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UK Agency Notes Severe Food Insecurity in Somalia
Mogadishu, Somalia, 09/30 - The British Department for International Development (DFID) has said that some 1.2 million people desperately need food aid in Somalia until the next expected harvest season in April 2005.
DFID head of Horn of Africa unit, Ann Lake made the observation at a news conference after visits to several regions affected by the severe droughts in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland and some worst hit areas in southern Somalia, including Galgadud, Baidoa and Beledweyn regions.
Lake, who headed a six-member delegation, said Somalia was facing "an exceptionally serious food crisis", especially in Nugal valley, Sool Plateau, southern Mudug, Galgadud and lower Juba.
She said the failure of the rains for three consecutive years in the five regions had exacerbated an already serious food security situation in Somalia.
Crop failure and massive livestock deaths in the affected regions have also resulted in malnutrition and human deaths.
Lake added that, as reported by the current update from the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWES Net), the worst hit areas have lost over 50 percent of sheep and goats, 70 percent of cattle and 35 percent of camels.
Food stocks are virtually non-existent in most areas, while water points have dried up and malnutrition among children was extremely high.
"Failure of the long rains for three years means no recovery is expected until maybe April next year when the next harvesting is expected, but the affected need urgent food aid and rehabilitation assistance," Lake told newsmen.
She said an urgent emergency intervention was required to provide enough and sustainable food aid to more than 1.2 million people in Somalia.
Such a move, she said, would prevent the drought victims from declining into a state of humanitarian catastrophe.
Miss Lake assured that DFID would seek assistance from different donors including Britain to help alleviate an imminent human catastrophe, and appealed to international aid agencies operating within Somalia to increase their support to the drought victims.
© 1996-2003 Angop. All rights reserved.
Posted on Thursday 30th September at 19:48:34 AU Welcomes Progress in Peace Process
The African Union (AU) has welcomed recent progress made towards the reestablishment of a functioning government in Somalia and urged the international community to assist the country's national institutions once they are fully installed, the AU said in a statement sent on Thursday.
Delegates attending the Somali reconciliation conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, formed a transitional federal parliament in August. The 275 members of the assembly are due to elect the country's president on 10 October. The president will in turn appoint a prime minister, who will be required to form a government.
The AU's Peace and Security Council (PSC), which met at the Pan-African body's headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on 17 September urged members of the transitional federal parliament "to remain focused and to work for the early election of the president and the formation of the Transitional Federal Government", the statement added.
The AU denounced the activities of those who tried to undermine the peace process and urged them to desist from "any action that would, in any form, tend to compromise the welcome outcomes of the Somali National Reconciliation Conference". The AU was apparently referring to the recent outbreak of factional fighting near the southern Somalia port city of Kismayo.
The ouster of the regime of then Somali president Muhammad Siyad Barre in January 1991 sparked more than a decade of turmoil and lawlessness in the Horn of Africa country.
Meanwhile, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) has said that at least 1.3 million people in southern, central and northern Somalia will require emergency food assistance until early next year. Of this total, about 700,000 are struggling to recover from years of successive drought coupled with the effects of frequent outbreaks in factional fighting. The rest are internally displaced persons (IDPs) and destitute urban dwellers, FEWS NET said in an update released on 27 September.
Successive years of drought have undermined crop and livestock production, the two mainstays of the Somali economy. Household access to food has been further limited by market shocks, worsening terms of trade, weakened social support and recurrent civil insecurity, according to FEWS NET.
In the north, more than three years of severe drought have resulted in massive environmental degradation and livestock losses of up to 90 percent have led to a widespread collapse of the pastoral livelihood system. The problems have been compounded by the recent conflict around Las Anod town in Sool region, which could limit the movement of pastoralists for water and better grazing areas.
The central regions have also been hit hard by successive years of drought, poor rangeland resources, and recurrent clan conflicts. Drought in the neighboring Somali Region of Ethiopia has restricted an important traditional option for migration in search of better pasture.
According to the FEWS NET, households in the south, the country's breadbasket, have been struggling with several seasons of below-normal cereal production and civil insecurity. In the Juba Valley Regions (Middle and Lower Juba), most of the districts suffered crop losses of between 60 to 80 percent this year.
"Of special concern in the south is the security situation. Increased conflict occurred during the second week of September around Kismayo, Badhadhe and Dhoble (Somali-Kenya border), worsening the already poor food security situation," according to FEWS NET. It said that about 40,000 mt of food aid and non-food items would be needed to help the newly displaced and previously food insecure populations.
Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Posted on Thursday 30th September at 19:44:07 Burglars Hit Somali Shops In Minneapolis
Burglars who scaled scaffolding to break into a Somali minimall in south Minneapolis early Tuesday got away with more than $25,000 in cash and property, according to several store owners.
Nine businesses, mostly money-wiring shops, were broken into at the Karmel Mall, 2940 Pillsbury Av. S. Shop owners said a surveillance video shows as many as four men climbing through a second-floor window. The building has been under construction for the past two weeks, they said.
The video has been given to Minneapolis police. The minimall, which opened in 2000, has nearly 50 shops offering financial services and traditional East and West African clothing and food.
Rochelle Sabri, wife of the building's owner, Basim Sabri, said Tuesday that new alarm systems will be installed today. Her husband was out of town on business.
Nur Farax, owner of a small telecommunications company in the minimall, said the thieves came through his window early Tuesday and stole four laptop computers worth about $15,000.
"If it happened once, it can happen again," Farax said. Abdul Hussein, manager of Olympic Money Wiring Service, said thieves took a safe box containing more than $10,000 in cash and checks.
"It's sad because all of us are trying really hard to make a good living," said Hussein, who was back in business Tuesday afternoon.
Shukri Adan, who owns a clothing store with her husband on the first floor, said business owners planned to meet either Tuesday night or today to discuss possible security options.
"We want a safe, peaceful place because if our customers don't feel safe, then we will be out of business," she said
Terry Collins, Star Tribune
Posted on Wednesday 29th September at 19:36:36 Escapist Drug Of East Africa
NAIROBI, Kenya - To the untrained eye, it's just a banana leaf tacked to a door sill. To the connoisseur, it's a sign that the J-G Store lives up to its claim: Quality Miraa.
"This is the best," says John, the clerk, unwrapping a small bundle of stems with reddish-green leaves. "It's very tasty."
Nearby, a few customers nod in happy agreement, well on their way to the euphoric buzz that helps soften the squalor of one of Nairobi's worst slums.
Also known as khat (pronounced cot), miraa is a natural stimulant derived from a shrub that flourishes in Kenya and other parts of East Africa. The stems and leaves are harvested daily, wrapped in banana leaves to stay fresh and sold in hundreds of ramshackle joints like J-G, where the bright green leaf over the door signals that a new shipment has arrived.
The miraa trade doesn't end there. Legal in many countries, miraa is so popular it has become one of Kenya's chief exports, still behind tea but now ahead of coffee.
Every day, planes from 747s to twin-engine Beechcraft carry tons of miraa to Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Africa.
"It's a very big business for us," says Yatich Kangugo, manager of Nairobi's Wilson Airport. He estimates that half of Wilson's annual revenues derive from miraa shipments to neighboring Somalia, where chewing the stems and leaves is almost a national pastime.
Miraa is banned in the United States, which lists its main compound, cathinone, as a Schedule I substance, the same as heroin and ecstasy.
While the $250-million-a-year export trade is a boon to Kenya's struggling economy, there is growing concern that miraa is hurting society.
A recent survey found that almost a fourth of all students in Nairobi use miraa, many in the belief it will help them stay awake while reading. In eastern Kenya, with a large population of Somali origin, almost 80 percent of adults chew the substance.
Kenya's passion for miraa drew international attention last month when a Kenyan boxer was expelled from the Olympics because he failed a drug test. It turned out he had been chewing miraa on the plane to Athens, Greece.
"It is no longer a secret that drug abuse is increasingly becoming a serious problem in the country," a Nairobi paper said, citing miraa in particular.
Concern over miraa even spills into politics. East Africans have cheered the news that warring factions in Somalia are making progress in peace talks that could lead to the first functioning government there since 1991. But some delegates to the talks, held in Nairobi, worry that the Somali obsession with miraa could undermine negotiations.
"Our men have become lazy over the years because of the widespread trade that forces them to just sit and enjoy the product," Eng Rukia Osman, an anti-miraa activist, told the Inter-Press Service.
"Our children have nothing to eat, let alone go to school, because their fathers cannot work. Now that peace is in the air we have to look at ways of reconstructing the country in all respects."
Throughout East Africa and the Middle East, miraa has long been popular among Muslims who consider it an acceptable alternative to alcohol and other mood-altering substances frowned on by Islam. Many Muslims chew it during the fasting month of Ramadan because it suppresses the appetite.
Miraa comes from the Catha edulis plant, a bushy shrub that can grow to 20 feet. The leaves contain cathinone, which produces a euphoric effect similar to amphetamines, and cathine, a less stimulating substance.
Within 48 hours after the plant has been cut, the cathinone starts to degrade, leaving only the milder cathine. Thus the preference for fresh leaves.
Customers usually buy a half pound of miraa at a time, with prices in Kenya ranging from $1.50 to almost $10, depending on the quality. The bark is stripped off with the teeth and chewed along with the leaves, gradually producing large wads of miraa that cause the cheeks to bulge out chipmunk-style.
Aficionados say miraa keeps them happy and alert for long periods.
"It sharpens the brain," says Steven Sande, who drives a matatu, or minibus. "If I chew I can work 24 hours and not be tired."
Critics complain that the use of miraa by matatu drivers contributes to the appalling accident rate. But Sande, 28, says he rarely chews miraa at work, instead buying it only on weekends "when I have time to relax and meet with friends."
Although not addictive, miraa can have side effects, including depression, sleeplessness and, in chronic users, anorexia. Banned in the United States, miraa is legal in Britain, the Netherlands and other places with large Somali communities.
About 1 a.m. each day, pickup trucks begin arriving at Wilson Airport with burlap sacks of miraa, picked just hours before in small groves a few hundred miles north of Nairobi. Security at the airport was increased last year when Kenyan authorities uncovered an apparent plot to use a miraa plane to attack the U.S Embassy. All flights to Somalia were halted - causing panic among Somalian miraa-lovers - and miraa planes have since been barred from carrying passengers.
On a recent night, a few police watched as two airport screeners searched the sacks by hand and with metal detectors. Dogs sometimes join the screeners, but they sniff only the outside of the sacks because their drool could affect the miraa's taste.
As dawn breaks, small planes - each carrying a ton of miraa - begin taking off for Mogadishu and other Somali cities. Because the country has no government, warlords handle the trade on the other end.
"You have to be okayed by whatever warlord controls whatever place you're going," says M.A. Adnan, manager of flight operations for Bluebird Aviation, one of Kenya's main miraa transporters.
When it got into the miraa business a decade ago, Bluebird sent as many as 15 planes a day to Somalia. Now, there are just two or three, with the company making most of its money from safari flights and other charter operations, Adnan says.
The demand for miraa peaked during and immediately after Somalia's civil war, when, Adnan speculates, Somalis were desperate for something to help ease their stress. "Now the economic situation has perhaps dictated a drop-off," he says.
The finest quality miraa - known as A grade - is flown on commercial flights from Kenyatta International Airport to London and Amsterdam. Regardless of where the miraa departs from, the goal is to get it from grove to mouth within a day.
"It's like flowers - it must be fresh," says Kangugo, the Wilson Airport manager.
Underscoring the widespread acceptance of miraa, the airport prohibits employees from smoking, but has no rules against chewing miraa. And while Bluebird's Adnan says he never touches the stuff himself, he doesn't object to those who do.
"It's been there since time immemorial and as long as it's legal, I have no problem with it."
By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN, Times Senior Correspondent
Posted on Wednesday 29th September at 19:32:14 DJIBOUTI: Pastoral Areas Facing Food Shortages
NAIROBI, 28 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - Inadequate rainfall from July to September has brought about food shortages in the southeastern and northwestern pastoral zones, causing an increase in food prices since September and bringing hardship to many households throughout Djibouti, a famine alert agency reported.
July rains were below normal throughout the country, but there had been some localised improvements in some areas during August, the USAID-funded Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS Net) said in its latest update on Djibouti published on Friday.
"Future prospects are not promising for the Karan/Karma [rain] dependent areas, which face a long, dry six months before the next rainy season resumes," said the FEWS Net report. "Staple food prices have stabilised at higher-than-average levels following continuous increases since September last year."
In the southeastern pastoral zone, failure of the seasonal rains had led to unusual movements of livestock in search of pasture and water, but the situation had improved somewhat where localised rains have occurred.
Cash incomes in the zone were relatively low and mainly derived from the sale of firewood and charcoal, FEWS Net said. The report added that households had intensified their reliance on selling charcoal in an effort to compensate for reduced milk production and higher staple food prices. The food-security status of the zone remained precarious.
The central pastoral zone had been affected by localised problems of drought prevailing in the north. Camels had been affected by disease in southern Obock. Livestock production conditions in the area, however, were generally closer to the seasonal norm in this zone than they were in other parts of the country.
In the northwest pastoral zone, the poor start to the main rainy season was cause for great concern, the report stated. Recent rainfall would bring a temporary break, but food security was likely to deteriorate during the long dry season from November to March.
During August, less fortunate families in Djibouti City had found it hard to cope with rising food costs, and although the prices had declined by about two percent this month, they were still higher than average. As a result households were likely to be faced with difficult choices between purchasing sufficient food and cutting back on other essentials, such as school expenses. Consequently, school dropouts could increase significantly this year in more deprived parts of the city.
To tackle the problem of high food prices, FEWS Net suggested reducing the cost of staple foods through price subsidies or through a reduction in import taxes on staple foodstuffs. A drop in the cost of essential non-food items, through measures such as providing free stationary and subsidising textbook fees or further reducing the tax on kerosene, could also be considered, the agency noted. An extension of the school-feeding programme to deprived urban areas could also alleviate the problem.
Djibouti's arid climate and rocky soil make it difficult to practice agriculture and large-scale livestock management. The tiny Horn of Africa country imports all the rice, wheat flour and sugar, and 90 percent of its fruit and vegetables it needs to feed its 600,000 people. According to its poverty-reduction strategy paper, 42.2 percent of its people lived in extreme poverty in 2002.
Posted on Tuesday 28th September at 16:32:59 Rebel Leader Gives Somali Talks a Boost
Somali faction leader Gen Mohammed Said Hersi, alias Gen Morgan, arrives for a press conference at Holiday Inn Hotel in Nairobi, yesterday. He said he fully supports the on-going talks in Kenya, and has nothing to do with the fighting in southern Somali that left over 100 people wounded.
The Somali peace talks got a boost, yesterday, after a key militia leader joined it.
Gen Mohammed Said Hersi, alias Gen Morgan, largely seen in the past as opposed to the talks, said he was fully behind them.
His forces have been fighting in the Kismayu area, and reports said Gen Morgan fled to Kenya after he was routed. But yesterday, he denied the claims, saying he has been for peace all along.
"I did not pull out of the peace conference. I had my delegates here," General Morgan said, adding that he left after the peace talks reached a sustainable stage.
The Horn of Africa country has been without a Government for the last 13 years, since the ouster of President Said Barre and his dictatorial regime.
Gen Morgan maintained that contrary to his critics and Press reports, he had never pulled out of the peace process brokered by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), the UN and several key organisations.
Some Somali faction leaders are on record as objecting to plans for Gen Morgan's inclusion in the peace talks in Nairobi.
Their objections come after Kenya's envoy to the Somali peace talks Mohammed Affey invited Gen Morgan to the negotiation table, even as fresh fighting between militia factions threatened to derail the two-year peace talks.
Yesterday, Gen Morgan appealed to Igad and the international community to send a fact-finding mission to evaluate the damage done in southern Somalia.
Addressing an international press conference at Holiday Inn Hotel, in Nairobi, the faction leader, who was not among the 265 selected MPs, said: "We are calling on the Igad committee and the UN to take immediate steps to stop the genocide committed by militia forces from the following regions: Benadir, Lower Shebelle, Galguduud, Merka and Raskamboni of Lower Jubba region."
Gen Morgan accused some of the selected MPs of being behind the flare-up, saying, they were "terrorists.
But Gen Morgan had the support of another faction leader Hussein Farah Aideed, who was also selected as an MP. Mr Aideed announced that the peace talks would fail unless all the major parties to conflict are taken on board.
Mr Aideed, who is a presidential hopeful, called for the postponement of elections until all the contentious issues are resolved.
He claimed that the Federal Charter guiding the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference was flawed, and demanded that it be amended before elections are held.
There was a major breakthrough in the talks when delegates meeting at the Kenya College of Communications Technology agreed on the 265 MPs. They later elected Mr Shariff Hassan Sheikh Aden as the Speaker of Parliament, on September 16. The MPs are expected to elect a President next month.
Yesterday, Gen Morgan defended the fighting, saying he had to protect his people.
Copyright © 2004 The Nation. All rights reserved.
Posted on Tuesday 28th September at 16:26:42 Somali Warlord Rejects Presidency
A Somali warlord, who has returned to the peace process in neighbouring Kenya, says he will not contest presidential elections next month.
General Morgan's forces battled those of a rival faction around the southern port of Kismayo earlier this month.
He was the only major faction leader not taking part in the parliament tasked with electing a president.
Some rival warlords are questioning where he should be allowed to join the parliament now.
'Cheap propaganda'
The parliament is due to elect Somalia's first president in 13 years by 10 October, but Gen Morgan was not nominated to be an MP because of his absence.
He says he is prepared to wait to see how the power-sharing posts in the transitional administration are allocated.
"I'm not one of the people seeking to be elected as president," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
Mediators, however, feel that the peace process would be stronger if Gen Morgan were inside, rather than outside.
"All those who can make a contribution should be here to make a contribution and that is the only way for Somalia to move ahead," the African Union's representative at the Somalia talks, Mohammed Ali Faum, told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Gen Morgan denied reports that he had been injured in the fighting around Kismayo.
"That was cheap propaganda... I just decided not to fight," he told Reuters news agency.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991, since when the country has been divided into fiefdoms, controlled by rival warlords, who occasionally battle for territory.
Mr Faum said that he was confident that these peace talks would succeed where many others have failed in recent years.
"What has happened so far has given great cause for hope," he said.
Posted on Monday 27th September at 22:10:54 Hundreds Missing After Storms In Somaliland
Hargeisa - Torrential rains in Somalia's breakaway enclave, Somaliland, have washed away hundreds of huts, with up to 350 nomadic families believed drowned or missing, a regional governor said.
Governor Ali Abdi Hurre of Sanaag, the largest region in Somaliland, said 3 600 animals including sheep, camels and donkeys were thought to have drowned over several days of heavy rain on the Siradlei mountains in northern Somalia.
"Shelter has been given to those affected in their own areas and a government delegation will visit the areas affected by the stormy rain to assess the situation," he told a news conference late on Sunday.
Local businessmen said most of the roads linking the Siradlei mountains to coastal villages and towns were impassable because of flooding and fallen rocks.
Sanaag, in the north of war-ravaged Somalia, has suffered three straight years of drought.
Hurre said it was difficult to give a precise death toll since there was little news from the remote areas in the mountains where the storms were heaviest.
Somaliland, which makes up the northwest of Somalia, declared independence from the rest of the Horn of Africa country in 1991, but is not internationally recognised.
Posted on Monday 27th September at 22:08:01 Fishy Goings On Off Somali Coast
There many documented sea piracies along the Somali coast involving Kenyan- registered fishing vessels.
Unfortunately, not all the confrontations between Somali militias and trawler crews and owners have been resolved peacefully. Quite a number have ended in violence, claiming lives, serious physical and psychological injuries to several people on both sides. Property worth millions of dollars has also been lost.
The breakdown of law and order in Somalia as well as the easy access to sophisticated weapons in the open market has complicated the situation further.
Deplorable acts of piracy and hostage taking have outraged Somalia's friends and neighbours, and further dented its already battered image as a nation. But where there is unregulated resource exploitation, conflict is likely to ensue.
The rich fishing grounds, off the 3,300km-long Somali coastline, is estimated to yield an annual sustainable marine production of between 300,000 and 500,000 metric tonnes.
Prior to the break out of civil war following the ouster of dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991, available fisheries statistics showed that the official annual marine output stood at 20,000 metric tonnes, a mere 4 percent of the potential production.
The country's artisan fishermen and licensed foreign fishing vessels landed half of this catch. If fully exploited, the fisheries' output could contribute substantially to the country's Gross National Product.
Trawlers using internationally banned methods and equipment on Somali territorial waters
Illegal fishing activities in the Indian Ocean region have been aided by rich deep-water fishing nations. To pacify their disgruntled fishermen who have been rendered jobless due to the limited-entry fishery policies enforced in those countries, such countries encourage them to fish in the Somali waters.
Also, the lack of governance and centralised coercive authority, - the Somali parliament was sworn in a fortnight ago - offered a kind of free for all big-time fishing concerns, with vessels from all corners of the world using a range of internationally banned methods and equipment.
The trawlers are no ordinary ships; they are "intimidatingly" big, menacingly powerful and capable of not only towing smaller trawlers but also spacious enough to accommodate a medium sized plane. They also process tonnes and tonnes of marine products on board in a single six-hour shift.
Some Somalis have therefore taken upon themselves to protect their territorial waters, and have taken to hostage taking as a business.
Conservative figures indicate 300 foreign owned fish off the Somali coast. These ships conduct pirate fishing off the break-away Republic of Puntland coast and in 700 other small ports dotting the Somali coastline.
They target high-grade marine products such as shrimps, lobsters and demersal fish that fetch high prices in international seafood markets.
Another trick is to conceal the true identity of the real owners by registering vessels using shell companies in Kenya, turning Kenyan seaports into bases from which shipping expeditions to the rich fishing grounds of Somalia are organised.
For a long time now, the wronged Somali fishermen have been demanding compensation for their destroyed gear from the ship operators as well as a total stop to all illegal fishing activities in the Somali waters.
The fishermen's demands have not gone down well with the looters of Somalia's rich marine resources who regard the country as a no-man's land, treating any interference with their looting as a declaration of war.
There have been cases of hostile crew spraying offended Somali fishermen with pressurised water when seeking to talk to trawler captains. Sometimes, the water flips over the small boats, making them to capsize. Such provocations have forced the fishermen to arm themselves and acquire speedboats.
To counter this, trawler owners hire militiamen to guard ships while they are within Somali territorial waters. This is how piracy comes in: Most of the hijackings and hostage crisis have been as a result of the militias posing as guards, only to hijack the vessels once they are at sea.
In spite of the militia aboard vessels, the fishermen have managed to arrest a number of ships.
According to Mwangura who maintains contact with the fishermen in Somalia, the war purportedly being waged by the Somali fishermen against foreign trawlers is not only intended to make millions of dollars in ransom money.
"Rather, it is about protecting what they regard as their country's rightful resources from being depleted and or destroyed."
Is piracy forced on Somalis?
Copyright © 2004 The Nation.
Posted on Monday 27th September at 22:05:26 Police Quiz Four Men Over 'Dirty Bomb' Plot
Anti-terrorist police are continuing to question four men in connection with an alleged plot to buy a "dirty bomb".
Three of the men - one a Somalian national with links to Saudi Arabia - were seized by officers from Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist branch at the Holiday Inn in Brent Cross on Friday. Another man was held at his home in north London.
They were arrested under section 41 of the Terrorism Act on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism.
The arrests came after the News of the World passed claims to the police about a plot to buy radioactive material for a dirty bomb.
Armed police surrounded the hotel where a deal was allegedly being done to sell a kilo of radioactive "red mercury" for ?300,000.
By Justin Davenport, Evening Standard Crime Correspondent
Posted on Monday 27th September at 16:42:00 Boost For Somali Peace Talks
Mediators have welcomed the return of a Somali warlord to the peace process in neighbouring Kenya.
General Morgan was the only major faction leader not taking part in the election of a new president.
He returned to Nairobi on Saturday after his forces had been battling those of a rival faction around the key southern port town of Kismayo.
However, some rival warlords are questioning whether he should be allowed to sit in the new parliament.
Some also want him to be prosecuted for his part in the fighting.
'Cheap propaganda'
The parliament, selected last month by rival clans and warlords, is due to elect a president on 10 October but Gen Morgan was not nominated to be an MP.
Mediators, however, feel that the peace process would be stronger if Gen Morgan were inside, rather than outside.
"All those who can make a contribution should be here to make a contribution and that is the only way for Somalia to move ahead," the African Union's representative at the Somalia talks, Mohammed Ali Faum, told the BBC's Network Africa programme.
Gen Morgan denied reports that he had been injured in the fighting around Kismayo.
"That was cheap propaganda... I just decided not to fight," he told Reuters news agency.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991, since when the country has been divided into fiefdoms, controlled by rival warlords, who occasionally battle for territory.
Mr Faum said that he was confident that these peace talks would succeed where many others have failed in recent years.
"What has happened so far has given great cause for hope," he said.
Posted on Monday 27th September at 12:23:51 Militiamen Raid Mogadishu Radio Station
RSF has condemned a 22 September 2004 raid by militiamen on a local FM radio station in Mogadishu, in which a security guard was roughed up and a journalist was threatened and detained. The operation was ordered by a local Islamic court, after being prompted by a dispute between two businessmen.
Although a transitional Parliament was finally inaugurated in late August, Somalia continues to be run by armed groups. Following years of war and the collapse of the state, the judicial vacuum is being filled by Koranic justice and local businessmen operating along clan lines.
"We continue to be horrified that the Somalian capital is still dominated by clan justice based on a military rabble that takes its orders," RSF said. "While waiting for the state to be rebuilt, we call on the Islamic courts, armed bands and businessman not to impose a reign of terror and to respect journalists."
The organisation also appealed to members of the transitional Parliament to take full account of their responsibilities and not waste the opportunity they have been offered. "Somalis must at last be allowed to live in freedom, and journalists should no longer have to fear this kind of summary and abusive pseudo-justice."
The raid took place shortly after 11:00 a.m. (local time) on 22 September, when gunmen packed into two pickup trucks stopped outside the studios of Idaacadda Quriaanka Kariimka station (Radio Holy Koran), in the northern Mogadishu district of Towfiq. Announcing that they had come to arrest the station manager on the orders of the Islamic District Court, they roughed up the building's security guard and accosted the only journalist present, Abdulrahman Abtidon Gabeire.
When Gabeire refused to accompany the militiamen to the office of the Islamic court, they slapped him, fired several shots in the air to intimidate him and then bundled him into one of their vehicles. He spent an hour in the district prison before being released.
The Islamic District Court was convened at the request of a Mogadishu businessman who imports a brand of detergent to supply the Suuq Baiad market. A rival businessman had bought advertising space on Radio Holy Koran, advising consumers not to buy the detergent because it was "false". The enraged importer asked the station to withdraw the ad. When it refused, he turned to the Islamic court, which immediately ordered the raid.
Copyright © 2004 Reporters sans Frontières.
Posted on Friday 24th September at 16:47:55 Somalia Road Accident Kills At Least 16
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A speeding bus collided with a pickup truck near the Somali capital on Friday, killing 16 people and injuring 14 others, witnesses said.
Most of the victims were in a pickup truck that was carrying both passengers and cargo near Bar-Haraf, 8 miles south of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, witnesses said.
Residents rushed to the scene to help some of the injured trapped under the vehicles and cargo.
The victims were immediately rushed aboard minibuses to the main hospital in Mogadishu for treatment.
Five of the wounded were in critical condition, said Dr. Shiekh-doon Salad Ilmi, director of the Madina Hospital.
The accident is believed to be one of the worst around Mogadishu since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. The warlords then turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.
By MOHAMED OLAD HASSAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
Posted on Friday 24th September at 12:21:27 Somalia's Addou Claims Mantle Of Peace
Nairobi - In a failed state ruled by the bullet, Abdullahi Addou's ideas about how to restore government to Somalia's fractious clans might seem almost surreal.
The 66-year-old leading candidate in October 10 presidential polls says Somalis tired of militia mayhem will put their trust in him because he rejects violence and has never been a warlord.
He opposes ruling through fear, even though that is how power has worked in the Horn of Africa country for its past 14 years of anarchy and the preceding two decades of dictatorship.
"My power base is that of trust of the Somali people in me as a man of peace, a man who is not part of the butchery of the country," the Italian-educated former central banker, academic and ambassador said in an interview with Reuters on Friday.
A slim, dapper figure in a three-piece suit who has sat out Somalia's strife mostly in the tranquillity of Dubai, the former finance minister wants to be seen as a neutral, middle of the road candidate beholden to no single interest group or faction.
"My stand is that of somebody who is in the middle, someone who is not siding with any one group. I am not part of that power base based on weapons and armed conflict," he said.
Addou is prominent among 65 candidates vying for the top job in a ballot among the 275 members of a new clan-based parliament meeting in neighbouring Kenya.
His main rivals are Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, a wealthy politician who has support from Islamist groups, and Abdullahi Yusuf, a military man widely seen as the candidate preferred by neighbouring Ethiopia and also, perhaps, of some Western powers.
The winner will pick a less powerful prime minister and a cabinet and in subsequent months manage the new government's eventual return to the capital Mogadishu.
The vote will be the culmination of almost two years of reconciliation talks among rival clans and factions that have been held in Kenya because of the instability of Somalia.
Hundreds of thousands of Somalis have died from famine, disease and violence since the overthrow of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991 triggered a civil war.
Somalia has been divided into clan-based fiefdoms ever since and is seen by regional and Western governments as a haven for militants suspected of links to al-Qaeda.
Addou says his Western education and 12 years as ambassador to the United States do not make him biased towards the West, and neither, he argues, is he tainted by service in Siad Barre's repressive government, as he was at all times a civilian official, including a spell as central bank governor.
Perceptions of closeness to Washington could spell political doom, for Somalis have been deeply suspicious of US policy in the region ever since thousands of Somalis were killed by US troops supporting a disastrous United Nations peace operation in 1993.
Addou expressed doubts about Islamist courts that have sprung up in the past decade, saying that when government was fully restored their role should be confined to social affairs.
At present the courts, supervised by an umbrella body run by radical Islamists, also try serious crimes such as murder.
He added he would not allow foreign powers to come in at will and arrest terror suspects - an activity many Somalis say Washington carries out occasionally using Somali proxy forces. Any such Somali suspect should be tried in Somalia, Addou said.
© 2004 Independent Online. All rights strictly reserved.
By William Maclean
Posted on Friday 24th September at 12:18:55 Clashes Reported in Disputed Sool Region
Troops from the self-declared republic of Somaliland and those of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland clashed on Wednesday in the disputed region of Sool, to which both sides have laid claim, a local source said.
"A heavy exchange of gunfire took place around the village of Abeseoley [22 km north of the regional capital, Las Anod]," Muhammad Sa'id Kashwito, a journalist on the Bosaso-based Midnimo Radio, told IRIN on Thursday.
He said reports from the area indicated that the fighting was between "reconnaissance units" from the two sides. It was not immediately clear what triggered the fighting or what the exact casualty figures were. Both sides blamed each other over the fighting.
The regions of Sool and Sanag, in northern Somalia, geographically fall within the borders of pre-independence British Somaliland, but most of the area's inhabitants, the Warsangeli, Dhulbahante and Majerteen communities, who are members of the larger Darod clan, are associated with residents of Puntland.
The timing of these clashes could not have come at worse time given the fact that residents of the area are suffering from the effects of the prolonged drought, a humanitarian source said.
Tension between the two sides had been simmering since Puntland troops took total control of Las Anod, in December 2003. Before then, both sides had official representation in the town.
Although no fighting was reported in the area on Thursday, both sides were said to have amassed troops on either side of the village of Ari Adey, 30 km west of Las Anod, Kashawito said.
Ahmad Awad Ashara, a member of the newly created Somali transitional federal parliament, who hails from Puntland, the northeastern region of Somalia, told IRIN in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that he had heard about the fighting. "We have heard of the clashes, but we are reserving comment until we have the full details of the situation," he said.
The official radio in Hargeisa, the Somaliland capital, quoted the defence ministry there as saying on Wednesday morning that forces from Puntland had launched attacks at "Somaliland National Army positions" in the village of Ari Adey.
"Three wounded militiamen who were among those who launched the attack on the Somaliland forces were taken prisoner," the radio said. "Somaliland forces are now stationed 7 km away from the centre of Las Anod."
Puntland leaders declared the region autonomous in 1998 with the aim of reconstituting Somalia as a federal republic.
Northwestern Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of the country following the overthrow of the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre in 1991. The region has remained relatively peaceful even as the rest of Somalia descended into anarchy and violence.
Meanwhile, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, Maxwell Gaylard, on Wednesday urged forces fighting in the Lower Juba Region to immediately cease hostilities and seek a peaceful solution.
"The current fighting in the area is seriously disrupting the humanitarian operations currently underway," Gaylard said. "Unless the conflict can be stopped very soon, we could be witness to the kind of famine conditions experienced in 1992."
Gaylard said he was also concerned that the conflict could lead to a larger-scale violence that might eventually spread to other areas of Somalia and put the latest achievement of the reconciliation and government formation process in jeopardy.
Fighting broke out last week in the southern Somali port city of Kismayo between two rival armed factions in the surrounding areas. An estimated 500 people crossed the border into Kenya, mostly from Dhobley, not far from the border.
The fighting pitted forces of the Juba Valley Alliance, the faction that controls Kismayo, against those loyal to General Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan", who has made several attempts to capture the city in the recent past.
Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Posted on Thursday 23rd September at 19:38:25 Saudi Arabia To Lift Somali Livestock Ban
Awdal News Network / afrol News, 22 September - Saudi Arabia has announced its intention to lift a four-year ban on livestock imports from Djibouti, Somalia and possibly Somaliland, according to a report by the London-based 'Asharq Al Awsat' today. The ban, imposed after a terminated outbreak of Rift Valley Fever, has had enormous economic consequences for these Horn countries, where the livestock sector is dominant.
In a story filed by 'Asharq Al Awsat' reporter Zeid Kammi in the Kingdom, Saudi Arabian Agriculture Minister Fahd Balghaneim announced his country's intention to soon lift the ban on the livestock of the Horn of African countries and to allow it to be imported through Djibouti. There was no talk of direct imports from Somalia and Somaliland, however.
In a statement to the press while visiting an agricultural project in Hard, 250 km south of Riyadh, on Tuesday, he said the Saudi move was in response to a request by Djibouti to set up a specialised quarantine centre in Djibouti to check livestock before it is exported to the Saudi Kingdom.
He added that a Saudi Committee, representing the Ministries of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, and Health would pay a visit to Djibouti to inspect the quarantine centres there and ensure that the animals were free from epidemic diseases.
Mr Balghaneim, however, pointed out that he didn't expect the ban to be lifted before end of the Ramadan and the Hajj festival, saying that his government needed enough time to put proper procedures in place in terms of inspecting the health condition of the animals and safeguarding the health and safety of the Saudi people and animals.
He said that the Kingdom didn't face any meat or livestock shortage at present due to its diversified sources of import, adding that the establishment of quarantine centres in Saudi Arabia would all play a significant role in monitoring animal health and planning imports to the Kingdom.
Earlier, the self-declared republic of Somaliland accused Djibouti of trying to control its economy following a proposal by Djiboutian authorities aimed at making its ports as gateway for Somaliland’s livestock exports to Arab Gulf countries, according to a report by the UAE based Arabic daily 'Al Khaleej' on 14 September.
'Al Khaleej' quoted Somaliland Livestock Minister as describing Djibouti's plan to export Somaliland's livestock through its ports as an "unacceptable attempt aimed at controlling his country's economy." Somaliland has its own regional port at Berbera, but given its status as a non-recognised state, it has not been successful in its plea to Saudi Arabia and other states on the Arabian Peninsula to resume livestock imports directly from Berbera.
Quoting sources in Somalia, 'Al Khaleej' said Djibouti's proposal came as a result of its consultations with some Gulf countries, which showed their desire for Somali livestock. The sources added that the proposal gives the Djiboutian government the right to examine livestock and export them through its ports. The paper added that some Somali businessmen had welcomed the proposal, hoping that it would end the long ban on Somali livestock exports to Gulf countries.
Meanwhile, Somaliland businessmen contacted by 'Awdalnews' in Dubai expressed their rejection of the move by Djibouti. One the businessman who asked to remain anonymous claimed that Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh had sold the idea to Southern Somali businessmen whom he invited to a forum he recently held in Djibouti. He alleged that President Guelleh had even "bribed" some Somali businessmen by issuing Djiboutian passports to them.
Somaliland Interior Minister Ismail Adam Osman also repeated his call upon Arab countries to lift the ban on the exports of Somaliland livestock and to accept its citizens to travel with Somaliland passports. In an interview with the UAE official Arabic daily 'Al Ittihad' on 12 September 2004, Mr Osman said that his government was fighting over the last six years for the ban to be lifted.
- The ban has caused a great suffering to Somaliland whose economy depended mainly on livestock export, said Somaliland Minister Osman. "We invite Arabs to come to our country and to see by themselves that our country is free from the Rift Valley Fever which has been used as a cover for the ban," he added.
Posted on Wednesday 22nd September at 19:37:35 Seven Dead In Somali Tribal Warfare
Seven people were killed and 13 wounded when gunmen exchanged fire in the Somali capital Mogadishu, on Wednesday.
Witnesses and warring factions involved said the incident occurred at the Sinai checkpoint which lies on the Green Line dividing the city.
They said the deaths and injuries were the result of armed men opening fire on others travelling in a pick-up truck.
Four of the dead were part of a group led by a tribal leader named Bashir Raghi, while the others were manning the checkpoint.
All of the killed and wounded are members of the Abgal sub-clan of the Hawiya clan, which is dominant in the capital.
It was not clear what sparked the confrontation.
No functional government to speak of has existed in Somalia since 1991, the year president Muhammad Siad Barri fled the country amid escalating clan warfare that has ravaged the country ever since.
Despite the formation of a new parliament outside the country, Somalia is still currently split into numerous fiefdoms governed by tribal chiefs.
Posted on Wednesday 22nd September at 19:22:33 African Union Lauds New Developments
The African Union (AU) has welcomed recent progress towards peaceful governance in Somalia, and urged the international community to offer necessary assistance to the in-coming Somali national institutions to facilitate their functioning and consolidation. The continental body also criticized those bent on wrecking the process meant to end more than a decade of lawlessness.
"The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), at its sixteenth meeting, on 17 September 2004, adopted [a] communiqué" welcoming "the establishment of the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia . . . and the election of the Speaker of the Parliament, Hon Sherif Hassan Sheikh Aden," the AU said in a media statement.
The Council further commended "the Government of Kenya and all those that have worked tirelessly and contributed to the notable achievements in the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference taking place at Mbagathi, Nairobi, Kenya."
It also invited and encouraged "all Members of the Somalia Transitional Federal Parliament to remain focused and to work for the early election of the President and the formation of the Transitional Federal Government."
The Pan African body also "strongly [denounced] the activities of all those who seek to undermine the process and [urged] them to desist from any action that would, in any form, tend to compromise the welcome outcomes of the Somali National Reconciliation Conference."
In January 1991, the then President of Somalia, Siad Barre, was ousted, resulting in nine years of turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy.
After a few months, northern clans declared themselves the independent Republic of Somaliland, which has remained stable.
A Transitional National Government (TNG) was created in October 2000, which had a three-year mandate to create a permanent national Somali government. Efforts by the TNG to create a unified nation between the north and the south have been frustrated by numerous warlords and factions fighting to control Mogadishu and the other southern regions.
Neighboring Kenya has hosted peace talks for several years, which now seem to be bearing fruit.
Copyright © 2004 Catholic Information Service for Africa.
Posted on Wednesday 22nd September at 19:20:26 UN Warns Warring Somali Militia Could Cause Famine
NAIROBI, Sept 22 (Reuters) - Somalis could face a repeat of the kind of famine that killed hundreds of thousands of people in the early 1990s unless warring southern militias cease hostilities, a top U.N. official said on Wednesday.
The warning revived images of Somalia's worst famine in recent memory, when war-induced hunger killed thousands in and around the southern town of Baidoa, then dubbed the "city of death" by aid workers.
Rival fighters have clashed around the southern port of Kismayo in recent weeks, disrupting efforts by aid workers to help more than 165,000 people suffering from severe drought and overshadowing talks in Kenya to select a new Somali president.
"Unless the conflict can be stopped very soon, we could be witness to the kind of famine conditions experienced in 1992," said United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator Maxwell Gaylard in a statement issued in the Kenyan capital Nairobi.
It was the most strongly worded warning on the fighting in southern Somalia since it erupted several weeks ago.
The effects of Somalia's drought in the early 1990s were exacerbated by a civil war triggered by the overthrow of former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre the previous year.
Divided into a warring patchwork of clan-based fiefdoms ever since, Somalia has grappled with a long series of peace initiatives to weld the country back together, the latest attempt launched 21 months ago in Kenya.
The process has agreed on a new parliament which is due to select a president next month, who will try to establish a credible central government for the Horn of Africa country, but Gaylard warned fighting in the south could fuel wider violence.
The fighting around Kismayo involves a militia controlled by warlord Mohamed Siad Hersi, known as General Morgan, who three weeks ago began advancing on Kismayo, hoping to take it back from the rival Juba Valley Alliance militia coalition.
Posted on Wednesday 22nd September at 19:12:47 Somali MPs Urged Not to Groom a Dictator
Many Somalis, if not all, observe the upcoming presidential election with apprehension and incertitude. This challenging time, Somalia's new parliament must abandon warlordism cum dictatorship mentality and build more open and representative political system, establish effective governing institutions, and while this great change is attempted, reduce pressure for clan interest and conflict.
It is a task beyond the competence of text books and clever military officials. It will involve the mobilization of the collective national mind and patience to turn ideas into results. Such a mobilization of public energy requires a serious political agenda with a vision.
A new political agenda based on national interest rather than 'divide and rule tactics' requires the emergence of a new kind of political leadership, one driven by vision and a sense of clear direction, a leadership not rooted in the promotion of clan welfare or personal wealth accumulation.
Today it does not take much reflection to realize that strong leadership is not after all a prerogative of Somali warlords who are now presidential candidates. It is not the time of brute force and military skills. It is the time of compromise, honest, integrity, negotiation, and of painstakingly building public trust and support. It is a common knowledge that our generals cum warlords lack a whole set of good qualities and attributes that can transcend winner loser attitude. This is not sustainable in nation building.
By forgetting the root cause of our problems, some people argue that political stability can be guaranteed only by a strongman - dictator. They come to a cul-de sac when you question the sustainability of another Syadist regime. Alas, it was difficult to foresee the consequences of October's coup in 1969. Most of the Somalis had wrongly applauded, only to regret quickly.
Real political stability comes from stable governing institutions guided by creative leaders who are willing to leave office if they fail. What you expects from demagogues and warlord cum dictators is to sow the seeds of more civil wars, not build a nation from the scratch.
Therefore we strongly urge the new "anointed" Somali parliament to elect a leadership that upholds the rule of law and creates a political structure based on separation of duties as well as check and balance. This will prevent the rise of another dictator and warlords. We appeal for a leadership that can ensure that each part of the political system (executive, parliament, judiciary and civil society) is strong enough to generate an overall capacity for making timely and firm decisions on the major issues affecting our country.
Needless to say, please don't groom another dictator that will make further civil wars inevitable. For the record, SPR urged Somali parliament in Djbouti not to elect corrupt demagogues.
Copyright © 2004 Somali Peace Rally.
Posted on Wednesday 22nd September at 19:11:50 Calm In The South After Factional Violence Near Kismayo
NAIROBI, 21 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - Southern Somalia's port city of Kismayo was reported calm on Tuesday following last week's fighting between two rival armed factions in the surrounding areas, residents said.
"There has been no fighting anywhere in the Juba Valley since Saturday," a source told IRIN by telephone from Kismayo. The city is situated in the Juba Valley area. He said that most of the people who fled their villages near Kismayo had returned to their homes.
Those who fled included an estimated 500 people who crossed the border into Kenya at the end of last week and who are now living with local communities on the Kenyan side of the frontier.
Most of the Somalis came from the village of Dhobley, not far from the border, and entered Kenya through the border town of Liboi on Friday and early Saturday, UNHCR spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera told IRIN on Monday. He said most of them had expressed willingness to go back to their home area once calm had returned.
The fighting pitted forces of the Juba Valley Alliance, the faction that controls Kismayo, against those loyal to General Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan", who has made several attempts to capture the city in the recent past.
Meanwhile, members of the newly created Somalia transitional federal parliament on Tuesday pledged to remain committed to the peace process. The MPs signed a peace declaration during a function to mark the International Day of Peace in the Kenya capital, Nairobi.
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 19:18:33 Somali Livestock Stakeholders Meet on Export Embargo
Mogadishu, Somalia, 09/21 - A two-day meeting on ways to lift the embargo imposed on Somali livestock and restore the crucial livestock trade with the Persian Gulf states entered its second Monday in Garowe, headquarters of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland.
The meeting brings together representatives from the business sector, the interim government of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, aid agencies and veterinarian organisations.
The UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) are funding the two-day meeting.
In September 2000, the Saudi government imposed a blanket ban on Somali livestock due to the outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Saudi Arabia. Immediately thereafter the United Arab Emirates and Qatar followed suit.
Participants at the meeting would deliberate on the underlying causes of the blanket ban on the country`s crucial trade, once the biggest foreign exchange earner, and measures to lift the embargo.
According to an official of the FAO, Paul Roster, the Arab countries have bitterly complained over the methods used by the Somalis during export of their livestock to the Persian Gulf.
"Those countries have openly indicated they would never lift the ban if the exporters don`t change the way they handle the animals," he told the forum.
The prolonged livestock embargo imposed by the Persian Gulf countries has negatively impacted the Somali population that depend heavily on export of livestock, eroding the purchasing power of over 70 percent of the population.
The ban has also had a direct impact on the local market, among other things causing a shortfall in foreign currencies, devaluing of the local currency and a subsequent hike in the prices of imported goods.
Without a strong functional central government for more than a decade, Somalia has struggled to find ways to get livestock certified for export.
© 1996-2003 Angop. All rights reserved.
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:22:51 Somali Woman Is Severely Burned In Underpass
A 40-year-old woman is critically ill in hospital after being found horrifically burned in a subway. Police were called to the Lawrence Hill underpass just after 2pm yesterday after someone reported that a woman was on fire.
The woman is understood to be a Somali and there had been concern the incident was racially-motivated, but this has now been discounted by police.
Although investigations have still not been completed, it is understood the woman's injuries were self-inflicted.
Fire and ambulance crews also attended and the woman was taken to Frenchay Hospital, where she was in a serious condition last night.
Avon and Somerset Police spokesman Dan Mountain said: "The scene has been secured and officers are speaking to witnesses and the victim's family to ascertain the circumstances leading up to the incident."
Avon Ambulance spokeswoman Vicky Ledbury said the woman had suffered 80 per cent burns.
She said: "Pretty much every part of her body from the knee up has burns."
National news and sport - © Copyright Press Association Ltd
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:20:42 Somalis Lament Fresh Violence on Peace Day
NAIROBI, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Fresh fighting in Somalia cast a shadow over an anti-war rally by the country's top politicians on Tuesday and the United Nations warned the violence was worsening a humanitarian emergency in the south.
Hundreds of Somalis have fled to Kenya this month to escape violence in the volatile south of the country, stirred by warring militias battling for control of the port of Kismayo.
"It is a pity to see there are some people who don't believe that the state of fighting is over," Joseph Nyaga, Kenya's assistant minister of East African and Regional Cooperation, told the rally to mark the U.N.'s International Day of Peace.
Several small peace marches also took place in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
The country disintegrated into anarchy after former dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 as clans pressured by famine and political turmoil launched battles for territory.
For 21 months, Somalis and international mediators in Kenya have laboured to form a new national government. A clan-based parliament last week elected a speaker and is due to elect a president on October 10 of a country ruled by clan militia.
"It will be the first priority of the new Somali parliament to restore peace in the country. The Somali people need peace more than anything else in the world today," parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan told the gathering.
The fighting involves a militia controlled by warlord Mohamed Said Hersi, known as General Morgan, who three weeks ago began advancing on Kismayo, in hopes of taking it back from the rival Juba Valley Alliance (JVA) militia coalition.
Diplomats say the clashes are also stirring up smaller clan disputes, deepening the anarchy around Kismayo, disrupting farming and worsening already existing food shortages.
Several experts working for foreign aid agencies have been evacuated from the Juba Valley north of Kismayo as a security precaution, a U.N. official said.
"We can expect serious famine in the Juba Valley area if the fighting does not stop," said Callum Mclean, head of the U.N. Office for Humanitarian Coordination in Somalia. He said the area was home to 170,000, many of them black Africans, a minority frequently persecuted by the main nomadic clans.
"They have had two years of crop failure and they have had very little recourse to other means of sustaining themselves. Many people may die if the fighting continues to disrupt humanitarian operations," Mclean said.
By C. Bryson Hull
Source: Reuters
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:17:37 Families Go Back Home As War Stops in Two Villages
Nation Reporter And Correspondent
Nairobi
A group of Somalis who fled their country following heavy fighting between factions have returned home.
About 50 families crossed over at the Dedeja Bulla border point after calm returned at Dobley and Hosingo.
But North Eastern provincial commissioner Abdul Mwasserah said about 200 families were still being hosted by Kenyans at Dedeja Bulla Village, of Wajir District, waiting to return.
Kenya's security forces were still on alert at the border point, he said.
Air and ground patrols by Kenya's security personnel were being carried out along the border to prevent a spill-over of the war.
Week-long tension between a militia group led by Mr Mohamed Hirsi, alias Gen Morgan, and another led by MP Bare Hirale degenerated into full-scale war, on Friday, sending more than 250 panicking Somalis into Kenya.
The factions are fighting for the control of Dobley and Kismayu towns.
Gen Morgan pulled out of the Nairobi peace talks and has repeatedly turned down offers to rejoin.
Yesterday, a UN High Commissioner for Refugees spokesperson, Mr Emmanuel Nyabera, said a team was sent to the area, on Saturday, and that about 300 Somalis were being hosted by Kenyans.
"Our assessment is that the displaced families want to go back home once peace is restored. I would not say there is a crisis as there is a borehole in the area and they are getting support and help from the local community," he said.
However, he said his office was still monitoring the situation and would move if there was need for humanitarian intervention.
Mr Mwasserah told journalists in Garissa, on Saturday, that the refugees had arrived in a convoy of more than 20 vehicles, and were being held at Dedeja Bulla.
The PC said the militia were using heavy weapons, including rocket-propelled bombs that terrified Kenyans along the border.
He said it was a good gesture for the villages suffering severe drought to share with the refugees food donations from the Government
"The Government will give food and other necessities to the war victims," he said.
Copyright © 2004 The Nation. All rights reserved.
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:15:13 Somali MPs Sign Declaration Committing To Observe Peace
NAIROBI, Sept. 21 (Xinhuanet) Somali members of parliament (MPs)on Tuesday signed a declaration in Kenya committing themselves to strengthen the ideals of peace, alleviate tensions and cause of conflict in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.
"We ... recognize the importance of bringing an end to the hostilities and improving the conditions of the parties affected by the conflict," they said in the declaration.
"We intend to establish a positive atmosphere in which further steps towards negotiations and lasting solutions can be taken, and the human rights of every Somali citizen are respected and protected," they said.
The signing which coincided with the International Day of Peace was witnessed in Nairobi by United Nations agencies, international and national non-governmental organizations working in Somalia as well as donors.
The International Day of Peace, which falls on Sept. 21 every year, is observed as a day of global ceasefire and nonviolence.
Speaking at the signing ceremony in Kenya's capital Nairobi, Winston Tubman, special representative of the UN Secretary General, appealed to the international community to support the post conflict Somalia, saying that "I am urging the international community not to adopt a wait-and-see attitude but be ready to assist Somalia. If we do not get international community support now, it will be very difficult to reconstruct Somalia."
The newly elected Somali parliament Speaker Shariff Hassan Sheikh Adan urged the Somalis to cooperate to enable them tackle the enormous challenges facing them.
"It is only through peace that can put or sustain us together. Let us put our differences aside and focus on the challenges that lie ahead," Adan said.
Members of Somalia's Transitional National Assembly were sworn in last month in Nairobi, with each of Somalia's four major clans allocated 61 seats in the parliament, while an alliance of minority clans was awarded 31.
The inauguration of the parliament paved the way for return of peace to the troubled country which has remained without an effective government since 1991, when the regime of Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled.
Since the breakdown of central government, conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people and the country has become a country for anarchy.
Under the auspices of the Inter Governmental Authority on Development, which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in Kenya.
The Somali MPs are expected to elect two deputy speakers of the parliament and the president of the country. Enditem
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:13:12 African Union Lauds New Developments
The African Union (AU) has welcomed recent progress towards peaceful governance in Somalia, and urged the international community to offer necessary assistance to the in-coming Somali national institutions to facilitate their functioning and consolidation. The continental body also criticized those bent on wrecking the process meant to end more than a decade of lawlessness.
"The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), at its sixteenth meeting, on 17 September 2004, adopted [a] communiqué" welcoming "the establishment of the Transitional Federal Parliament of Somalia . . . and the election of the Speaker of the Parliament, Hon Sherif Hassan Sheikh Aden," the AU said in a media statement.
The Council further commended "the Government of Kenya and all those that have worked tirelessly and contributed to the notable achievements in the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference taking place at Mbagathi, Nairobi, Kenya."
It also invited and encouraged "all Members of the Somalia Transitional Federal Parliament to remain focused and to work for the early election of the President and the formation of the Transitional Federal Government."
The Pan African body also "strongly [denounced] the activities of all those who seek to undermine the process and [urged] them to desist from any action that would, in any form, tend to compromise the welcome outcomes of the Somali National Reconciliation Conference."
In January 1991, the then President of Somalia, Siad Barre, was ousted, resulting in nine years of turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy.
After a few months, northern clans declared themselves the independent Republic of Somaliland, which has remained stable.
A Transitional National Government (TNG) was created in October 2000, which had a three-year mandate to create a permanent national Somali government. Efforts by the TNG to create a unified nation between the north and the south have been frustrated by numerous warlords and factions fighting to control Mogadishu and the other southern regions.
Neighboring Kenya has hosted peace talks for several years, which now seem to be bearing fruit.
Copyright © 2004 Catholic Information Service for Africa
Posted on Tuesday 21st September at 20:10:46 Bob Geldof Visits Somaliland
Mogadishu, Somalia, 09/20 - Sir Bob Geldof, the internationally acclaimed rock star cum philanthropist, accompanied by a film crew, Saturday jetted into Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland, at the start of a five-day visit.
The visit is part of an African tour that would take him to Ghana, Benin, Mali, DR Congo, Uganda and Ethiopia.
While in Africa, he will film a serial documentary called "Geldof in Africa".
Presidential spokesman Adan Idriss Dualle told PANA Sir Geldof was received on arrival by Somaliland foreign minister Edna Adan Ismail and taken to the presidential compound to meet President Dahir Rayalle Kahin.
Kahin reportedly bestowed state honours on the visiting Geldof, acknowledging his continued efforts to help the people of Somaliland and Africa.
The brains behind the famous "Live Aid" concerts, Geldof is expected to launch a landmark documentary series to be filmed in the seven African countries he is expected to visit for screening on BBC TV.
Addressing journalists immediately after meeting with the Somaliland president, Geldof said he was expecting to once again place the African continent high on the public podium and install it firmly into the political minds.
He explained that the documentary would be released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of "Live Aid", and at a time when Britain chairs the G8 summit, holds the EU presidency and Prime Minister Tony Blair publishes "US and Them", a report about the future of Africa.
Musician Geldof led a global humanitarian campaign to help feed hundreds of thousands of starving Ethiopians during the worst famine in that country in 1985.
He organised two concerts, one in London`s Wembley Stadium and the other in Philadelphia`s JFK stadium, raising US$73 million all of which went to the starving Ethiopians.
© 1996-2003 Angop. All rights reserved.
Posted on Monday 20th September at 19:59:46 Hundreds Flee Violence Near Kismayo
Some 500 people fleeing factional fighting near the southern Somali port city of Kismayo crossed the border into Kenya at the end of last week and are now living with local communities on the Kenyan side of the frontier, a spokesman for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said on Monday.
Most of the Somalis came from the village of Dhobley, not far from the border, and entered Kenya through the border town of Liboi on Friday and early Saturday, UNHCR spokesman Emmanuel Nyabera told IRIN.
A UNHCR assessment team that visited the area at the weekend found that five families had settled with local families around Liboi, while another 300-500 people had been accommodated by the local community in a village called Dadaj Bulla, Nyabera said. The refugees told the UNHCR they were willing to go back home once the security situation improved in Dhobley.
A local journalist in Kismayo told IRIN by telephone that many dwellings in Dhobley were burned down during last week's fighting that pitted forces of the Juba Valley Alliance, the faction that controls Kismayo, against those loyal to warlord General Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan".
Another source said that fighting had stopped and that some families which fled the violence had started returning to their homes. "Many people who left the villages of Bulo Haji, Halima A'dey and Hosingo are returning," he said.
In another development, the newly formed Somali parliament has postponed the election of the country's president, which had been scheduled for 22 September, to10 October, saying the candidates needed more time to prepare for the elections.
The president will be elected by members of the Somali transitional federal parliament. Last week, the members of parliament elected businessman Shariff Hassan Sheikh Adan as the assembly's speaker.
The Somali National Charter, adopted by delegates at a reconciliation conference in September 2003, mandates the speaker to preside over the election of the president, who in turn appoints a prime minister who will then form a government.
Once the federal government is fully constituted, it will move to Mogadishu and embark on its challenging mandate of rehabilitation and the restoration of law and order in a country ravaged by factional warfare since 1991, when the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled.
Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Posted on Monday 20th September at 19:49:55 Charting a New Course for Somalia
THE onerous responsibility of charting a new course for sustainable peace in war-ravaged and factionalised Somalia has been given to a group of 275 parliamentarians - majority of whom are men. These are mainly prominent opinion leaders seen as representatives of the country's four major clans, who gathered - alongside a cluster of other clans - recently in Nairobi, Kenya to take the oath of office.
The ceremony was witnessed by the representatives of the United Nations, the European Union, China and Kenya - the four countries which financed the talks leading to the establishment of the new parliament. Each of the four major clans has 61 seats and the cluster of sub-clans fill 31seats. This new peace initiative in Somalia took some 20 months, which featured representatives of the warring and political groups.
This was the second attempt by the various factions locked in Somalia's fratricidal war, since the exit of the late President Mohammed Siad Barre from power on January 27, 1991, to give the country a semblance of government. The parliamentarians are expected to work closely with an interim government headed by a member of the powerful Hawiye clan and a former interior minister under the late Siad Barre - Abdulkassim Salat Hassan. Hasan is a product of the first peace initiative, which was the result of the Somali Peace Conference (SPC) held in neighbouring Djibouti between May and August 2000.
Under the SPC - sponsored by Djibouti President Ismail Omar Guellen, and endorsed by Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and what was then the Organisation of African Unity - a transitional assembly was established. Although Hassan was not present at the Nairobi ceremony, to underscore the suspicion that he was probably not comfortable with the new crop of lawmakers - majority of whom he has little influence over - the government he heads, which has not been able to restore peace and unity to the country, still remains one in which the U.N., the African Union and the EU are investing some confidence in.
So much is the case that some of Somalia's neighbours have recognised Hassan's interim administration, and the world body has given it de facto recognition since its participation in the General Assembly in September 2000. The two peace initiatives took place outside the shores of Somalia to register the urgent need for security in a country that since a little over a decade has lost its once unique identity as Africa's most homogeneous state, which comprise, mainly Sunni Muslims.
The imperative of giving such an international intervention a direction - and to make it one on which plans for forward-looking strategies have to be predicated took precedent over other considerations that were merely academic distractions. The present state of international intervention in Somalia is in stark contrast with the United States-led U.N. Operation Restore Hope (ORH) of 1993. For the Clinton administration, ORH was a foreign policy failure, for its inability to achieve its aim of dragging Somalia from sliding into statelessness - where it presently is - the humiliation and danger to which U.S. troops were reprehensibly exposed and for steeling - inadvertently - the confidence amongst the dozen-plus Somali warring factions that - with the scuttled exit of the U.S. troops - they could deal similarly with any other foreign power, which may attempt to compel them to act in keeping with international standards. That thinking may have fed the manner in which the defunct O.A.U. and the U.N. et al went virtually silently about picking the interim Hassan administration and the Nairobi-born law-makers respectively.
Perhaps what informed the violence on the part of Somalis against ORH was the fear that, even though it was a U.N.-brokered peace initiative, the long-term effect was to lay a foundation for a sweeping post-Cold War Washington influence in the region. But that was an influence that the Democrats of the Carter years failed to establish when, during the Ogaden War in the late '70s, they backed Siad Barre's Somalia against the revolutionary Dergue in Ethiopia.
The warring Somali factions - including that of Hussein Mohammed Aideed's Mogadishu-based United Somali Congress/Somali national Alliance (USC/SNA) - which made ORH such a huge failure reenacted the way they did to register their displeasure with Washington for backing the repressive Siad Barre regime, which they had gladly sacked.
The fall of the same Siad Barre regime - so soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which informed Washington's withdrawal of support for Mogadishu - did raise some questions as to the commitment of Washington - from Carter to Clinton, spanning a period of 13 years up to January 1991 - to firming that regime from the designs of its diverse domestic enemies.
It was perhaps the thinking of Washington that Africa, or better still, the Horn, did not really count as strategic in the U.S. foreign policy calculation, especially after the end of the Cold War! Still, whichever way one looks at it, the Somali imbroglio would not have been so wild as it presently is, had Washington been visionary enough to prod Siad Barre to embrace genuine political reform - towards making Somalia a democratic out-post, and not a losing war puppet in the Horn.
It is part of Washington's misguided foreign policy that Somalia is such a violent and an unsafe country currently that almost every ambitious political player - leave out what message that is being transmitted from Djibouti and Nairobi - is a potential believer in armed conflict.
Puntland was originally a part of Somalia. Amid the post- Siad Barre chaos, Puntland declared independence in 1998, under the Presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf, as a nation with clan confederation as one of its priorities. Since then, Puntland has been in territorial disputes with Somaliland over the Sool and Sanaag regions. With a population of some three million, and a land area of 300, 000 sq. kilometres, it has its capital in Garowe. Somaliland seceded from the Republic of Somalia in 1991. It is still not recognised by any country.
The capital is Hargesia. The dominant religion is Islam. The official language is Somali. It has a population of around three million in an area measuring 109, 000 sq. kilometres. The first president was Abdurahman Ahmad Ali "Tur" of the Somali National Movement. He was succeeded in 1993 by Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal. Egal founded, in 2001, the Allied People's Democratic Party. After his death he was succeeded by Dahir Riyale Kahin. The parliament, called Baarlamanka, has two chambers: the House of Representatives or Golaha Wakiilada with 82 members, who are elected for a five-year term, and the House of Elders or Golaha Guurtida with 82 members representing traditional leaders. Besides the Allied People's Democratic Party, there are other main ones like the Solidarity Party, Justice and Development Party, and Unity, Democracy and Independence Party.
The splintering of Somalia has robbed it of a cohesive and practical political ideology and a foreign policy. "Economic policymaking has also been restricted due to the country's reliance on agriculture that is vulnerable to climatic conditions. Prior to the recent conflict, about 60 per cent of the population in Somalia were pastoralists or agro-pastoralists, and about 20 per cent were agriculturists. Except for a small number of Somalis who rely on fishing, the remainder of the population are urban dwellers, employed as government workers, shop-keepers, factory workers, and traders.
Pastoralists raise camels, cattle, sheep, and goats. Agro-pastoralists, found primarily in the inter-riverine areas, rely on a mixture of herding and farming. They usually have a permanent home in addition to their portable huts. The Somali oil industry has been largely disrupted due to the political unrest and the operating condition of the refinery in Mogadishu has been severely affected. Agriculture accounts for nearly two-thirds of the GDP of Somalia.
Future growth
The principal food crops, grown by small-scale farmers, are sorghum, corn, sesame, cowpeas, sugar cane, and rice. Commercial crops are bananas, citrus (mainly grapefruit and lemons), vegetables, cotton, frankincense, and myrrh. The growing trade connections that Somalia is creating with the Middle East may help boost future growth."
The conflict has opened the country up for the influence of regional powers like Ethiopia and Kenya. A common accusation often made by the warring parties against each other is terrorism, basically to win the sympathy of Washington, Brussels and the U.N.
In the absence of a national government, what is left of the Republic of Somalia is being controlled by such armed groups as the Aideed-led USC/ SNA, the Somali National Front (SNF), led by Omar Haji Mohammed Masaleh, based in the southern Gedo region, the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM) of a former army commander and son-in-law of the late Siad Barre, Mohammed Siad Hirsi Morgan, based in the south, the United Somali Congress/Somali Salvation Alliance (USC/SSA) led by Muse Sudi Yalahow and the Rahanwein Resistance Army (RAA), which is based in the Bay and Baykol regions and controlled by a professional soldier - Hassan Mohamed Shatigudud. They all are believed to enjoy the backing of Addis Ababa.
There is also Osman Hassan Ali Atto, a financier of the late General Farah Aideed, but now leads a south Magadishu-based faction of the USC/SNA. With a devastated country and looted treasury, these factions - which belong to an umbrella body called the Somali Reconstruction and Restoration Council (SSRC) - have had to rely on Addis Ababa to see them through their private political plans.
Nduka Uzuakpundu
Copyright © 2004 Vanguard. All rights reserved.
Posted on Monday 20th September at 19:48:33 Somali Presidential Election To Be Hot Contest As MPs Postpone Vote
NAIROBI, Sept. 19 (Xinhuanet) Members of Somalia's newly formed Transitional Federal Parliament have postponed the election of the President due on Sept. 22 to Oct. 10, suggesting a hotly contested race among the large pool of candidates and the clans and factions behind them.
Somali Member of Parliament (MP) Awad Ashara said the election was postponed during a parliamentary session Saturday in Nairobi to allow the Inter Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Ministerial Facilitation Committee currently in New York attending the United Nations General Assembly to witness the ceremony.
"Parliament voted to postpone the elections of the president because the MPs wanted the IGAD ministers who are the mediators and who are currently in New York to be present to witness the ceremony," Ashara told Xinhua by telephone.
But some Somali MPs said the delay to elect a commonly recognized president was to ensure Somalia's various clans were "fairly represented" in the choice.
Members of Somalia's Transitional National Assembly were sworn in last month in Nairobi, with each of Somalia's four major clans getting 61 seats in the parliament, while an alliance of minority clans was awarded 31 seats.
The inauguration of the parliament paved the way for the return of peace to the troubled country which has been without an effective central government since 1991, when the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled.
However, the presidential voting will not be easy as there are some 60 Somali candidates for the top job, and an analyst declined to be named said most of them have questionable past as warlords, fraction leaders and "human rights violators."
The crowded pool of Somalia presidential candidates include Hussein Farah Aideed, son of warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed, who leads a 15,000 strong militia controlling central and southern parts of Mogadishu.
Another prominent candidate reckoned with a big chance in the race is Abdullahi Yusuf, the current leader of the autonomous Puntland region in northeast Somalia.
No matter who wins the race, the upcoming Somali government will in any case face large pockets of warlord-held territories within the country, since more than 20 leaders are still operating private armies and are frequently involved in clashes with each other.
More problems are sure to come, since some major faction leaders are missing from the talks. The main warlord outside the Kenyan peace process is Mohammed Hersi, commonly known as General Morgan.
During the past week, his men launched a major offensive against southern Somalia's major port Kismayo, the country's third largest city.
Only on Saturday, Morgan is reported to have given up an attack after the Jubba Valley Alliance, a regional armed group in control of Kismayo, had gained the upper hand.
"If we can bring him here (to the reconciliation conference venue) it would be the best thing for Somalia and for the peace talks," said Bethwell Kiplagat, the chairman of the IGAD Facilitation Committee on Somalia.
But Morgan's whereabouts remains unknown.
The newly elected parliament is already making efforts to make a favorable situation for the presidential election to take place and for the new government to be installed.
Ashara said the newly elected Somali parliament Speaker ShariffHassan Sheikh Adan appealed to all Somalis on Saturday to stop fighting and pursue dialogue if the Horn of African nation hopes to restore stability after the installation of the new government.
"The speaker urged all MPs to pass resolution binding all leaders to respect the cessation of hostilities signed in Eldoret (in western Kenya) in the year 2002. He also urged the MPs to build trust among themselves and respect the outcome of the reconciliation conference," Ashara added. Enditem
Posted on Sunday 19th September at 18:18:30 15 Killed In Violent Clashes In Somalia
Some 15 persons were at least killed in violent fighting that erupted to the south of Somalia between warring groups in a new round of fighting described as a new obstacle in the way to attaining stability.
Reports came from Somalia said that fighting erupted around Kesmayo port between militias known as "Jouba Valley alliance" and the "group of General Morgan."
A spokesman for general Morgan forces said that Jouba Valley Militias started the attack, noting that the fighting might be expanded during the few coming days.
On the other hand, Jouba Valley militias blamed General Morgan and accused him of setting ablaze new round of fighting which raised doubts on the possibility of resuming peace negotiations shortly.
The fighters of the two warring sides exchanged control over Kesmayo port since the eruption of fighting between themselves in 1999. The port is situated 500 Km to the south of Mogadishu and is considered the main trade port for Somalia.
Somalia fell into a tribal and civil war following the collapse of the regime of President Seyad berri in 1991. Since that date thousands of Somalis were killed in inter-fighting.
Copyright © 1995-2003 Arabic News.com, All Rights Reserved.
Posted on Saturday 18th September at 22:28:30 Ethiopia Denies Undermining Somali Peace Talks
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, Sep 18, 2004 -- Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin has denied that his government is undermining the Somali peace process, amid threatening to arrest two Somalis warlord.
Mr Mesfin told Al-Jazeera television network that allegations against Ethiopia concerning Somalia were baseless.
He said that there were many Somalis living in Ethiopia and that if his government tried to undermine the Somali peace process, things would also take a turn for the worse, and that this would have security implications for his own country.
According to the Mogadishu based Radio Shabeelle, The Ethiopian government has threatened to arrest Somali warlords Muhammad Said Hirsi Morgan and Barre Hirale, involved in fierce fighting near the port town of Kismayo, in southern Somalia.
Ethiopia's envoy to the Somali peace talks in Nairobi, Abdulaziz Ahmed Aden, speaking to Shabeelle radio, condemned the two warlords - Gen Morgan and Col Hirale - and demanded that they immediately return to Nairobi to rejoin the peace talks.
He added that it was necessary for Somalis to recognize those who are against the peace process. Ambassador Aden said that Ethiopia had recognized that the two warlords are an obstacle to the peace process and threatened that they would be arrested if found in Ethiopian territory.
The Ethiopian official warned the two men to stop fighting immediately.
The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) asked these two warlords to come back soon. One of them already is an MP and the other one, Gen Morgan, was among the faction leaders attending the talks. If they fail to rejoin the peace talks within days, they will face sanctions.
Meanwhile, IGAD foreign ministers have expressed their support for the newly elected [Somali] Speaker of parliament, asking all Somali MPs to cooperate with the new Speaker, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan.
Material from BBC Monitoring Service
Posted on Saturday 18th September at 22:27:15 Somalian Parliament to Return Home After 2 Years of Peace Talks
The Somali peace process that began in Kenya two years ago could soon come to a close. Somalia's new parliament, which is sitting in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, is on the verge of selecting a president, and is expected to return to Somalia within a few weeks. But questions remain about whether or not factional leaders within the new government will be willing or able to bring peace to Somalia.
Somalia's Member of Parliament for Mogadishu, Hussein Farah Aideed, is a very worried man.
The leader of the United Somali Congress, USC., faction and his 15,000 strong militia are in control of that section of Somalia's capital where the new president, speaker, and some 275 parliamentarians are expected to relocate within the next few weeks.
Providing security for the new government is utmost on Mr. Aideed's mind. He says this is in part because the 23 or so factional leaders - who are now members of parliament - are still fighting despite having gone through two years of peace negotiations in Kenya and signing a cease-fire agreement.
"The different groups who have been fighting, who became all inclusive in the parliament, have not reconciled - their forces are still engaged on the ground. So there's no peace mechanism," he said. "We [USC] have to give special security. So it means if somebody coming from Puntland, we have to make sure they're secure within Mogadishu during the transition period because this is not their region. And they cannot bring forces in Puntland to come in Mogadishu because the factions who control this militia will fight."
It is not just members of the new parliament who need protection. Civilians continue to be caught up in factional fighting and other crime that has characterized Somalia ever since the overthrow of Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991.
For 13 years, groups based on clan and sub-clan affiliations have controlled different parts of Somalia through the strength of their militias, with no central government to provide law, order, and resources to the country's people.
There have been 14 peace conferences throughout the years to try to stop the fighting and unite Somalia under a single government.
A three-year Transitional National Government was formed during the last peace conference, held in Djibouti in 2000. But some factions rejected the arrangement, and the new government ended up only controlling some sections of Mogadishu and surrounding areas.
During the latest round of talks, the factional leaders, civil society representatives, traditional elders, and others wrote a new charter and selected a new government.
But critics question the sincerity of some of the members of Somalia's new parliament.
For instance, a panel of experts monitoring an arms embargo that the United Nations levied against Somalia in 1992 found that all factional leaders are violating the arms embargo, with some making big profits from the trade in weapons and ammunition.
In its August 11 report, the Monitoring Group said a few factional leaders do not even want a new government because their business interests would suffer.
Some critics are angry that factional leaders have been, in their view, rewarded with government posts when they have caused so much misery with their fighting and arms trading. They argue the factional leaders should be excluded from the new parliament.
But the U.N. Secretary-General's Representative for Somalia, Winston Tubman, says peace could not come to Somalia without the integration of the factional leaders into parliament.
"They will now be committed to defending Somalia, preventing these kinds of [arms] violations, and they will be held to answer if indeed they are found to be violating it," he said. "It's not the perfect solution, but sometimes you have to deal with people who may have had criminal activities in their past in order to bring them to a new way of behaving."
Mr. Tubman says any factional leaders not included within the government would continue to fight and trade arms with impunity.
This appears to be the case with Mohammed Hersi, commonly known as General Morgan, the only major factional leader not included in the latest round of talks. General Morgan's militia this week clashed with that of the Juba Valley Alliance as he tried to take control of areas near the port city of Kismayo. Several people were killed.
International negotiators and observers see General Morgan as a spoiler who will not be successful in derailing the peace process. They are publicly optimistic that members of the new parliament will put aside their antagonisms as they try to rebuild the country.
The African Union's envoy at the peace talks, Mohammed Foum, says that the past two years of negotiations have built a certain level of collegiality among the factional leaders and other parliamentarians.
"The Somalis don't hate each other - they are suspicious of one another," he noted. "There have been issues that have contributed to that atmosphere of suspicion. What we have been doing throughout these almost two years of talks is to break down those issues which have contributed to suspicion. And I believe after all these months, they have reached a point where there is some trust among each other."
If the factional leaders will respect the arms embargo and stop their fighting now that they are members of parliament is up for debate.
But virtually everyone agrees that the Somali people are tired of so much war and would eagerly embrace any initiative to bring peace and stability to their country.
Cathy Majtenyi
Posted on Friday 17th September at 19:30:16 Suspected West Indian Gang Attack Somalis
A TEENAGER was stabbed just inches from his heart when he hurled himself in front of a knife-man to protect a friend
The have-a-go hero sprang into action when a "racist" mob attacked his pal on a packed tram late last Friday.
When one gang member pulled out a nine-inch butterfly knife, he threw himself in front of the weapon.
The attacker plunged the blade into the teenager's chest just inches above his heart and then slashed him across the face.
The 19-year-old was rushed to hospital where he has recovered from the attack and has since been hailed as a hero by police.
He told the Croydon Advertiser: "Those guys would have killed my friend. I'd do the same again."
The attack happened when the teenager, his two cousins aged 14 and 16 and two friends - all Somalis - were returning on a tram from a football match.
As the tram reached Croydon town centre at 11.50pm, they were set upon by the gang who singled out one of the group and punched him in the face.
Recalling the attack, the teenager, whose identity is being protected for fear of reprisals, said: "We managed to fight them off at first but then one of the boys said to us: 'So you think you're pretty brave?' "He went to pull something from the back of his trousers - we thought he had a gun but he pulled out a butterfly knife.
"He ran towards my friend. I knew he was going to stab him so I grabbed his arm. I lost my grip on the knife and he stabbed me and slashed me across the face.
"I didn't feel any pain until afterwards because of the adrenalin. But I looked down and my shirt was red with blood. "I'm certain that if he had caught my friend he would not only have stabbed him once, he would have stabbed him again and again - he would have killed him."
The gang pulled the tram's emergency cord and fled towards East Croydon station while the injured teenager staggered on to the pavement and fainted.
He was rushed to Mayday Hospital while police surrounded the station - but the suspects escaped.
DC Neville Agnew, of British Transport Police, said: "This was a violent, ferocious attack. The blade entered his chest near his left armpit and was just inches from his heart and lungs. "He was also slashed on the cheek, and could easily have been blinded. Given that he saw the knife, this was a very brave thing to do. He's definitely saved his friend and taken a near-fatal blow himself."
Police think the gang, believed to be West Indian youths aged in their late teens or early 20s, may have targeted their victims because they were Somali. They may also have been searching for vulnerable youngsters to rob.
By Ben Ashford
© owned by or licensed to Trinity Mirror Plc 2004
icSouthlondon
Posted on Friday 17th September at 19:29:23 Warlord Flees After Battle
General Morgan and his forces have retreated after a third day of fighting in southern Somalia.
At least 30 fighters have been killed in clashes between the Jubba Valley Alliance, which controls Kismayo port, and the warlord.
A BBC correspondent says after fighting at dawn in Dhoobley, 200km north of Kismayo, the warlord's fighters fled.
Gen Morgan is the only major warlord outside a peace process soon to choose Somalia's first leader in 13 years.
Welcome to return
The exact whereabouts of the warlord is unknown, but residents in Dhoobley say Gen Morgan passed through the town on Wednesday with two vehicles, travelling towards the Kenyan border.
The area around Kismayo has been tense in recent weeks, as Gen Morgan's forces have advanced on the port.
He had promised to return to take part in the peace process in neighbouring Kenya, after mediators agreed to pay off the bill he had run up there in a luxury hotel before returning to Somalia.
Peace process facilitator Bethwell Kiplagat said the warlord would still be welcome to return to the talks, where the election of a parliamentary speaker on Wednesday cleared the way for the formation of a central government.
"If we can bring him here it would be the best thing for Somalia and for the peace talks," he told the BBC's Focus on Africa programme.
According to the BBC's Mohamed Olad Hassan in Mogadishu, both sides accuse each other of starting the fighting on Wednesday.
The areas where the fighting has taken place are now reported to be under the full control of the Jubba Valley Alliance, our correspondent says.
Some 800 fighters, using 100 vehicles, have reportedly been involved in three days of battles.
Kismayo is Somalia's third city and an important business centre.
The Jubba Valley Alliance have held the port since 1991, the year Muhammad Siad Barre was ousted as president, and lost it briefly to Gen Morgan in 2001.
Posted on Friday 17th September at 19:25:24 Speaker Of The Interim Parliament In Somalia Elected
The interim Somali parliament elected Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden as its speaker in the second round of voting after none of the 11 candidates won the post by a two third majority, according to the Somali constitution.
Aden won over his rival Sheikh Aden Muhammad Nour at 161 votes for 105 to be by that the first speaker of parliament for the country since the collapse of the regime of Muhammad Seyad Berri in 1991 and the fall of the country into a civil war initiated by warring groups.
After his election, Aden vowed to exert his best efforts and work honestly to continue the reconciliation process among the groups.
The elections of the speaker of parliament which is composed of 275 parliamentarians paved the way before the parliament to chose a president for the country on September 22. A process which will lead to the selection of a prime minister and assigning him to form a central government which will be the first since 13 years. The Interim Somali parliament, takes at the meantime, one quarters of Kenya's capital, Nairobi as a headquarters since security conditions do not permit transferring it to Somalia.
Posted on Thursday 16th September at 19:33:07 Group Of Somali Militia Killed In Port Battle
Mogadishu, Somalia - Gunmen loyal to a Somali warlord and a clan-based faction battled for control of a strategic southern port on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 20 others, witnesses said.
The two sides began fighting using anti-aircraft guns, rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles early Thursday about 100km south-west of the Indian Ocean port of Kismayo, said witnesses reached by two-way radio.
Fighting stopped as night fell, but there were fears that the two sides were regrouping for further clashes, said Siid Ali, a resident.
Gunmen loyal to warlord Mohamed Siad Hersi, better known as General Morgan, battled fighters loyal to the Juba Valley Alliance of clan-based faction leaders and Somali businessmen controlling the port, witnesses said.
Morgan is the only significant faction leader to boycott the peace talks in Kenya, which swore in the speaker of a new national parliament for Somalia on Wednesday. He walked out of the talks in March over a dispute regarding a transitional charter for Somalia.
The election of businessman Shariif Hassan Sheikh Aden brought the Horn of Africa nation a step closer to forming its first central government in 13 years. He spoke on local radio Thursday, appealing to the two sides to stop fighting and solve their difference through dialogue.
The two sides refused to give casualty figures, but medical sources and residents said at least 10 militiamen were killed and more than 20 others were wounded in the fighting.
Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Then they turned on each other, transforming this nation of seven million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.
A transitional government was elected at a peace conference in neighbouring Djibouti in August 2000, but it had little influence outside the capital, Mogadishu. Its mandate expired in August 2003.
The selection of a parliament speaker clears the way for lawmakers to elect a president. Once elected, the president will then nominate a prime minister who will form a government. - Sapa-AP
By Mohammed Olad Hassan
Posted on Thursday 16th September at 19:31:10 Somalis To Elect Crucial Post
The newly inaugurated Somali parliament is due to elect the speaker of the transitional assembly later on Wednesday.
Twelve members of parliament have expressed interest in the position.
The successful candidate will preside over the 275 member national assembly when it elects a Somali president later this month.
Meanwhile, fighting has broken out around the southern port town of Kismayo between General Morgan, the only major warlord outside the peace process and the Juba Valley Alliance.
Details of the clashes remain sketchy but tensions have been high around Kismayo in recent days, as General Morgan's forces advanced.
The peace talks in Nairobi are aimed at forming an effective government in Somalia for the first time in 13 years.
Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991 by warlords who divided up the country.
Ensuing factional fighting led to famine and disease.
After lengthy peace negotiations, rival factions in January agreed in Kenya to sign deal to set up the new parliament.
Posted on Wednesday 15th September at 17:34:04 Trouble Looms As Somalia Elects Parliament Speaker, President
NAIROBI, Sept. 14 (Xinhuanet) Trouble is looming in the newly born Somali Transitional National Assembly which is scheduled to elect a speaker soon.
The Sept. 15 election of a speaker and Sept. 22 election of a president are considered two important steps toward reestablishing a government in the Horn of Africa country.
However, a dispute over who has the right to select representatives from one of the country's clans is threatening to scuttle the peace process with an arbitration committee appointed by the regional mediating body Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Facilitation Committee to resolve differences among the rival clans accusing mediators of interference.
Addressing a news conference in Kenyan capital Nairobi on Tuesday, members of the Somali arbitration committee told mediators to stop interfering with the selection of Somali members of parliament (MPs.)
"We are appealing to the international community to intervene and re-correct the mistakes done by the IGAD Facilitation Committee," said a member of the arbitration committee Abdi Mohammed Ulsso.
Meanwhile, a key Somali presidential hopeful candidate Hussein Farah Aideed has also called for the country's elections of parliament speaker and president put off until contentious issues are resolved.
Aideed said the federal charter guiding the Somalia National Reconciliation Conference is flawed and demanded that it be streamlined before the elections are held.
Aideed claimed that some of the 275 MPs attending the conference, at the Bomas of Kenya, had been picked through bribery.
"It is better to point out the discrepancies in the process, rather than let it collapse as in the previous cases," he told a news conference.
Somali women MPs too have complained that delegates attending the reconciliation conference flouted the National Charter when they failed to adhere to the provision that at least 12 percent of the members be women.
They are planning to move a motion seeking a constitutional amendment to increase the number of seats reserved for women in the assembly.
Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991 when the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled, following which the country plunged into anarchy and factional violence.
Under the auspices of IGAD, which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, the Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in Kenya.
According to a charter signed by delegates at the beginning of this year, each of Somalia's four major clans was allocated 61 seats in the proposed 275 MPs, while an alliance of minority clans would have 31.
Members of Somalia's Transitional National Assembly were sworn in last month in Nairobi, paving the way for an end to the decade-old anarchy and factional violence in the Horn of Africa nation.
The legislature will have a five-year term, however, there is no timetable for when the parliament would return to Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, and begin official duties.
"We need international support to enable us fulfill our objectives and bring about total reconciliation and stability in our country," Somali MP Awad Ahmed Ashara told Xinhua by telephone. Enditem
Posted on Wednesday 15th September at 17:32:36 Africa Landmine Conference Opens Today In Addis Ababa
The second continental conference of African experts on landmines opens today, Wednesday, in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Africa is the most heavily mined continent in the world, with at least 40 million landmines. It is estimated that landmines kill, injure, and disable over 12 thousand people each year in Africa.
For more on the extent of the landmines problem in Africa, English to Africa reporter and Daybreak Africa host James Butty talked with Mary Wareham, global research coordinator for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
She says her organization believes that landmines affect 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Chad, and Egypt. Ms. Wareham says many of the mines in Africa are old and that they were probably laid one or two decades ago. But she says they still pose a serious threat because the life span of a mine is about a generation. Ms. Wareham says Africa is extremely important to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines. She says almost every sub-Saharan African country except Ethiopia and Somalia has ratified the International Treaty Banning Landmines. Ms. Wareham says while Ethiopia has signed the treaty, it has yet to ratify it. She thinks Somalia has not joined the treaty because it does not have a functioning government.
Ms. Wareham says the African Union has been very important as an organizing force in the fight to ban landmines, including advocating for more funding to clear mines and to assist victims of landmines. Ms. Wareham says the Addis Ababa conference is also important because the first review of the International Treaty to Ban Landmines Treaty is due to take place at the end this year in Nairobi, Kenya. She says African countries with landmines must meet certain deadlines in the treaty before the Nairobi conference, including declaring and destroying their stockpile of anti-personnel landmines within four years.
Ms. Wareham says another deadline in the treaty is that governments must remove the landmines within a decade. She says for many African countries with landmines, the deadline is around 2009 or 2010.
James Butty
Posted on Wednesday 15th September at 17:29:39 Somali Lawmakers To Vie For Speaker Position
NAIROBI - Eleven Somali lawmakers will vie for the position of speaker of their newly inaugurated transitional parliament during this week's elections, mediators said.
The 11, who are drawn from five Somali clans, plan to vie for the speaker's seat in the elections scheduled for Wednesday, said an official in the mediation team.
"The new speaker will then preside over the 275-member national assembly when it elects a Somali president on September 22," said the official from the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) that is mediating the two-year-old peace talks in Kenya.
The parliament, sitting in the Kenyan capital instead of the Somali capital Mogadishu due to security concerns, is currently being presided over by Hirsi Bulhan Farah, 83, who was elected early this month on temporary basis.
The parliament was inaugurated on August 22.
No functional parliament or government to speak of has existed in Somalia since 1991, the year dictator Mohammed Siad Barre fled the country in haste amid escalating clan warfare that has ravaged the country ever since.
Posted on Tuesday 14th September at 20:06:21 Djibouti:Ex-PM Turned Rebel Dies
Djibouti - The head of the opposition in Djibouti, former prime minister turned rebel leader throughout the 1990s, Ahmed Dini Ahmed, has died, aged 72, his relatives said on Monday.
President Ismael Omar Guelleh sent his condolences to the family on Monday and said that the small Horn of Africa country had lost "a statesman with great qualities who always knew how to battle for his convictions".
Ahmed Dini, who became Djibouti's first prime minister on independence from France in 1977, died in a military hospital on Sunday after a long illness and was buried the same evening, his cousin Ibrahim Chehem told AFP.
A member of the Afar community in a nation which still hosts a strategic French military base and was once known as the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, Ahmed Dini resigned after six months in office after falling out with president Hassan Gouled Aptidon.
In the early 1990s, he joined the Afar rebel Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD) and became leader of the movement which fought a desert war against Issa domination which emerged soon after independence.
Last rebel leader to lay down arms
By 1992, the government had lost control of northern towns to the FRUD, which it described as a foreign-backed invasion force because of regional ethnic ties. Divided for 10 years between war and exile, Ahmed Dini was the last rebel leader to lay down his arms, in May 2001.
Omar Guelleh, who came to power in a 1999 election after a return to the multiparty system scrapped after independence, said Monday in a statement that "in the name of the nation and my personal name, I would like to express my saddest condolences to the family of Ahmed Dini.
"Djibouti's people lose ... a freedom fighter, a statesman with great qualities who always knew how to battle for his convictions and opinions."
Ahmed Dini had led the opposition during Djibouti's first multiparty general election in January 2003. The opposition did not win a single seat in that poll and subsequently denounced electoral fraud.
Ibrahim Chehem said Ahmed Dini had "open heart surgery two and a half years ago. He was diabetic. His health deteriorated over the past year."
Ahmed Dini's death came less than a year before the next presidential election in Djibouti is due to be held, when Guelleh is entitled to stand for a second mandate
Posted on Tuesday 14th September at 20:03:35 Somalia Expected to Contribute to African Peacekeepers
A spokesman for the former, but little-recognized, Somali government is confident Somalia's new government will uphold a pledge of troops and equipment to the African Union's standby peacekeeping force. Somalia is on record as being one of 13 eastern African countries that earlier this year pledged to contribute peacekeeping troops to the African Standby Force.
Despite Somalia being embroiled in conflict, the then-Transitional National Government's offer to make available 150 troops plus 10 gun-mounted vehicles was well received by the other countries.
A seven-nation regional grouping called the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, known as IGAD, is organizing the 4,500 troop Eastern Africa Standby Brigade that will be available for African Union peacekeeping operations.
IGAD's Conflict Prevention, Management, and Resolution Chief Peter Malwa explains why Somalia's offer was welcomed. "We took it in good faith that here is a country that expresses interest first of all. It rightly belongs within Africa," he says. "Secondly, it [Somalia] was invited by us who are coordinating the structure. We saw it just as a statement of good intent."
The Transitional National Government was formed following a peace process that took place in 2000. The T.N.G., as it is known, was supposed to rule the whole country but was rejected by many, so that it actually only ended up having control over certain sections of the capital, Mogadishu.
According to the terms of the peace process, the T.N.G.'s mandate expired in the middle of 2003. But it continued performing certain government functions.
Mr. Malwa says his organization and the other countries viewed the T.N.G. as being Somalia's legitimate government. It has now been replaced by a new 275-seat parliament that is in the process of selecting a speaker and president.
T.N.G. spokesman Ahmed Isse Awad says he is confident the new government will uphold the promise made earlier this year. "Somalia has been away from the international scene, from the African scene for a long time so this, for them, will be another sign that Somalia is back," he says. "They will be very much willing to contribute."
Mr. Awad says it is important for the new government to be an active member of the African Union and regional initiatives, in part to establish its legitimacy. He calls the troop and vehicle pledge a symbolic gesture. But it is not known where these troops will be drawn from. Mr. Awad adds that Somalia needs outside forces to secure peace in his country.
Somalia has endured 13 years of anarchy and bloodshed, with clan-based factions controlling specific areas of the country.
Cathy Majtenyi
Posted on Tuesday 14th September at 19:59:56 Mission To Uncover City's Somali Success
The Dutch have visited Leicester to find out the why it is proving such an entrepreneurial hotbed for Somalis keen to start up in business.
The Dutch want to reduce the exodus of Somali entrepreneurs from Holland to Leicester.
The six-member delegation attended a showcase day, organised by Leicester and County Co-operative Development Agency (LCCDA) at the African Caribbean Centre.
Among the guests were Trade and Industry Secretary and Leicester West MP Patricia Hewitt and Leicester's Lord Mayor, Coun Piara Singh Clair.
Pierre Heijnen, The Hague's deputy lord mayor, said: "What we have learned is that in Leicester, Somalis feel more free than they did in the Netherlands, especially in business. It is much easier to open a business here in the UK.
"It is really fantastic to see their achievements in the short space of time that they have been here. We have certainly learned a lot from this visit and will be taking it all back to Holland."
Abdi Razak Ashkir, chairman and co-founder of the Leicester Somali Business Association (Lesba), said more and more Somali businesses were opening in the city.
He said: "Last count there were 42 Somali-run businesses set up.
"At the moment, Lesba is helping Somali women set up food and henna businesses."
Recent additions include Mohamed Hashi opening his new furniture and home decoration shop, in Eldon Street. He already runs shops on St Stephens Road and Green Lane Road.
Mohamed Abdalla, 19, has launched an IT company called IT Consulting.
Said Ali Shire, who was recently appointed by Leicester Asian Business Association as the first Somali-speaking business adviser in the country, will be holding seminars to help existing and new entrepreneurs.
Mr Shire said: "The seminars will be a useful way to help tap into entrepreneurs wanting to start a business.
"They will run in both English and Somali."
The sessions begin on September 20, at the Quba centre, in Brunswick Street.
For more information on how to register for the seminar, call Said Ali Shire on 0116 222 9600.
BY ANAS KASAK
Posted on Monday 13th September at 19:04:50 Moscow Backs Efforts To Settle Conflict In Somalia
MOSCOW, September 13 (RIA Novosti) - Moscow backs efforts to settle the conflict in Somalia, reads a statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry information and press department.
On Monday the Russian Foreign Ministry held consultations with Winston Tubman, Head of the United Nations Political Office for Somalia, who is in Moscow. He was received by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and had talks with Deputy Foreign Minister Yuri Fedotov.
During the meeting, the sides stressed that the swearing in of the Somalian transitional federal parliament members that took place in August 2004 in Kenya opened an important chapter of the process of the Somalian settlement. A hope was expressed that this event will give an impetus to multilateral efforts aimed at the soonest stabilization in Somalia.
In this context, the Russian side voiced support of the efforts of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the leaders of African states and the African Union to ensure favorable external conditions to settle the long-lasting conflict in Somalia, render assistance in the sphere of post-conflict restoration and development, and normalize the humanitarian situation.
The Russian Foreign Ministry concluded that Russia as a permanent UN Security Council and as a participant of the IGAD partners' forum will continue to contribute to the achievement of the overwhelming political settlement, restoration of the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia. Moscow is ready to render the necessary assistance to that country as the situation there is stabilizing.
Posted on Monday 13th September at 19:03:59 We've Been Cheated, Say Somalia Women
Somalia women yesterday said there was a plot to under-represent them in the country's transitional federal parliament.
They have written to human rights organisations, the international community and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) member states, asking them to make sure their selection meets the 12 per cent rule.
About 50 of them addressed journalists at Chester House, Nairobi, and accused the factional leaders of denying them fair representation.
According to the reconciliation charter, they are entitled to 33 of the 275 seats, but they have been given only 21, they said in a statement after a two-day meeting, also in Nairobi.
Comprising mainly delegates at the reconciliation talks in the city, they said the clan leaders were overlooking them despite their contribution.
They also accused the Igad facilitation committee of backing the leaders in denying them their right.
The letter, read by Ms Amina Ahmed, proposed that a committee be formed to tackle the matter.
Copyright © 2004 The Nation. All rights reserved.
Posted on Monday 13th September at 19:00:15 Prosperity Hopes As Somalia Prepares to Elect President
With its 37 ports under the control of clan warlords, Somalia is a land where "tax" is only a word in the dictionary. But its Indian Ocean coastline extends for more than 3,000km, much longer than that of South Africa.
Says Mr Hussein Farah Aideed, leader of the faction that controls Mogadishu, the capital: "Historically, no Somali government has controlled more than seven ports, not even Siad Barre's military regime."
He says that Somalia is only second to Iran in terms of goods shipped from the United Arab Emirates' (UAE).
Somali traders are the luckiest in the world as they unload goods at ports and hardly pay tax to the clans manning them. The goods are then sent all the way to Nairobi, Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa - even as far as South Africa.
Mr Aideed adds that, historically, Somalis are traders who control transport in eastern and central Africa, but it is now difficult to install a government in Somalia as Somalis have tasted freedom" in a free-market economy.
Seeking the presidency
Mr Aideed, who is seeking the presidency in the elections later this month, is the chairman of the United Somalia Congress (USC) that includes the Somalia National Alliance faction. The group, he says, has five rotating presidents and controls 85 per cent of the country, including Mogadishu.
The Aideed group, also known as the Somalia Reconstruction and Reconciliation Council, has the goal of democratically seeking dialogue with other factions through mediation by the regional Inter-governmental Authority on Development (Igad).
According to Mr Aideed, at an African Union summit in 2001, his group signed a no-preconditionality principle committing it to working for the creation of an all-inclusive national unity government in Somalia, a country that has been at the mercy of warlords for the last 14 years after Mr Barre was deposed.
The SRRC is democratic and is against militants that want to make Somalia a base for Islamic militants," he explains.
He was a late entrant to the new parliament sworn in Nairobi late last month, and points out that he had to wait for clearance from his faction before being sworn in as an MP.
Even after taking the oath, he tells of serious mismanagement of the Somali peace process by Igad, which he claims has violated rules set by a transitional charter that spells out how MPs should be selected. He tells of a case in which men have taken up women's seats in parliament.
The transition charter says that, of the 275 members of Parliament, 12 per cent shall be women. However, says Mr Aideed, only 20 women have been sworn in, representing just over 7 per cent.
At the same time, an arbitration council set up by the clans has received complaints from 55 other people who claim that they were denied the right to be MPs.
Mr Aideed blames the wrangling on the fact that the regional government appointed people with vested interests in Somalia to preside over the talks.
Kenya is represented by Mr Mohamed Affey, while Mr Abdul Aziz represents Ethiopia. Djibouti has since removed its envoy and redeployed him to Paris to avoid wrangling.
Mr Aideed says that the chairman of the talks, Kenya's Mr Bethuel Kiplagat, is balanced in his decisions, while the Somali envoys are biased. He blames a decision by Mr Kalonzo Musyoka, when he was Foreign minister, to appoint Mr Affey, Kenya's ambassador to Somalia while, he claims, he had interests to protect in Somalia.
Mr Aideed says non-Somali Kenyans would be more suited for the job. The clans that have seats in the Somali national assembly are Digil Mirifle, Darood, Dir and Hawiye, with 61 seats each. A fifth clan of farmers and fishermen has 31. Unlike the other clans, this group is not nomadic, and lives between Rivers Juba and Shabele, where they grow bananas.
Says Mr Aideed: In order to have good democracy, you have to empower the farmers and fishermen, as the nomadic clans and the farmers have always fought for control of the resources, foremost being the ports of Kismayu, Mogadishu, Bosaso, Berbera, Marka and Elmaan.
Berbera, one of the most prominent Somali ports, was built by the British colonialists, but was taken over by the Russians in 1961, and by the Americans in 1979.
Somalia, a land of changing fortunes, is never still. It had its last constitutional government in 1969 when President Abdurashid Ali Shamake was killed by his bodyguards. The army, led by Mr Barre, took over until 1991 when the clans came in. But the clan wars were there even during the Barre dictatorship.
Despite the clan warfare, the economy has improved more in the last 10 years, and so have health and education, than during the 31 years that it had a government. Schools are run privately.
The Somalis currently have a choice of 15 television stations, 20 mobile phone companies that serve a very vibrant market where it costs only between Sh560 and Sh960 to call for a whole month.
There are 3 million Somalis abroad constantly calling home and transferring money through the phone service run by the clans.
The Somalis operate in a unique system where sharing resources is the norm. Wages for civil servants, including the police, may be in the form of food, not always money.
Meanwhile, in Nairobi, Somali MPs are to elect the chairman and vice-chairman of parliament on Wednesday before electing the president on September 22.
Besides Mr Aideed, other presidential candidates include the leader of the Transitional National Government, Mr Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, Puntland administration president Abdulahi Yussuf, Mr Jama Ali Jama, also from Puntland, Mr Musa Sudi Yalahow of National Salvation Council and several former members of the Barre regime, among them Mr Abdulahi Addow, a son-in-law of the former president, and Mr Abdurahman Jamaa Barre, Mr Barre's half-brother who was his Foreign minister.
The former Barre men have not been home for the last 14 years, but are said to be armed with wads of cash they allegedly looted when they presided over the country's finances.
Some of the presidential candidates are backed by Arab League countries and the radical Al Isll Al Ittihad factions of Islam.
Says Mr Aideed: Islamic militants run schools and a lot of businesses in Somalia and want to control the country."
Besides the elections, the Igad foreign ministers are to meet in Nairobi on Wednesday to review the progress of the peace process.
Mr Aideed has called on the Igad chairman, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, to help solve the women's issue and ensure they get their rightful share in the parliamentary seats allocation.
Once the elections are over, Igad will hand over to the Africa Union and the UN. The AU is to provide a peace force once the more than 60,000 militias are disarmed.
A cabinet will also be created, and so will a civil service and a police force. There will also be the repatriation of refugees from as far-flung places as Australia.
Currently, Somalia has 275 MPs who have not reconciled. Says Mr Aideed: To solve all this, we have to go on the ground and do a five-year transitional programme."
The new government is to move to Mogadishu once all its departments are up and running, a process that could take another two months. If all goes well, there should be a new government before the end of the year.
But still, one warlord, Gen Mohamed Hersi "Morgan", is currently advancing with troops towards the Somali port of Kismayu. This is simply the first test for the new government. What the world is sure of is that the US and the UN will this time keep off Somalia, remembering the debacle of the early 1990s, the last time they tried to restore law and order in Horn of Africa country.
As Mr Aideed says, African peacekeepers are the only ones welcome in Somalia this time. If they fail, this country that offers a perfect playing ground for terror groups, will have been lost forever to the various warlords who police the towns and sea and airports.
Copyright © 2004 The Nation. All rights reserved
Posted on Monday 13th September at 18:59:18 Help Rebuild Somalia, Urges New President
DUBAI — Having pledged to restore peace in war-torn Somalia, the country's presidential candidate has urged the Arab and the Muslim world as well as Europe and America to participate in the reconstruction of Somalia.
Abdullah Yousif Ahmed, who will be Somalia's first civilian president since the overthrow of the central government nearly 14 years ago, on a recent visit to the UAE, is expected to be elected and sworn in on September 22, following a decision by the new parliament in Nairobi.
In an exclusive interview with Khaleej Times, Mr Ahmed explained that there was an urgent need for international help to bring peace and re-establish infrastructure in the strife-torn country.
“Many Arab and Islamic countries are prepared to contribute to the reconstruction of Somalia," he said, adding that these countries also included the UAE, whose foreign ministry had invited him to discuss the possibility of granting aid to help the country overcome the ravages of 14 years of civil war.
He paid rich tributes to the President, His Highness Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, and hailed his wisdom and excellent political stability that would serve as an example for Somalia to emulate.
Speaking about current situation, Mr Ahmed said that during the Socialist and Communist regime of Saeed Barrie, civil war started and is still continuing in some parts of the country.
“Since then many attempts were made to organise the central government, but they failed and the Puntland region, located in the North-western part of Somalia, decided to declare itself autonomous, until a federal government was established.”
Mr Ahmed was elected as President of Puntland region, while he was member of the Reconstruction and Reconciliation Council and made serious attempts to create a federal government, that was finally achieved.
When asked about the status of the Puntland region after the formation of the new federation, Mr Ahmed said that it would remain with the Transitional National Federal Government (TNFG). The election would take place in Nairobi, Kenya on December 22, since Somalia is still not peaceful and Magdeshu is still fully armed and being controlled by opposing factions.
According to Mr Ahmed, the Transitional Federal parliament consists of 275 members including three clans from Somali Lands who will elect the Speaker and Deputy Speakers on September 15 in Kenya. The speakers are expected to spearhead the process through the final stages of a “return to peace” process in the war-torn “Horn of Africa” state. On the same day, the Prime Minister will be appointed and the new government will be formed and the police and military, security forces established.
The new Somali President stressed that after the elections, his government would be prepared to negotiate with faction leaders — especially those in Mogadishu who have some support. The government would also work in disarming the militants in all the regions and persuade faction leaders to give up their power to maintain security, he added.
On plans to fight terrorism in the country, he said: “Since Somalia was included in the terrorist list of the UN Security Council (UNSC), the government will prioritise the issue. Terrorists are using Somalia as a hunting ground because there’s no central government to oppose them.”
Highlighting his future course of action, he said that the ban imposed on Somalis and the export of Somali livestock in many countries, including the UAE, would be lifted with the establishment of the new government.
The government would also establish friendship ties with its neighbouring countries as it needs their contribution in the building of a new Somalia, he said, adding that the government would also pave the way for the Somali expatriates in other countries by providing them with jobs and training them so that they could get back home and enrich the country.
He pointed out that the comprehensive development programme, which was prepared by the government, had been accepted by international organisations including the Arab League, the European Union and the United Nations. He pointed out that the new National Federal Government of Somalia had already gained public support from the United Nations, the European Union and the Arab League.
Yousif Mohammed Ismail, Advisor to the President, said that the landmark resolution, which is part of a comprehensive roadmap, would be laid out by the TNFG on its first business day in Kenya.
“Some observers believe that Mr Ahmed has more of a chance of success than his predecessors during the 14 previous attempts to restore the central government," he said.
“Having been the President of the Puntland region, which declared itself autonomous recently, it remains to be seen how successful he will be. But for the moment, Somalia is hopeful since the new President represents the best hope for peace for a long time,” he said.
BY AFKAR ABDULLA
© 2004 Khaleej Times All Rights Reserved.
Posted on Monday 13th September at 18:58:22 Teen Arrested In Somali Elder Killing
Minneapolis, MN, Sep. 11 (UPI) -- A 15-year-old boy, who name is not being made public, has been arrested for the alleged beating death of a Somali elder in Minneapolis.
Abdillahi Dalmar-Ali, 61, was found lying on a street Aug. 27. He died the next day and police said he might have been walking to a supermarket when he was beaten during what they believe was a robbery, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Saturday.
Dalmar-Ali's suffered broken ribs, a fractured skull and damage to his throat, according to police.
A retired accountant, who also had lived in South America, and spoke Arabic, Dutch, Somali and English, had moved from New York City to Minneapolis last year.
Some leaders in the Somali community had said that they fear the killing was a hate crime -- the death of another Somali man beaten nearly three years ago hasn't been solved.
Posted on Saturday 11th September at 14:25:20 Somali Warlord 'To Rejoin Talks'
A Somali warlord, whose advance had raised fears of renewed violence, has agreed to rejoin peace talks in Kenya, regional mediators say.
General Morgan has agreed to end his forces' move towards the port town of Kismayo after mediators settled his debts at a five-star hotel, they say.
The bill was run up in Kenya, before he left the talks last month, to become the only major warlord not in Kenya.
Somalia has been without a national government for 13 years.
Rival factions have been battling for territory and control of strategic locations, such as ports.
Air taxi
The warlord, whose full name is Mohammed Hersi Si'iid Hersi, was nicknamed the Butcher of Hargeisa, after being accused of murdering scores of innocent civilians during fighting in the Somaliland capital.
The head of the regional mediation team, Kenya's Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat, said he would send a plane to take Gen Morgan to Kenya, if he revealed his location and found a suitable landing place.
The mediators from the regional body, Igad, had threatened sanctions against Gen Morgan, if he remained outside the peace process.
However, the head of the Juba Valley Alliance, which was being threatened by Gen Morgan, Barre Hiiraale, is still reported to be in Somalia, marshalling his troops in case of attack.
Mr Hiiraale says he is still committed to the Kenyan peace process.
The new parliament, inaugurated at the Kenyan talks, will meet next week to elect its speaker, officials say.
Its next job will be to elect a president.
Posted on Friday 10th September at 19:15:59 Somalia's New Government Lifts Business Hopes
NAIROBI, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Businessman Sharif Ahmed hopes Mogadishu's men with guns can soon be replaced by men in suits and that the city's machinegun mounted pick-up trucks will yield to cargo vans filled with goods bound for market.
His hopes hinge on the creation of a Somali parliament, formed in Nairobi, Kenya last month after marathon peace talks to end 13 years of clan warfare in the world's only country without a central government.
The parliament, sitting in Kenya due to insecurity at home, is expected to elect a president on Sept. 22 and return within weeks to Mogadishu, the capital of about one million people, roamed by an estimated 60,000 heavily armed gunmen.
"If the new government can succeed in bringing peace with them it will be a huge boost to business in the country," said Ahmed, chairman of the Dubai-based Somali Business Council.
Peace will be slow to take root in Somalia, which has no formal system of justice and where frequent clan disputes are often settled by the bullet.
Fighting between rival clans since the overthrow of military ruler Mohammed Siad Barre in 1991 has carved the Horn of Africa country into fiefdoms ruled by quarrelling warlords.
Clashes and war-induced famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people and Mogadishu's streets are littered with rubble and walled by shattered, bullet-ridden buildings.
Somalia is so damaged that it is largely absent from U.N. development rankings. The returning government has yet to find offices.
FLOURISHING IN CHAOS
In the power vacuum since 1991, the private sector has propped up the country's wounded economy, with some businesses flourishing despite the chaos.
Scores of telecommunications operators link Somalia to the outside world and the lack of any official banking system opened a huge market for companies transferring money between Somalis and their relatives abroad.
Somalia's business leaders agreed at a meeting in Nairobi last week to open a Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which founders said could be launched within weeks to help the new government rebuild and secure the country.
Nervous that the new government may embark on a nationalisation campaign that would crush private enterprise, business leaders will instead push for a free-market economy.
"The new government must implement free-market policies and not go back to owning hotels, bus companies, farms and so on," said Abdi Mohamed Sabrie, a director at NationLink, a leading Somali telecommunications company.
"We need to put businesses into Somali hands, allow joint ventures and even foreign investors," added Sabrie, who is on the committee to create the Chamber of Commerce.
Ahmed is already a major shareholder in a Coca Cola bottling plant that opened in Mogadishu in July, giving residents hope that the return of the world's largest soft drink company after a 15-year absence was a sign of a gradual return to normality.
Security however, remains the biggest issue for the fledgling government, ordinary citizens and businesses that currently pay for swarms of armed guards and escorts.
"Right now, our biggest expense is paying for security, so if the government can provide that, everyone will happily pay taxes," Ahmed told Reuters by phone from France on Thursday, adding that while clan divisions linger, they could be overcome.
"Ten years ago, everybody was fighting, but now most people want peace and it's only a small group serving their own interests who do not want peace," he said, while still acknowledging the potential threat to progress.
"If the government does not end the fighting, this whole thing will be back to zero," he warned.
Source: Reuters
By Finbarr O'Reilly
Posted on Thursday 9th September at 19:32:45 Somaliland Editor Freed; Paper Deplores Repression
afrol News, 8 September - Chief editor Hassan Said Yusuf of Somaliland's leading independent newspaper, 'Jamhuuriya', yesterday was released on bail despite his protests. Meanwhile, 'Jamhuuriya' editors express concern over the "repressive tendencies" that mark the regime of democratically elected President Dahir Riyale Kahin. Many see Somaliland slipping into repression.
'Jamhuuriya' correspondent in Oslo, Ahmed Awed Ismail, told afrol News that his newspaper's chief editor, Mr Yusuf, had been released on bail by Hargeisa police. Mr Yusuf had protested the decision and demanded an unconditional release as charges against him were "unconstitutional".
New information released by 'Jamhuuriya' about the midnight arrest of Mr Yusuf from his office also holds that the police action was "extremely heavy-handed and violent." Members of the police force that brought him to court had "stopped him in the middle of the dry-bed river and threatened him saying, 'We can cut your throat and leave you here'," according to the daily newspaper.
Somaliland authorities cited a first-page article on 'Jamhuuriya' some days earlier as the reason for Mr Yusuf's arrest, claiming that the article was not balanced. Quoting a Somali freelance journalist in Nairobi, 'Jamhuuriya' had published an interview with some of the warlords that are attending the Somali Peace Conference, where Somaliland refuses to participate due to its secession from Somalia.
In the published interview, Hussein Aideed - one of the warlords from Mogadishu - is quoted to be worrying about the Somaliland opposition party's hard stand towards the yet-to-be-established Somali government. The same is reported to have been said by Abdillahi Yusuf, the strongman of Somalia's autonomous region Puntland. The two faction leaders are said to be especially worrying about the tough stand of Kulmiye's Chairman, Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud's, leading Somaliland's main opposition party.
According to the interview published in 'Jamhuuriya', these two Somali warlords said that the Somaliland government's position regarding the Somali Peace Conference is soft; meaning they are in favour and cooperative. It is the Kulmiye opposition they fear, the freelance journalist in Nairobi reported. Puntland leader Yusuf goes as far as saying that Somaliland's stand will ultimately depend on the decisions of Mr Mohamoud and his Kulmiye party.
Somaliland's Interior Minister Ismail Adan earlier this week confirmed to afrol News that the 'Jamhuuriya' editor indeed had been arrested over this report, further indicating that the arrest orders had come from government. The Somaliland government had considered the story as "inciting people against the government," he said, further commenting the story was all "a blatant lie and the truth is quite the opposite."
As Mr Yusuf is now freed on bail, 'Jamhuuriya' and many Somlilanders are concerned about the "repressive tendencies" the regime of President Kahin has been developing ever since he was democratically elected by the general public on April last year. Mr Yusuf, for example, has now been arrested 15 times by Hargeisa police. The government is not only attacking the press, but also other democratic institutions.
- Earlier in July this year, public meetings by the opposition parties and the civil society have been outlawed, the Oslo representative of 'Jamhuuriya' told afrol News. "The press and speech freedom are increasingly being curbed and controlled. The government is particularly itchy about the Nairobi meetings, allegedly because some elements in the Somaliland government have clandestine contacts with the Southern Somali warlords in Nairobi," Mr Ismail adds.
Also the Hargeisa police is becoming increasing heavy-handed and violent, the 'Jamhuuriya' correspondent said. "The mid-night operation of the police is well-known terror inflicting tactics which the present regime inherited from the despot Siyad Barre, who drove Somalia to the gutter after some 30 years of dictatorial rule."
The concerns of the 'Jamhuuriya' editorial team are shared by wide parts of the Somaliland society, including government representatives. Hargeisa officials afrol News have been in contact with regret the "negative tendencies threatening democracy in Somaliland" and wish to remain anonymous.
The Kulmiye opposition party however clearly protests these developments. "After the presidential election, it has become the usual trend to take steps towards dictatorship and the destruction of democracy, instead of selling our achievements to the international community," the party said in a statement released earlier this week, referring to Somaliland's efforts to sell its democratic gains to achieve recognition of its independence.
'Jamhuuriya' also quotes strong statements from all parts of civil society condemning the arrest of Mr Yusuf in a recently published article. The Somaliland Journalists Association saw the arrest as "undemocratic and a violation of the individual right." The National Human Rights Network said it had observed that rights violation had been on the increase for the last six months and warned that if such practice continues, "it will be doubtful that fair elections will be held next year."
Next year's parliamentary elections are meant to finalise the establishment of democratic institutions in Somaliland. The yet-to-be-recognised country hopes that its peace, stability, democracy and respect of human rights will lead to recognition by the international society. Many fear that the Hargeisa government is increasingly running out of such arguments, however.
By Rainer Chr. Hennig
Posted on Thursday 9th September at 19:31:57 £10,000 To Snare Killer
POLICE are offering a £10,000 reward to snare a teenager's killer.
A masked gunman shot Nureni Sheikh, of Carlyle Road, Manor Park, three times in the upper body.
The attack happened as Nureni, his uncle and another relative stood outside a cafe in Moss Side, Manchester, on January 10.
Two balaclava-clad thugs, one brandishing a gun, approached.
Nureni, who had earlier left an engagement party in the city, asked why he was being targeted.
Struggled
The 19-year-old, who had studied IT and Electrical Engineering at Newham College, East Ham, struggled with the pair.
The teenager again asked his attackers why he was being targeted. A few seconds later he was shot.
Det Chief Insp John Dineen said: "The reward is offered to anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of Nureni's killer.
"I appeal to anyone with information to contact the incident room on 0161 856 9280 or Crimestoppers, anonymously on 0800 555111."
The detective said the killing appeared motiveless and could be a case of mistaken identity.
He asked those who knew who was responsible to ask what they could do to rid themselves of the shame of knowing and doing nothing.
Nureni, originally from Somalia, moved to England with members of his family ten years ago.
Shortly after they arrived his father was shot dead during the civil unrest in the East African country.
Nureni lived with his mother, three sisters and one brother,
Posted on Wednesday 8th September at 19:33:13 Dutch Leaders Visit Somali Community
Community leaders from Holland are visiting Leicester to find out why so many Somali business people choose to settle in the city.
The Hague's deputy lord mayor, alderman of education and director of social care will arrive on a three-day visit tomorrow.
Leicester and County Co-operative Development Agency (LCCDA) which is hosting the visit has been helping Somali entrepreneurs set up their own businesses.
There are around 15,000 Somali people in Leicester and official figures show that almost 50 Somali companies have been created in the city over the past four years.
The Dutch group will visit schools, colleges, Somali social enterprises, Somali families and a study club.
Somali companies will also be showcased at the African Caribbean Centre in Highfields on Friday, where Somalis will talk about their experiences of settling in England.
Guests will include trade and industry secretary and Leicester West MP Patricia Hewitt and Leicester's Lord Mayor, Coun Piara Singh Clair. For more details call LCCDA on 0116 222 5010.
Posted on Wednesday 8th September at 19:31:22 New Parliament Amidst Enormous Challenges
The swearing-in of Somalia's transitional parliament on 22 August in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, and the first meeting of the MPs days later may have gone smoothly, but the real challenges facing the war-ravaged Horn of Africa country have just begun, analysts say.
"History is littered with dishonoured Somali peace accords. In fact, no major international peace initiative for Somalia has ever failed to produce one," Matt Bryden, an analyst for the International Crisis Group (ICG) said. "Only time will tell whether, this time, Somalia's leaders are prepared to show genuine leadership in placing their country on the path to recovery."
Indeed, hardly had the ink dried on last month's agreement than one faction leader threatened to derail the peace process, which is being facilitated by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a subregional organisation.
Gen Muhammad Sa'id Hersi "Morgan", who is opposed to the talks, reportedly moved his troops into a position to attack the southern port of Kismayo.
The IGAD Facilitation Committee, which is mediating the talks, on Monday condemned Morgan's plans. But another faction leader, Col Barre Adan Shire Hirale, whose militia controls Kismayo, 500 km south of the capital, Mogadishu, claimed Morgan was receiving support from the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. A spokesman for the Puntland administration dismissed the claim as "baseless".
Another group, the Madhibaan Supreme Council, had also complained on 23 August that some clans like the Madhibaan and Midgan had been excluded from the peace conference.
"This is conspiracy...implemented and tolerated to hinder our legitimate struggle and to stop the truth from becoming public knowledge [and] to oppress our people with the full consent of the representatives of the official bodies," Yassin Hersi Jama, member of the Madhibaan Supreme Council, said in a statement.
IGAD insists however that the process is going well. It expects a new president to be elected on 22 September, and thereafter the business of reestablishing the collapsed state to get into top gear.
According to Bryden, the new authority will have an enormous task to consolidate and monitor a comprehensive ceasefire, control heavy weapons, demobilise militia groups and form a new police and military force. It also needs to sort out the sharing of internal revenues, among other issues.
"One of the most sensitive challenges confronting the transitional leadership will be the question of [the self-declared republic] Somaliland, whose administration has been unrepresented at the peace talks and whose demands for independent statehood are yet to be addressed," Bryden said.
Other analysts are more optimistic. "The power [of the swearing-in] is more in the symbolism. It is an important symbol of the possibilities - a sign that all is not lost. It has the potential to be a catalyst, to rally Somalis to an opportunity that could heal their country," a Nairobi-based political analyst told IRIN
"One of the biggest developments over the last few years is the cleavage that has arisen between the leaders who came to Nairobi [to attend the reconciliation talks] and those who remained behind," the analyst added. "If we can get a meeting of the minds between the Nairobi, the Arta group and those who remained behind, it can be done."
In 2000, a conference in the Djibouti city of Arta led to the establishment of the Transitional National Government (TNG) and other institutions - an interim arrangement that was expected to last three years. But the TNG never consolidated power much beyond certain areas of Mogadishu and the south. Eventually the interim period passed, but the TNG stayed in power.
However an African diplomat who has been following the talks said there was still reluctance" among the delegates to return to Mogadishu. "The talks could have lasted a shorter time, but some of the delegates clearly prefer to stay longer in Nairobi," he told IRIN.
"The will to tackle Somalia's problems head-on is still lacking. This could create problems for the [peace]process in future. Compounded with a complete lack of resources to resuscitate the failed Somali state, this road ahead remains bumpy," the diplomat added.
Femi Badejo, senior political affairs officer at the United Nations Political Office for Somalia, feels the peace process now stands a better chance of succeeding. "The chances of it working this time are higher than before," he told IRIN. "A significant first is that Somalia's neighbours are closely working on this. If this continues, they will be on the ground to nurture any fledgling administration."
"It is expected that there will be individuals or groups who will be unhappy, [but] people are trying to work out whatever problems are outstanding," he added.
The Kenyan regional cooperation minister, John Koech, who is the new chairman of the IGAD mediating committee, told IRIN he expected the entire process of setting up the Somali interim government to be completed smoothly.
IGAD ministers, he said, expected to meet in Nairobi shortly to inaugurate the Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic. "Some cases are still in dispute and we asking them to expedite the process of selecting their representatives," Koech told IRIN.
Among the Somali leaders in Nairobi, the creation of a new parliament was generally welcomed. "It was a significant, positive step toward establishing peace and stability in Somalia. Those clans that have not named their representatives should do so to successfully end these long and tortuous talks," Asha Haji Ilmi, a women rights activist and the only woman co-chair in the final phase of the talks, as well as a newly sworn MP, told IRIN.
Asha however expressed disappointment that some clans did not name their quota of women representatives, who, according to the interim charter, should be 12 percent of the total number of MPs.
"The 12 percent figure must be met. It is not discretionary. It is constitutional and the clans must respect it," Asha, who represents the Hawiye subclan of Habar Gedir, said. "We must not start flouting the charter now, we have to stick to the letter and spirit of it."
Hassan Abdi "Jabahad", a new MP from the Darod subclan of Absame, told IRIN it was a "very positive step, which reignites a new sense of hope in the Somali" people. He said he was optimistic that those clans who had not named their representatives would "do so within the next few days", adding that "there are some minor differences among the subclans that did not submit their MPs, and I am confident they will sort them out."
Isak Muhammad "Daqare", who represents the Digil and Mirifle clans, told IRIN that the swearing-in ceremony was "a victory for the Somali people and those who wish the Somalis well." He said that it took almost two years to get here, but "now we should move very quickly to name the remaining MPs and start the process of electing a speaker to preside over the election of a president".
Ahmed Awad Ashara, the spokesman of the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, whose Harti subclan of the Darod delayed to name its MPs, however, threatened to pull out of the process, accusing the IGAD Facilitation Committee of bias. But a source close to the talks told IRIN the list was delayed because "other Harti leaders had contested it". The MPs were later sworn in.
Other sources told IRIN that any clans threatening to withdraw were likely to come under immense pressure "to stay the course". As a sign of international interest in the peace process, the United States and France said they had been encouraged by the swearing-in, but urged the Somalis to swear in the rest of the MPs.
"After 13 years, the possibility of re-establishing a government in Somalia may finally be on the horizon. We call on all Somali participants to approach this process with sustained commitment, honesty and goodwill," the US said in a statement after the swearing-in.
In Somalia, media reports said the president of the TNG, Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, had deliberately refused to attend the swearing-in. But a source close to the president told IRIN that he supported the talks.
"The President is still on board and he is fully committed to the successful conclusion of the talks, rumors notwithstanding," the source said.
Badejo said the president was not required to attend the ceremony. "He is not an elected MP," he told IRIN. "He is the president, therefore he can attend later ceremonies."
Each of Somalia's four major clans has been allocated 61 seats in the proposed parliament, while an alliance of minority clans was awarded 31. A speaker and two deputy-speakers to be elected from among the MPs on 15 September, who will preside over the election of the president on 22 September. The new president will in turn appoint a prime minister to form a government.
The Somali National Reconciliation Conference was initiated by IGAD in October 2002 in Eldoret, Kenya. The subregional body, which includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda as well as Somalia, moved the talks to Nairobi in February 2003. The inauguration of the transitional parliament marked a high point in the process.
After a new government has been installed, IGAD wants to return the process to Mogadishu. It also intends to seek international help to kick-start the new Somali state, including sending foreign ministers of neighbouring states to address the UN Security Council in coming weeks to request international assistance for reconstruction.
But analysts repeat the challenges ahead are great. "The real challenge for Somalia's interim leaders will be to persuade, not the international community, but their own people, of their determination to complete the transitional period and hand over power to a duly elected, representative and legitimate Somali government," Bryden said.
"That is a better place to fix "the finish line" than the end of the current round of talks; but if and when the transitional period draws to a close a new set of challenges emerges, the finish line will once again move just over the horizon, out of sight," he added.
Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Posted on Wednesday 8th September at 19:28:38 Kismayo Port City Calm But Tense
Somalia's southern port city of Kismayo was calm but tense on Wednesday as fears grew that forces loyal to one of the Somali faction leaders, Gen Muhammad Sa'id Hersi "Morgan", could come closer to the city, currently controlled by another faction, the Juba Valley Alliance (JVA), local sources told IRIN.
Bethuel Kiplagat, the chief mediator in the ongoing Somali peace talks in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, however, told IRIN that he had had reports that Morgan had not yet started moving his forces towards Kismayo.
"He is not moving. He remains where he was and efforts are being to dissuade him from approaching the city," Kiplagat said.
A local businessman in the city who asked not to be named said: "The town is calm but tense. Most people are going about their business, but the feeling of a town on a war-footing is there." He added that there were fewer militiamen visible in the city centre.
Kiplagat had told IRIN on Monday that the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the subregional organisation under whose auspices the Somali peace process is being conducted, would impose a travel ban on Morgan and consider pressing charges against him at the International Criminal Court, if he made good his threat to attack Kismayo.
Morgan boycotted the Somali reconciliation conference that has already established a transitional federal parliament for the strife-torn Horn of Africa country, ahead of the expected formation of a broad-based government.
A senior JVA official in Kismayo, Abdullahi Shaykh Isma'il "Fartaag", told IRIN that "there was no panic" in the city and "everything was going on normally". He, however, added that the JVA forces "were on alert and in defensive positions in and around Kismayo".
Fartaag said their information was that Morgan's "main forces are concentrated in and around the town of Bu'ale [210 km northwest of Kismayo]".
"This is less than 60 km from our forward positions, and if he attacks them we will defend," he stressed.
The JVA seized Kismayo, Somalia's third largest city, from Morgan's forces in June 1999. Since losing the city, Morgan has made several unsuccessful attempts to regain control.
Somalia has been without an effective government since the overthrow of the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre in 1991. The country was torn apart by factional violence as rival warlords and their militias fought to curve out their own fiefdoms in the country's cities and the countryside.
The new transitional parliament is due to meet on 15 September to elect a speaker and on 22 September to elect a new Somali president. The president will then name a prime minister who will form a new government in the capital, Mogadishu.
Copyright © 2004 UN Integrated Regional Information Networks.
Posted on Wednesday 8th September at 19:27:28 Include Morgan, Aideed Demands
Somalia presidential candidate Hussein Farah Aideed has called for the inclusion of General Morgan, another faction leader, in the new-look transitional parliament.
"The imposition of candidates or selection through bribery will be counter-productive. Excluding Morgan from the peace process won't help anyone," said Aideed.
The Somalia leader made the call yesterday while addressing a news conference at Chester House, Nairobi.
He noted that Morgan is a very "efficient" general who commands a large following in his fiefdom and that anyone could ignore him at their own peril.
Aideed alleged that certain names of people fronted by Morgan's faction for nomination to the new parliament were substituted with those from other factions with the intention of derailing the peace process.
He said he fully supported the ongoing peace process in Nairobi and appealed for more international aid to help the delegates complete their work.
Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard.
Posted on Tuesday 7th September at 19:43:56 Igad Team Warns Somali Warlord On Activities
Somali warlord General Mohamed Hersi, alias Gen Morgan, and his associates risk a travel ban to neighbouring countries for their activities that are not in the interest of peace in the war-torn country.
The warning was issued yesterday by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (Igad) facilitation committee.
"General Morgan has opted to stay away from the peace process despite repeated calls on him to rejoin other Somali leaders in shaping the destiny of his country," said the committee.
"We urge him to immediately halt aggression in his homeland and rejoin the peace process going on in Nairobi," said the committee chairman and Kenya's Minister for East African and Regional Co-operation, Mr John Koech.
Koech said the committee was aware that General Morgan was advancing with troops towards Kismayu town in Somalia.
He warned the warlord that his failure to heed the Igad committee call would leave the Eastern African states and the international community no choice but to institute the travel ban.
The minister, at the same time, urged Somali leaders engaged in the peace process to ignore his activities.
Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard.
Posted on Tuesday 7th September at 19:42:38 Watchdog Demands Release Of Editor Detained In Somaliland
NAIROBI, 6 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - A US-based press freedom watchdog has urged authorities in Somaliland, the self-declared republic in northwestern Somalia, to release the editor-in-chief of two newspapers arrested at the end of last month.
New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that Hassan Said Yusuf, the editor-in-chief of the independent Somali-language daily, Jamhuuriya, and its weekly English-language edition, The Republican, was picked up from his office in Hargeisa, Somaliland's capital, on 31 August.
CPJ quoted local sources as saying that Yusuf's colleagues had by 2 September not been allowed to visit him.
"His arrest stemmed from a news article published in Jamhuuriya on August 30 about the Somaliland government's stance on peace talks in Kenya," CPJ said in a statement.
The Somaliland administration refused to take part in the reconciliation conference in Nairobi aimed at ending factional warfare in the rest of Somalia, which has been without a government since the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled in 1991.
"Arresting a journalist over a news story is unacceptable," said Ann Cooper, CPJ's executive director. "We call on Somaliland authorities to ensure Hassan Said Yusuf's immediate, unconditional release, and to ensure that journalists in Somaliland are free to report on matters of public concern without fear of government reprisal," she added.
The article published in Jamhuuriya suggested that Somaliland's main opposition party, Kulmiye, took a harder stance against participating in the peace talks than Somaliland's government, CPJ quoted local sources as saying.
"It is unclear whether Yusuf has been formally charged. His arrest has been condemned by local press freedom organizations, including the Somali Journalists Network (SOJON) and the Press Freedom Violation Monitors," the watchdog said.
It said that Yusuf and other journalists working for Jamhuuriya have been targeted by Somaliland authorities before.
In October 2003, police detained Yusuf for nine hours in Hargeisa accusing him of publishing information that was "not good for the government." In February 2004, two reporters working for Jamhuuriya at the Somaliland Supreme Court were arrested when covering the trial of a prominent traditional elder accused of destabilizing Somaliland.
The two journalists were held for four hours before being released without charge, according to local journalists' organisations.
Posted on Monday 6th September at 19:52:14 Militia Advances On Somali Port
Residents in the southern Somali port of Kismayo are reported to be nervous that forces loyal to warlord General Morgan are planning an assault.
At least 50 of General Morgan's heavily armed vehicles are reported nearby.
The advance is being resisted by the Juba Valley Alliance militia, and there were reports of skirmishes outside the town on Sunday.
General Morgan has refused to join the latest Somali peace talks, or take up a seat in the planned transitional parliament set up in Kenya last month.
Fertile region
The warlord, whose full name is Mohammed Hersi Si'iid Hersi, was nicknamed the Butcher of Hargeisa, after being accused of murdering scores of innocent civilians during fighting in the Somaliland capital.
He is the only major militia leader to refuse to participate in the peace process.
Somalia has been without a central government since early 1991, when the Somali government of the late military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre collapsed.
General Morgan, his son-in-law, has in the past received support from neighbouring Ethiopia.
This will be the second time in three years that the warlord has tried to take Kismayo.
During his last attempt his forces were swiftly beaten back but not before many people were killed.
Kismayo would be a rich prize for the militia leader. It has a port close to the Kenyan border and its main town is in a fertile agricultural area.
Observers speculate that this is General Morgan's attempt to destabilise the fledgling parliament and to establish himself as a force still to be reckoned with.
Influential warlord Hussein Aideed, who is part of the peace deal reached in Kenya, has called for his inclusion.
At the weekend, the regional body Igad, warned General Morgan that he would be punished if he did not stop his military activities, threatening him with being brought before the International Criminal Court if he crosses into the territory of Igad member states.
Igad envoys are meeting on Monday at the Somali peace talks in Nairobi to discuss General Morgan's military activities.
Posted on Monday 6th September at 20:11:03 Militias Haunt Somalia's Peace
NAIROBI: As Somalia inches closer to peace, a new parliament, which sat in neighbouring Kenya this week, is faced with a daunting task of disarming the marauding militias, responsible for the chaos in the Horn of African nation.
Somalia, a former Italian colony, has been engulfed in a civil war for the past 13 years, resulting into an influx of small arms such as AK-47 assault weapons from neighbouring countries.
"Without disarmament, things will be very difficult. The peace will be jeopardized. This process has to be done throughout the country, from corner to corner. No loopholes should be left," Ali Basha, a member of parliament, told IPS.
The historic event held at Bomas of Kenya, a cultural complex in the outskirts of Nairobi, witnessed 261 parliamentarians elect Hirsi Bulhan Farah as interim chairman. The sitting, the first to be held in 13 years, followed the inauguration of the members of parliament in Kenya's capital Nairobi on August 22.
Farah is expected to lead the House in electing a new speaker by next week. In turn, the speaker will preside over the selection of a cabinet, which will elect the president, giving Somalia a new transitional government that will rule for five years.
Somalia, with a population of 9.7 million, is the only country without a central government. It plunged into anarchy immediately after President Mohammed Siad Barre's overthrow in 1991.
Since then, the country, which is now fragmented, has been ruled by warlords. Puntland, Somalia's north-west province, for example, declared autonomy in 1998. And northern Somaliland, a former British colony which was annexed to Somalia in 1960, broke away in 1991.
All the Somali factions, fighting each other, belong to rival Hawiye, Digle-Mirifle, Dir and Darod clans. The fifth clan is a conglomeration of 14 minority groups. The inter-clan fighting, say aid agencies, has left more than 300,000 people dead, prompting military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations from 1992 to 1995.
"Because of the war, each clan has armed itself with weapons from neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia and Yemen," Basha said. "We need help from the international community. Disarmament is a complex process and we are starting from the scratch."
Those weapons have also found their way into some neighbouring countries. Kenya's former foreign affairs minister Kalonzo Musyoka remarked in April that some 60,000 illegal arms had been smuggled into the country from Somalia. He was speaking in Nairobi during a regional meeting on small arms.
Due to lawlessness, local human rights groups say it's almost impossible to quantify the number of weapons in circulation in Somalia. It remains to be seen whether the new administration will succeed in disarming the militias, a risky business that the defunct transitional government had failed to achieve.
Established in Arta, Djibouti, in 2002, the transitional government was not recognized by sections of the Somali population. Its president, Abdulkassim Salat Hassan, failed to exert control beyond Mogadishu, the capital. Its term ended in August 2003.
"We are appealing to countries both from Africa and outside to support the new government financially and by deploying peace- keeping forces to monitor cease fire," Xaawa Abdillahi Qayaad, a legislator, told IPS. -Dawn/The Inter Press News Service.
By Joyce Mulama
© The DAWN Group of Newspapers, 2004
Posted on Monday 6th September at 20:08:30 Son Of Anti-US Warlord Seeks Somali Presidency
NAIROBI - The son of a Somali warlord who eluded and embarrassed United States forces a decade ago on Sunday stepped up his campaign to become president of a country his father helped plunge into anarchy.
But far from accusing him of anti-Americanism, opponents of Hussein Farah Aideed say he is a US puppet.
Aideed, a California-educated engineer and former US marine, served briefly during the ill-fated US peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 1993 when his late father, warlord Mohammed Farah Aideed, defied US attempts to capture him.
That hunt led to the Black Hawk Down incident in October 1993, in which 18 US soldiers and about 300 Somali fighters were killed during a raid on an Aideed stronghold in Mogadishu.
Where the late Aideed believed in absolute rule by the gun, the son who returned to Somalia at his father's death in 1996 is advocating democracy and compromise in his bid to become president in the only country without a government.
Aideed on Sunday rejected suspicions, voiced by Somali factions aligned with Arab League countries, that he is beholden to the United States and Western interests.
"I am no puppet to any government. I am working for my people, for myself. I will continue to move forward with my vision to have Somalia be part of the international community," he told reporters in Nairobi.
Politicians from the newly-minted Somalia parliament, which has 275 members, are due to elect a president on September 22.
The parliament met for the first time on Thursday in Somalia's 14th attempt to establish an effective central government since 1991, when warlords including Aideed's father toppled military dictator Mohammed Siad Barre.
Since then, no national government has been able to control the country and warlords have ruled clan-based fiefdoms by the bullet. That lack of security has forced the 21-month peace process to be held in neighbouring Kenya.
Observers are divided on whether Aideed is among the top contenders in a crowded, constantly shifting field.
But his name recognition and control of key areas of Mogadishu -- through the militia he inherited at his father's death in 1996 -- render him a significant figure in the political landscape.
Aideed had refused to be sworn in as a member of parliament in a protest over delegate selection. But he relented on Friday and took his oath, promising to negotiate an end to the dispute.
"It is better to point out the discrepancies in the peace process, rather than have it all collapse," Aideed said of his change of heart.
- REUTERS
Posted on Monday 6th September at 16:54:17 Tension Rises Around Southern Somali Port
MOGADISHU, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Rival militias preparing to fight for Somalia's main southern trading centre, Kismayo port, risk inflaming political tensions in the chaotic south of the volatile country, local officials said on Monday.
Some 1,200 militiamen and 32 vehicles mounted with machineguns deployed by warlord Mohamed Said Hersi, known as General Morgan, are approaching the port from the inland Gedo region. In response hundreds of defenders have taken up positions outside the city, they said.
"The security situation of the town has been very tense for the past three days after most of the militia controlling it went outside the town in order to defend the region," one of the officials, Hussein Timojilic, told reporters.
Kismayo, 500 km (300 miles) south of the capital Mogadishu, is the main trading centre for southern Somalia, staging a market for food grown in the nearby fertile Juba Valley.
The port also provides lucrative income for irregular forces who protect importers and exporters in the surrounding Lower Juba region.
Morgan captured Kismayo for a few days in 2001 but was swiftly ejected by the Juba Valley Alliance, a militia coalition which also expelled him from the town in 1999, ending a six year period in which he controlled the town.
Somalia has been torn by war since the overthrow of military ruler Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991 and warlords have carved the country up into warring fiefdoms. Conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands in the Horn of Africa country in the past decade.
A 21-month-old process to restore central government and reach peace has failed to yield much change on the ground, although delegates at the Kenyan-based reconciliation conference selected a new clan-based parliament last month as a move towards restoring government to the country.
Conference mediators drawn from Somalia's neighbouring countries have warned Morgan to halt his advance on Kismayo, saying if he persists they will prepare sanctions against him. Morgan himself has not commented on the movement of his troops or the criticism by the conference.
The Juba Valley Alliance militia has sent hundreds of fighters out of the town limits to prepares defences.
Timojilic added: "We were preparing to defend the areas controlled by the Juba Valley Alliance from militia loyal to General Morgan, who is trying to seize Kismayo."
Militia allies of the JVA in Mogadishu and Merca were also said to be preparing to send men to help in Kismayo's defence.
((Reporting by Mohamed Ali Bile, editing by Mary Gabriel))
Posted on Monday 6th September at 16:52:17 Faction Leader Appeals For Peacekeepers In Somalia
NAIROBI, Sept. 5 (Xinhuanet) -- A prominent faction leader in Somalia here on Sunday appealed to the international community to deploy a stabilization force in the country to disarm warring groups and help restore peace during the five-year transitional period.
Addressing a news conference in Nairobi, Hussein Mohamed Aideed,leader of the United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance faction, said the key and pressing issue for peace in the country is to disarm all the warring factions and groups, "which can only be achieved with strong involvement and support of international peace-keeping forces."
"It is important to point out that a stabilization force made up of the United Nations and the African Union will be required during the transition period of five years to restore peace and bring good relations with the international community and neighboring states," said Aideed, who is a member of Somalia's transitional parliament inaugurated on Aug. 22.
Aideed is the son of the late Somali General Mohammed Farah Aideed, who US forces vainly tried to capture in 1993.
Now Aideed is a US citizen and served with the US military before returning home to lead the United Somali Congress/Somali National Alliance faction after the death of his father in 1996.
Somalia's new parliament held its second meeting in Nairobi on Friday and quickly set Sept. 15 and Sept. 22 respectively as datesfor the election of speaker and president for a returning government for the war-torn Horn of Africa nation.
Posted on Sunday 5th September at 16:57:02 IGAD Warns Somali Warlord over Military Build-Up
Nairobi, Kenya, 09/04 - The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) has threatened to slap heavy sanctions against Somali warlord General Mohammed Hersi, who is advancing troops to the port town of Kismayu in an attempt to derail ongoing peace efforts in the war-ravaged nation.
Kenyan Regional Cooperation Minister John Koech said IGAD has learnt of an apparent plot by the warlord, popularly known as General `Morgan` to disrupt the outcome of the Nairobi peace talks currently in their final stages.
General Morgan, who is also in a United Nations Security Council secrete watch-list over his role in the violation of the Somali arms ban, is facing sanctions which will bar him from travelling to any foreign country.
The IGAD Facilitating Committee, the top organ mediating the peace talks, said it would also take "very stern action" including sanctions banning him and his associates from travelling to neighbouring states for his anti-peace activities.
"The peace process has made tremendous progress towards the formation of an all-inclusive government, in deed, the dawn of a new era of peace, tranquillity and development is clearly evident," said Koech in a statement issued here Friday.
Koech, who is also the Chairman of the IGAD Facilitating Committee, condemned General Morgan`s activities, saying the "blatant act of aggression at this time when Somalia is on the threshold of peace is unacceptable."
General Morgan walked out of the peace process in March this year after the completion of the second phase of the talks where the over 300 delegates representing key political groups, leaders, warlords and clan elders discussed the details of a Somali National Transitional Charter, which contains details of the 275- member Parliament.
The warlord moved out ostensibly to consult with his clansmen, sparking off fears of an imminent return to clan war. This prompted Kenya`s Special Envoy to the Somali peace talks Ambassador Bethuel Kiplagat to seek the help of UN Security in stopping another bloodbath.
Kiplagat, in a letter dated 16 March, asked the UN Security Council to probe fresh violations of the 1992 arms ban to Somalia after a meeting between the international mediators and observers in Nairobi.
Meanwhile, IGAD has extended an olive branch to the warlord and asked other Somali factions to distance themselves from "his blatant acts of aggression", saying his activities will have absolutely no impact on the positive outcome of the peace talks.
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Posted on Saturday 4th September at 21:26:26 Somali Says Justice Prevails
A Somali man says an anti-terrorism unit at the FBI tried to ruin his life, but American justice prevailed and he plans to rebuild his business and life.
"I am happy that justice has been served. They wasted almost $300,000 of taxpayers' money for nothing," Ismail Issa Barre said Friday.
He had advice for innocent members of the Muslim community who are being targeted as possible terrorists under the Patriot Act.
"Trust the law. Go with a trial," Barre said. "I'm an American citizen. If any harms come to the U.S., it harms me.
"I came to this country empty-handed. This is the only country I have today."
On Friday, Barre collected some of the property that FBI agents seized in a raid on his Aurora meat market and money transfer business in April.
Among the items the FBI had held for nearly 18 months: videos of Barre's nine children, a copy of the Quran on audiotape, and personal documents such as birth certificates and Social Security cards for his children. There were also laptop computers, fax machines and other office supplies.
Federal prosecutors had accused Barre of illegally transferring millions of dollars to the United Arab Emirates without a money transferring license.
But a federal judge last month dismissed the criminal case, saying the prosecutors failed to prove their charges against Barre.
Barre proclaimed his innocence Friday, saying he had no connection to terrorists and merely ran a successful market, import-export system and an alternative banking system known as hawala.
"I lost my business. I lost my morale. I lost many things. They still have $46,000 of my money," he said.
Barre, 34, is convinced he was targeted because he is a Muslim.
He said agents held him all day at his business without allowing him to call a lawyer, then kept his wife and their youngest children for six hours in the Barres' home.
Then, Barre said, they arrested him two months later and sent him to prison in Akron for 11 days.
Barre said he has moved his family to Minneapolis, where he hopes to get a new start.
Despite his ordeal, Barre celebrated his U.S. citizenship and says America is truly the land of opportunity.
"Our country is very good. It's the only country where you can go to trial and show you're innocent. In Saudi Arabia, they would cut off your head," Barre said. "I'm in the land of opportunity. What worries me is that they are terrorizing other people."
Barre said his experience has made him support democracy more than ever.
"I'm trying hard to restart my business," he said.
And he is encouraging people to participate in the system.
"They are living in fear. But they should vote," he said. "I'm supporting regime change."
By Katie Kerwin Mccrimmon, Rocky Mountain News
Posted on Saturday 4th September at 21:19:21 New Somalia President to Be Sworn in September 22
A new president for Somalia is expected to be sworn in by September 22, following a unanimous decision passed by the new parliament sitting in Nairobi.
The landmark resolution is part of a comprehensive road map laid out by the nascent Transitional Federal Parliament on its second day of business yesterday at the Bomas of Kenya.
Before then the speaker and deputy speakers will be elected. They are expected to spearhead the process through the final stages of a return to peace in the war-torn Horn of Africa state.
Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard.
There was joy when suddenly one of the Somali parliaments most vocal critics, Hussein Mohamed Aideed, changed his mind and agreed to be sworn in as an MP.
Aideed, who until Thursday evening maintained a hard-line stance towards the (s)election of MPs citing irregularities, said one of the most contentious issues have since been dealt with - namely the intervention of the Arbitration Committee.
"I have not changed my heart so to speak. I have been in the (peace) process over the past 22 months. I just wanted IGAD to correct contentious issues through the Arbitration Committee," he told journalists.
Aideed, who is the chairman of the Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council (SRRC) and the Somali National Alliance (SNA), said he objected to the flouting of the rules of procedure that saw about 60 MPs "irregularly" elected.
"Now Igad has moved to correct the anomaly that will allow the transitional government to have a legitimate president and parliament," he said
Even as he agreed to take up his seat, Aideed was still adamant he would move a Bill to allegedly amend the various provisions setting out the instruments and institutions of the House and the entire process.
Also sworn-in yesterday was Dr Abdul Aziz Sheikh, whose election on Thursday was noisily rejected by fellow MPs due to alleged irregularity.
Posted on Saturday 4th September at 21:17:05 Worst Drought In 30 Years In Somalia, Somaliland
afrol News, 2 September - The worst drought in three decades is currently victimising one million Somalis and Somalilanders. Livestock are now dying at enormous rates, according to humanitarian agencies working in the Horn region. Aid is coming late and in particular in Somalia, the poor security situation hinders food distribution.
With up to a million Somalis and Somalilanders "needing immediate humanitarian assistance" because of the countries' crippling drought, UN officials working in the Horn of Africa country today appealed to international donors to "drastically increase their funding." The UN's humanitarian agency OCHA has received less than US$ 35 million so far of the US$ 119 million it needs to deal with the mounting demands for relief from Somalis suffering from the drought.
The current crisis in Somalia and Somaliland is widely considered to be "the worst drought there in 30 years." The drought affects most of Somalia but is worst in the north and northeast, where livestock are dying at enormous rates - including 80 percent of camels - and the rangelands have become badly degraded by the lack of rain. Also the whole of Somaliland is affected, in particular at the Somali border.
Some areas in Somalia's north and in Somaliland "have not decent rainfall for four years," the UN today reports. The self-declared republic of Somaliland and Somalia's autonomous region of Puntland have both declared an emergency in their territories. The border are between Somaliland and Puntland is the most heavily affected area, but both areas are politically quiet, which allows humanitarian aid workers to enter.
The UN's humanitarian coordinator in Somalia, Max Gaylard, said in a statement issued today that Somalis in the north are in "desperate need of help," with many shepherds already abandoning their livelihoods because of the conditions. Mr Gaylard's statement includes the situation in Somaliland, referred to as north-western Somalia by the UN.
But also Somalia's south is strongly affected by the drought. OCHA's humanitarian affairs officer Olla Hassan said the croplands and agricultural districts in Somalia's central and southern regions are now noting the effects of the drought. Cereal production had slumped, further damaging the country's fragile economy, she added.
In southern and central Somalia, which is under the control of different war lords, aid work is made difficult by the unstable political situation. In the Juba Valley in southern Somalia, freelance militias had set up roadblocks, restricting access and increasing the cost of food transport there, the UN said. There had also been violent clashes between sub-clans in west Belet Weyne in central Somalia.
Ms Hassan said Somalia's security situation makes aid distribution more difficult, but the key problem remained the lack of funds. In November last year, OCHA appealed for US$ 110 million for all of Somalia's needs, a total later increased to US$ 119 million. Yet less than 30 percent of that amount had been donated so far. "There is capacity on the ground to provide assistance but there are just no resources," she said.
Posted on Friday 3rd September at 21:22:52 Somalis Uneasy With Idea Of Peacekeeping Force
MOGADISHU - Residents of the war-torn Somali capital on Friday said they are uneasy with the prospect of deploying a peacekeeping force here, once a new government is installed to try to end years of anarchy.
The country has been carved up into fiefdoms governed by unruly warlords with constantly shifting alliances, since dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was toppled in January 1991.
The same warlords, recently selected as lawmakers for a Somali parliament that started its sessions on Thursday in Nairobi, hope to vie for the Somali presidency in the coming weeks in the nearly completed peace talks in Kenya.
The clan-based assembly is tasked with appointing a speaker and a transitional president, who will in turn appoint a prime minister. The prime minister will name a cabinet that will operate for an initial period of five years.
"Peace is good for everybody here, but it cannot be brought by those who created the mayhem (warlords)," Ahmed Mumin Hassan, a businessman in Mogadishu's main Bakara market, said in Mogadishu.
"There is no way a parliament that is dominated by warlords can function to promote peace and harmony among the Somalis," Hassan explained.
Amid such fears, the African Union (AU) has strongly hinted that a peacekeeping force could be deployed in Mogadishu after a new government is formed.
But Somalis vividly remember the botched military and humanitarian intervention by the United Nations and the United States in the early 1990s, shortly after the central government collapsed and the country turned into a "failed state".
Plans on October 3, 1993 to arrest top Somali warlord, General Mohamed Farah Aidid, whose militia had killed 24 Pakistan peacekeepers in an ambush four months earlier, went terribly wrong and led to a gunbattle in which hundreds of Somalis and 18 US special forces were killed.
It culminated in an ugly scene where the battered bodies of US special forces soldiers were dragged through the dusty streets of Mogadishu by a frenzied mob. That had a lasting effect on Washington's subsequent decisions about sending troops abroad.
"Accepting the new government is conditional," said Hassan Ibrahim, a gunman who protects aid workers in Somalia.
"If the coming government will not import troops (peacekeepers) to take over our jobs, we may welcome it," Ibrahim said.
Retired army officer Mohamud Sheikh Hassan said sending foreign peacekeeping troops to Somalia could doom peace talks, which started on October 15, 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret.
"Since there is no warlord capable of over-running his rivals since 1991, negotiation is the only solution for peace without involving foreign troops, who could complicate the matter," Hassan added.
Ahmed Matan Musa, who calls himself a "true believer" of Islam, took a hardline stance on the idea of outside peacekeepers for the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.
"Troops from outside are appreciated by elements that are less patriotic and are not true believers of Allah," Hassan explained.
"Look what happened to Sunni prisoners in Iraq and remember the atrocities committed by UN and US intervention forces in Somalia in 1993," Musa added, referring to abuses committed by US troops on Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison.
Yahya Ahmed Dhere, a weapons dealer in north Mogadishu's Argentine arms market, said one solution could be the legalisation of weapons' sales.
"In America, there are big stores that sell weapons without undermining security. There is nothing sinister if we sell weapons to only very decent people for their self-defence," he added.
Dhere is one of several traders who equip Mogadishu gangs with a fearsome array of weapons, including anti-aircraft guns mounted on pick-up trucks and machine guns.
"We welcome a new government, but say no to peacekeepers," a young Somali refugee said in Nairobi, the capital of neighbouring Kenya.
Posted on Friday 3rd September at 17:23:22 Ministries Fight Over Somalia Peace Process
A bitter fight for the control of the Somali peace process between two Kenyan ministries threatens to derail delicate negotiations for the war-torn country.
The feud, between the Foreign Affairs and East Africa and Regional Co-operation ministries, also involves a tug-of-war over Kenya's representation in the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad) - which is mid-wifing the peace talks.
letter by the Head of the Civil Service and Secretary to the Cabinet, Ambassador Francis Muthaura placed the Igad docket - and thereby the peace talks - in the newly created Regional Development ministry and away from Foreign Affairs.
The letter, dated August 17, was written to Environment minister Kalonzo Musyoka (who until the June Cabinet reshuffle headed the Foreign Affairs ministry) and copied to his replacement at Foreign Affairs.
It read in part: "Hon John Koech, the Minister for East Africa and Regional Co-operation will, with immediate effect, take over full responsibility of the two peace process (including Sudan) in his capacity as the minister responsible for Igad under whose mandate the peace process fall." But the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has written back to Muthaura challenging the legality of his directives.
By placing Igad and the peace process under Koech, he was actually breaching the Igad charter, the letter says.
The protest letter cites Article 10 (1) of the Igad Charter that explicitly states that the Council of Ministers, which is largely charged with managing Igad affairs, will be made of "Ministers of Foreign Affairs."
Meanwhile, sitting on day one of Somalia's Transitional Federal Parliament was as troubled as the process leading up to it yesterday - acrimony, marching shouts and shot-downs.
And when business finally began at around 11.00 am, after prayers, the MPs could not agree on the nomination one among themselves to act temporarily as House Speaker.
Age but also (parliamentary) experience was the sole qualification, according to Ambassador Bethwell Kiplagat.
The foolproof method to verify age was reference to each and every MP's passport - even though this was not applied to all MPs. Finally, 83-year-old Hirsi Bulhan Farah was picked unanimously, to a standing ovation from all in the House.
At this stage, Farah took up his seat - supposedly the Speaker's, one legitimate institution that has eluded the war-torn Horn of Africa nation for the past 14 years.
Listed next on the day's order paper was the swearing-in of MPs who had not been sworn in last week at the United Nations headquarters in Gigiri, Nairobi.
Only five of the expected 16 were sworn-in, and the sixth one - Dr Abdulaziz Sheikh - was not after MPs shouted him down in an apparent disapproval.
"I was supposed to be sworn-in. But I was not because of corruption and external interference," he protested.
Shortly thereafter, local and international press corps were at a loss as the acting chair suddenly adjourned the sitting to 10.00 am this morning.
But even before the adjournment, MPs had strongly insisted that they could not begin business until and unless they are all served with copies of the so-called rules of procedure and the federal charter.
"They are asking for a Kenya-type Commonwealth model of Parliament for now... until perhaps they go back to Somalia, where they may opt to adopt other models, and we will give it them," said Ambassador Affey.
Yet in a related development, Aideed - who said he deliberately snubbed the sitting and swearing-in ceremony - accused the Igad negotiators of imposing their vested interests on the Somali people.
Aideed told the East African Standard in an exclusive interview that the selection of MPs was unnecessarily hurried and was not done according to rules of procedure.
Neither has the arbitration commitee been allowed to iron out contentious issues, the Somali National Alliance-Somali Reconciliation and Reconstruction Council faction leader said.
"The process should avoid the pitfalls of TNG to give Somalis a hand-picked minority. I personally refused to be sworn-in because the process, as it has been, will likely take Somalia back on another five years of civil war," he said.
Copyright © 2004 The East African Standard.
Posted on Friday 3rd September at 17:22:08 Editor Of Independent Daily Arrested For 15th Time
Reporters Without Borders called today for the immediate release of the editor of the independent daily paper Jamhuuriya, Hassan Said Yusuf, who was arrested on 1 September for the 15th time in the past decade in Hargeisa, capital of the self-styled state of Somaliland.
It called on the government to explain his detention by a dozen police who burst into the paper's offices late at night with an arrest warrant as he and his staff were preparing the next day's edition of the paper and took him to the city's main police station.
"This arrest, the latest in a long campaign of legal harassment against Yusuf, shows that vigilance is required even though no major infringement of press freedom has occurred recently in Somaliland," the worldwide press freedom organisation said.
The city's police chief said he was arrested because he had several times refused to obey a summons for questioning by the prosecutor-general. He said the arrest was legal and that he would be brought before a court. The paper's staff were prevented from visiting him and could not contact the prosecutor-general, who was not in his office.
It was the 15th police action against Yusuf since he became editor more than a decade ago. He was arrested in the street in Hargeisa for similar reasons in November 2003 and released on bail a few hours later.
Independent sources in the Somali capital of Mogadishu said he has been picked up because the paper reported on 30 August that Somalia and the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) were annoyed at Somaliland's refusal to take part in a regional reconciliation conference.
Somaliland, which is in northwestern Somalia, declared itself independent in 1991 but has never won international recognition.
Posted on Friday 3rd September at 17:21:03 New Parliament Elects Temporary Chairman
Somalia's newly constituted transitional parliament held its first meeting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Thursday during which members elected Hersi Bulhan Farah, 83, to serve as temporary chairman pending the election of a speaker.
"It is a new dawn for the Somali people," Marian Muhammad Mursal, one of the members attending Thursday's session, told IRIN. "As a woman, however, I am disappointed that 34 seats allocated to women have not all been filled. I am appealing to our male colleagues to complete the women's quota," she added.
Five new members were sworn in during the first sitting, meaning that only 12 MPs in the 275-seat parliament are yet to take their oath of office. Some 25 women MPs are among those selected by the various clans so far.
"Today is a historic day for all of us and will mark a new beginning for Somalia," another MP, Awad Ahmed Ashara, told IRIN. Ashara said international support was needed "to enable us fulfil our objectives and bring about total reconciliation and stability in our country."
The MPs were chosen by elders and political leaders from their respective clans who had been attending the reconciliation conference in Nairobi sponsored by the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD).
The creation of the transitional federal parliament paved the way for the formation of an all-inclusive government in Somalia, the Horn of Africa country which has remained without an effective government since 1991, when the regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled.
Each of Somalia's four major clans was allocated 61 seats in the parliament, while an alliance of minority clans was awarded 31. A speaker and two deputy speakers to be elected from among the MPs will preside over the election of the president, who will in turn appoint a prime minister to form a government.
Posted on Thursday 2nd September at 19:44:48 Somali Peace Hopes Rise as Parliament Meets
Nairobi, Sep. 02 (CWNews.com) - Prospects for peace in Somalia improved this week, as members of a newly appointed parliament met for the first time in Nairobi, Kenya.
The new parliament, which was appointed after months of negotiations among the factions vying for power in Somalia, is scheduled to elect a speaker, who will guide the group in selecting a president to lead an interim government.
The parliament members took their seats despite threats from some holdout warlords, who said that the authority of the new government would not be accepted by the people of Somalia. That fate had already befallen one previous effort to set up an interim national leadership group known as the Transitional National Government.
Somalia slipped into anarchy in 1991, after the ouster of President Siad Barre. For more than a decade there has been no functioning national government, and the nation's territory has been divided up among rival warlords and militia groups, with frequent clashes for power.
Posted on Thursday 2nd September at 19:43:41 Drought-Affected People In "Desperate Situation" - UN
NAIROBI, 1 Sep 2004 (IRIN) - People in the drought-affected regions of northeastern and northwestern Somalia have lost most of their livestock and are now in desperate need of help, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Somalia, Maxwell Gaylard, said.
"The drought affected areas are now in a desperate situation, with inadequate pasture for remaining livestock and the consequent destitution of many families," Gaylard, who recently visited the areas, said in a statement.
"It is imperative that agencies redouble their efforts to address the acute suffering of those in need, that donors provide the means for this to happen and that concerned authorities fully support this emergency response," he added. "Our fears that the recent rains have not been sufficient have now been confirmed," Gaylard added.
Preliminary assessments by the Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU) of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and USAID-funded Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET), show that up to a million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance throughout Somalia, including more than 600,000 who are directly affected by the current drought.
The drought has spread to parts of Bari, Nugal, Mudug and Galgaduud regions in addition to the existing drought-struck areas of Togdheer, Sool, and Sanaag.
According to the assessments, the crisis was an environmental disaster that had been triggered by a number of years of drought conditions and the consequent destruction of pastoral livelihoods.
Authorities in both the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwest Somalia and the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, have declared an emergency in the northern territories and have requested international assistance.
In addition to the crisis in the north, poor rainfall has affected the agricultural areas of the lower Juba Valley, northern Gedo, and parts of Hiran and Bakool regions in the south, where crop production was less than 20 percent of normal, according to the statement issued by Gaylard's office.
Gaylard stressed that although the immediate humanitarian needs required an urgent expansion of emergency operations, "it is also important for us to start developing an understanding of how communities will manage to rebuild their lives, given that many families will be unable to return to the pastoral livelihood due to extreme rates of livestock loss."
"The prospect of thousands of destitute pastoralists without the means to transit to other means of supporting themselves is a real challenge to the local authorities and the international community," he added.
Posted on Wednesday 1st September at 16:26:34 Reward To Catch Teenager's Killer
A £10,000 reward has been offered to catch the killers of a 19-year-old man who was shot dead as he lay on the ground begging for mercy.
Nureni Mumin Sheikh, from Manor Park, London, was attending an engagement party in Moss Side on 10 January.
Mr Sheikh was shot twice outside the Zaku Cafe in Claremont Road.
"There does not appear to have been any motive for this killing," said Ch Insp John Dineen as he announced the reward on Wednesday.
Father killed
He added: "I believe that there are still many people in the Moss Side area who have information about this cold-blooded murder, but who haven't come forward.
"I am asking those people who do know who killed Nureni to look at themselves and ask what they can do to rid themselves of the shame of knowing and doing nothing."
Mr Sheikh was standing on the pavement with his uncle and another relative when two men wearing balaclavas approached them.
One pointed a gun at Mr Sheikh, grabbed him and all three fell to the ground in a tussle.
As he lay on the ground he pleaded to know why this was happening to him and why he was being targeted.
Mr Sheikh, who was originally from Somalia, moved to England with his family ten years ago.
A short time after they arrived in the UK, his father Mumin was shot and killed during the civil unrest in Somalia.
Posted on Wednesday 1st September at 16:19:51 U.S. Lauds Somali Transitional Body
The U.S. State Department Tuesday welcomed the inauguration of the Somali Transitional Federal Assembly.
The body was inaugurated Sunday and is seen a step to re-establish stability and effective governance in Somalia.
We applaud the efforts of the Somali national conference and call on all those who may still challenge the results to express themselves through peaceful means, the department said in a statement.
Washington further urged Mogadishu to select a president, prime minister and government officials to create a democratic, representative transitional government that could work toward reconciliation in the country.
The statement lauded the role of Kenya, the European Commission, the European Union's executive, along with the Somali business community and civil society for the development.
We call on all Somali participants to continue their efforts toward the re-establishment of effective governance in Somalia with sustained commitment, honesty and goodwill, the statement added.
Big News Network.com
Posted on Wednesday 1st September at 15:54:54 Back
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