and shore up sagging confidence in efforts to rebuild the broken country.
Under pressure from foreign governments and donors, the interim Transitional Federal Government plans to leave Kenya, where it was formed in December after two years of stop-start peace talks, and return to lawless Somalia.
But cabinet ministers and members of parliament are divided over which city it should initially be based in - a dispute that stems from power struggles among rival clans and, diplomats say, between regional powers vying for dominance in the Horn of Africa nation.
There are also disputes over the possible role of foreign peacekeepers, a sensitive topic in a country where a US-backed UN force was humiliated in a disastrous peace mission in the early 1990s.
The government is the 14th such attempt to restore effective administration to Somalia which plunged into chaos with the 1991 overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Witnesses said Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi, accompanied by Kenyan officials and diplomats from several Arab states, flew to a private airstrip outside the city and was taken in a convoy of militia battlewagons to a city-centre stadium to address a welcome rally.
MPs aligned to President Abdullahi Yusuf have said they want to temporarily relocate to the relatively calmer cities of Baidoa and Jowhar, until security is established in anarchic Mogadishu.
Gedi himself, who has already visited other cities as premier, is said by some aides to favour Jowhar, just to the north of Mogadishu.
Others insist the government should return to Mogadishu, Somalia's single most dangerous place, which the transitional constitution stipulates must serve as the capital.
Gedi plans to hold talks with former warlords Mohammed Qanyare, Muse Sudi Yalahow and Osman Ali Ato, all of whom hold cabinet posts and want the government based in the capital.
Although Yusuf, friendly with neighbouring power Ethiopia, wants a combined African Union-Arab League force of 7 500 troops to facilitate the government's return, others in his administration including Ato have argued that local militias are all the military muscle required.
Many Somalis resent what they see as attempts by Ethiopia to dominate the Horn and install a client regime in Mogadishu. Ethiopia, for centuries a competitor of all its Muslim neighbours, is wary of overt Islamist influence in the region.
Posted on Friday 29th April at 20:06:44 DJIBOUTI: UN Appeals For $7.5 Million To Combat Food Crisis
NAIROBI, 28 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - The UN has issued a flash appeal for US $7.5 million to urgently provide food and water to thousands of drought-stricken people in the Horn of Africa nation.
The appeal, made on Wednesday, follows an announcement last week by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) that an estimated 28,650 people in Djibouti were experiencing severe food and water shortages due to an extended drought.
"The income of households [in Djibouti] is dependent almost entirely on the health and productivity of their livestock," OCHA said in a report. "Since livestock productivity has been undermined by the consecutive deteriorating seasons, household income and food access has been severely constrained."
Djibouti’s government appealed for international help on 9 April and has already initiated an emergency water-provision programme in the southeastern Roadside Pastoral Sub-Zone, according to the OCHA report.
"Because the drought is protracted, malnutrition is a major concern. Supplementary feeding is needed for 5,730 children," OCHA said, adding that given the nomadic nature of most of the affected populations, mobile health services were required for 5,000 people.
The report said 50,000 heads of livestock urgently needed food, water and emergency veterinary care.
OCHA said the UN, its NGO partners and the government of Djibouti needed to carry out a second, more comprehensive, joint multisectoral assessment of the situation.
Posted on Thursday 28th April at 20:16:01 Why We Should Be Patient With Somalia
Kenyans will receive a standing ovation from the Somali people and the IGAD region once sanity is restored in Somalia.
For years, Kenyans will reap the benefits of peace and stability in Somalia.
As the most stable country in East Africa, Kenya has had to serve as chief negotiator in the peace processes following civil strife in the region. Somalia has been an especially interesting case, given that it has had no central government for over 14 years.
Due to the central role that Kenya and the international community played in the negotiations that brought together Somali leaders, Somalia is now on the path to regaining statehood after 14 years.
The immediate positive impact will be felt by Kenyans through their participation in reconstruction efforts in Somalia. Equally, our national institutions will benefit in dealing with a friendly partner in Somalia, particularly in regard to security challenges.
The current situation may not be ideal in that Kenya is still hosting the Transitional Federal Government elected by delegates right here in Nairobi.
This is one of the reasons that Kenyans should not tire hosting Somali refugees along with their nascent government. It is legitimate for Kenyans, fatigued by having to intervene in their neighbours' wars, to be impatient and demand the relocation of President Abdullahi Yusuf's Government to Mogadishu.
Such frustration may not be altogether misplaced considering that Somali refugees and Government are, indeed, a burden to taxpaying Kenyans.
There is no shortage of reasons for which Kenyans would want to see Somalis back in their country rather than in refugee camps or on the streets of Nairobi. However, other factors militate against the speedy and wholesale repatriation of the Somali people along with their newly-minted Government.
The first is that after 14 years without a central administration, a bit of time is required for structures to be put in place and for the government to be put together. To be precise, they start from ground zero in every aspect.
But even if the international community and other players were to raise the resources necessary for repairing destroyed government buildings, putting in place information and communication infrastructure, hiring staff for various government functions and other basics, there is the security issue to consider.
Given the big number of small and big arms in the hands of militiamen, and considering the failures of other peace initiatives in the past, disarmament would need to be achieved to an appreciable level before the Government can move to Mogadishu.
Failure of disarmament can only mean that the new government would lack legitimacy. It would also mean an increase in internecine violence.
So far, the peace process spearheaded by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is the first one that has held, thanks to the fact that all the leaders were involved.
A necessary follow-up to the inauguration of the Transitional Government has been to ensure structures of governance start functioning.
Like an individual who has been bedridden for years, enough time is required before the patient is able to walk after being discharged from hospital. In more than one ways, Somalia, as a nation, is just emerging from the ICU.
As has been pointed out, the Transitional Government will be starting from scratch. The 14-year war means nothing exists in the way of records. There is nothing to inherit for the new government. Just consider that there is no exchequer, let alone monetary resources.
Faced with this reality, the Transitional Government has had to rely on the international community to piece together a plan with which to create a nation from the rubble of violence, despair and hopelessness.
The outstanding issue remains peace and security - issues that demand continuous bonding and consensus building between various parties ahead of the relocation.
In piecing together a masterplan that emergent Somalia would need to follow, it is important that there are no missteps. With the history of violence that could encourage retribution, any mishaps on the part of the new administration would lead to the eruption of largescale violence.
And most people are not certain the international community will be willing to engage in another round of negotiations should peace fail to hold.
Cynics may wonder why we should be concerned about peace in Somalia. Well, Kenyans have borne the brunt of violence in many ways. Somalia's statelessness has had devastating effect on our environment, security and economy. Crime levels have increased in Kenya because arms are acquired easily from Somalia. A new government would help manage this.
Counterfeit goods are coming into Kenya through Somali ports, thus destabilising our economy. This would be handled through a taxation regime by the new government.
The recent upsurge of inter-clan wars, especially on the Kenyan border, is not only a risk to Kenyans at the border, but to our national security in general. A strong central Government in Somalia could assist Kenya in its endeavour to make its borders risk-free.
Finally, a word of advice to the Somali Government. Get your act together, reconcile your people, and quickly establish your foothold in your mother country so that the efforts of Kenyans and the international community is not wasted.
Posted on Thursday 28th April at 20:14:46 Interim Gov't To Move From Nairobi In May, Says Official
NAIROBI, 28 April (IRIN) - The interim Somali government, which has operated from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, since its formation six months ago is planning to finally relocate to Somalia at the end of May, according to one of its senior officials.
"The entire government will relocate to Somalia no later than the end of May," Abdirahman Dinari, government spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. "We are all preparing for the move."
The government, which includes several faction leaders, has been unable to relocate because of security considerations. It has, however, come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to return to Mogadishu.
Dinari said an earlier decision to relocate temporarily to the towns of Jowhar and Baidoa in south-central Somalia "still stands."
Interim Somali President, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and Prime Minister, Ali Muhammad Gedi, have said the government cannot function in Mogadishu until the city is pacified and secured.
However, a number of prominent former faction leaders want the government to relocate to Mogadishu. Among them are Minister of National Security Muhammad Qanyare Afrah, Minister of Commerce Muse Sudi Yalahow, Minister of Housing and Public Works Usman Hasan Ali Atto and Minister of Religious Affairs Omar Muhammad Filish. They are all currently in Mogadishu.
Meanwhile, Gedi is expected to lead a team of ministers, MPs and members of the international community to visit Mogadishu on 29 April, Dinari told IRIN. It would be the first time Gedi has visited the capital since his appointment as prime minister by Yusuf in December 2004.
"He will be in Mogadishu [for] three to four days and will be holding discussions with members of his government and MPs who are already in Mogadishu," Dinari said.
Some 80 members of a 275-strong parliament are in Mogadishu in an effort to stabilise it.
The prime minister is also expected to meet with the people of Mogadishu and "opinion leaders to disprove the notion that the TFG [transitional federal government] is reluctant to go to Mogadishu," Dinari said.
At the end of the visit, he added, Gedi would try to persuade the MPs and ministers in Mogadishu to return with him to Nairobi "to facilitate the discussions on crucial issues such as the relocation of the government and the status of Mogadishu".
Babafemi Badejo, the officer in charge of the UN Political Office for Somalia, in Nairobi, told IRIN, "Yes, there has been a request from the prime minister, as co-chair of the CMC [Coordination and Monitoring Committee], to accompany him [Gedi] [to Mogadishu]."
The CMC brings together the UN, the TFG and other international organisations and donors on Somalia.
Reports from Mogadishu indicated that the group of MPs and ministers, led by former faction leaders, were making some progress in their attempt to secure the city.
"They seem to be serious about this," said a local journalist. "They have identified six camps which will be used to house militias."
The former faction leaders had also agreed to the appointment of a 13-member committee in charge of security. It consists of former police and military officers and militia commanders, the journalist told IRIN. "The question now," he said, "is when will they start the encampment process and whether the international community will support it."
Abdullahi Shirwa of Peaceline, a civil society group active in the peace movement told IRIN: "We are encouraged by their efforts so far."
He added: "They are facing, head on, their own differences and are intent on resolving them, because key to any stability in the city is the resolution of any differences between them [the former faction leaders]."
Some of the of the Mogadishu-based faction leaders have been at war with each other for years and their rivalry is one of the main reasons why the city has been so insecure.
Shirwa said his group was going to call a meeting of all the civil society groups in the city "within the next two days to find ways [in which] we can support the efforts to pacify the city".
"We also call [on] the international community to support this effort," he added. "This is a window of opportunity for this city and it should not be lost."
Meanwhile, the spokesman for the Ugandan army, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Thursday that a Ugandan battalion had been trained and would be deployed to Somalia within a week.
"We have fulfilled all the UN's standard mission requirements and are awaiting logistical support, which should be available within the next week, before we deploy about 800 men," he said.
Uganda, along with other IGAD [Intergovernmental Authority on Development] members, have been mandated to provide peacekeeping troops to help the new government establish itself inside Somalia.
Posted on Thursday 28th April at 20:11:11 Returnees Lose Homes To Floods In Somaliland
HARGEYSA, 28 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Hundreds of Somali returnees living in the self-declared Republic of Somaliland lost their makeshift homes during flooding that occurred when torrential rains hit the region on Monday and Tuesday, local leaders told IRIN.
The floods damaged infrastructure and killed thousands of livestock in several towns including Berbera, Burao and Hargeysa - the Somaliland capital.
In Burao, 340 km east of Hargeysa, a school, a hospital and an airstrip were damaged, Somaliland transport minister Osman Kassim told IRIN.
The airstrip, he added, had been temporarily closed because the runway had been washed away by the water. Other sources said the floods also destroyed a tannery and more than 200 homes in the town.
"At least 300 huts belonging to Somali returnees were swept away by the floodwaters, rendering them homeless," Kinsi Ahmed, a social worker in Burao told IRIN. "The returnees had settled in Kasoor Camp in the outskirts of Burao town. [Since the floods] some sought refuge with relatives and friends, others fled to unknown places."
Ahmed Dahir, a local resident of Burao, said the rains started on Monday night and continued until Tuesday afternoon. The floods, he added, had swept away telephone and electricity poles and rendered the main road leading from Burao to Lasanod, impassable.
Sources in nearby Berbera told IRIN the floods had swept away more than 100 houses, most of which were built more than 50 years ago, and flooded water wells outside the town.
Somaliland authorities, led by President Dahir Rayale Kahin, held an emergency meeting on Wednesday to discuss ways to assist those who had been affected by the floods.
The president had toured the hardest-hit areas earlier and appointed a committee to assess the overall damage. He also appealed to donors for emergency help.
On Sunday, five people died and more than 1,000 others were displaced when torrential rains battered Hargeysa. The town's governor, Abdillahi Irro, told IRIN on Monday that the displaced included elderly women and children.
Some 270 families had been relocated to a camp belonging to the Somaliland police force, where they were receiving food aid and non-food items from relief agencies and the government. Others had sought refuge with relatives and friends, he said.
For decades, torrential rain and floods have devastated Somaliland, located to the northwest of Somalia, which already suffers from the ravages of a civil war and recurring drought.
Sunday night's deluge caused the seasonal Hargeysa River to burst its banks, triggering floods that destroyed tens of houses, several graves, two public resorts and the premises of several NGOs.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Norwegian Refugee Council, thousands of returnees, internally displaced persons and refugees constitute about a fifth of the population of Somaliland’s major towns.
Many of the returnees were forced out of their homes by war following the overthrow of Siyad Barre in 1991 and went to live as refugees in neighbouring nations such as Ethiopia.
[ENDS]
Posted on Thursday 28th April at 20:09:36 Aid Reaches Flood-Affected Areas
ADDIS ABABA, 27 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Relief aid has begun to reach survivors of devastating floods that hit eastern Ethiopia, but the death toll could rise further without more help, officials said on Wednesday.
Some plastic sheeting and high-energy biscuits had arrived in the region, but rescuers had been unable to get to all the survivors, Ahmed Abdi, from the UN’s World Food Programme, told IRIN from Gode, one of the worst-affected areas. Many parts of the region still remained cut off, he said.
Thousands were left homeless after flood waters crashed into 40 villages in Somali region at the weekend, sweeping families away, officials added.
"This is a catastrophe," Muktar Mohammed Seyyid, government relief coordinator, told IRIN. "If we don’t take action I am afraid the death toll will increase."
The toll had risen to 82 dead with 30 people still missing, although Muktar said those figures could change. The floods, he added, had affected about 30,000 people, and at least 5,000 families had been left homeless.
"We need boats, we need helicopters, and we need food and plastic sheeting," Muktar added.
"Floods have not only led to deaths and displacement but also to extensive damage to property and farmland," the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement released on Tuesday.
"The current needs include food, shelter, blankets and utensils and medical care due to the potential increase of cases of malaria and waterborne diseases," it added.
The Wabe Shebelle stretches for over 1,340 km and is Ethiopia’s largest river, with a water catchment area of 200,000 km. It burst its banks on Saturday after two days of heavy rains. Flood waters swept over 10 km, forcing survivors to flee their homes to the safety of higher ground.
Heavy rains and floods also hit Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, washing away one of the two bridges in the southwestern part of the city.
More than 500 families, among them elderly women and children, were displaced, Abdillahi Irro, mayor of Hargeysa told IRIN on Tuesday. Some 270 families were relocated to a camp belonging to the Somaliland police force.
Muktar said if the current heavy rains continued in Ethiopia – and forecasters expected thunderstorms would continue into the weekend – further deaths could result from flooding.
At this time of the year, flooding usually occurs in Ethiopia's Somali region, and the waters are used to regenerate soil for pasture. In the last major floods in 2003, 119 people were killed.
Posted on Wednesday 27th April at 17:13:29 New Row Among Somali MPs
Somalia’s interim administration is in another row.
Last month, a disagreement over the make-up of a proposed regional peacekeeping force for the country led to fistfights among lawmakers.
Today, nearly half of the 275 member parliament is refusing to go to a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, called by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who wants to discuss the deadlock over where Somalia’s capital should be. Many MPs want to return to the old capital of Mogadishu, but others say it’s not safe. The president and prime minister want to temporarily move to a smaller, more secure town, like Baidoa or Jowhar.
Babafemi Badejo is the officer in charge of the UN Political Office for Somalia and co-chair of the Joint Co-Ordination and Monitoring Committee, a UN-led group of international aid agencies working in Somalia. Mr. Badejo told English to Africa reporter William Eagle the committee backs the call for a meeting in Nairobi of all members of parliament.
The issue, he says, is that the president and some members of the government want to relocate to what they see as a more secure town in Somalia until Mogadishu’s rival factions cede powers to a beefed up police force. Other leaders, who say the safety concerns are exaggerated, would rather stay in Mogadishu. As for alternative venues, the UN official says one problem is that many places are not equipped to host the 275-member parliament and cabinet. Others lack security or are politically unacceptable to one side or another.
Mr. Badejo says the on-going effort at securing the city is “laudable." “We recognize the efforts [of the pro-Mogadishu parliamentarians],” he says, “but we feel there should be national dialogue that everyone agrees on, and we appeal for them all to come for such a dialogue in Nairobi.“ He also says it’s better for Somalia’s own stability for all of the country’s politicians, with international support, to be involved in the reconstruction of Mogadishu – and not just the faction that is currently there.
Posted on Wednesday 27th April at 17:04:23 Somalia Kept Waiting For Ugandan Peacekeepers
Nairobi - Uganda on Tuesday delayed for up to a week the deployment of a contingent of troops to Somalia, the vanguard as a regional peacekeeping mission there, officials said on Tuesday.
"We were supposed to deploy by 30 April (but) we have to delay a few more days because we have to put together kick-start logistics," Ugandan army spokesman Major Shaban Bantariza said in Kampala.
"A battalion of 800 men is ready and is doing exercises," he said. "We may delay for some days, probably up to a week."
On March 18, the regional seven-nation east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) said the first deployment of two battalions of Igad soldiers from Sudan and Uganda could be on the ground by the end of April
Igad is expected to eventually deploy as many as 10 000 troops to assist Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi and other transitional institutions to relocate from exile in Kenya to Somalia, officials say.
Precise details of the mission are yet to be released amid a bitter dispute over the composition of the force within the transitional Somali government.
Fierce opposition to the participation of neighbouring countries Djibouti, Ethiopia and Kenya in the force prompted a bloody brawl in the Somali parliament, sitting in Nairobi, in March.
Igad - which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia - has repeatedly announced that it would not let the Somali peace process collapse.
Somalia has been in chaos without any functioning central authority since the fall of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 turned the nation into a patchwork of fiefdoms ruled by warlords. - Sapa-AFP
Posted on Wednesday 27th April at 17:03:26 Over 60 Dead In Somali Region Floods
ADDIS ABABA, 26 Apr 2005 (IRIN) - Floods have killed 66 people and the death toll could rise further after a river burst its banks in eastern Ethiopia because of heavy rains, rescuers said on Tuesday.
Many of the victims were sleeping when crashing floodwaters hit 40 villages in the remote Somali region, some 700 km southeast of the capital of Addis Ababa. Houses were destroyed and families were swept away, emergency officials said.
Rescuers are scrambling to reach the survivors in the area, many parts of which still remain cut off from rescue efforts.
The Wabe Shebelle is the largest river in Ethiopia, stretching 1,340 km and with a water catchment area of 200,000 km. It burst its banks on Saturday after two days of heavy rains. Flood waters stretched 10 km and forced survivors to flee their homes for the safety of higher ground.
Aid organisations and government officials at an emergency meeting in the Somali region capital Jijiga reported on Tuesday that 900 houses had been washed away.
Local officials have also reported that some deaths have been caused by attacks from crocodiles that infest the river. Survivors also were clinging to trees to escape the rising floodwaters, officials in the region stated.
And, according to humanitarian officials in the area, in some areas the floodwater is still rising. The rains also hit several thousand displaced people living in two former refugee camps, washing away their homes and leaving many of them in the mud.
Rescuers are currently preparing an assessment of the scale of damage, which they expect to finalise by the end of Tuesday.
"We need food, shelter and fuel to help the people," Ahmed Abdi, from the UN’s World Food Programme in Gode, Somali region, said by telephone.
He said 38 people had died in West Imi in Afder Zone while 28 had drowned in East Imi in Gode Zone. The affected population in the two zones is around 110,000.
Rescuers also say they fear that malaria could spread.
Ahmed said two helicopters are expected to arrive on Tuesday to help reach areas that are still cut off. He added that in some areas the water level was decreasing, but weather forecasters say that heavy rains and thunderstorms are expected in the coming days and over the weekend.
The Ethiopian federal government has also sent in two Antonovs aircraft into Gode with food and fuel aboard to help survivors.
Flooding regularly occurs at this time of the year in Somali region, where the waters are used to regenerate soil for pasture. In the last major floods in 2003, 119 people were killed.
Posted on Tuesday 26th April at 17:03:15 Torrential Rains Kill Five, Cause Massive Destruction In Somaliland
HARGEYSA, 26 April (IRIN) - Five people died and more than 1,000 others were displaced on Sunday when torrential rains battered Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, the town's governor, Abdillahi Irro, told IRIN on Monday.
"The number of deaths might be higher since some villages outside Hargeysa were also affected by the torrential rains, and reports on the damages, deaths and casualties have not all come in yet," he said.
He said more than 500 families, among them elderly women and children, were displaced.
He added that 270 families had been relocated to a camp belonging to the Somaliland police force, where they were receiving food aid and non-food items from relief agencies and the government. Others had sought refuge with relatives and friends, he said.
For decades, torrential rain and floods have devastated Somaliland, located to the northwest of Somalia, and weakened the region, already suffering from the ravages of a civil war and recurring drought.
Sunday night's deluge caused the seasonal Hargeysa River to burst its banks, triggering floods that destroyed tens of houses, several graves, two public resorts and the premises of several NGOs.
The floods also damaged the town's infrastructure, sweeping away a pedestrian bridge, vehicles and electricity poles. Another bridge, used by motorists to cross from the worst hit eastern side of Hargeysa to the west, was severely damaged.
Roads were flooded, trapping people in their neighbourhoods, with several left clinging to trees and sheltering on small islets for safety.
"The main water source for Hargeysa town, situated in the Geedoble area, was damaged after the machines, including the water pipes, were swept away," Irro said.
Food stocks, which are usually stored underground, were destroyed, while the homes and irrigated crops of thousands of families were washed away. Livestock deaths are estimated at about 200.
Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin toured the hardest hit areas on Monday, and appointed a committee to assess the overall damage. He also appealed to donors for emergency help for those affected.
"The poor were most affected by the floods that hit the greater Hargeysa area," Bob McCarthy, the emergency officer for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Somalia, told IRIN on Tuesday.
He said UNICEF, in conjunction with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN World Food Programme, the Somaliland ministries for the interior and for planning, carried out a rapid assessment of the damage on Monday.
"Because of the standing water, we are concerned about the possibility of waterborne diseases," McCarthy said. "We have initiated hygiene-awareness programmes to prevent that eventuality."
The WFP country director, Robert Hauser, told IRIN that the agency had distributed nine mt of assorted food to some 170 households.
"In addition, we have some limited standby food commodities in our stores in Hargeysa," he said.
Posted on Tuesday 26th April at 16:37:36 Somali Boss Wants Help
The newly-elected president of Somalia's football federation Bashir Jammah wants Somalis in the diaspora to help revive football in their war-torn country.
The 52-year-old former referee, who replaced Farah Addo two months ago, has recently toured Europe in an effort to raise money for football development back home.
Jammah told BBC Sport that his fellow countrymen and women scattered around Europe have responded positively to his message.
He said: "As we don't have any form of sponsorship in Somalia, I've decided to contact Somalis in the diaspora for financial support.
"Three weeks ago I visited Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Holland and I'm planning another visit to North America in the coming weeks.
"I told Somalis to help revive football in Somalia because football can play a role in rebuilding the country.
"So far the response has been good. I've managed to raise US$7,000. It's not a lot of money but it will buy uniforms and footballs for the clubs."
Jammah, a Somali Dutch with business interests in Somalia and Europe, said he decided to raise funds from the diaspora after Fifa refused to offer assistance.
"I've sent many letters to Fifa requesting them to schedule a meeting with us but we haven't received any reply as yet.
"But I can't blame Fifa because this is a Somali problem. Many Somalis have been sending letters to Fifa each claiming to be the new chairman of Somali Football Federation.
"Fifa is understandably confused and this is causing us problems," Jammah added.
He appealed to Fifa to help establish order in Somali football.
Emmanuel Muga
BBC Sport, Mwanza
Posted on Tuesday 26th April at 16:36:44 Gunmen Take Aid Worker Hostage
SOMALI gunmen today abducted a Kenyan working for the British charity Oxfam and were holding him for ransom after shooting and wounding his bodyguard, aid workers said.
The attack took place in southern Somalia's Jamame district, which has been wracked by militia activity in recent weeks, but details of the incident were sketchy, the aid workers said.
"The kidnapped aid worker is being held by gunmen who are demanding an unspecified ransom," said one colleague, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Last week, gunmen in the lawless Somali capital Mogadishu shot and killed a female Somali aid worker and injured a Kenyan colleague.
In February, gunmen shot and killed a BBC journalist outside her Mogadishu hotel while she was covering the planned relocation from exile of the Somali transitional government, in what many believe was an attempt to deter the move.
Attacks on humanitarian workers are common in the shattered Horn of Africa nation, whose government has been holed up in Kenya for security reasons since it was formed last October.
Bullet-scarred Mogadishu has been a hub of instability in Somalia, which was plunged into anarchy after strongman Mohammed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.
AFP
Posted on Tuesday 26th April at 16:34:42 Floods Rip Through Somaliland Capital
HARGEISA, April 25 (Reuters) - Heavy rains flooded a dry riverbed running through the capital of Somalia's northern enclave of Somaliland, forcing 1,000 people from their homes, authorities said on Monday.
The flood on Sunday night ripped through the centre of Hargeisa, damaging bridges and knocking out power, water and telephone lines.
The 270 families displaced by the flood are now staying at the main emergency police compound in Hargeisa.
"Three of the main pipes that carry water to the city have been taken away by the flood," Hargeisa Governor Abdullahi Iro told Reuters.
One district had no water as a result of the damage.
The government also ordered heavy trucks to stop using the main bridge linking the two parts of Hargeisa. The bridge was built in 1968 and has been neglected since then.
Yusuf Abdi, who lives near the riverbank, said that it was the worst flood he had seen since 1953. The office of Handicap International, a British charity in the city, had to be evacuated after it was flooded.
The raging waters uprooted large trees along the river bed and swept away many cars, leaving them hanging on the riverbank or buried under mud.
Posted on Monday 25th April at 19:28:36 Somalis Mps Spurn Calls For Return To Kenya
Mogadishu - Somali ministers and MPs on Monday spurned calls from President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and a United Nations-led body to return to exile in Kenya this week to attend a key meeting on relocating to Somalia.
In a bid to break a fractious deadlock over where and when the transitional institutions should move, Yusuf last week called on about 80 members of parliament and ministers (out of a total of 350) currently in Mogadishu to come back to Kenya and attend a final meeting on relocation.
They spurned the call and vowed to continue their attempts to pacify Mogadishu.
"That (going back to Kenya) would undermine our effort to pacify Mogadishu, which is a crucial part of the relocation of Somali government," said MP Omar Hashi Aden, spokesperson for a group of about 80 ministers and MPs currently in Somalia.
"It is unwise to scuttle our mission of making Mogadishu free from armed militia factions and freelance gunmen," he said.
Aden explained that the MPs, some of whom are also warlords, were suprised by the call that was also made by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee, a UN-led group of international aid agencies working in Somalia.
"How could they dare stop a pacification process. We were elected to
serve the people of Somalia and not to stay in Nairobi," Aden said.
"Neither the Somali officials nor the outsiders talked to us about what we are doing before they came up with the idea of (our) leaving Mogadishu and returning to Nairobi. It is very big error," Aden said.
Over the weekend, Aden's group formed a committee of 13 militia commanders tasked with supervising the withdrawal of gunmen from the capital.
"We shall also put in place a joint military team to guard the streets of Mogadishu. That's our main task, not staying in Kenya for nearly three years," Aden said.
Yusuf and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi want to move the government to the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar due to continued insecurity in Mogadishu, a proposal which has drawn heavy criticism from their rivals, many of whom are warlords who currently control the capital.
The controversy over the move and the composition of a proposed regional peacekeeping mission tasked with assisting the government's move resulted in a fist fight between Somali lawmakers in Nairobi last month.
Bullet-scarred Mogadishu has been a hub of instability in Somalia which has been ruled by fractious warlords since the Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre. - Sapa-AFP
Posted on Monday 25th April at 19:27:30 Diaspora Give Up Lucrative Incomes Abroad To Support For New Somali
Despite the challenges of implementing activities in Somalia being complicated and the long-running conflict having destroyed infrastructure and made access to even the most basic services a luxury, foreign-educated Somalis are working to help rebuild the local capacity to provide these services
Foreign-educated Somalis, who have given up lucrative careers abroad to return to their war-devastated homeland to new Somalia, are meeting some of that need
At first glance, Ambassador Hotel in Hargeisa, Arafat Hospital, HornAfrik Radio & TV, Pepsi Cola Processing Plant, and Mogadishu University in Mogadishu, can hardly be called modern.
Arafat Hospital inside a dilapidated building, rows of dimly-lit rooms, with a single bed in each, serve as the emergency and in-patient wards. In the middle of the hospital compound, another run-down building houses several small offices, examination rooms and the main reception area.
The facilities of Arafat Hospital may not inspire much confidence in some foreigners who comes here, but to long-suffering Somalis in this city, it is nothing short of a dream come true.
Three years ago, two Somali doctors gave up their lucrative practices and comfortable lives in Persian Gulf states, and returned to Mogadishu to set up the hospital.
The two doctors brought with them much-needed skills to treat widespread illnesses, such as tuberculosis, malaria, and respiratory diseases.
The doctors could not afford to build a new hospital. But, working with friends, they pooled enough money to purchase some high-tech diagnostic equipment to support their work in gynecology, urology, obstetrics, and other key medical specialties.
They charge patients $1 per visit, and the price includes 10 days of follow-up care. But that is as much as many Somalis earn for a full day of work. So, on Thursdays, consultations and treatments are free.
A 30-year-old mother, Kale Nur Ahmed, says the two founding doctors, and three other physicians who work at the hospital, have saved numerous lives, including the life of her diabetic son.
Ms. Ahmed says, for years, there were no Somali doctors in Mogadishu, because all of them fled the country when civil war broke out in 1991. Then, all of the foreign doctors left when the international relief organizations closed their operations. She says, "All of us suffered so much. Thank God some of them have come back to help us."
The two doctors at Arafat Hospital now earn less than a quarter of the money they used to earn in Dubai and Saudi Arabia. But one of them, pediatrician Abdullahi Farah Asseyr, says the sacrifice has been worth it.
"The life and luxury that we had, it does not have value, if your country is burning," said Dr. Asseyr. "Now, we work for society, and this is our duty."
These doctors are not the only educated Somalis who feel that way.
Several kilometers away, at the office of Hormuud Telecom Company in Mogadishu's commercial district, Canadian-Somali Mohamed Ali speaks to an irate customer, who is complaining about a broken telephone line in her home.
Mr. Ali, who grew up in Toronto and is now working as a marketing manager for Hormuud, says the fact that there are any working telephone lines in Mogadishu is a testimony to the efforts of Somali professionals like himself, who have returned to set up private companies. He says many of the companies are not aiming to make a profit, but are only working to restore basic services.
"Because there is no government, obviously, there has to be something done," he explained. "So, that is the reason why these private companies came into the picture, to cover that area. We basically act like a government should. We regulate, we set rules, we take responsibilities for how much we need to put back into the people. And it is really worked."
It is estimated that since 2000, as many as 1,000 Somalis, mostly from North America and Europe, have returned to help fill Somalia's need for skilled professionals.
In addition to hospitals and telecommunication companies, returnees have set up radio stations and factories. In Mogadishu, a new Coca-Cola bottling plant has been built near the edge of town. Its owner, a Somali from Sweden, says he hopes to train and employ several hundred local people before the plant opens for production later this year.
But life for those who have returned is not easy in a lawless country awash in guns. Because they are relatively wealthy, the returnees are targets for kidnappings and robberies. In cities like Mogadishu, most returnees live in heavily-guarded compounds, and never travel without an armed security force.
Still, at Arafat Hospital, Dr. Mohamud Zaher Mohamud says he is always encouraging Somali colleagues and friends to come back and help rebuild the country.
"It is very important they come back, because the country is suffering," said Dr. Mohamud. "We are suffering from brain drain. People have gone outside the country and the country needs them."
That need is enormous. Experts say thousands more educated Somalis would have to return to make a significant difference in the lives of most people here. And with little progress toward improving the political or security situation, they say that will likely take a long time.
Posted on Monday 25th April at 17:13:41 Police Arrest Fleeing Somali Warlord
Police yesterday arrested a Somali national whose militia are accused of sparking renewed clan fighting in Mandera District.
The self-styled Col Suleiman Haji Omar fled into Kenya and surrendered after his troops were overran by rival militia in the latest wave of fighting over the control of Bur-Hache, a border town on the Somalia side.
Police said preliminary reports indicated that Somalia National Front forces invaded Bur-Hache, where one of the local clans had set up a training camp.
North-Eastern Provincial Commissioner Abdul Mwasera said Omar and some of his troops were being held at Elwak.
Weapons was seized from them after they sought refuge.
"We had beefed security along the border by the time fighting erupted at Bur-Hache a fortnight ago. Our forces were on high alert to counter any spillover," Mwasera said.
Kenyan authorities wanted the training camp disbanded, saying it was a security threat.
Embakasi MP David Mwenje, who chairs the parliamentary select committee on security, recently urged the Government to cross into Somalia and break the camps to end fighting in Mandera which has claimed more than 80 lives since January.
Posted on Monday 25th April at 17:07:49 Somali Deported From U.S. Returns to Minnesota
ST. PAUL (AP) - The case of a Somali man deported from the United States has taken an unexpected turn. Authorities in his homeland refused to admit him, and he's been sent back to Minnesota.
Twin Cities attorney and Somali activist Omar Jamal says Keyse Jama is now being held in the Ramsey County Jail, and that he has spoken with him.
Jama's attorneys say the Justice Department disclosed that Jama was on his way back during a teleconference Saturday with Jama's attorneys and U.S. District Judge John Tunheim.
After a four-year legal battle, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in January that the immigrations officials had the right to deport Jama to Somalia, even though the country has no functioning central government able to accept him.
What happens to Jama next is not clear.
Posted on Monday 25th April at 17:05:27 Somalia Refuses To Admit Refugee Deported From Minnesota
Keyse Jama, the Somali whom the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has been trying to deport, was apparently rejected for admission to Somalia on Friday.
Late Friday, Jama, 26, was apparently in neighboring Kenya, with his future unclear.
Abdirizak Bihi of Minneapolis, a Somali interpreter and community organizer, translated a radio broadcast from the Somali language service of the British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) that indicated that Jama and two men hired by the ICE to fly Jama from Kenya to the autonomous Somali state of Puntland had landed but had not been allowed to disembark.
Puntland officials said that they considered Jama's deportation illegal and that they would not accept him, said Bihi, who comes from Puntland and who spoke with government officials there.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim of Minneapolis entered an order Friday prohibiting the ICE from deporting Jama in any way other than the one planned and accepted by the court.
The U.S government has been trying to deport Jama for more than four years. He entered the country legally in 1996 and settled in Minnesota. He lost his refugee status after being convicted of a 1999 assault.
That began a long court battle, one that went to the U.S. Supreme Court, over whether the United States could deport someone to a country like Somalia that, since a 1991 civil war tore the country apart, hasn't had a functioning government able to accept deportees.
The Supreme Court decided in January that ICE could deport Jama, and the government has tried to honor Jama's request that he be delivered to Bossasso, a port city in Puntland where many members of Jama's clan live. But that has proven difficult.
In papers filed with Tunheim's court, the agency said it had contracted with an international security firm that had negotiated the right to land a chartered plane in Bossasso. ICE officials took Jama from Minnesota to Kenya, apparently on Wednesday night, and turned him over to the private firm. But when the charter landed in Bossasso, officials there would not allow him to remain, according to the BBC report.
Eric Black, Star Tribune
Posted on Saturday 23rd April at 21:29:36 Bus Driver Attacked By Gang of Smoking Teens
A BUS driver was punched repeatedly in the head by a gang of Somali youths who had been smoking cigarettes on the bus.
At 3am on Monday a group of teenagers forced their way on to an N20 bus in Hawley Crescent, near the junction with Kentish Town Road, in Camden Town, without paying or showing tickets.
When the driver spotted them smoking on the top deck he stopped the bus, approached them and told them to stop.
He went back down to the front of the bus and was confronted by two more youths.
The rest of the group then followed him downstairs and punched and slapped in the face.
The 49-year-old was covered in blood sustained in the attack and taken to hospital.
The gang also stole £20 before running from the scene.
Police arrived and arrested one 18-year-old in connection with the attack.
He has since been released on police bail until May 18 pending further inquiries.
Officers are looking for between six and eight teenagers, described as of Somalian appearance.
Posted on Friday 22nd April at 16:53:45 Drought Is Taking a Heavy Toll on Djibouti
Geneva - Nearly 30 000 people in Djibouti who have lost livestock due to worsening drought need emergency food and clean drinking water, the United Nations said on Friday.
Supplies would be needed over the next six months due to insufficient rainfall and overgrazing, particularly in the south, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
"Many households have lost their entire herds and thousands of people are moving from rural areas to urban centres in search of assistance," it said in a statement.
After a preliminary study, UN aid agencies have started distributing a month's food ration in the desert country.
Djibouti also relies on produce from Ethiopia, where cereal prices remain "unseasonably high", according to the statement.
The Djibouti government appealed earlier this month for aid, including food for 5 730 malnourished children under five, and veterinary expertise to save remaining livestock dying from parasites and diseases, it added.
UN aid experts plan to carry out a wider assessment study in late April to draw up a formal appeal to donors for funds.
Posted on Friday 22nd April at 16:50:02 UN Urges Somali Officials To Return To Kenya For Meeting On Ending Exile
NAIROBI, April 22 (AFP) - A UN-led group of international aid agencies working in Somalia on Friday called on bickering Somali officials to return to Kenya for an urgent meeting on ending the transitional government's exile here.
The Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee joined Somali president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in appealing to scores of MPs and ministers now in Mogadishu to leave and attend a final meeting on the subject in Nairobi.
It said all members of Somalia's so-called "Transitional Federal Institutions" (TFIs) should return to Kenya immediately to break a deadlock over when and to where the transitional government should move.
"The international members of the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Committee ... strongly appeal to all relevant members of the TFIs to convene in Nairobi, Kenya, for dialogue without delay," it said in a statement.
"The hopes of the Somali people for a speedy and adequate resolution to the ongoing differences among members of the Transitional Institutions are depending on the early convening of these talks and their outcome," it said.
The statement was issued less than 24 hours after Yusuf made an identical appeal, saying MPs and ministers had a duty "to a peaceful and secure re-establishment of the (government) inside Somalia."
Some 70 Somali lawmakers and ministers are now in Mogadishu on unilateral relocation missions that threaten already slim chances for the transitional government to reach a consensus on the matter.
Yusuf and Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Gedi want to move the government to the towns of Baidoa and Jowhar due to continued insecurity in Mogadishu, a proposal which has drawn heavy criticism from their rivals, many of whom are warlords who currently control the capital.
The controversy over the move and the composition of proposed regional peacekeeping mission to assist the government's move resulted in a fightfight between Somali lawmakers last month.
Bullet-scarred Mogadishu has been a hub of instability in Somalia which has been ruled by fractious warlords since the Horn of Africa nation was plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre.
Posted on Friday 22nd April at 16:38:07 Interpol Helps In Hunt For Killer
Mohamoud Mahad: The man detectives would like to speak to
|
Detectives in Cardiff are working with worldwide police agency Interpol to find the killer of a 22-year-old Somali man murdered two years ago.
Mohamed Musa died on 23 April, 2003, from injuries he suffered during a serious assault in Butetown, Cardiff, in the early hours of 18 April.
South Wales Police have named Mohamud Mahad, 20, who used the nicknames Mafia and Yabada, as their prime suspect.
A £5,000 reward has been offered for information which leads to an arrest.
Mr Musa had been socialising at a friend's flat in Angelina Street, Butetown, when a group of men arrived outside. He was then attacked.
Officers named Mr Mahad in connection with the murder shortly after Mr Musa died, saying they believed he had gone abroad.
He is described as being 6ft tall, of medium build, with brown eyes and hair - which was possibly cropped at the sides and longer on top - and a thin moustache.
He is Somali, but was born in Kenya, and may also be using the name Mahamoud Ahmed Hersi, as well as his nicknames.
Detective Chief Inspector Paul Bethell, who is leading the inquiry, said: "I would urge anyone with information as to the whereabouts of Mohamud Mahad to come forward, particularly the Somali community.
"I offer my reassurance that all calls will be treated in the strictest confidence.
"We are working closely with Interpol who are assisting in our attempts to locate Mahad.
"I am confident we can find this man."
Mr Musa had a two-year-old son and was due to become a father for the second time around the time of his murder.
He had met his wife in Somalia, where she lives with the couple's children.
He had nine brother and sisters, had lived in Cardiff for 11 years and had been a pupil of Fitzalan High School.
In an appeal one year after Mr Musa's murder, his parents Musa Yusef and Noora Mohamed, said their lives had "stood still" since the day of the attack.
DCI Bethell added: "The family are still coming to terms with what has happened and South Wales Police remain determined to solve this case so that Mohamed's family can begin to piece their lives together again."
Anyone with any information is asked to contact the incident room between 9am and 5pm on 029 2052 7220, out of hours 029 2022 2111 extension 35310 , or Crimestoppers any time on 0800 555 111.
Posted on Thursday 21st April at 19:32:40 Minnesota Somali Being Deported Today
Keyse Jama, the Somali refugee whose struggle to avoid deportation went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, is apparently en route to his chaotic homeland today.
If the journey from Washington County Jail in Stillwater to the city of Bossasso goes as planned, it will mark the end of the Minnesota chapter of a young life that already, at age 26, has included enough dramatic twists and turns to last several lifetimes.
In a telephone interview from jail Tuesday evening, Jama was resigned to his imminent departure, worried about his future, grateful to the Americans who rallied to his cause, and above all hopeful that his plight will provide an object lesson to young Somalis not to blow their opportunity to make it in America.
Jama's exact status is unclear. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) doesn't comment on a deportation that is in process.
But Jama's cellmates called his friends and family to tell them that he had been taken from the jail Wednesday morning. Government lawyers have assured a federal judge that they had a plan to remove Jama by this coming Monday.
Born in 1979 in one of the world's poorest nations, Jama experienced in 1991 the beginning of a long civil war that has left his homeland still in tatters 15 years later.
After fleeing to a Kenyan refugee camp, he was admitted to the United States as a refugee in 1996 because members of his clan were being killed by hostile militiamen. He joined family members in Minnesota, and enrolled at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.
Straying from his family and his Muslim faith, which prohibits alcohol, Jama's teen years were a blur of drinking and fighting that resulted in an arrest for a drunken knife fight in Waseca in 1999.
He pled guilty to assault and received a one-year prison term. But when he was due for release, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) took custody of him on the grounds that, by committing a felony, he had forfeited his refugee status.
The government soon won a judgment that Jama was deportable. However, U.S. Judge John Tunheim ruled in Minneapolis in 2002 that federal law prohibits deportations to a country that has no government to accept the deportee. Somalia has been carved into chunks and ruled by rival warlords since 1991. It has no central government.
On Jan. 12, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the ICE -- the successor agency to the INS -- could send Jama back to Somalia.
A test case
As the case made its way through the courts, it became one of several examples cited by some local Somalis as evidence that post-9/11 America had become less welcoming to Muslims.
Jama's appeal also became the test case for a legal theory that was blocking the deportation of more than 3,500 Somalis nationwide.
Jama's lawyer, Kevin Magnuson of Minneapolis, argued that the government held Jama to punish him for his court challenge, to make an example of him and to pressure him to stop resisting deportation. The government's lawyers rejected the suggestion of a vendetta, and the courts agreed to keep him locked up.
"We pursued the removal of Mr. Jama because it's our job to remove people who have been ruled removable by the courts," said Tim Counts of ICE.
Jama, held in various jails for more than four years, said on Tuesday that he had often felt he was being "held hostage." Others who committed more serious offenses than his came and went after serving less time, he said. The wasted years weigh heavily, and the best thing about his imminent removal from the United States, he said, will be that he will finally be out of jail, although he faces an uncertain, possibly dangerous new life.
Jama said he took responsibility for his crimes. "I deserved to be in jail," he said, "but not this long."
"I love America," which provides opportunities for those willing to study and work, he said. "I had a fair chance to make a life here." Many of his relatives are thriving in Minnesota, he said. But he is worried that "some young Somali kids don't know how serious it can get for an immigrant who breaks the law."
Magnuson said that Jama got alcoholism treatment during his detention, returned to his Muslim faith, reconciled with his estranged parents and started striving to live up to the unexpected leadership position that his case had thrust upon him.
He also said that Jama was amazed that a penniless refugee could have been given thousands of dollars of free legal assistance, could have his case heard in the highest court, and could come within one vote of prevailing against the U.S. government. Jama has become "an extremely close friend and a source of inspiration," Magnuson added.
Jama grew up in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, but asked the government to deport him to Bossasso, the capital of the northeastern Puntland region, which has declared its independence from Somalia, and where Jama's ancestral tribe is based.
Jama said he's never been to Bossasso and doesn't know anyone there, but feels it's the area where he has the best chance. He was vague about his hopes or plans for his new life, but said that he hopes the United States and Somalia will someday be friends and that he can help bridge the relationship.
Eric Black, Star Tribune
Posted on Thursday 21st April at 16:59:02 Somalia Banks On Marine Resources
The new Government of Somalia is looking at exploiting the war torn country's vast maritime resources to help generate economic life, a Somali official said on Tuesday.
Owing to its earlier success story as one of the leading maritime nations in the East Coast of Africa, the country coming out of several years of civil strife, has measures aimed at boosting its fishery resources.
Dr Abdulrahman Kulmiye, Chief Technical Advisor in the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine said his government has a strategy to restore fishery sub-sector, which formed one of the main economic mainstays.
Kulmiye said that the new Somalia Government deemed it fit to re-establish the fisheries ministry soon after its election in exile.
The official was speaking at the ongoing South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission meeting in Mombasa.
The South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission draws its membership from Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Somalia and Yemen.
Also represented were island nations of the Comoros, Maldives, Mayottee (France) Re-Union (EU) and the Seychelles.
He announced that they are holding tentative discussions with bilateral donors and friendly government's to help jump start the fishery sub sector.
Somalia boasts Africa's longest coast-line that covers 3,300km with records indicating that its untapped fisheries resources amount to well over 300,000 metric tonnes that can be harvested annually.
Philip Mwakio
Nairobi
Copyright © 2005 The East African Standard.
Posted on Thursday 21st April at 16:57:38 Somali Woman Honoured For Work
NEW YORK (NNPA) - Hawa Aden Mohamed was only eight when she experienced the brutal pain of circumcision. Performed in a small Somali village, the operation was carried out without anesthesia, using only basic cutting tools and thorns.
The practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) cost her sister's life and nearly took Hawa's own as her wounds did not heal properly. Today, she is at the front line of a decade-long and bitter fight for women's rights in Somalia.
Her sister's death along with her own experience triggered Hawa's involvement in the women's rights movement. The frustration over circumcision turned into anger at the patriarchic Somali society, which considers the voice of women worthless.
''The Somali woman has no say in political decisions. She has no say in family decisions. Recently, for the first time, we elected one female minister to the Somali Puntland State, and one in the federal government,'' she said.
''But this is just tokenism. It is not enough,'' concluded the 56-year-old Hawa, who sat down for an interview on her way to Texas, where she is receiving the Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award on Friday for her outstanding work for women's rights in Somalia.
The award recognises the outstanding achievement of women who -- often at great personal risk -- are working to protect the liberty and lives of women and children in areas where human rights violations are widespread.
Hawa Mohamed is the founder and executive director of the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development (GECPD), an organization committed to eradicating FGM and strengthening women's political influence through human rights and literacy campaigns that have reached more than 7,600 women since 1999.
The GECPD aims at improving women's capacity to defend and advocate their rights in society, starting with the family.
An estimated 135 million girls and women have undergone genital mutilation, and two million girls a year are at risk for it. FGM is practised extensively in Africa and is common in some countries in the Middle East.
FGM can lead to death from the pain, shock, haemorrhage and damage to the organs surrounding the clitoris and labia. Afterwards, urine may be retained and serious infection can develop. Use of the same instrument on several girls without sterilisation can cause the spread of HIV.
Despite the horrors of the ritual, Hawa believes the subject is still too much of a taboo to be debated openly in the country.
''I don't see FGM stopping in my lifetime,'' she says. ''We have to change the mentality of people, and the change has to come from the family. There are educated parents who discuss FGM. If they decide not to have their daughters circumcised, we advise them not to tell other people, who might not respect the decision.''
The Somali women's rights movement started in the late 1970s, but was impeded by the civil war in 1991.
''It was set back 40 years in time,'' maintains Hawa, who fled the war to Canada, where she continued lobbying for women in Somalia before returning and founding the GECPD in 1996. By then there were no longer signs of public debate and awareness of women's rights in a country troubled by killings and the power politics of local warlords.
Civil war still plagues parts of Somalia, making it very hard to travel around. Although the women's rights movement has spread beyond Puntland, it is difficult to coordinate the struggle on a national scale.
Religious justification of female circumcision is common in Somalia, but Hawa argues that the practice of circumcision is not found in the Koran, but in the nation's culture and tradition. She continues to educate religious teachers about the dangers of FGM and has managed to establish dialogue with a few.
''In the beginning, the work at GECPD was very difficult. FGM was taboo. People did not want to talk and threw rocks at us and the buildings we worked in. Today, at least, we are able to create some debate about Somali traditions.''
Last year, the GECPD launched a more visible and confrontational women's rights movement in Somalia. With Hawa Mohammed as one of the key figures, the GECPD managed to organise and coordinate the unprecedented ''Zero Tolerance For FGM'' demonstration on International Women's Day, Mar. 8.
''We were scared. But we had no choice. We'd discussed women's rights for years. Activists were asking, what next? We'd exhausted the talking,'' says Hawa about the demonstration, which drew more than 20,000 people -- including the Puntland vice president and five cabinet ministers.
The demonstration passed peacefully and raised awareness about the dangers of FGM among the people of Puntland.
''The demonstration created debate, a debate which is still going on today. And dialogue at least brings new questions,'' says Hawa.
More than 98 percent of Somali women have suffered genital mutilation, according to Equality Now, the New York-based women's rights group that nominated Mohamed for the Ginetta Sagan Award. By educating young people, the GECPD hopes to promote a more open debate about FGM and women's rights in Somalia.
''We must use education as the vehicle, to bring young people on board to take over, and we must promote the good traditions as well. Somali culture has very good values, such as respect, sharing and support. But it is unacceptable to continue female genital mutilation. And to say no, that needs courage, commitment, and principally belief,'' she emphasised.
Hawa Aden Mohamed collected the 11th Ginetta Sagan Award last Friday at Amnesty International's annual general meeting in Austin, Texas. Sagan was a founder of Amnesty International USA. As a member of the Italian anti-Fascist Resistance, she was imprisoned and tortured during World War II.
by Jeppe Hirslund Wohlert
Special to NNPA from IPS/GIN
Posted on Wednesday 20th April at 19:29:57 Suspected Dengue Fever Outbreak Hits Somalia
A suspected outbreak of dengue fever has hit the Somali capital of Mogadishu, medical workers said on Wednesday.
Abdi Ibrahim Jiya, a doctor in Mogadishu, said he believes the disease is dengue, but that doctors have been unable to confirm that because the lawless capital lacks the necessary laboratory equipment. He said the infection has been circulating in Mogadishu for three months.
Dr Nageye Ahmed, a Canada-based pediatrician who is visiting relatives, also said he believes the disease is dengue, and that it appears widespread in Mogadishu.
Symptoms include high fever, joint pain, headache and vomiting.
Four people have died of the fever, according to their relatives and doctors. Dengue is rarely fatal when properly treated.
Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that is found in tropical and subtropical regions around the world, predominantly in urban and semi-urban areas.
A potentially lethal complication, dengue haemorrhagic fever, kills about 2,5% of those infected, but fatality rates can exceed 20% if victims do not receive proper treatment, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
There are four distinct, but closely related, viruses that cause dengue. Recovery from infection by one provides lifelong immunity against that variant, but provides only partial and transient protection against subsequent infection by the other three, according to the WHO. -- Sapa-AP
Posted on Wednesday 20th April at 19:28:29 Italian Nurse, Two Somalis Wounded In Grenade Attack
MOGADISHU, April 19 (AFP) - An Italian nurse and two Somalis were wounded Tuesday when a grenade was tossed into a maternity ward at a Mogadishu children's home, the second attack on humanitarian workers in the lawless capital as many days, witnesses said.
An unidentified assailant hurled the grenade into the ward which is attached to the Austrian-funded SOS Children's Home in Mogadishu's southern Huriwa district, they said.
"A young man came out of a bus and immediately hurled a hand grenade into the SOS children's home and disappeared," Hassan Yakub, a trader nearby, told AFP. "He wounded an Italian nurse, a Somali nurse and a technician."
An official at the home said the trio were in stable condition.
The blast, which sent plumes of smoke rising into the neighborhood, forced the suspension of work at the home and clinic, one of the few such facilities to have remained operational after Somalia plunged into anarchy after the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre.
It has been the target of several attacks in the recent past which have been blamed on a contract dispute with local militias.
The explosion came just a day after unidentified gunmen shot and killed a Somali female aid worker and injured a male Kenyan colleague -- both believed to be employees of a Swedish aid group.
Attacks on humanitarian workers are common in the shattered Horn of Africa nation, whose government has been holed up in Kenya for security reasons since it was formed last October.
In February, gunmen shot and killed a BBC journalist outside her Mogadishu hotel while she was covering the planned relocation from exile of the Somali transitional government, in what many believe was an attempt to deter the move.
Bullet-scarred Mogadishu has been a hub of instability in Somalia which has been ruled by fractious warlords and their militias since Siad Barre's ouster.
Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Posted on Tuesday 19th April at 21:40:25 Somalia Denies Claims
The transitional Somalia government has denied claims of a split in its cabinet.
A statement from the prime minister's office added that the government was "focused and truthful to the aspirations of its people."
The statement, signed on behalf of the premier, Mohammed Ali Ghedi, by Abdirahman Dinarl, reiterated that Mogadishu is the capital of Somalia as enshrined in the transitional Charter.
Ghedi said his government would soon open an office in Mogadishu to coordinate all political and social activities of the government.
The on-going reconciliation process should not be misconstrued as a split despite the fact that some MPs have left for Mogadishu while the Cabinet is making re-location arrangements in Nairobi," said the statement.
"In the last council of ministers' meeting, it was agreed that Mogadishu will enjoy special status and a committee was set up to study the process of disarming of the militias in and around the capital," explained Ghedi in a press statement.
Copyright © 2005 The East African Standard.
Posted on Tuesday 19th April at 16:56:53 Somali's Deportation Could Be Imminent
A Minnesota Somali jailed four years ago when the U.S. government set out to deport him could be on his way back to East Africa by today, according to court documents in his long-running case.
Immigration authorities on Monday said in documents that federal agents would accompany Keyse Jama on a charter flight to Kenya before turning him over to a private security company that will fly him into Somalia.
Jama, 26, gained national attention when his civil lawsuit challenging the government's authority to deport him to his war-torn homeland reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Somalia has been without a functioning central government since 1991.
Justices narrowly ruled in the government's favor in January. They held that immigration authorities could return Jama to his homeland without first getting consent from a central government. Since then, however, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have been unable to carry out the removal order. Jama has returned to court to try to force the government to deport him or release him from jail.
Jama's concern now, his lawyers say, is whether he will survive once he steps onto a landing strip in the northeast Somali region of Puntland, which leaders declared independent in 1998.
"They're not turning him over to a government," said lawyer Kevin Magnuson of the Minneapolis firm of Briggs & Morgan, which represents Jama with the nonprofit Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights. "It's incumbent on our government to make arrangements with the receiving entity to treat him fairly. If they deliver him to a safe place … it's really up to Jama. He's got to survive in Somalia."
Magnuson said he raised such concerns in a telephone hearing with government lawyers Monday before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim.
Earlier this month, Tunheim ordered the government to deport Jama or submit details of plans for doing so. In documents filed last week, immigration authorities outlined some steps but declined to make public some specifics, such as Jama's likely travel date, citing security concerns.
Once agents arrive with Jama in Kenya, immigration officials of that country will hold him overnight. The next day, Jama will leave for Somalia with escorts from RMI Security, an Irish-owned risk and crisis management firm.
RMI negotiated landing rights with "Puntland officials" who indicated that people returned there "are given freedom to stay, reside and look for employment opportunities on their own."
Jama faces deportation because of a third-degree assault conviction in Hennepin County. After he completed a one-year sentence in that case, the government placed him in administrative detention to await removal. He is the only one of 4,500 Somalis believed to be subject to deportation who is in custody. None of the others has been deported since the Supreme Court ruled against Jama.
BY TODD NELSON
Pioneer Press
Posted on Tuesday 19th April at 16:56:02 Grenade Attack Against Children's Hospital In Somalia
Mogadishu (dpa) - Two people were injured, one of them seriously, when unidentified men threw a hand-grenade into a childrens hospital in Somali capital Mogadishu at midday on Tuesday, hospital staff said.
One of the injured, a doctor, who was taken to another hospital, said he did not know the attackers.
"I saw the grenade coming toward us, and then it exploded'', he said.
The hospital, managed by the Austrian SOS organization, is located near a kindergarten run by the same group. None of the more than 2,000 children were injured.
An employee at the hospital, Fadumo Hassan Hamud, told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa that "we dont have another hospital (for children) in Mogadishu, if they ambush and close SOS our children will be without a hospital''.
The grenade attack follows a shooting Monday, in which a woman working for a Scandinavian aid group, IAS, was shot dead by gunmen after the organization had been accused of trying to "Christianize'' Somali youth.
The capital of Somalia remains highly unstable after 14 years of civil war, with warlords and their militias controlling various parts of the city.
A government formed last year after lengthy peace talks still meets in Kenya due to the persistent insecurity at home. dpa aa ve pmc
Posted on Tuesday 19th April at 16:54:55 Dead Cabbie Remembered
EDMONTON - Driving a cab at night has always felt risky to Minaz Makhani. But after a fellow cabbie was found stabbed and stuffed in the trunk of his car last week, it suddenly became a lot more frightening.
"In the last four days, I've only been driving two hours a day, because I'm so scared," Makhani said.
"Everybody is scared -- my family, my wife," he said. "Every half-hour, they are calling, asking are you safe? Are you OK?"
Makhani, a Barrel Taxi driver, was one of about 200 people who gathered at Churchill Square on Sunday to remember Hassan Yussuf and to demand better safety for the city's cab drivers. They brought about 50 cabs to the event.
"It's the Canadian way to protect people in the workplace," said Azeb Zemariam, a fellow driver.
"We don't want to see another taxi driver die."
Zemariam and others in attendance called for mandatory partitions between the driver and passengers, as well as security cameras in each car.
Marchers, many of them Somali, chanted slogans and held signs bearing messages such as: Hassan Was Serving the Public, and Stop the Senseless Killing.
Behind them, cabs of all colours circled the square, honking their horns in support.
"Mr. Yussuf will be remembered as a hard-working and caring father," said Hassan Ali, president of the Somali-Canadian Cultural Society of Edmonton.
"He came to Edmonton to provide for his family.
"Unfortunately, he was brutally murdered by cruel and senseless criminals."
Ali called on the entire community to support Yussuf's family during its hard times.
Among those in attendance was Mayor Stephen Mandel, who expressed his sadness at Yussuf's death and promised better safety for drivers.
For now, though, he's not sure of the best way to deliver that.
In coming weeks, the taxi companies will meet with their drivers and with the Edmonton Taxi Cab Commission to discuss options.
Safety concerns have to be weighed against the drivers' ability to make a good living, the mayor said.
"We're not here to force them to do things," Mandel said. "We want to make sure they're safe and secure. There's nothing that is a simple solution when you're dealing with livelihoods of people and costs to people."
Yussuf, 41, was found dead in the trunk of his cab in north Edmonton last Tuesday. He had been there for five days.
The father of seven had two university degrees and spoke five languages. Three people have been arrested in connection with his death.
Two trust funds have been set up at the TD Bank: one for Yussuf's family and one for the families of cabbies killed on the job.
amclean@thejournal.canwest.com
© The Edmonton Journal 2005
Posted on Monday 18th April at 19:41:14 Somali Experts Prepare Ugandan Troops For Somalia Mission
Two Somali experts are in Uganda to orient the Somalia-bound Uganda People's Defense Force (UPDF) troops on Somali culture, law and language.
The UPDF 2nd Division Spokesman Chris Magezi told Xinhua by telephone on Monday that the experts, Omar Ahmed and Zainab Yusuf are in the country to prepare the UPDF for their mission in Somalia.
He said that the experts who are part of the preparation team have been in the country for a month briefing the UPDF, among other things, the culture and language of the Somali people.
He noted that the rehearsals of the Somalia-bound UPDF troops are still going on, adding that Uganda will send 850 troops, expected to leave the country by April 30.
Recently Uganda's Foreign Minister Sam Kuteesa said that the east African governments agreed to send 6,800 peace keeping troops to Somalia, from Uganda and Sudan.
Last month, foreign ministers from the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, a regional body that brings together seven countries, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia endorsed a proposal to deploy a regional peacekeeping force in Somali starting April 30.
The peacekeeping force will be in the lawless country for nine months and thereafter, the African Union force will take over.
The force will help to ensure that the federal transition government of Somalia, which is currently seating in neighboring Kenya, relocated to Somalia.
Somalia has been without a functioning central authority since the overthrow of Mohamed Said Barre's regime in 1991.
Posted on Monday 18th April at 19:31:49 Gunmen Shoot Dead Aid Worker In Somali Capital
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Gunmen shot dead a female Somali health worker employed by a Western-funded aid group in Mogadishu on Monday, residents and relief officials said.
Experts said the killing appeared to be the first direct attack on a foreigner associated with the international community since gunmen murdered a British BBC producer in the city in February.
"The convoy was attacked by gunmen. The Health Supervisor, Maryam Mohamed Hassan, was shot in the head and the chest and died," Elias Kamau, Coordinator for International Aid Services-Somalia (IES), said in a statement.
"The (Somali) driver was wounded in the face and thigh, while one of the consultants was wounded in the foot."
The consultant, a Kenyan doctor, and the driver were both wounded by gunfire.
IES's Somali programme is funded mainly by the Swedish government, Kamau said. Hassan trained nurses how to treat tropical diseases as well as AIDS/HIV infections.
Under pressure from foreign governments and donors, the interim Somali government plans to leave Kenya, where it was formed in December after two years of stop-start peace talks, and return to lawless Somalia.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed BBC producer Kate Peyton, 39, in Mogadishu on Feb 9. It was the first killing of a foreign journalist in Somalia in several years.
Lawlessness has continued to plague Mogadishu depsite the formation of President Andullahi Yusuf's Transitional Federal Government in neighbouring Kenya last year in an attempt to end 14 years of chaos and bloodshed.
Yusuf has asked African Union (AU) and Arab states to supply 7,500 troops to help disarm militiamen roaming Mogadishu since warlords overran the country in 1991, toppling military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and ending central authority.
But a dispute about whether so-called frontline states bordering Somalia should contribute soldiers has caused further problems and delays to the planned AU peacekeeping force.
Posted on Monday 18th April at 19:31:03 Somalian Wins Scholarship To Eton
A FORMER refugee who came to Britain to escape the horrors of civil war in Somalia has been awarded a scholarship to Eton, the school that has educated 19 British prime ministers as well as princes William and Harry.
Abdi Rahman Sudi was barely a year old when his parents fled their homeland. Only five years ago they settled in Britain. He now attends Moat community college, a comprehensive in Leicester. He was picked from about 30 shortlisted candidates nationally for the sixth-form scholarship.
Sudi will attend Eton, just outside Windsor, from September. His bursary will pay the £22,380 annual fees and he will study four A-levels in maths, physics, government and politics, and economics.
“I just can’t wait to start. I don’t know how to put it — all I want to do now is finish my GCSEs. I wish it was September already,” he said.
He realises that he will be among boys who have come from far more privileged and wealthy backgrounds, but believes that this will work to his advantage. “I don’t think it will be that difficult in terms of my background. It will only spur me on to achieve more and be like them,” he said.
Sudi is not the first refugee to win high honours at a leading British public school. In 2002 Luka Gakic, whose family fled Bosnia after his uncle was shot by a sniper, was made head boy of Harrow, alma mater of Sir Winston Churchill.
The lavish facilities and academic achievements of Eton — ranked seventh nationwide in The Sunday Times Parent Power league table — will be in sharp contrast to Moat college, which has poor exam results.
Sudi, who must first complete his 11 GCSEs this summer — he is expecting six A grades — is not daunted by the prospect of living away from home for the first time.
He has already made up his mind to study economics or engineering at Cambridge University after Eton and to enter a high-flying job in the City — a far cry from many of his classmates who are still deciding whether or not to take A-levels.
“I’ve already told my mum that if I am going to go to Cambridge I’ll have to leave home one day, so I am doing it slightly earlier, that’s all,” said Sudi.
He will be one of about 20 Muslims at Eton and says he will pray at the college and eat halal meat. “Islam is a major part of my life. I will try to pray five times a day. Religion is a major part of my character and identity,” he said.
Sudi is the youngest of four children. He lives with his parents in a terrace house near Leicester city centre. His mother, Ossob Kullane, works as a classroom assistant. Sudi’s father Abdullah is unemployed.
Kullane recalls that as they fled the war in Somalia in 1991 her extended family split up. Some settled in Britain while she and her husband first went to Kenya and then to Stockholm with their three sons and one daughter.
“We left Sweden five years ago as some members of our family were in the UK. Also getting jobs is stricter in Sweden for foreigners,” she said.
Kullane pushed her children to study — Sudi’s elder brothers Hassan, 22, and Idris, 20, are studying at De Montfort University, Leicester.
Posted on Sunday 17th April at 16:21:40 Somali Govt Split Over Security
To relocate the transitional Somalia government from Nairobi to Mogadishu or not has been a thorny matter among the country’s legislators.
The most contentious is the issue of security.
But most MPs, now in Mogadishu, believe it is possible to secure the once robust capital city and international seaport ruined and turned ghostly by 15 years of civil war.
Relocation has split the transitional Somalia parliament into two, with President Abdullahi Yusuf and the Prime Minister, Prof Ali Gedi, preferring smaller towns; Joha, about 120 Km north of Mogadishu, hosting the executive arm of the government and Baidhaba, some 250 km south of the devastated capital as the legislative headquarters.
The speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, disagrees with this idea, which has also not gone down well with a section of parliamentarians and cabinet ministers who flew from Nairobi to Mogadishu last Sunday.
More leaders are expected to fly in by the end of this week to prove to the world, and skeptics among them, that they can work in Mogadishu.
Since their arrival in this volatile Islamic town, a series of meetings aimed at consolidating parliament’s position have taken place, including the inspection of a building one-time Somali strongman Siad Barr operated from. It will be the parliament building.
Speaking after the Somalia Military Festival at Mogadishu Stadium on Tuesday, Culture and National Heritage minister, Abdi Hashi Abdalla, said Mogadishu was the capital city of Somalia and must host its president, parliament and other important government institutions.
"It is from here that power will radiate to other parts of the country," he said adding: "Peace in Somalia will only be achieved through bold efforts of the transitional government, which is not possible when it acts from Nairobi or sits in smaller towns within Somalia."
Majority of the MPs believe peace can only be attained in Somalia by the citizens themselves and their leaders if they return home.
Those against setting up the new government in Mogadishu claim the move would be suicidal because armed militias are still in control of the town.
But Dr Qamar Aden Ali, one of the 22 women MPs, says they have a difficult task ahead and that the transitional government should have moved into Mogadishu to begin the work of reconciliation. The next five years should be used in reconciling the warring clan factions, ensuring law and order and disarming militia, says the MP. She says proper reconstruction will only follow after the enactment of a new constitution.
She, however, sees hope in the transitional government if it remains focused and truthful in addressing the needs of the Somali people.
She said attempts to "lord it over Somalis by warlords Ali Mahdi and General Mohammed Farah Aideed after the fall of Said Barre in 1990 and the failed transitional government of Abdul Kasim Salaat in 2000 were as a result of clannism and use of military might. "This time we have a chance to succeed because all warlords, the civil society, women and academicians have been included in the process. Clan representation is also adequately ensured," she said.
One of the country’s former warlords, the heavily-bearded Musa Suudi, who is the Finance Minister in the transitional government, says he wants to help in the reconstruction process. He, however, wants militias kept out of Mogadishu to allow for the formation of a conventional police force and army. Suudi said during the military festival that it was important for the president and his cabinet to operate from Mogadishu.
"Do not stay in Nairobi. Come back home," he urged fellow leaders.
Another warlord, Mohamed Qanyare Afrax, who is in charge of national security docket is ready to move his militias out when the transitional government moves into Mogadishu.
For Ibrahim Omar Sabrie ‘Shaweeye’, a former Mogadishu mayor and an influential figure in the town, things have improved remarkably.
"People are able to move about freely and do business without restrictions here. I’m sure that a Somalia central government can operate safely from Mogadishu," he said.
Whatever the citizens and their leaders’ views, relocation has become tricky and any move by the President, his cabinet and MPs will be significant in stopping or encouraging the fighting that has claimed millions of lives, left scores maimed, widowed and orphaned.
To a large extent, it has also led to the disintegration of the socio-economic and political fabric of one of Africa’s most homogeneous societies — a people with one religion and one language.
By Ochieng’ Ogodo in Mogadishu
Copyright © MMV . The Standard Group
Posted on Saturday 16th April at 17:10:09 Widow Seeks 'Justice'
THE WIDOW of a slain cabbie is calling for justice after the local father of seven was found stabbed to death in the trunk of an Edmonton taxi. "They have to find the people who murdered my husband," said Farhia, the widow of 41-year-old Hassan "Yusuf" Mahamood who was found dead late Tuesday yesterday. "Justice ... that's what I need."
Farhia added that "one (of my children) was actually saying to me, 'my father went to heaven, so don't cry' ... They are praying."
Mahamood's daughter, Ifrah, remembered her father as a "very loving man, honest, kind.
"He always had a smile on his face," she said.
Ifrah said her father knew driving a cab could be a dangerous business. "Anything could happen to him, picking up strangers 24-7," she said. "He could meet a lot of psychos out there."
But Ifrah said she "never thought this would happen to my dad."
ANGER IN COMMUNITY
Ottawa's Somali community was angry over the slaying.
"It's beyond human belief. I don't know why he had to die like that," Abdirizak Karod, the executive director of the Somali Centre for Family Services, said yesterday.
Karod knew Mahamood for eight years.
"It's tragic for the family, tragic for the Somali community and tragic for Ottawa because he spent much of the last 15 years here and he belongs to this city."
Mahamood, whose wife and seven children live in Ottawa, had been missing since Friday.
Police said Mahamood's body had been in the trunk for more than a day. An autopsy showed he suffered stab wounds to his upper body, and at least one was fatal.
"It looks like a simple robbery that turned extremely violent," said Edmonton police spokesman Chris McLeod.
Police charged Karl Blair "Scooter" Strongman, 25, with first-degree murder, unlawful confinement and robbery.
Two other suspects, Ronald Adrian Crane, 27, and Deidre Renee Baptiste, 23, are wanted on first-degree murder and other charges.
A source familiar with the Native gang scene in Edmonton said Mahamood was slain by members of Redd Alert who never intended to pay him. "It was a jacking that went bad," said the source. "But these guys don't care."
Police have a key witness in protective custody.
Friends in Ottawa described Mahamood as an easygoing, well-educated family man who moved out West hoping to provide a better life for his children.
Despite holding two degrees in science from schools in Mogadishu and Russia, attending classes at Algonquin College and speaking five languages, Mahamood worked odd jobs to make ends meet after arriving from war-torn Somalia in 1992.
Mahamood's son Abdigani, 17, who was preparing to take his five-year-old sister Iman and two-year-old brother Samatar to Edmonton yesterday to join the rest of the family, said he last saw his father a month ago.
Nephew Mohamed Hersi said Mahamood hoped to move his family out West this summer.
The Somali Centre's Karod, who last spoke to Mahamood by phone last week, said the cabbie was asking about organizations that would recognize his education so he could land a better job.
"Someone who is raising seven kids is a good father. It was always about his family," said Karod.
West Way cab driver Abdirahman Farah, 46, said his friend's horrible death is one of the reasons he won't work the night shift. It also has left local cabbies shaken.
"If it could happen to him, it could happen to me or anybody," he said.
Mahamood's cousin Abdullahi Mohamed said the family is heartbroken by the killing of the gentle, caring man.
"Why did they have to this?" he asked. "Why not just take the money?"
By ANDREW SEYMOUR, Ottawa Sun
Posted on Friday 15th April at 16:24:11 Man Pleads Guilty In Somali Woman's Death
Apr 13, 2005 2:13 pm US/Central
Minneapolis (WCCO) A man pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing a woman in her downtown Minneapolis apartment last November.
Ismail Ali, 21, admitted he bought the gun and pulled the trigger on 32-year-old Yasmin Ali Geele. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and will be sentenced to 13 years in prison May 10.
Prosecutors said Geele was shot in the head during an attempted robbery. Geele’s apartment was being used to sell the illegal drug khat the night she was killed.
Khat is a leaf grown mainly in Kenya and chewed in parts of East Africa and the Mideast and in some immigrant communities in the United States for its stimulating effects.
Prosecutors said Geele’s murder was the first related to khat in Minnesota.
Four others were also charged in the case.
Posted on Thursday 14th April at 19:34:15 Refugees Trek To Escape Somalia
seekers has arrived in Malawi after walking more than 2,000 kilometres.
The 42 men said their trek had taken two-and-a-half months and they were refused refugee status in Tanzania and Mozambique en route.
A Malawian official told the BBC the men were emaciated and dehydrated when they were spotted by villagers after crossing the border from Mozambique.
The refugees said they were fleeing from the conflict in Somalia.
They said they were unaware of the peace efforts undertaken in recent months.
A government has been named in neighbouring Kenya, although it has not set up in Somalia because it is too dangerous.
Tiring
The men said they had struggled to get enough water, food, or rest during their walk.
"We were refused asylum in Tanzania and Mozambique," the group's spokesman, Said Hassan, told officials in the southern Malawian district of Phalombe in halting English.
They fled Somalia for fear of being recruited into one of the militias which have controlled and fought for the country in the 14 years since there was last a functioning national government.
Phalombe District Commissioner Khumbo Chongwe told BBC News they were spotted by local villagers near the border with Mozambique.
"They looked tired and emaciated and in dire need of food, water and sleep," he said.
The group of men are between about 20 and 40 years old and are now being looked after in a local school and fed well.
They are to be transferred to Luwani refugee camp on Thursday after a football game is organised between them and some locals.
"We want to show them they are welcome in the Warm Heart of Africa," Mr Chongwe said.
The United Nations refugee agency, the UNHCR, says there are about 16, 000 refugees in Malawi - mainly from Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda.
By Raphael Tenthani
BBC, Malawi
Posted on Thursday 14th April at 19:31:56 Somali Cabinet Fills Key Posts
Somalia's cabinet-in-exile has appointed an army chief and members of a commission that will determine the structure of the country's federal administration and draft a new constitution.
The transitional cabinet also named an attorney-general and the man who will run the day-to-day affairs of the central bank, government spokesman Abdirahman Dinari said on Wednesday.
The transitional government, however, has no functioning army, central bank or justice services. They will all have to be set up once the government returns to Somalia from Kenya, officials said.
Somali leaders are based in neighbouring Kenya because the anarchic Somali capital of Mogadishu is considered unsafe.
Protests
The appointments, made during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, triggered public protest from some ministers and members of the transitional parliament who are visiting Mogadishu in an effort to create conditions that would encourage the government to relocate there.
The appointments were made without full consultation with key members of the cabinet, said Security Minister Muhammad Kanyare Afrah.
The dispute highlights a deepening rift between members of the government led by transitional President Abd Allah Yusuf Ahmad.
Somalia has been without a central government since clan-based warlords overthrew Muhammad Siad Barri in 1991. Leaders of armed factions then turned on each other, sinking the nation of 7 million into anarchy and creating a refugee crisis in neighbouring countries.
Delayed appointments
A new transitional government was formed last year to bring peace to Somalia. But it only named the first key civil servants on Tuesday, appointing General Ismail Qasim Naji as the new army chief.
The cabinet also named Abd Allah Dahir Barri, a lawyer and former head of a regional court, as the attorney-general.
Former banker Bashir Isa Ali was named director general of the central bank.
The cabinet also named a 13-member commission to determine how to transform Somalia's government into a federal one.
Posted on Thursday 14th April at 19:30:29 Hundreds Flee Somalia to Kenya
Hundreds of Somalis fleeing from fighting in Somalia have crossed in to Mandera district.
The civilians mostly children and women are fleeing from fighting between Marihan and Gare militiamen for the control of Bur-hache.
Confirming the incident , area District Commissioner Kimani Waweru said the civilians are fleeing from the two days skirmishes at the border town and crossing into Elwak sub district.
He said eight seriously wounded civilians were brought into Elwak sub-district hospital where they are under going treatment.
Waweru said those who crossed into the district have taken refuge at their relatives homes adding that the situation is now calm.
He said, enough security personnel were deployed along the border to prevent the militiamen and firearms from being sneaked into the country.
Posted on Wednesday 13th April at 17:12:39 Northeast Drought Depletes Food and Livestock
HARGEYSA, 13 April (IRIN) - Thousands of Somalis are in dire need of aid, following a severe drought in several areas of the self-declared republic of Somaliland and the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in northeastern Somalia, relief workers told IRIN on Sunday.
The worst affected areas were Togdheer and Sool regions, Nudal valley and Mudug.
Some affected people in these areas had started moving to less affected regions and urban centres such as Las Anod, Bossaso, Garowe and Galkayo, the sources said.
Abdihakim Ahmed, a programme coordinator for Save the Children-US, told IRIN in the Somaliland capital, Hargeysa, that pastoral communities in the most severely affected areas had lost over half of their sheep and goats, 70 percent of their cattle and 35 percent of their camels.
Food stocks, he added, were virtually non-existent in some areas of Sool and Togdheer, and most traditional water points had dried up.
Abdi Ahmed Iidle, Mayor of Burao, Somaliland's second city, told reporters during a news conference on Sunday that the lack so far of the usual long (Gu) rains meant no recovery was expected soon.
He urged international relief agencies to send more aid, adding that several organisations were already trying to provide food, water and immunisation services.
The first signs of severe drought were reported in January 2004 in the Sool Plateau, which includes Sool and Sanag regions. An inter-agency assessment conducted in May 2004 found that the eastern Togdheer region was equally affected.
According to Somaliland officials, the Deyr (short) rains expected earlier this year had largely failed to materialise, except in areas along the border with Ethiopia, which had received some rain.
Somalia has, over the last four years, experienced partial or total rain failure, prolonging a dry spell that has eroded the traditional coping mechanisms of its predominantly pastoral population.
Relief workers said inter-clan conflicts, environmental degradation and the lack of a strong central government had also exacerbated long-term food insecurity in the country.
In March, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that food shortages meant some areas of Somalia had reported malnutrition levels of more than 20 percent.
Posted on Wednesday 13th April at 17:08:16 13 Reported Killed In Inter-Clan Fighting In Mudug
HARGEYSA, 13 April (IRIN) - At least 13 people were reported killed in renewed inter-clan fighting in Hobyo district, Mudug region of central Somalia, sources told IRIN. At least 30 others were reported wounded, the sources added.
The latest fighting pitted militiamen from two sub-clans, the Saad and Seleeban of the main Hawiye clan and was reportedly sparked by misunderstanding over the right to use grasing lands and water points in Hobyo area.
A local journalist in Galkayo, the capital of Mudug told IRIN that the latest fighting broke out on Monday afternoon. It escalated in the evening, leading to the destruction of property and torching of houses in south Galkayo.
Khadija Aden, a businessperson in the town, told IRIN on phone on Monday: "I can still hear the sound of guns and mortars from my home. At the moment panic stricken residents are indoors fearing for their lives."
Medical sources in Galkayo said the wounded, most of whom were women and children, had been admitted at two hospitals in the town run by the medical charity MSF-Holland. Hassan Ahmed, a medical doctor in one of the hospitals told IRIN that some of those admitted had "serious gunshot wounds".
By Tuesday, the number of internally displaced persons in the town had risen amid fears that the militiamen were regrouping to launch fresh hostilities.
During his visit to Galkayo in February, the Somali transitional president, Abdulahi Yussuf Ahmed, urged clans there to halt the hostilities and instead promote efforts to build peace and disarm armed militias. He warned that continued fighting would endanger the fragile peace process that his government was trying to spearhead.
Somalia has been without a functional central government since 1991 when former president Mohamed Siyad Barre was toppled. Several faction leaders emerged thereafter and carved the Horn of Africa country into patchwork of fiefdoms.
A transitional government formed early this year is still based in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, due to widespread insecurity in the country
Posted on Wednesday 13th April at 17:07:33 Somali Immigrant Still In U.S. Custody
A Minnesota Somali facing possible deportation this week was still in custody Tuesday night.
U.S. District Judge John Tunheim issued an order Thursday directing immigration authorities to deport Keyse Jama by Monday or submit a report Tuesday on the status of efforts to remove him. Jama, 26, has spent almost four years in administrative custody awaiting deportation because of a third-degree assault conviction in Hennepin County. He has long since completed a one-year sentence he received in the criminal case.
He has faced a protracted legal battle challenging the government's authority to deport him to a country without a functioning central government to accept him. Somalia has been without a government since civil war broke out in 1991.
In January, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the government's favor. Immigration authorities, however, have been unable to carry out his deportation. Jama is the only one of 4,500 Somalis believed to be facing deportation in custody. None of the others has been deported since the Supreme Court ruled against him.
On Tuesday, Justice Department lawyers filed a statement saying Jama will be removed no later than April 25.
Jama, represented by the Minneapolis law firm of Briggs & Morgan and Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, filed a response questioning the lack of detail about deportation plans. His lawyers asked the judge to release Jama under conditions of supervision similar to probation.
Copyright 2004 Knight Ridder
All Rights Reserved
Posted on Wednesday 13th April at 17:06:43 Woman Accused of Falsely Accusing Husband of Terrorist Ties
COLUMBUS, Ohio - A woman was accused on Monday of falsely reporting that her estranged husband told her he was involved in a plot to bomb the U.S. and Saudi Arabian embassies in London.
Kadrah Farah Ali, 42, was arrested Monday morning at her home in Columbus, the FBI said. Ali was taken before a federal magistrate, who allowed her release Monday on her recognizance pending a preliminary hearing in U.S. District Court.
Ali was charged with conduct with the intent to convey false information. She is accused of lying to a federal agent about a terrorism matter with the knowledge that the government would take action as a result, FBI spokesman Michael Brooks said.
He said the FBI notified the CIA and British authorities of Ali's allegations. British authorities interviewed Ali's husband, Osman Yusef Dirie, in England where he lives and reported to U.S. officials, Brooks said. Dirie was not arrested or charged, Brooks said.
Brooks declined further comment.
According to the government's charges, Ali told the FBI last month that her estranged husband said he and four Moroccans were going to bomb the embassies. The FBI said it investigated the allegations but that Ali has since admitted she made up the story to hurt her husband.
She claimed that Dirie married her in an attempt to become a U.S. resident, the FBI said. They are both Somalians and Ali is a U.S. citizen, Brooks said.
If convicted, Ali faces up to five years in prison.
Posted on Tuesday 12th April at 19:01:37 New UN Arms Monitors Appointed
NAIROBI, 12 April (IRIN) - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has named a four-man panel of experts to monitor the arms embargo against Somalia, UN News reported on Monday.
The re-establishment of the monitoring group follows reports that various armed Somali factions were still receiving weapons from various sources.
In a letter to the UN Security Council's president, released on Monday, Annan re-appointed an American, Melvin Holt Jr, and a Colombian, Joel Salek, both of whom had served on the last Somali monitoring group.
Also on the team will be Harjit Singh Kelley of Kenya, who previously served on an expert panel on Liberian sanctions, and Bruno Schiemsky of Belgium, who served on a group monitoring an embargo against the Democratic Republic of Congo.
On 15 March, the Council requested that the secretary-general re-establish "within 30 days and for a period of six months" a monitoring group "to continue investigating the implementation of the arms embargo by member states and violations, inter alia, through field-based investigations in Somalia."
It asked the group to assess actions taken so far by the Somali authorities and other UN members states, especially Somalia's neighbours, "fully to implement the arms embargo".
The Council imposed a weapons ban on Somalia in 1992, at the onset of civil war. A four-member panel of experts to investigate violations of the embargo was then appointed by Annan in September 2002.
Posted on Tuesday 12th April at 18:59:42 Somalia Government Assures On Relocation
The Federal Transition Parliament of Somalia will next week adopt a bill detailing the relocation plan.
At the same President Abdullahi Yusuf yesterday appealed to Somali MPs to nurture unity for the sake of peace in their country.
He was speaking at a Nairobi hotel where he hosted 223 MPs to lunch.
The luncheon was the first get-together since the MPs engaged in a brawl at another Nairobi hotel on March 17.
The MPs had disagreed over the city where the transitional government will be housed and also the idea of accepting troops from front-line states-Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
Yesterday President Yusuf shared the high table with the Speaker Sheikh Hassan Adam whom most MPs blamed for taking sides in the debate over the relocation of the government.
Other officials included several Cabinet ministers, the Chief Justice Yusuf Mire and the communications director in the Prime Minister’s Office, Mr Hussein Jabiri.
The Prime Minister Prof Ali Mohammed Ghedi, accompanied by his deputy, Hussein Aideed and the governor of Somalia’s Central Bank were said to have travelled to Libya to discuss details of financial aid to be given by President Muammar Gaddafi.
Yusuf said the MPs will also discuss and adopt the Igad Council of Foreign ministers resolution on the sending of a peace mission to Somalia.
Parliament will also discuss the possibility of going on recess for about three months to allow MPs to travel and meet their constituents.
"During the recess, the MPs will also establish district/regional administrative organs," explained Jabiri who translated for The Standard President Yusuf’s un-written speech which he delivered in Somali language.
And one of the MPs yesterday appealed to the Government of Kenya to intervene in a conflict in Elwak side of Somalia.
He claimed that at least 30 people were massacred on Saturday during a clan fighting.
"The war is taking place eight KMs from the common border with Kenya. If not controlled, it will easily spillover to Kenya," explained MP Ibrahim Isaak.
He said since there is no government in Somalia, Kenya had a humanitarian responsibility to the people of the region.
"Let the violence be nipped in the bud before it gets out of hand. The violence is not helping anybody, leave alone those involved in blood-letting" said Isak.
Meanwhile, 11 MPs from the Somalia Parliament have left for their country out of frustrations.
Sources said the group of MPs are some of the renegades that pushing for the relocation of Parliament to Mogadishu, with or without President Yusuf.
The group is insisting that the Somalia Charter be respected as it says Mogadishu is the capital city.
Other reports said more than 30 MPs arrived in the capital yesterday to stake their support for Mogadishu as the seat of power.
By KEN RAMANI
Copyright © MMV . The Standard Group
Posted on Monday 11th April at 16:02:20 36 Killed In Clan Clash for Control of Somali Town Bordering Kenya
NAIROBI, April 11 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 36 people were killed and 30 more injured in Somalia at the weekend as two clans fought for control of a border town, Kenyan media reported Monday.
According to the local newspaper Daily Nation, the fight between the Marehan and the Garre clans is said to be for control of the of Bura Hache town, which is less than four km from the Kenyan border, mostly inhabited by the Garre clan.
Unconfirmed reports indicated that Garre militiamen were training on the Somalia side of the border when the Marehan attacked them to drive them out of the town.
The Garre are also fighting the Murule clan of Mandera town on the Kenyan side over water and pasture.
The skirmishes between the Garre and Murule have left more than60 people dead and several more injured in less than three months of fighting.
In a meeting to resolve differences between Somali members of parliament at a hotel in Nairobi, Somali President Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf condemned the attacks and asked the Kenyan government to step up security at the border.
The survivors of the attack were being treated at a health center in Kenya.
Several families are reported to have crossed into Kenya with their livestock to escape the fighting, while those on the Kenyan side of the border are reported to have moved deeper into Kenya to flee the fighting.
Kenya's North Eastern Provincial Commissioner Abdul Mwaserrah said on Sunday that Kenyan security forces stationed on the border with Somalia were placed on high alert following the fighting, which he said lasted for six hours.
The provincial commissioner said one group that attempted to cross into Kenya was repulsed by the security forces. Enditem
Posted on Monday 11th April at 16:00:28 'Return At Any Cost' Is Breach Of Rights
The planes disgorge their human cargo after dark, when Ndjili airport, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), becomes one of the bleakest places on Earth.
It is to Ndjili, near the capital, Kinshasa, that Britain and other European countries send Congolese asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected, an increasingly common event in recent months, say human rights groups.
The would-be refugees are led from the jets on to the runway by a handful of escorts. The escorts then hand them over to the Congolese authorities and an uncertain fate.
The little information that comes out of the war-ravaged country suggests that many end up in windowless jails run by the feared National Security Agency. From these dark cells they are transferred to Makala Central prison, dubbed "the morgue".
The United States State Department reported that 69 people died in Makala in 2003 as a result of beatings, starvation and disease.
"According to reports from returning asylum seekers, as well as from agents of the director general of migration [DGM], deportees are held in small cells at the airport," said Congolese human rights activist Rene Kabala Mushiya. "There are no windows and no light. From here, they are called in to the director of the DGM for interrogation."
A report to be published on Monday by the Institute of Race Relations, a London- based charity, suggests Britain is breaching the Geneva conventions by sending asylum seekers back to conflict zones.
It quotes the fate of 13 men flown from the United Kingdom who were immediately detained at Kinshasa. One of them, who eventually made it back to Britain, told the institute they were beaten daily by up to six soldiers. The man who escaped says that he was raped six times.
It is no surprise, then, that Willy Mpasi Mutwadi is praying the British authorities decide not to send him back.
Mutwadi was a clinical biologist at a hospital in Kinshasa. In 2003, he was asked to help the security services to murder leading opposition politicians. He was chosen because he was active in opposition politics and had the means to administer lethal injections and falsify hospital medical records.
"Fabulous rewards were offered to me, and a great deal of pressure was applied by the security services to accept this commission, but as a Christian and a medical professional I had to refuse," he said. "I was asked to rethink my decision, and knew that if I remained in [the DRC] I would be killed. I fled immediately to priests who could protect me until arrangements could be made to get me out quickly.
"The security services killed my brother, Kakesa, when he was unable to give them information regarding my whereabouts."
Mutwadi was smuggled to the UK, where he immediately claimed asylum, which was rejected. Throughout 2004, the British Home Office tried to send him back, only to fail after interventions by politicians and Amnesty International. Now on bail, he is awaiting the outcome of a judicial review of the Home Office's decision.
"My return to [the DRC] would result in my immediate death," he said.
The British government used to have a policy of not returning asylum seekers to the DRC, such were the concerns about the conflict tearing the country apart.
The British Foreign Office website advises against all travel to the area. But in a clear bid to assuage public concerns about asylum seekers, the government has started returning would-be refugees to the DRC and other conflict zones thought too dangerous for UK citizens.
"There was a time when a number of countries were considered no-go areas. But now Somalia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Iraq are not even considered dangerous," said Lord Avebury, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Africa in the Lords.
Home Office figures show that 65 people were returned to the DRC from the UK last year, 105 to Zimbabwe, 150 to Somalia, 760 to Iraq and 795 to Afghanistan. Many would have been asylum seekers sent back against their will.
"In the case of Zimbabwe, we know of cases where people have it in writing that they will be interrogated when they return and we are still sending them back," said Jean Lambert, an MEP and Green party spokesperson on asylum issues.
Part of the problem stems from a paucity of intelligence. A report by the Immigration Advisory Service questioned the quality of analysis of more than 20 reports produced by the Home Office Country Information and Policy Unit.
The British government decided Somalia was safe on the basis of a report that had to be produced in Kenya because its authors thought the country was too dangerous for them to enter.
Their fears were justified. Abdinassir Abdulatif, a Somali forcibly returned by the Dutch authorities, was murdered last June after being kidnapped in the capital, Mogadishu.
The institute will use its report to argue that, by sending asylum seekers back to war-torn countries, Britain is breaching the Geneva convention, which says "no state shall expel or return a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, [or] membership of a particular group or political opinion".
But this is unlikely to have an impact on a government keen to keep asylum issues off the election agenda and which shows signs of adopting a tougher stance. The Home Office is already drawing up plans to deny refugee status automatically to anyone deemed to have committed a "serious crime" -- from car theft to possessing illegal drugs.
The Home Office maintains each case is considered on its merits and no one is sent back if their life would be in danger. But human rights groups reject the claim.
"The Home Office seems to be moving towards a 'return at any cost' policy," said Steve Ballinger, of Amnesty International. "These people are seen as a problem to be got rid of. There seems to be little regard for their safety."
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
Posted on Sunday 10th April at 17:57:21 More Than 30 Somali Mps Return To Mogadishu
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - More than 30 members of Somalia's parliament arrived in the capital on Sunday to stake their support for Mogadishu as the seat of power amid a deep split over where the fledgling government should be based.
Under pressure from foreign governments and donors, the interim Somali government plans to leave Kenya, where it was formed in December after two years of stop-start peace talks, and return to lawless Somalia.
MPs aligned to President Abdullahi Yusuf have said they want to temporarily relocate to the relatively calmer cities of Baidoa and Jowhar, until security is established in anarchic Mogadishu.
Others insist the government should return to Mogadishu, Somalia's single most dangerous place, which the transitional constitution stipulates must serve as the capital.
The members of parliament who landed on Sunday included former Mogadishu warlords Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, minister for national security and Muse Sudi Yalahow, minister for commerce.
However, Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi told local media the MPs were returning for personal reasons, saying the government had yet to decide where it would relocate to.
"These are MPs who have no right to intervene in the activity of the cabinet," Gedi said from the Libyan capital Tripoli where he was visiting.
President Yusuf has asked African and Arab states to supply 7,500 troops to help disarm militiamen roaming Mogadishu since warlords overran the country in 1991, toppling military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and ending central authority.
But a dispute about whether so-called frontline states bordering Somalia should contribute soldiers has caused further problems and delays to the planned African Union peacekeeping force.
Militant Islamists and influential warlords have vowed to attack troops from Kenya, Djibouti and longstanding rival Ethiopia, if they are deployed.
More than 18 people were killed and 32 others wounded when heavy clashes broke out on Saturday between the rival Garre and Merrehan clans in the Gedo region, close to the border with Kenya, residents and clansmen said.
It was not immediately clear why they were fighting in a clash that illustrates the volatile instability of the Horn of Africa country.
A spokesman for the Merrehan clan told local media on Sunday their militiamen, who were chased out of the area, would return with reinforcements.
By Mohamed Ali Bile
Posted on Sunday 10th April at 17:55:31 Somalia President Yusuf Ignores The Saudi Executions
Nairobi (HAN) April 9, 2005- The IGAD Human Rights Watch accused the Somalia Federal Government and the rest of the IGAD Frontline States today of ignoring human rights violations against their citizens by Saudi Arabia because of the desert kingdom's massive economic power.
Despite a history of arbitrary arrests, torture, unfair trials and harsh punishments such as flogging and beheading, Saudi Arabia has never been held to the same human rights standards that EU, UN and its allies apply to Sudan, Mozambiq and Eritrea and other nations accused of widespread repression, the human rights group said.
"The country's strategic position and vast oil resources have led governments and businesses around the world to subordinate human rights to economic and strategic interests," the group said in a 19-page report.
In addition to an annual report detailing the human rights situation in most of the world's countries, Amnesty International issues one detailed report each year focusing on a single country. This year the organization focused on Saudi Arabia. And it coupled its report with a call for a grass-roots campaign to protest Saudi abuses.
"The U.N. Commission on Human Rights has, over the years, publicly expressed concern about the human rights situation in a wide range of countries in all regions of the world, but it has never publicly addressed the serious human rights situation in Saudi Arabia," the report said.
The Somalis Worldwide expressed sadness About The Saudi Executions, while the President of Federal Somalia HE Abdullahi Yusuf in Nairobi did not respond to a request for comment on the Somalis Executions by the Saudi Authority in Jeddah.
report.
The Islamic Law and the Saudi Executions
Since the majority of the provisions in the Saudi Penal Code are based on Islamic law, at least in theory, I would like to examine the Saudi actions under both the strict interpretations of the classic Islamic Law and in light of the expositions by the early Islamic Jurists.
The State Department and Amnesty International agree that both Saudi citizens and foreigners were executed. Amnesty International said, however, that Saudi justice falls more heavily on outsiders and people from the margins of society. It said the system is especially harsh in its treatment of foreign workers, who make up about a quarter of the Saudi population; critics of the regime; and religious minorities, including Christians, Sikhs and Shiite Muslims.
Posted on Saturday 9th April at 23:46:52 Djibouti's President Re-elected
Djibouti - Outgoing President Ismail Omar Guelleh won re-election as sole candidate on a turnout of 78.9% after the opposition had called for a boycott, Interior Minister Abdoulkader Doualeh Wais announced early on Saturday.
The minister told Djibouti radio and television (RTD) that the turnout, the only unknown factor in Friday's election, was "due to the government's very strong awareness-making of the very important issues and to an active electoral campaign".
Guelleh's foes, who called for a nationwide boycott, vowed not to accept the foregone conclusion of his re-election for a second six-year mandate.
He received 100% of the votes expressed, with 5.7% of ballots void, according to interior ministry figures.
In legislative elections in 2003, the opposition failed to win a single seat in parliament but insists it received support from 45% of voters, while this year it has been unfairly kept out of the process.
Despite having no opponent, the 57-year-old incumbent, known throughout this former French colony simply by his initials IOG, kept up a hectic campaign pace, vowing to reduce poverty and Djibouti's dependency on imported food.
He has also pledged to step down after his second six-year mandate and not try to repeal the presidential term limit enshrined in the constitution.
Since coming to power in 1999, Guelleh has turned Djibouti into a key western ally in the war on terrorism.
Located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is a key staging post between the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal as well as the Indian Ocean and is home to the largest overseas French military base and the only US military base in Africa.
Posted on Saturday 9th April at 15:05:40 Police Fire Tear Gas On Djibouti Rally As Poll Opens
DJIBOUTI, April 8 (Reuters) - Police in Djibouti fired tear gas at hundreds of demonstrators protesting against the presidential election on Friday, in which incumbent Ismail Omar Guelleh is the sole candidate.
Gathering outside the headquarters of the main opposition coalition, the Union of Democratic Alliance, protestors accused the government of suppressing democracy in the tiny but strategically important Horn of Africa country.
"We would rather die standing than follow on our knees", one banner said. Police quickly moved to disperse the rally, which also called for a boycott of the poll, residents said.
Police said no one was hurt in the skirmish.
Closely related to founding President Hassan Gouled Aptidon through the Somali Issa clan, Guelleh became Djibouti's second president since independence from France in 1977, after winning a 1999 election.
His sweeping victory was widely regarded as fair by international observers.
But a parliamentary election in 2003, in which Guelleh's Union for Presidential Majority took every seat, was marred by criticism that voting was rigged.
"I regret having no opponent," Guelleh told Le Figaro newspaper in an interview published on Friday.
"I accuse the opposition of not having the courage to give voters the right to choose between several candidates," he was quoted as saying.
About 197,000 of Djibouti's 700,000 people were registered to vote in the desert country, sandwiched between Eritrea and Somalia at the mouth of the Red Sea.
Guelleh has campaigned hard for a second six-year term, focusing his electoral issues on development in a country which relies heavily on imports, transparency in local administration and women's rights.
Since 2002, the former French colony has hosted U.S. troops using Djibouti as a base to hunt down the kind of militants who, in 1998, blew up U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing more than 200 people.
A U.S. State Department report this year criticised Djibouti for "serious" human rights abuses, noting that the government had limited their citizens' rights to change their government.
Opposition was suppressed by control of the state media and unlawful arrests of critics, the report said.
Months after the election which catapaulted Guelleh to power in 1999, his opponent Moussa Ahmed Idris in the presidential race was arrested and jailed on charges of rebellion and acts of violence.
Idris had accused the government of rigging the poll. (Additional reporting by Paris bureau)
By Omar Hassan
Posted on Friday 8th April at 17:31:52 Judge Sets Deadline For Somali's Deportation
The government has until Tuesday to deport a Minnesota Somali or face seeing a federal judge order his release after almost four years in custody.
Justice Department lawyers won the right to deport Keyse Jama, 26, in a case the U.S. Supreme Court decided in January.
So far, however, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have not been able to return Jama to his homeland, which has been without a central government since civil war broke out in 1991.
Jama, who faces deportation because of a third-degree assault conviction in Hennepin County, completed his one-year sentence in that case and has been in administrative custody awaiting deportation since May 2001.
"Forty-seven months in prison level custody is far too long," U.S. District Judge John Tunheim wrote in an order issued Thursday. If Jama still is in custody Tuesday — three months after the Supreme Court ruled — the government must give the judge a progress report on its plans to deport Jama.
"If Jama has not been deported by that time, the court will entertain a motion from Jama for his release pending deportation. If accomplishing Jama's deportation is as difficult as the government claims, and the court has no reason to doubt that it is a difficult task given the primitive and relatively lawless conditions that exist in the former territory of Somalia, it would only make sense to release Jama with appropriate conditions and give authorities all the time they need to effectuate a safe and proper removal."
A Justice Department spokesman said lawyers working on the case could not be reached for comment Thursday night.
Jama is the only one of 4,500 Somalis believed to be facing deportation who is in custody. None of the others has been deported since the Supreme Court ruled against him.
Jama wants to go back to Somalia soon or gain his release with conditions similar to probation while he waits to go, said lawyer Kevin Magnuson of the Minneapolis firm of Briggs & Morgan, which has volunteered to represent Jama with the nonprofit Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.
"There's an important constitutional issue here, which is, Since when has our system sanctioned the detention of people who haven't committed a crime on an indefinite basis?" Magnuson said. "He served his sentence and he's done. Now he's being held purely for the administrative convenience of the government. Taking away four years of his life for admin convenience, to me it's shocking and tragic and unconstitutional."
Jama had challenged the government's authority to deport him to a country that has no central government to accept him. Tunheim agreed, but the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overruled him. Jama appealed to the Supreme Court, which ruled 5-4 that immigration officials could deport him without advance consent from a central government. Jama then returned to Tunheim's courtroom with a motion to compel the government to remove him or release him.
In his order, Tunheim wrote that he found the government's request for Jama to "secure a 'passport' from apparently extra-legal sources is highly irregular." Somalia does not have a government that could issue passports, and the United States neither recognizes a Somali government nor accepts such documents. The government has had to abandon plans to deport Jama on a commercial flight because he does not have a passport.
Other plans also have fallen through, the judge noted. The government's ability to detain a deportable alien is not unlimited, however, Tunheim wrote, citing a separate Supreme Court decision that continued detention of aliens not deportable in the reasonably foreseeable future is constitutionally suspect.
"Over the past several years, the government has proposed elaborate, but ultimately unsuccessful, plans to deport Jama including contracting with an unidentified foreign contractor who would in turn contract with a warlord in the Somali territory to accomplish the relocation," Tunheim wrote. "In this case, a longer period is not necessary or appropriate, given the nearly four years that Jama has been in detention and the fact that the government is not starting from scratch in making plans for Jama's removal."
BY TODD NELSON
Pioneer PressM
Posted on Friday 8th April at 17:29:40 Saudi Beheading Of Somalis "Grossly Unfair" – Amnesty Says
NAIROBI, 8 April (IRIN) - The public execution of six Somali nationals in Saudi Arabia on Monday was a shocking abuse of human rights, according to Amnesty International (AI).
"Six Somalis were suddenly executed in public on 4 April without being informed in advance that their five-year prison sentences, which they had served - and also been lashed - by May 2004, had apparently been changed later to death sentences by a secret procedure," Martin Hill, Horn of Africa researcher for AI, said on Thursday.
Ali Sheikh Yusuf, Abdel-Fatar Ali Hassan, Abdullah Adam Abdullah, Hussein Haroon Mohamed, Abdul-Nur Mohamed Wali and Abdullah Hassan Abdu had been detained in a prison in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's largest city, since their conviction for theft in May 1999.
AI said that the trial of the men, said to be migrant workers from Somali capital Mogadishu, had been inconsistent with international standards on fairness.
The six Somalis were unaware that they were at risk of death, according to AI, which said it had written to the Saudi minister of interior regarding the men's status, but had received no response.
Decrying the secrecy surrounding the Saudi Arabian criminal justice system, the human-rights watchdog said that most defendants and their families were not informed of the charges against them, nor of the progress of legal proceedings.
It further stated that defendants could be convicted solely on the basis of confessions obtained under duress, torture or deception.
Trial proceedings took place behind closed doors, AI said, and those accused had no right to legal representation - while in the case of foreign nationals, inadequate or no access to consular assistance was allowed.
AI put the total number of people executed in Saudi Arabia in the last four months at 51, almost two-thirds of which were foreign nationals.
It called on Saudi Arabia's King Fahd to commute all outstanding death sentences, and to bring Saudi trial proceedings into line with international standards.
According to the Somali press, human-rights groups in Mogadishu have also condemned the executions as illegal and contrary to both Islamic Shariah law and international law.
Posted on Friday 8th April at 17:28:15 Djibouti Awaits Foregone Conclusion in One-Man Presidential Race
DJIBOUTI (AFP) - Amid a nationwide sea of posters and flyers extolling the virtues of President Ismail Omar Guelleh, voters in Djibouti are asked to cast ballots in a one-man presidential race.
Amid a nationwide sea of posters and flyers extolling the virtues of President Ismail Omar Guelleh, voters in Djibouti are asked to cast ballots in a one-man presidential race.
With the poll certain to return the lone candidate to power, Djibouti's fledgling opposition has called for an election boycott, one step short of completely throwing in the towel, despite Guellah's vow not to stand again.
"Two successive terms are enough for me," the president told AFP in a rare interview accorded to a foreign journalist on Wednesday. "I am not going to change the constitution."
After his second, and constitutionally-mandated final, six-year term expires, Guellah, 57, known throughout Djibouti simply by his initials IOG, says he plans to step down and enjoy the quiet life.
"I will retire, 12 years, that's 50 years in Africa," he said with a smile, allowing that running unopposed was "unusual" but not nefarious in the least.
Not so, alleges the opposition, which has no time for such pleasantries and complained repeatedly of harassment and intimidation during the campaign despite not having a candidate in the race.
"No election, no to the masquerade," read the small badges worn by opposition supporters who are urging a voter boycott to win a symbolic victory through low turnout that they hope will delegitimize IOG's impending victory.
"A president elected under such conditions is not a president," said Ismail Guedi Hared, president of the the opposition umbrella group Union for Democratic Change (UAD). "We will not recognise him."
Friday's elections will be the third time Djibouti has gone to the polls in what is supposed to be a multi-party election but the first in which the president has not faced opposition.
In Djibouti's last presidential election in 1999, the opposition won only 25 percent of the total votes, and it suffered another loss in September when its main leader, former prime minister Ahmed Dini Ahmed, died.
In legislative elections in 2003, the opposition failed to win a single seat in parliament but insists it received support from 45 percent of voters and that this year it has been unfairly kept out of the process.
"Everything has been fraudulent," said Ahmed Youssouf of the opposition Republican Alliance for Democracy (ARD). "It won't be a fair and transparent election so we have decided not to participate."
On the eve of the end of campaign on Wednesday, the UAD complained that eight of it supporters had been arbitrarily arrested for the "sole crime" of attending a meeting.
The government has denied the charge, but observers in Djibouti attest to the opposition's complaints that the campaign has been squarely pro-IOG with little chance for any other message to get out.
Djibouti's only television station, RTD, "does not give access, or very little, to the opposition," one western diplomat said on condition of anonymity.
"RTD's news is nothing more than media hype for the president," said another Djibouti-based foreigner.
At the same time, IOG's visage appears on posters and placards plastered on taxis, the gates of luxury villas and the walls of businesses around the country. Signs for the opposition's boycott call are nowhere to be seen.
"If we try to put up a poster, immediately we are stopped", said Mohamed Daoud Chehem, leader of the opposition Djibouti Development Party (PDD).
Guellah denies issuing orders to prevent the opposition from getting its message out. "It's not me that is stopping them," he said.
To be sure, IOG has supporters and he confidently predicted the boycott will fizzle and that voter turnout will be at least 50 percent on Friday.
"We came to support IOG because he has done a lot of things for us, like building roads," said 18-year-old Mohamed Charmarke, one of 10,000 people to attend a campaign rally on Wednesday.
Since coming to power in this former French colony, a tiny sliver of land on the tip of the Horn of Africa, he has turned Djibouti into key western ally in the war on terrorism.
Strategically located at the southern end of the Red Sea on the Gulf of Aden, Djibouti is a key staging post between the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal in the north and the Indian Ocean.
It is home the largest overseas French military base and the only US military base in Africa and enjoys an apparent special status in Washington which is using the country as a hub for international anti-terrorism efforts.
The foreign military presence has brought some money but most of Djibouti's people remain desperately poor, a main complaint of the opposition.
According to a 2002 United Nations study, 74 percent of the 714,000 people in the country lived on less than three dollars a day.
Posted on Thursday 7th April at 14:58:43 Somalia Struggles in the Wake of Killer Waves
Harfun - Ali Hamis came to the thriving Somali fishing village of Harfun to seek his fortune on the sea, but found an apocalypse.
Tales of abundant lobster, kingfish and shark swimming in the shimmering, turquoise waters off northeastern Somalia's tip had drawn him from his native Zanzibar.
But within hours of arriving in Somalia on December 26, the sea took everything he had, including his life savings of $450 (about R2 700), as the worst tsunami on record smashed into the Horn of Africa.
"The water was receding into the sea and within minutes came back to destroy everything," the 33-year-old recalled on Wednesday.
"Most of us were thinking it was the end of the world."
The wall of water crashed into concrete block houses, smashing wooden boats, sweeping cars away and flooding boreholes, as bewildered villagers fled to the rocky hills overlooking the coast.
Aid workers say more than 150 people were killed in Somalia, the east African country worst hit by the tsunami that rippled across the Indian Ocean.
Up to 50 000 Somalis were affected in some way when it made landfall along 650km of Somalia's coastline at the height of the fishing season.
The damage was concentrated in the northern Somali region of Puntland, and Harfun was hit hardest.
Unlike the rest of the arid country, people in Puntland have lived in relative safety under autonomous rule since warlords overran Somalia 14 years ago.
Factional fighting between rival clans still hampers humanitarian relief to large swathes of the country, but aid workers were able to distribute food within 48 hours of the tsunami striking Harfun.
More than three months after the tsunami, Harfun resembles a refugee camp of makeshift shelters cobbled together from plastic sheeting, pieces of wood and shards of corrugated tin.
Half a dozen boats sit idle on the beach, overlooked by the remnants of a salt factory, built by the Italians in colonial times and bombed by the British during World War Two.
Villagers have built a flimsy wall of wood and rusted metal to protect their destroyed homes from the sea, but it is so low a child could jump over it.
The fear of another killer wave is constant. When another big earthquake was registered off Indonesia last month, locals got early warning from the BBC Somalia service.
The local mayor is now urging villagers to build houses on higher ground.
Although the catch is ruined for this season, the United Nations hopes fishermen can go back to the sea once the new season begins in October.
"What we want to do as the UN is to look forward and start a mini-development programme," Maxwell Gaylard, UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said.
The project would involve new boats, nets and storage units to boost the output of the fishing industry, which only harvests about 30 percent of the potential along the northern coastline.
Stranded in Harfun a thousand of miles from home, Ali has not quite given up on his hope of riches from fishing.
If things do not pick up in Somalia, he will try his luck across the Gulf of Aden in Yemen.
"I can't go back to my family with nothing to show for it," he said. "I'm just happy to be alive."
By Katie Nguyen
© 2005 Independent Online. All rights strictly reserved.
Posted on Thursday 7th April at 14:56:48 War and Tsunami Force Somalis into Slums
NAIROBI, 7 April (IRIN) - Civil war and December's tsunami have inflicted mass devastation on Somalia's housing situation, a Somali government official said on Tuesday at the 20th Governing Council of the UN Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.
"Because of the frequent movements and internal displacements due to the civil war, certain areas of Somali cities are extremely overpopulated, while other areas are not populated at all, and have become ghost neighbourhoods," Qasim Hersi Farah, the permanent secretary in Somalia's ministry of environment, said during a plenary session.
"This has led to heavy garbage disposal everywhere, shortages of shelter [and] water, and the growing spread of communicable diseases," he added.
Delegates from 58 UN member-countries are attending the five-day meeting, opened on Monday by Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki. The conference is expected to give new impetus to plans for meeting the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular target 11 of MDG 7 - improving the living conditions of at least 100 million slum dwellers by the year 2020.
Somali delegates at the conference estimated that 85 percent of their population were currently living in slums or partially destroyed homes.
A special theme of the meeting is "post-conflict and natural and human-made disaster assessment and reconstruction", a subject with special meaning for Somalia, a country devastated by 15 years of civil war and, more recently, the 26 December 2004 tsunami that tore through its northeastern coastline, leaving more than 20,000 people in need of aid.
UN-HABITAT estimated that up to 1,500 buildings and 40 villages in northeastern Somalia were damaged by the tsunami. The agency aims to repair 1,000 houses and build 500 new ones in affected areas, at an estimated cost of US $2 million.
Moreover, Farah explained how Somali society was abandoning its traditional, pastoral way of life.
"It is estimated that no fewer than 60 percent of the Somali population are living in urban areas with [or] without adequate shelter," he said. "This statistical proportion shows that the situation has changed from what it once was - a country in which 75 percent of people were nomadic or farmers before the 1980s."
Several years of drought have also exacerbated the humanitarian situation in the country.
According to UN-HABITAT, crises such as Somalia's can "turn back the development clock". It noted that a significant majority of Somali victims were civilians, especially women and children, in a world that already had to protect an estimated 20 million refugees and 25 million internally displaced persons.
Posted on Thursday 7th April at 14:54:59 UN Agency Welcomes Somali Leader's Pledge to Pay Primary School Teacher Salaries
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) today welcomed a pledge by the president of a semi-autonomous Somali territory to ease parents' financial burden by taking over the payment of salaries for primary school teachers.
"Some 200 teachers stand to benefit from the move which will mark a major break from the norm in Somalia where traditionally parents have had to bear full responsibility for the payment of teachers," UNICEF said, referring to the announcement made yesterday by Puntland President Mohamud Muse Hirsi "Adde" in the Horn of Africa country.
The president was speaking at a ceremony in the port town of Bosasso to launch the Integrated Primary Education Programme, a collaboration between UNICEF, the European Commission, the Puntland administration and local communities, the UN agency said.
The president's announcement marks a milestone in Somalia's education history and demonstrates a very real commitment by the administration to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)" agreed at a UN summit in 2000 to remove or reduce a host of socioeconomic ills by 2015, UNICEF's Siddharth Chatterjee said.
"The payment of teachers' salaries will free parents of a major financial burden and will remove a significant obstacle in getting all children, and especially girls, to access and complete their primary education."
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 14:59:36 Rift Over Capital Grows As Somali Mps Fly To Mogadishu
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A bitter rift over which city the fledgling Somali government should initially call home worsened on Wednesday as about 30 Somali MPs flew to Mogadishu to begin planning to move the government there.
The interim Somali government has remained in the Kenyan capital Nairobi, where it was formed at peace talks over the past two years, and is eyeing a return at the urging of foreign governments and donors.
But the 275-member parliament has been split over where the government should first go when it returns home, and a still-brewing disagreement over peacekeepers that led to a bloody brawl during a parliamentary session last month.
MPs aligned with President Abdullahi Yusuf have said they want to temporarily relocate to the relatively calmer cities of Baidoa and Jowhar, until security is brought back to anarchic Mogadishu.
Others, including those who returned on Wednesday, insist the government return to Mogadishu, which their transitional constitution stipulates must be the capital.
Yusuf's supporters say Mogadishu will remain the capital, but may not be the government's home at first.
The two sides are so far apart in both disputes that each has rejected parliamentary votes they disagree with as flawed and refused to recognize them, presenting the first serious challenges to the newborn democracy.
Nearly 100 other MPs are expected to go to Mogadishu next week to begin efforts to relocate the government, MP Abdall Haji told reporters on arriving in Mogadishu. Supporters chanted as the plane arrived.
Some residents said they feared more fighting could break out, since ammunition sales at the city's notorious Bakara arms market have been picking up.
Foreign diplomats in Kenya have worked very hard to keep the two sides talking about their differences in an effort to reach a compromise, Somali watchers say.
But Yusuf has been travelling outside of Kenya recently and so serious negotiations have not been able to take place.
By Mohamed Ali Bile
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 20:48:27 Malnutrition Over 20 Percent, Says UN Agency
NAIROBI, 6 April (IRIN) - Somalia is continuing to experience food shortages, with some areas reporting malnutrition levels of more than 20 percent, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.
In its March update on food security and nutrition in Somalia, the FAO's Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) noted that in the southern region of Juba Valley, more than a quarter of children screened were at risk of malnutrition.
In the central region of Galgadud, levels of malnutrition were almost as high, at 24 percent.
"Limited services available for malnourished children in Somalia have forced families to travel long distances to Galkayo [central Somalia] in search of therapeutic care," the report stated.
It also quoted an interagency tsunami assessment, which said that 22,000 people along the northeastern tsunami-affected coastline would need "sustained resource transfer over the next eight months".
Elsewhere, "civil insecurity continues to disrupt pastoral and agro-pastoral livelihoods" in part of the western region of Bakool, according to the analysis unit.
Meanwhile, in the self-declared republic of Somaliland, in the region of Karin, solitary locusts had been sighted in isolated incidents. The FAO's Emergency Prevention System for Transboundary Animals and Plant Pests in Hargeysa, the region's capital, was planning a mission to assess the incidence and infestation levels.
Somalia's climate remained dry, as is the norm for the time of year, but climate experts were predicting below normal Gu rains between April and June. The Gu rains usually contribute towards 70 percent to 75 percent of annual food and fodder production, and are therefore of significant importance to overall food security.
FSAU noted that sorghum (a staple crop) produced during the extended Deyr rains –usually only from November to January - remained in the market at significantly reduced prices. The harvests in the southeastern region of Shabelle, and Juba, had been affected by moisture stress, insect damage and hot winds.
Heavy rains in Somalia over the past year have ended a cycle of drought that had lasted for more than three years
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 20:46:34 Why Frontline Peacekeepers Won't Do
The on-going battle for the control of the town of Baidoa is a continuation of the fist-fight by Somali MPs in a Nairobi hotel recently.
This conflict follows a disagreement over deployment of peacekeeping forces from Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti to implement the peace agreement and temporary location of the transition government.
In addition to throwing into disarray the agreement and post-conflict reconstruction programme, the new conflict rekindles the old dilemma about taking a regional approach to manage intra-state conflicts in Africa.
The United Nations initiated this approach as an alternative strategy for managing conflicts in the post-Cold War era, following the disengagement policy by Western powers.
This policy arose as a response to the disastrous US/UN experience in Somalia in 1992/93, when Somali militias killed 24 UN peacekeepers and 18 US soldiers in fierce street battles, thus, forcing the UN Operation in Somalia (Unosom) to withdraw in haste.
Regional blocs that took the responsibility of implementing the regional approach are the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Inter-governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) in West Africa, southern Africa and eastern Africa respectively.
The IGAD-facilitated Somali peace agreement was, thus, an effort towards this end. The agreement stipulates, inter alia, that the frontline states are to initially provide peacekeeping troops to implement the accord and reconstruction programme. Troops from other African Union members were to join them later.
Indeed, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda hailed the peace agreement as "an African solution to African problems".
Of course, Mr Museveni was echoing the words of many pan-Africanists, who argue that Africans should play an active role in their continent's affairs in the new world order.
The spiralling conflict over deployment of frontline states' peacekeepers in Somalia is, therefore, not just a setback to the Somali peace process, it also throws into jeopardy the regional approach to intra-state conflict resolution.
The rationale for a regional approach is familiarity with the problems at hand and the cultural, social and historical affinity of the regional actors.
It emphasises the regional actors' political and military advantage, their better understanding of the conflict, their possession of greater acceptance by the conflicting parties, their stronger and lasting commitment, and their relatively cheaper equipment and personnel needs, compared to non-regional actors.
Further, a regional approach may facilitate the disarmament of negative forces, address security concerns of neighbouring states, and explore possibilities for bilateral and multilateral co-operation on a continuous basis.
Ecowas is credited with resolving conflicts in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, and in recently influencing political events in Togo. SADC's has been praised for resolving a political crisis in Lesotho and influencing events in other southern African countries.
Those Somali militia leaders and MPs opposed to IGAD's initiative of deploying troops from the frontline states, however, question the impartiality of some of the regional actors. They fervently argue that unlike Ecowas, these countries' involvement in Somalia is not motivated by altruism but self-interest.
This argument is deeply rooted in the history of the Somali conflict. For Somalia's post-independence pursuit of its political ambition was regarded by neighbouring states as a threat to regional security and to their own internal security.
As it were, both the first civilian government of Presidents Aden Abdulle Osman and Abdul Rashid Shermake, and the military regime of Gen. Mohammed Siad Barre, constructed their legitimacy on pan-Somali nationalism. The major goal of this nationalism was to re-unite the Somali people under a single state.
Somalia's foreign policy was characterised by an irredentist tendency towards its neighbours, a tendency that generated a series of direct diplomatic and military confrontations with its neighbours. The most memorable are the 1964 and 1976-77 Somalia-Ethiopia wars, and Somalia's support for Shifta insurgents in Kenya in the 1960s.
Ethiopia, in turn, provided military and logistical support to Somali insurgents and opposition groups. Between 1978 and January, 1991, when the Somalia state collapsed, most of its rebel movements had their training camps in Ethiopia and carried cross-border incursions.
One of the main armed rebel groups that Ethiopia supported against the Barre regime was the Somalia Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) led by Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed. Balance of power Herein lies the crux of the matter in the current impasse. Former Ethiopian blue-eyed boy, Col. Yusuf is the current president of the Somalia transitional federal government operating from Nairobi.
This makes some faction leaders view Ethiopia's involvement as no more than a tactic to influence the balance of power in Somalia. Those opposed to Kenya and Djibouti think along the same lines.
Nonetheless, the argument that Somalia without a central government, and with a government committed to pan-Somali nationalism, is a security threat not only to Ethiopia but to other neighbours, cannot be dismissed off-hand. This leaves the regional approach in the horns of a dilemma.
Armed with the knowledge that this is the 15th attempt to secure stability and political settlement in Somalia, however, IGAD can sustain the current agreement by, for instance, rethinking the presence of Kenyan and Ethiopian peacekeepers.
The organisation can request for peacekeepers from Tanzania and Comoros, which will bring in actors from the perimeters and ensure Islamic cultural uniformity.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation.
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 20:45:11 Ethiopia To Link Djibouti With Optic Fiber Network
Ethiopia has started laying a multimillion-US-dollar optic fiber network that will link up with the submarine cables in neighboring Djibouti, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said Tuesday.
Meles said his country has started laying the 10,000 km-long optic fiber network throughout the country to fulfill the program.
"We have now started laying 10,000 km of optic fiber network throughout the country and to link this up with the submarine cables in Djibouti also on optic fiber," he said.
At an international conference on information and communication technologies (ICT) in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian prime minister said the optic fiber network link program with Djibouti is expected to be finalized by the year 2008.
"We plan to continuously expand and improve the utilization of ICT to provide high quality government services and to improve governance across the board," Meles said.
He described ICT as a crucial means to fight poverty in countries like Ethiopia where the majority of the estimated 70 million people are living under poverty.
Ethiopia is still among a few African countries that have not yet liberalized its telecommunication sectors. The Horn of Africa nation is also one of the least ICT connected countries in the world with an average of one telephone line for over 100,000 people.
Currently, not more than 200,000 people and 50,000 people are using mobile telephone and internet service throughout the country.
Meles told the gathering that his government will give due attention to promote ICT to fight poverty in the country.
"We recognized that while ICT may be a luxury for the rich, for us the poor countries, it is a vital and essential tool for fighting poverty, for beating poverty that kills and ensuring our survival," he said.
Meles also said there is a plan to ensure universal access and internet connectivity to all the tens of thousands of rural kebeles of the country over the next two to three years.
"In the coming years we plan to continuously expend the coverage and improve the quality of ICT based distance education and training. An educational ICT network has been extended to all our over 500 districts. We need high quality education in order to fight poverty," Meles added.
Government officials and experts at the gathering will discuss the use of ICT in fighting poverty in Africa in the coming two days.
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 12:25:45 Somali Government Apologises Over Hotel Chaos
The Somalia Government has apologised for the fracas that erupted last month during a parliamentary meeting in Nairobi.
The State minister in the Office of the President, Dr Khalid Omar Ali, says the incident "was unfortunate".
"Members of the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia are offering an unreserved apology to the Somalis, Kenya and the international community at large," said Ali.
The decision to give the apology was reached last Friday during a meeting at a Nairobi hotel attended by 160 MPs out of 275 in the Somali Parliament.
The minister explained that the fist-fight that broke out at the Grand Regency Hotel on March 17 was occasioned by the postponement of a motion on the order paper presented by the Prime minister, Ali Mohammed Ghedi.
Scores of MPs were hurt during the incident. Three days later, a Cabinet minister and three MPs were detained by Kenyan police but were released later after the complainants accepted to have the matter amicably.
The subject matter of the motion was the approval by Parliament for deployment of the African Union and Arab League forces in the war-torn country ahead of the relocation
of the government from Nairobi.
During the Friday meeting, the MPs accused the Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden of making several mistakes since he was elected to the Chair.
They claimed that he had divided Parliament into groups and himself sides with one, contrary to parliamentary procedures that require neutrality from the Chair.
The MPs demanded a written apology from the Speaker and asked him and his two deputies to immediately establish a national working committee and secretariat of Somalia parliament.
By Ken Ramani
Copyright © MMV . The Standard Group
Posted on Wednesday 6th April at 12:23:03 Chemical, Nuclear Alarm In Somalia After Tsunami
afrol News, 4 April - According to environmental experts, the December tsunami has resulted in "massive quantities of toxic waste, some of which is radio-active," currently re-emerging along the coasts of Somalia. It was presumed that these illegal toxic waste products, which had been buried in the Indian Ocean for some time, largely come from Europe.
Thus, Somalia is under alarm in these days for one of the most terrible collateral effects of the tsunami which, after having hit 6 countries in South-East Asia last December, also devastated over 650 kilometres of coasts in the northern part of Somalia, between Hafun and Garacad, causing around 300 deaths and over 18.000 homeless people.
A recent report by the UN's environmental agency, UNEP, highlights that following the seaquake off Indonesia, certain populations in the northern coasts of Somalia became affected with unusual pathologies, which can easily be linked to serious incidents of pollution. The symptoms of these illnesses include acute infections of the respiratory apparatus, mouth-bleedings and abdominal haemorrhages.
UNEP spokesman Nick Nuttal and Somali sources report on the wide-spread contamination through extremely harmful substances such as uranium, mercury and cadmium, as well as hospital waste products, and industrial waste contained in barrels which were at the bottom of the ocean, or barely buried under the sand.
The containers stem from previous illegal dumping of toxic waste close to the Somali coast. At times, the UNEP report said, these toxic containers were closed in the most rudimentary of manners. They were then destroyed through the extremely violent impact of the waves provoked by the tsunami.
This very serious situation recently prompted a Somali MP, Awad Ahmed Ashra, to launch a formal appeal to the international community asking for the area to be cleared of the toxic waste unearthed during the tsunami. Also Somalia's Environment Minister Mohamed Osman Maye recently addressed the issue during a press-conference he held "in exile" in Nairobi (Kenya).
- What is urgently required now is the intervention of expert that may establish the characteristics and origin of the toxic waste products ... and, thus, save what is still saveable, Minister Maye declared. Somali sources also commented on the fact that over the past years, the war lords received large sums in exchange for authorisation to burry toxic waste along the Somali coasts.
As the news from the recent UNEP report is becoming known, also global environmental groups are alerted. WWF-Italy Secretary General Michele Candotti this weekend noted that also her country had "a grave responsibility in respect of what is occurring in Somalia." Enterprises from Italy, Somalia's former colonial power, had played a part in the illegal commerce of toxic wastes, Ms Candotti pointed out.
According to Ms Candotti, "the post-tsunami effect could have devastating consequences for the entire Eastern Coast in Africa. Not only will the inhabitants of today see their health compromised by this, but they will also suffer from the damaging effects on fundamental activities such as fishing and agriculture and this will create an irreversible series of damages to future generations."
The WWF points out that it was "well known that many African regions have been used for years as true dumping-grounds by many European countries." Suffice it to remember that whilst in Europe the disposal of 1 tonne of toxic waste will carry a cost of over US$ 1000, the same operation in Africa will cost no more than US$ 8.
Posted on Tuesday 5th April at 19:31:04 New Law Brings Elections Closer In Somaliland
NAIROBI, 5 April (IRIN) - The parliament of the self-declared independent republic of Somaliland, in northwest Somalia, passed a bill into law on Saturday that would pave the way for national elections.
"All three political parties are in agreement over the bill," Ali Ilmi Gelle, Somaliland's deputy information minister, told IRIN on Tuesday.
Saturday's bill was passed – by the lower house of parliament - despite serious disagreements between Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin and parliament, with several legislators demanding a national census and the clear demarcation of regional borders before they would approve it.
The bill's endorsement, according to IRIN sources, is likely to quell discord over the date of the parliamentary election, originally slated for 29 March, but since postponed.
"We have not yet set an official date for the election, but we expect it to be held sometime this year," Ilmi said.
Observers have criticised the fact that polling booths will only be stationed in regional capitals, a move they say would deprive thousands of people living in the countryside of the right to vote. However, Ilmi told IRIN: "About 70 to 80 percent of the country will get the chance to vote in the elections."
Another cause of dissent over the election could be the allocation of parliamentary seats on a clan basis, rather than a one-person-one-vote basis. This is a remnant of the parliamentary system of 1960, when Somaliland briefly got international recognition as an independent state before joining Somalia.
In 2001, Somaliland held a referendum, in which a majority of the population backed its self-declared independence. Two years later, the country had its first multi-party presidential election, which was won by Riyale of the ruling Unity of Democrats party.
Somaliland, having broken away from the rest of Somalia in 1991, has managed to avoid much of the anarchy that has dogged Somalia over the past 15 years. The territory is, however, embroiled in a border dispute with the northeastern semi-autonomous state of Puntland, over the regions of Sanaag and Sool.
Posted on Tuesday 5th April at 19:28:38 Somaliland Formally Ready for Elections
4 April - Somaliland's Lower House has this weekend endorsed the election bill with an absolute majority, finally accepting the amendments suggested by the President. The bill has however caused controversy in parts of the country that have been allocated few parliamentary seats.
'Awdalnews Network' learnt from close sources to the Hargeisa parliament that 61 members of those present had voted in favour while four had abstained. The parliament's Speaker was among those who didn't vote on Saturday.
Earlier, the house had demanded a national census and the demarcation of regional borders as a condition for putting their seal on the bill.
However, President Dahir Riyale Kahin of yet-to-be-recognised Somaliland had rejected the parliament's demands and referred the issue to the country's higher court. The court in turn supported the President's position.
Saturday's approval was the last attempt to avoid further confrontation and a further delay of the parliamentary election, which was originally slated by the President to be held on 29 March. The poll has now been postponed by President Kahin parliament approved the election bill.
One draw-back of the new election bill, however, is that the election will be held only in regional capitals, thus automatically disenfranchising tens of thousands of village dwellers and countryside people. The bill further is based on Somaliland's 1960 parliament allocation system - 1960 being the ex-British colony's only period of international recognition as an independent state.
With the parliamentary election seen as the victory lap of Somaliland's democratisation process, many observers worry that the allocation of parliamentary seats on 1960's clan basis rather than one-person one vote basis may be a source of dissention among some clans.
Prominent personalities from the Awdal region in the western part of the country have already shown resentment for the process and threatened to boycott the election.
A new date for the polling day is expected to be announced by the National Election Commission in the near future. The upcoming parliamentary election is to mark the finalisation of Somaliland's democratic transition, where leaders of all levels are democratically elected. Presidential and local elections have already been organised and were deemed free and fair by international observers.
By Awdalnews staff writers
© Awdal News Network / afrol News
Posted on Monday 4th April at 20:33:57 Saudi Arabia Executes Six Somalis
RIYADH (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia has executed a gang of six Somali men convicted of abducting and robbingtaxi drivers in the Red Sea port of Jeddah.
The six men had lured taxi drivers to a remote spot where they hit them and threatened them with knives beforerobbing them and taking their cars, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.
The punishment appeared severe even by the strict code of Islamic sharia law practiced in conservative SaudiArabia, which calls for the amputation of the right hand for theft.
Execution is usually reserved for murderers, drug traffickers and rapists. The ministry statement said the menwere put to death for "sowing corruption in the land and damaging security".
Jeddah residents say growing numbers of illegal African immigrants, who are either smuggled across the RedSea or overstay after coming for the Muslim Haj pilgrimage, have triggered a sharp increase in crime in the city.
Monday's executions, which are usually carried out in public by beheading, brought to at least 36 the number of people executed in Saudi Arabia so far this year -- already one more than the number of recorded executions lastyear.
Posted on Monday 4th April at 17:03:07 Model Waris Dirie Becomes Austrian Citizen
BERLIN - Somali former supermodel and Bond girl Waris Dirie has become an Austrian citizen to pursue her work fighting traditional genital mutilation, she told a German newspaper.
Dirie said in an interview with the Neue Osnabrucker Zeitung to be published on Saturday that although she missed Africa, Vienna had become her home.
"I recently became an Austrian citizen but in my heart I am still a nomad," the 39-year-old United Nations goodwill ambassador was quoted as saying.
"My home is for me the most beautiful country in the world.
Unfortunately it is at war and there has been no government since 1991. It has become impossible to travel there."
Dirie, who has recounted her forcible circumcision at the age of five in best-selling books, said she aimed to continue her campaign against female genital mutilation (FGM) among Africans living in Europe.
"I always knew that there were cases in Europe - such traditions don't stop at national borders. But it shocked me that it has affected a half million women here, primarily because no one seems to know and these women receive no assistance.
"It has become clear to me in the numerous conversations I have had that all women who have suffered something like this need psychological help."
Up to 130 million women around the world have undergone various forms of FGM, according to the World Health Organization, including two million annually in Africa.
AFP
Posted on Friday 1st April at 17:08:17 The Need for Conscentious UN Intervention
The phrase 'foreign intervention' provokes many, different reactions in this day and age. In the wake of the war in Iraq and also Afghanistan, it is often seen as being synonymous with neo-conservatism or more strongly still, imperialism.
I myself am a staunch critic of President Bush; not so much of his uncompromising foreign policy with regards to recent wars, but of his wholly inexcusable double standards in failing to apply these policies across the world, notably in Africa.
The entire premise of the Iraq war was to rob Saddam Hussein of his ability to wage war with weapons of mass destruction, however as it became apparent that such weapons did not exist, 'Freedom' and 'Democracy' evolved from secondary objectives to convenient excuses.
Shocking though Saddam's human rights abuses and unprovoked acts of aggression were, it would be false to say they are unparalleled across the world.
Take Robert Mugabe; a man not dissimilar from Saddam in ruling through tyranny, thriving in a climate of fear and repression and shouldering the blame for the deaths of thousands of his fellow countrymen. With the constant intimidation of the opposition party, the blatant rigging of elections, the shameless incitement of racial hatred and the intermittent famines that blight the nation as a result of his misguided policies, Mugabe is frequently cited as a despot by the international community and rightly so.
TRADE SANCTIONS
Yet negotiations achieve little against such an uncompromising tyrant, and the obvious peaceful solution - the implementation of trade sanctions - exacerbates the situation for ordinary Zimbabweans who have already borne the brunt of a diminishing economy, with as many as 70% of the population unemployed in some regions. Zimbabwe looks set to slip deeper into the quagmire of economic misfortune; a country that once fed Southern Africa with its food surplus has degenerated into a ruthless land of misery and fear, thanks to the Zanu PF party.
The world looks on aghast as an estimated 750, 000 are in imminent danger of starvation.
The only option left to the world is to employ 'forcible' means - yet would the ends justify these means?
The use of force to depose leaders has had varying results in recent times; the Iraq war has had mixed success in ridding the world of an evil dictator, yet claiming the lives of so many in the ensuing chaos of the political transition. The war in Kosovo, on the other hand, was lauded as being effective and justifiable. Going further back in time, the Vietnam War was another, deeper scar on America's conscience.
Yet on the one continent continuously ravaged by civil wars and unrest, the UN and particularly America are reluctant to commit themselves.
Zimbabwe is an obvious example of this; however let us consider the incident in Somalia in the early nineteen-nineties. In 1992, the UN sought to address the unrest in Somalia, following the deposition of President Siad Barre in 1991. A group of warlords ousted the president, yet the country slipped into civil war, based largely on tribal lines as the new 'leaders' of Somalia fell out over power sharing. Famine ensued, with as many as a million people dying as a consequence.
The UN moved peacekeepers and aid workers into the south of the country, seeking to feed some of the more acutely affected members of the population before engaging in the ambitious plan of 'nation building' as the then US Secretary of State, Madeline Albright termed it.
Yet before anything could be done, the security situation needed stabilising. The warlords were making the situation difficult; impeding the flow of aid parcels, whilst charging aid organisations extortionate rent for the use of land. One in particular, Mohammed Farrah Aidid, represented a massive hindrance to 'nation building', acting aggressively towards peacekeepers and being linked to the murder of Pakistani blue berets in July 1993.
On the 3rd of October, 1992, 140 US Delta force and Rangers soldiers moved to arrest him and a number of his aides, ambushing them in the Bakara Market in Central Mogadishu.
United by a common enemy, the various Somali factions turned on the Americans and in the ensuing chaos, the American military lost two Black Hawk Helicopters and 18 troops.
Incensed by the picture of a dead American solider being paraded around the streets of Mogadishu, the mission came to be regarded as a catastrophic failure, with Clinton pulling the task force out of the country a few weeks later.
Yet what about Somalia? One year later, the last of the UN famine relief left, with the focus of the international community shifting to problems in Yugoslavia, even though tens to hundreds of thousands of Somalis still faced severe malnutrition and starvation.
Indeed, after last year's drought and unrest in the southern regions, one could assert that the country is in a worse situation than it was 10 years ago.
SOMALIA
Somalia remains to this day an anarchic state; with no official government, the most rudimentary of transport network and no public hospitals. Somaliland and Puntland separatists govern the north, whilst the south is arranged in a series of fiefdoms. There are an estimated 60 000 people working in militias in Somalia who earn their living, intimidating passers by into giving them money, whilst the government in exile in Kenya commands much less power than a rogue brandishing AK47 on the streets of Mogadishu.
Efforts to move the government to Mogadishu have proven nearly impossible, whilst calls by interim president Abdulahi Yusuf for 20 000 UN peacekeepers to guard the government were met with extreme disapproval by his largely warlord-consisting cabinet last month.
So why has nothing been done? The obvious answer is fear; fear that more Western and UN soldiers would be lost to an 'irrelevant cause' in a far off country.
Indeed, the capture of two of Mohammed Farrah Aidid's aides was met with some satisfaction by many Somalis, yet the US withdrawal compounded a feeling that no-one was willing to see 'nation building' through at the cost of American lives.
The United States, as the last great superpower, has an obligation to police the world, yet it must do this conscientiously, respectfully and consistently, with United Nations support, if it is to succeed.
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
Thus the issue is not so much if the international community should intervene, but how. A trigger happy 'shoot-first-ask-questions later' policy prevalent in the US military is not the way to foster local support, nor is the cultural ignorance shown in Iraq; for example, the depiction of Saddam Hussein in a bikini, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners and the failed alteration of the Iraqi flag.
The United Nations needs to actively engage itself in the rebuilding of Somalia - not simply by throwing money at the government to be squandered, but by respecting Somali culture, keeping peacekeepers on the ground, not being afraid to marginalise the warlords and allowing neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia to assist in the development of a peaceful country.
Somalia cannot be left to degenerate into the abyss of anarchy and poverty, so the UN must ensure that the fourteenth national government is to be an enduring and just one.
Oliver Kinsey Smith
Copyright © 2005 Ghanaian Chronicle.
Posted on Friday 1st April at 17:04:12 Back
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