Rift Valley Institute Horn of Africa Course - Hargeisa 11-17 October 2008

Medeshi Sept 6, 2008
Rift Valley Institute Horn of Africa Course

Hargeisa 11-17 October 2008
The Rift Valley Institute is pleased to announce the new Horn of Africa Course.

(Photo: Mark Bardbury - The Author of ' Becoming Somaliland ' )

The Course will take place from Saturday 11th October to Friday 17th October2008 in Hargeisa, Somaliland. The course is a one-week, graduate-level residential programme offering a comprehensive introduction to the history and political economy of Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Puntland and Somaliland.
The course will examine the historical and cultural patterns of this diverse region and provide in-depth treatment of contemporary issues and challenges, providing an entry point for understanding the significance of humanitarian and development interventions.

The Course is designed for aid workers, peacekeepers, diplomats, business people and researchers -those living and working in the region and those about to start.
The Course will be taught by scholars from the region and international specialists, including Ken Menkhaus PhD (Director of Studies) author of Somalia: State Collapse and the threat of Terrorism , Mark Bradbury (Course Director) RVI; Bristol University ,Lee Cassenelli PhD author of The Shaping of Somali Society , Terrance Lyons PhD George Mason University, Dekha Ibrahim, civic activist and peace builder; winner of 2007 Right Livelihood Award, Sally Healy OBE Fellow of Chatham House, Sada Mire, University of London; Ministry or Tourism and Culture, Republic of Somaliliand .

The residential nature of the Course gives extensive opportunity for informal exchange between students and teaching staff.Click here <http://www.riftvalley.net/courses.htm> for online information about previous RVI courses.
Video clips from earlier courses can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/riftvalleyinstitute The Rift Valley <http://www.riftvalley.net/> Institute is a non-profit research and educational organization working with communities and institutions in Eastern Africa (including Sudan and the Horn).
The Institute's programmes connect local knowledge to global information systems. Fellows of the Institute are regional academic specialists and practitioners in the fields of development, conservation, media and human rights.

Somali fighters vow Ramadan attacks

Medeshi Sept 6 , 2008
Somali fighters vow Ramadan attacks
Somali fighters have vowed to intensify their attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, as residents of Mogadishu, the capital, took shelter from mortar fire.
Witnesses said at least four people were killed in fighting on Wednesday, as fighters and the Ethiopain forces backing the Somali government exchanged mortar and heavy machine-gun fire.

Abdirahin Issa Adow, a spokesman for the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) fighters, said the rebels had "decided to redouble attacks against the Ethiopians and their stooges during the holy month of Ramadan", which began on Monday.
He said the Ramadan attacks do not violate the Quran because his fighters are battling "enemies of Allah".
The battles started in the early morning and continued unabated for several hours.
Mohmoud Dhere, a military spokesman, declined to comment on Wednesday's casualties, but criticised the insurgents for "destabilising the country".

Residents flee
It appeared to be the most sustained fighting in Mogadishu since August 21, when four hours of fighting outside the presidential palace killed 12 people.
Some residents fled their homes to other parts of the capital, carrying their belongings.

Thousands of civilians have been killed since the ICU began its insurgency in December 2006, after its were driven from power in Mogadishu and much of the south.
As fighting continued in the capital, pirates seized a French sailing yacht off Somalia's northern coast.
The French foreign ministry said two French nationals were aboard the yacht that was seized in the Gulf of Aden, where hijackings of vessels have increased in recent months.

Yacht seized
The Venezuela-registered Carre d'as - a sixteen-metre leisure boat - was hijacked late on Tuesday, the AFP news agency quoted a source in the French foreign ministry in Paris as saying.

Hassan Alore, the minister for natural resources in Somalia's breakaway Puntland region, said the hijackers had commandeered the boat and were taking it to the village of Eyl, south of Puntland's capital Bossaso.
"The pirates already got seven other ships hijacked off the Somalia coast in Eyl village," Alore added, saying the vessel was currently at Calula village east of Bossaso.
The French foreign ministry said a crisis meeting had been held on Wednesday to begin moves to secure the release of the yacht as quickly as possible.
"France firmly condemns this act of piracy and calls for the immediate release of the people held on board this yacht. Our prime concern is the safety of our compatriots," the ministry said in a statement.
Since the end of July, eight ships have been hijacked in the Gulf of Aden, including two Malaysian vessels as well as others from Germany, Iran and Japan.
The waters off Somalia are the most dangerous in the world for pirate activity, with the International Maritime Bureau reporting 24 attacks in the area between April and June this year.

Toll rises to six in Ethiopian blast

Toll rises to six in Ethiopian blast
ADDIS-ABABA (AFP) — Two people died on Thursday of their injuries following an explosion that rocked a bar in the Ethiopian capital, bringing the death toll to six, police said.
The explosion took place on Wednesday in Addis-Ababa. Four people were killed and dozens injured.
"No one has been captured and investigations are underway," police spokesman Demsach Hailu added.
Six people were killed in May when a bomb exploded on a minibus near the foreign ministry office in Addis Ababa, while three others were killed and 18 wounded the previous month in blasts that hit petrol stations in the capital.
Ethiopia has repeatedly accused its neighbour Eritrea of supporting those behind the bomb attacks, but Asmara has denied the charges.
Relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa have been frosty since they fought a devastating 1998-2000 border war that claimed tens of thousands of lives on both sides. The dispute is yet to be resolved.

First Cable-stayed bridge in East Africa to open in Ethiopia

Medeshi Sept 6 , 2008

First Cable-stayed bridge in East Africa to open in Ethiopia
Source: Addis Fortune
The Japanese construction firm, Kajima, is near to closing the four-metres gap on the newly constructed bridge over Abay River, 208Km north of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The bridge will be open to traffic in October 2008, according to Samson Wondimu, Public Relations head of the Ethiopian Roads Authority (ERA).
Financed by a 14 million dollar Japanese government grant, the new structure has been constructed alongside a 60-year old bridge built by an Italian construction firm; the government of Italy covered the cost of the older bridge as a compensation for war damages it had caused during its brief occupation of Ethiopia in the 1930s.
The new bridge, when completed, will be 55 metres high, standing 22 metres above the existing one. There are also nine cables stretched on either side of the bridge, tied to the columns on each side, and there is no supporting framework put in the middle of the river. This feature makes it the first cable-stayed bridge in East Africa. It also has a clear 145-metre span.
The design and construction of the bridge is state of the art, according to experts familiar with the project. It was designed by Oriental Consultants Company Ltd of Japan. Kajima, operational in 20 countries, was awarded the project in August 2005.
This bridge is part of a three-phase project financed by the Japanese government. At a total cost of 46 million dollars, Kajima has rehabilitated the Goha-Tsion trunk road, as well as the 186Km stretch from Addis Abeba to Dejen. The latter was inaugurated in April 2004.
The completion of this bridge marks the final phase of the project, and is believed to have immense significance in the traffic flow connecting the capital with the north western part of the country. Experts foresee that driving speed will double to 60Km per hour, and the volume is expected to increase from the current 360 vehicles a day to 729 in six years.
Source: Addis Fortune

Somalia: US intervention causes humanitarian disaster

Medeshi Sept 6 , 2008

Somalia: US intervention causes humanitarian disaster
US counter-terrorism policies and support for the Ethiopian-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia have helped create an increasingly desperate humanitarian and security situation in the East African nation, whose population has become increasingly radicalised and anti-US, according to a new report by a major US human rights group.

The report, authored by Ken Menkhaus, a Davidson College professor who is regarded as one of the foremost U.S. experts on the Horn of Africa, calls for a thorough re-assessment of U.S. policy, including its support for the TFG and the primacy it has given to its "war on terrorism" in Somalia.
"U.S. counterterrorism policies have not only compromised other international agendas in Somalia, they have generated a high level of anti-Americanism and are contributing to radicalisation of the population," concluded the report, entitled "Somalia: A Country in Peril, a Foreign Policy Nightmare".
"In what could become a dangerous instance of blowback, defence and intelligence operations intended to make the United States more secure from the threat of terrorism may be increasing the threat of jihadist attacks on American interests," the report stressed.
The 17-page report, released by ENOUGH, a group launched last year by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) and the Washington-based Centre for American Progress (CAP), was released amid continuing violence in Somalia that has forced some one million people to flee their homes since December 2006, when U.S.-backed Ethiopian and TFG forces swept the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) out of the capital, Mogadishu, and other major cities and towns.
The U.N. recently estimated that, barring substantial improvement in the security situation, some 3.5 million Somalis will be dependent on humanitarian aid by the end of this year.
"The (current) crisis is fundamentally different and fundamentally worse than the situation of the last decade and a half," said Chris Albin-Lackey, a Horn of Africa specialist at Human Rights Watch (HRW), who appeared with Menkhaus at the report's release at a conference sponsored by at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars here Wednesday.
Albin-Lackey, who has conducted some 80 interviews of Somali refugees in East Africa in the past month, said ongoing violence, including almost daily artillery bombardments by Ethiopian army and TFG forces on the one hand and opposition militias, including the Islamist Shabaab on the other, as well as assassinations carried out by both sides, have added to the insecurity.
"People have nowhere to turn for security," he said, adding that search operations by TFG forces, while nominally for the purpose of arresting suspected insurgents, had become "an excuse for murder, rape and looting on an incredibly large scale." As a result, he said, Mogadishu has become "largely depopulated" with about two-thirds of the population -- or about 800,000 people -- having left their homes there over the past 18 months.
Menkhaus described last month's signing by the TCG and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) of the "Djibouti Agreement" negotiated between moderate leaders of both sides with the help of U.N. Special Representative Ahmadou Ould-Abdulla last June as an "important step" toward reconciliation but warned that hard-liners in both camps could derail it.
The agreement, which has been rejected by the Shabaab and was only agreed to by the hawkish TFG president, Adullahi Yusuf, under heavy pressure from Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi, calls for a cessation of hostilities, deployment of a U.N. peacekeeping force, and the subsequent withdrawal of Ethiopian forces.
"The hope is that any agreement that facilitates the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces will open the door for an end to the insurgency," according to the report.
But the implementation of the agreement faces "steep challenges", warned Menkhaus, not least because "the moderates [who negotiated the accord] don't control any of the armed groups." While the Shabaab have already denounced the ARS leaders as "apostates", he noted, hard-liners in the TFG know that they can stay in power "if and only if the Ethiopians stay."
Only by reinforcing the moderates can the international community, including the U.S., enhance the chances for the agreement's successful implementation and, with it, the chances for reconciliation, according to Menkhaus. But that will require major changes in U.S. and western policies, which have "actually worked to strengthen and embolden hardliners" over the past two years.
In that respect, the U.S. emphasis on counter-terrorism has been particularly destructive, not only in supporting the Ethiopian offensive in December, 2006, but, more recently, in placing the Shabaab on its list of designated terrorist groups last March. That step not only isolated opposition moderates from their own coalition but also gave the Shabaab "even more reason to sabotage" ongoing peace talks.
At the same time, Washington has provided "robust financial and logistical support to armed paramilitaries resisting the command and control of the TGF, even though they technically wear a TFG hat" to both fight the Shabaab and track down suspected terrorists.
"To the extent that these security forces also deeply oppose...reconciliation efforts with the opposition, the U.S. counterterrorism partnerships have also undermined peace-building efforts by emboldening spoilers in the government camp," according to the report.
Washington has not been alone in supporting the hard-liners, however. As part of their state-building agenda, other western donors have also provided direct support to TGF security forces under the control of the hawks. Despite the U.N.'s role as a supposedly neutral broker between the TFG and the opposition, the U.N. Development Programme, has also provided security assistance to the TFG.
The Tomahawk missile attack that killed Shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayro in May -- the latest in a series of similar strikes against armed Islamists in Somalia, allegedly tied to al Qaeda -- resulted in a sharp radicalisation in the group, which announced at the time that it would strike against U.S. and western targets, including aid workers, as well as Ethiopian and TFG forces, compounding an already dramatic humanitarian crisis.
"Somalia today is the most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian aid workers," according to Menkhaus. More than 20 humanitarian workers have been killed since January, while some 30 more have been kidnapped.
"The situation in Somalia today exceeds the worst-case scenarios conjured up by regional analysts when they first contemplated the possible impact of an Ethiopian military occupation," according to the report. "Over the past 18 months, Somalia has descended into terrible levels of displacement and humanitarian need, armed conflict and assassinations, political meltdown, radicalisation and virulent anti-Americanism."
"We've gotten the exact opposite of what we set out to achieve," Menkhaus noted, including a "population radically angry at us and very fertile ground for al Qaeda."

From IPS (Inter Press Service News Agency)

SAC Interview with Minister Qasim Sheikh Yusuf

SOMALILAND AMERICAN NEWSLETTER
SAC Interview with Minister Qasim Sheikh Yusuf, September 7, 2008
Minister of Water and Mineral Resources, Republic of Somaliland .
You are cordially invited to participate in this conference call hosted by Somaliland American Council with the help of IPRT from Hargeisa.
The Keynote speaker is Mr. Qasim Sheikh Yusuf, Minister of Water and Mineral Resources, Republic of Somaliland.
Date and time: Sunday, September 7, at 1 pm ET Time (6pm London time)
Agenda; The recent Oil contracts that Somaliland government signed with EU FirmsKeynote Speaker; Mr. Qasim Sheikh Yusuf, Minister of Water and Mineral Resources
To participate in this conference call please do the following:
1 - Call the conference bridge number: Dial-in #: (712) 432-1001
2 - Enter conference Attendee Passcode: 481945464 then (enter #)
3 - Please email questions to Minister Qasim Sheikh Yusuf to to=questions@somalilandamerican.com
Somaliland American Council

Kenya: Six months after its bloody election crisis, the country is still struggling to recover

Medeshi Sept 5, 2008

Six months after its bloody election crisis, the country is still struggling to recover
Reuters
IN THE past few weeks, Kenyans have been celebrating. They were delighted when their athletes came back from the Olympics in China with 14 medals, five of them gold, whereas South Africa, often the continent’s sporting giant, got just one silver. A buoyant president, Mwai Kibaki, handed bonus cheques to the medallists on their return. And then Kenyans had the pleasure, early one morning on television, of watching Barack Obama, the son of a Kenyan civil servant, accept the Democratic nomination to be president of the United States.

But despite such good cheer it is evident that east Africa’s leading country has yet to recover fully from the post-election violence that ravaged it earlier in the year, when some 1,700 people were killed and 300,000 displaced. Its fragile coalition government is struggling to take the necessary decisions to tackle the country’s manifold problems. With Mr Kibaki as president and the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, as prime minister, the mere fact that their cumbrous joint administration has hung together is an achievement. But beyond that, six months into its existence, it has little else to celebrate.

Since the bloodshed of January and February, the economy’s progress has been jerky. Take tourism, the country’s biggest foreign-currency earner. “It’s a wonderful, wonderful world,” purred Mr Kibaki on a recent trip to the Masai Mara game reserve, as he looked out on a muddy swollen river with crossing wildebeest and snapping crocodiles. Yet the Kenya Tourism Board says the country lost $191m in revenue in the first half of the year, with visitors down 36% to 561,000 compared with the first six months of 2007. Safari firms say bookings are still sparse; they hope a government marketing campaign will give them a high-season Christmas boost and that the American State Department’s recent lifting of its advice not to travel to Kenya will encourage more Americans to fly in.

Agriculture is struggling too. Poor rains, a tripling in the cost of fertiliser and pesticide, and land disputes linked to the election crisis have wrecked this year’s maize harvest. The Kenya Cereal Growers’ Association says production will slump from 34m bags of maize to 24m. To make up the shortfall, the government has had to import maize from South Africa at inflated prices. Exports of high-value vegetables and fruit to the European Union, on which entrepreneurial farmers have staked their future, have been hit by high fuel prices and a trend towards buying food more locally and seasonally.

Flower farms say that demand in Europe for Kenyan roses and other cut flowers is saturated; exports may dip slightly next year. Tea production lost ground to India and Sri Lanka during the crisis and has since been hit by pay demands and by the loss of some British “fair trade” licences. Only coffee, another big export earner, was unaffected; brokers in Nairobi, the capital, say production and prices are steady.

The country’s stock exchange has weathered the storm, though recent trading has been flat. A public offering of 25% of the largest mobile-phone provider, Safaricom, boosted state coffers by $833m. Trade with China is still rising, and may top $1 billion this year. The African Development Bank reckons Kenya could grow by 7% this year and says a government target of 10% by 2010 is attainable. But the World Bank is less confident, pointing out that few economies, particularly ones like Kenya’s that are rural-based and lack fossil fuels, have achieved double-digit growth.

Whatever the growth rate, the prevailing mistrust between Mr Kibaki’s Party of National Unity (PNU) and Mr Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement is denting investor confidence. The Oranges still believe Mr Kibaki stole the election. A comprehensive exit poll on election day, paid for in part by the American government, was recently released after being suppressed since the crisis. It suggests that Mr Odinga won 46% of the vote against 40% for Mr Kibaki, with a margin of error of 1.3%. Such findings are not definitive, and suggest the Oranges pilfered votes as well as the PNU, but they continue to undermine Mr Kibaki’s legitimacy as president.

Mr Odinga is credited by some with sharpening government performance by introducing contracts that are meant to make ministers and senior civil servants work harder. But despite Mr Odinga’s claims to enjoy a “warm, respectful friendship” with the president, the truth is that the two barely co-operate, leaving a vacuum of leadership at the top. Mr Odinga may have drawn some waverers onto his side, including some ministers previously loyal to Mr Kibaki. But his office is understaffed and his powers fettered. Mr Kibaki, for instance, still appoints top civil servants. A recent sympathetic visitor described Mr Odinga’s office as a “shell”.

The result is a palpable sense of drift. Any vestige of the previous government’s anti-corruption drive, for example, has been abandoned. This was made plain during a recent brief return visit by John Githongo, Kenya’s former anti-corruption chief, who had been forced to flee Kenya three years ago after blowing the whistle on ministers in the previous government. His movements were kept secret for fear he might be murdered; he met Mr Odinga but Mr Kibaki was disinclined to see him. Corruption remains “out of control”, says Mr Githongo, and is now not even a priority.

The drift cannot be allowed to extend to the big infrastructure projects that Kenya must complete if it is to start moving again. Several are pending: a cement factory at Athi River, south-east of Nairobi; a tarmac road of 530km (329 miles) to link Kenya to Ethiopia; a broadband internet connection via an undersea cable; a new terminal for Nairobi’s airport; the overhaul of Kenya’s port at Mombasa; and a plan to double energy production and slash prices by tapping the Rift Valley’s geothermal potential.

A divided government may not be able to push these through. With water and land, energy has become a make-or-break issue. The cost of electricity has risen 51% this year, with demand growing and climate change lowering the levels of hydroelectric dams. Kenya’s fractured, ethnically divided politics has failed to deliver much in such fields in the past. Yet no one seems enough in charge at the top to get things moving now.

Somalia: Hunger and terror

Medeshi Sept 5 , 2008

Somalia
Hunger and terror
Sep 4th 2008 NAIROBI

From The Economist print edition
There has been no pause in the country’s relentless downward spiral
IT HAS been a long, dreadful summer for Somalia. The UN says that 3.2m Somalis (out of about 8m) now need aid just to stay alive: a 77% rise on last year. A sixth of Somali infants are at risk of starving to death. Due to what aid organisations call “intolerable insecurity”, almost all international charity workers have left. Offshore, Somali pirates are as bold as ever. They are holding around ten vessels, including three large tankers with 130 crewmen captured this week.

Foreign governments still wrangle over Africa’s worst humanitarian and political crisis. UN people working for a deal between Islamist insurgents and the weak Somali government want 8,000 peacekeeping troops to replace the few thousand beleaguered African Union and Ethiopian soldiers. But more senior people in the UN’s peacekeeping office, already failing to get enough troops into Darfur, rule that out. A multinational force would be the next best thing, but who would pay? Mooted Saudi cash has not materialised
Optimists point out that Somalia’s transitional government has at least not collapsed altogether. The prime minister, Nur Adde Hussein, survived a vote of no confidence from the parliament this week. The president, Abdullahi Yusuf, is apparently no longer standing in the way of national reconciliation. Ethiopia’s prime minister, Meles Zenawi, whose forces invaded Somalia with American backing in 2006, has hinted he may withdraw them. Hardline Islamists of the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS) have joined with the more moderate Islamists of the Islamic Courts Union at peace negotiations in Djibouti. The rump of the ARS, led by the former Somali army colonel, Hassan Dahir Aweys, says it will sign a ceasefire only if the Ethiopians go.

Even then, the Islamic Courts’ former military wing, known as the Shabab (meaning Youth), would fight on. Its men have been radicalised by the insurgency and have grown in confidence (or fatalism) since being classified as a terrorist group by the American administration. One of its commanders, Mukhtar Robow, wants to merge it with al-Qaeda. Together with local clan factions, the Shabab took control of the southern port of Kismayo on August 24th. A video released on jihadist websites shows Saleh Ali Nabhan, an al-Qaeda man believed to responsible for the bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and now sheltered by the Shabab, appealing for African Muslims to fight a holy war in Somalia. Foreign fighters are unlikely to sway a new battle for Mogadishu, the capital. But a flow of Somalis into al-Qaeda would be bad news for global counter-terrorists.

Somalia: Republic of Blowback

Republic of Blowback
By Ken Menkhaus and Karin von Hippel
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Back in the 1980s, frustrated aid workers joked that Somalia was the "graveyard of foreign aid," a place where hundreds of millions of dollars were wasted on projects that occasionally left villagers worse off than before.
In the early 1990s, an ambitious UN peace enforcement operation set out to end a famine and promote reconciliation in war-torn Somalia, only to be drawn into the very war it was meant to stop, producing a debacle that put a quick end to hopes of a more robust UN peace enforcement capacity in the post-Cold-War era.
Thus began the schooling of the international community on the law of unintended consequences in Somalia, a country where what foreigners want and what they get rarely coincide. The latest example is U.S. counter-terrorism efforts.
American diplomatic, intelligence and military activity designed to reduce Islamic radicalism and the threat of terrorism in Somalia have instead helped to catalyze a much more powerful, popular, shockingly violent and stridently anti-American jihadist movement.
This alarming blowback in a remote but important corner of the world can be traced to four specific policies. As is often the case, each policy met the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" criterion for the government agencies that conceived and executed them.
The first occurred in 2006, when the United States promoted the formation of a counterterrorism alliance composed of Somali militia leaders, who were to apprehend several high-value Al Qaeda foreigners believed to be in Mogadishu. The alliance was decisively defeated by local Islamists who correctly understood it to be a U.S. front.
By June 2006, Mogadishu - a lawless city that had been divided into warlord fiefdoms for 16 years - was united under the administration of the victorious Islamic Courts Union (ICU). The ICU quickly spread its authority across most of southern Somalia, earning broad popular support by providing law and order.
Promoting the expansion of Islamist rule over southern Somalia was not the intended policy objective of the United States, but that is what it bought by meddling with and supporting unpopular Somali warlords.
Much more serious blowback soon followed when the United States threw its support behind an Ethiopian military offensive against the ICU in December 2006.
Ethiopia and the U.S. government were right to worry that the ICU was increasingly coming under the control of hard-liners. But the proposed cure - a prolonged Ethiopian military occupation of Mogadishu and other parts of southern Somalia - has provided the perfect breeding ground for armed insurgency and radicalization.
Jihadist fighters known as the shabaab have been able to conflate their extremist Islamist agenda with legitimate nationalist sentiments against the Ethiopian occupation of the country, giving the once fringe jihadist movement much wider support among Somalis of all political persuasions.
The displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians and suffering caused by counterinsurgency operations conducted by Ethiopian forces and their client, the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), have radicalized rather than pacified the local population.
The third instance of blowback has resulted from the U.S. counterterrorism operations inside Somalia conducted in tandem with the Ethiopian occupation. These activities include Tomahawk missile attacks, AC-130 gunship attacks, "snatch-and-grab" operations targeting alleged terrorists, renditions of Somali suspects from Kenya for interrogation and Predator drone strikes.
All this has had the unwanted effect of reinforcing the widespread belief among Somalis that the United States is masterminding the Ethiopian occupation.
This perception is inaccurate - the Ethiopian government does not take orders from anyone - but the result is that the United States is held directly accountable by Somalis for the catastrophic levels of displacement, destruction, and abuse produced by a combination of heavy-handed Ethiopian counterinsurgency tactics and uncontrolled, predatory TFG security forces. The latter, it is worth noting, receive direct Western funding. Not surprisingly, anti-Americanism is now virulent in Somalia. This is hardly a victory in the battle for hearts and minds.
Finally, recent U.S. policies intended to marginalize the most radical elements of the armed opposition in Somalia, the shabaab, have inadvertently accelerated a process of decentralized political violence that has rocked Somalia.
U.S. designation of shabaab as a terrorist group in March 2008, and a subsequent U.S. air strike that killed shabaab leader Aden Hashi Ayro, have prompted the group to expand its campaign of political violence from a focus on Ethiopian and TFG forces to the targeting of any and all Somalis linked to the West.
The result has been a bloodbath of assassinations against local aid workers and civic leaders, who ironically have also been targeted by the Western-backed TFG as "terrorist sympathizers." Since the beginning of the year, 20 local and international aid workers have been killed in Somalia - over a third of all humanitarian fatalities suffered worldwide - while at least a dozen have been kidnapped and are still being held captive.
The very Somalis - civic leaders, moderate clerics and businesspeople - who stand as the best hope for a peaceful solution in the country are being killed off or driven out. And aid agencies are now unable to respond adequately to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world because of threats to their staff.
More blowback may be on the horizon. The listing of the shabaab as a terrorist group could attract foreign recruits and funding for the shabaab, who publicly expressed delight at being placed on the U.S. list. For a group that not long ago was little more than a small band of gunmen with vague Islamist credentials, this constitutes a major promotion. A number of international jihadist Web sites now include Somalia on their list of battleground states.
No one can claim to have a simple solution to Somalia's wicked problems of warlordism, state collapse, radicalization and humanitarian disaster.
But by any reasonable yardstick, U.S. counter-terrorism policies in Somalia have fallen far short of their objectives.
They have been part of a deadly combination of ill-conceived interventions by a number of external actors that have produced a situation in which all concerned parties - the United States, our ally Ethiopia, international aid agencies and the Somali people - are far less secure than they were a few years ago.
That alone should prompt a complete overhaul of U.S. foreign policy in the Horn of Africa and make Somalia a higher priority for the next administration in Washington.

Somalia sea pirates seek revenge; to kill French hostages

Medeshi Sept 5, 2008

Somalia sea pirates seek revenge; to kill French hostages
Organised ship piracy gains momentum in the tribal enclave of Majertenia. Without intervention, more will fall victims to the sea mafia of Somalia.
The French yacht caught by pirates in the self declared Bantustan of "Puntland State of Somalia", formerly known as Majertenia for its Majeerteen tribal inhabitants were again in the media this week for another ghastly case of common criminality.
After one botched hijacking of a French luxury yacht almost five months ago which resulted in the deaths of tribal pirate militias due to French rescue mission, they awaited for their moment to strike again until this week. This time, they menacingly plan retribution pledging to "teach the French a lesson".
Speaking to a sympathetic media in Majertenia, one unidentified "leader" denied any connections to Al-Qaeda or Italy's Mafia as more evidences emerge including the involvements of certain Italians who formerly profited from nuclear and chemical waste dumping in the Somalia seas. Continuing with his protestations, he reticently blamed the abject poverty which had pushed entire communities to queue up in coastal areas to look out for opportunities to scavenge in the seas.
Again, the news media is being deliberately side tracked skewing from the reality on the ground by officials with charming titles such as "Minister for Fisheries" or "Minster for Water and Resources" who abdicate their responsibilities claiming to have "no control" because they "have no power". It was only one month ago when the same officials were ridiculously informing media in their press releases that a German couple hijacked from the Gulf of Aden were abducted in Sanaag ( a region in Somaliland which Majertenia lays claims to by tribal affiliations). Las Qorey was cited as the place used by the hostage takers, however their cover was blown by my investigations and intuition pointing fingers in the western part of Bander Qasim known as Bosaaso. Not surprisingly, the hostages appeared from that city within two weeks after a hefty ransom was paid which the Majertenia authority took almost 40% of the proceeds.
As usual, hostages are deliberately reported to be held in Eyl when the Osman Mahamud militias who abducted the hostages are known to use Alula as a holding centre. Eyl is similar to Hafun, Baargaal and many of the empty small coastal settlements which serve no purpose except a staging points for such criminal activities. Rather than closing down these criminal coastal activities, such officials mentioned above morph into tribal elders as they collude with them to bargain for a share of the loot or money, hence such treacherous officials shall be ignored.
Lessons from history
Calling this stretch of Somalia as "Northern Somalia" or "Puntland" is misleading as it ignores past history and solutions to such problems. Worst experience was the callous treatments of survivors in 1801 when the East India Frigate, Weisshelm found itself in difficulties at Hafun causing men to leave ship for land. Survivors unluckily found themselves in peril as naked Majeerteen tribesmen were violently ready to pounce on them; killing, looting and stealing all things considered worthy of selling in the Arab markets of Yemen's Aden port.
Since such savage tribesmen had no capacity to build boats, they prayed to Allah for shipwrecks which to loot as they considered "Kafirs" fair game. At Allula of the 19th century, a Sheikh called Guled Yasin famous in oral history of the Majeerteen resided at Alula to ululate each wreckage as a gift from Allah. Local Sultans encouraged such crimes as means to finance their domain with an ever increasing mouths given the scarce and arid semi desert environment of Majertenia.
After Arab and Indian traders left Majertenia for greener pastures such as today's Kenya, Tanzania, and Zanzibar. Local tribes and slaves were suddenly faced with challenges to organise their society into perceived civilised nature of Sultanates. As a result, confederacies were formed to produce what we today know as the Harti clan which the Majeerteens are affiliated to as a sub-clan of Harti. Without knowledge in trade and shipping, they depended on serving Arab boats involved in the east Africa slave trade as watchmen, guards and sold anything of use to them including Frankincense, myrrh and sheep. In return, Majeerteen bought Arab horses used by tribal worriers often given out as gifts to other tribes they hope to bring under the new Harti umbrella. Amongst these new recruits were the Dholbahante still impressed with Arab horses, and adapted such horses as tribal symbol in their flag.
At its height, French warships bombarded Baargaal settlement and its surrounding in a last ditch effort to scare locals to give back a priceless loot from a French shipwreck. The French ship called Amical was besieged by Majeerteen tribesmen accumulating many gold bars which later were to become the foundation stones of the old Somali Bank. Many Somalis grudgingly saw the Harti domination of the Somali Bank as favouritism from the Darod government, but the Harti saw the Bank as theirs as they contributed to the foundations of the bank more than any other tribe. As a result, many Harti illiterates were entrusted to oversee the Somali Bank operations purely on tribal grounds. Even those Harti sent abroad to study accounting only came back to enrich themselves rather than stabilising the beleaguered bank.
Decoding current "Puntland State of Somalia"
The Majeerteens now numbering almost 200,000 scattered across the North of Somalia currently boast of the presidential seat in the Somalia TFG, increasing their see attacks from 2005 as they needed to raise funds to dominate the docile Hawiya who subsequently voted current Abdullahi Yusuf as their president of the TFG leading to Majeerteen militias occupying Mogadishu with Ethiopian forces..
With Majeerteens now bunching above their weight, major consequences had been the mounting pressure to continue the funding of their Mogadishu occupation winning them plaudits from Majeerteen diasporas engrossed with self-aggrandisement and rekindling their faith in "Harti supremacy". Mogadishu's capture is celebrated as an achievement similar to that of Jews return to Israel. The local Hawiya dislodged Darod and many others from the city by force after finally ceasing to tolerate former military junta which they had served for 21 years in 1991. Ironically, the same bank built with stolen gold bars, was later looted by marauding Hawiye civilians eager to find their share of the looting
As a result of their expulsion from Mogadishu, the Majeerteen along with other Harti subgroups formed "Puntland State of Somalia" in 1998 in order to counteract the then transitional government led by their enemies; a Hawiye man called Abdiqasim. This gave them reprieve from involvements in Somalia politics as they isolated themselves until finally seeing an opportunity in 2001 when Abdiqasim's hopes were pricked by his own clansmen in Mogadishu.
Now it is not surprising to witness the self proclaimed government led by a Majeerteen studiously reticent about co-operations to sufficiently halt this prolonged sea piracy while astonishingly loud in this presaging period of prolonged uncertainty about his efforts to "fighting terrorism" in Mogadishu.
The sudden need to continue these criminal activities culminated from Hawiya blockade after refraining themselves from the use of Bander Qasim as a migration point to Yemen which once generated lucrative business for all in Majertenia. Some Hawiye travellers assumed to be rich use to be held hostage for ransom money. But as Majeerteens entered Mogadishu on the back of Ethiopian tanks, Hawiya suspicions increased and had finally closed all routes into Majertenia. Only Rahawein currently hosting the TFG government in their city Baidoa safely assume themselves to be immune from Majeerteen cruelty.
Hostage taking not only stayed in Majertenia, but followed them wherever they went as now two reporters are still missing in Mogadishu. The foreign reporters were engaged with refugees now displaced in camps outside Mogadishu when the attackers struck. No local Hawiya see this abductions as in their interest since they are eager to share their plight with the rest of the world. Again the suspects who are to gain from silencing such reporters are clear and no further from the eyes of the international community; those who consider hiding their cruelty as paramount to their perceived "empire".

By : Shuun Isaaq

Malaysia deploys 3 navy vessels to Gulf of Aden

Medeshi Sept. 5 , 2008

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: Malaysia is dispatching three navy vessels to the Gulf of Aden to protect its merchant ships following a sharp surge in pirate attacks off the coast of Somalia, an official said Friday.
The frigates, carrying an unspecified number of soldiers and several helicopters, will provide security for five ships owned by Malaysian shipping line MISC Berhad, Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was quoted as saying by The Star.
The move came after two MISC tankers were hijacked by armed pirates in the gulf last month, prompting the company earlier this week to ban its ships from the region until additional security measures were in place.
A defense ministry official — who declined to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media — confirmed Najib's comments.
Two of the navy ships will reach the gulf in the next few days, said the official. A third will leave Malaysia soon. The Gulf of Aden is already patrolled by an international naval force, but the Malaysian vessels will focus on escorting MISC ships.
Soldiers will not launch rescue operations for the two hijacked MISC ships because negotiations were ongoing to release the ships and crew, the official said. No further details were immediately available. MISC officials declined to comment when contacted.
The Gulf of Aden, which connects the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, is one of the world's busiest waterways with some 20,000 ships passing through each year. But it has become notorious for an increasing number of attacks by apparently Somali pirates.
Somalia's 1,880-mile coast is the longest in Africa. The impoverished country has not had a functioning government since 1991.
Pirates seized the Malaysian palm oil tanker, MT Bunga Melati 2, in the gulf between Somalia and Yemen on Aug. 19, resulting in the death of a Filipino sailor. Another MISC tanker, MT Bunga Melati 5, was hijacked 10 days later in the same waterway. It was the eighth ship hijacked in the Gulf of Aden since July 20.
Pirates have reportedly demanded a $3 million ransom for the two ships and 79 crew, including 14 Filipinos, local newspapers said.
The surge in pirate attacks has prompted the U.S. Naval Central Command to establish a security corridor in the gulf patrolled by an international coalition of warships and aircraft.

Pop Star Murdered in Dubai: Egypt MP Charged

Medeshi Sept. 5 , 2008

Pop Star Murder: Egypt MP Charged
An Egyptian billionaire has been charged with hiring a hitman to kill the winner of Lebanon's equivalent of Pop Idol, in a case that has rocked the Arab world.

(Photo: Suzanne Tamim)
Suzanne Tamim enjoyed a meteoric rise to pop fame after winning the reality show in Lebanon.
But on July 28 the star's body was found with her throat slit in her luxury apartment block in Dubai.
The man accused of ordering her death is one of Egypt's most prominent and most successful tycoons, Heshaam Talaat Moustafa.
The alleged killer was a former police officer who stalked Tamim from London to Dubai before killing her, say authorities.
They claim the hitman entered the singer's apartment pretending to bring a letter from her landlord. "He then laid into her with the knife," read the official indictment, "cutting her main arteries and her trachea".
Moustafa is charged with paying the alleged killer two million dollars to carry out the killing.
The Egyptian is an MP with the ruling National Democratic Party, led by President Hosni Mubarak - but that is not helping him now. The upper house of the parliament has stripped him of his legal immunity as a lawmaker
The indictment says little about a possible motive, mentioning only that the killing was an act of revenge.
Arab papers have speculated that the singer had been romantically involved with Moustafa, a married father-of-three.
Lebanese pop music is enormously popular across the Arab world. Tamim had been one of its biggest stars.
The story is causing a sensation in the region, but in Egypt was subject to a reporting ban last month, only lifted in time to reveal the identity of the pair allegedly behind Tamim's killing.

SOMALIA: Schools close in protest over insecurity

NAIROBI, 3 September 2008 (IRIN) -

A three-day protest against insecurity and attacks targeting educational institutions in Mogadishu has shut down most schools and left thousands of children out of class, locals said.
"Almost 90 percent of primary and secondary schools in Mogadishu are participating in the strike," said Abdulkadir Omar Roble, spokesman for the Education Fraternity, an umbrella organisation of education networks in the city, which organised the protest.
Deliberate attacks and targeting of schools were the main reasons for the strike, Roble told IRIN on 3 September. "In this year alone, six schools have been attacked, resulting in injuries to six students and two teachers," he said.
Many schools in the city are totally destroyed and many students are no longer going to school. "We are losing a lot of children from classes because parents no longer feel their children will be safe," he added.
A local civil society activist told IRIN the education system in the capital was "almost broke".
"For some strange reason they seem to relish targeting schools," he said, adding that this trend had forced many educators to close their schools and send the children home. "In the last two years, at least two dozen schools have either been destroyed or closed due to the insecurity."
Roble accused government forces of attacking two schools last week, Imam Shaafi and SYL. "Five students and two teachers were injured in the attacks," he said.
"These attacks are badly undermining an already weak education sector," said the civil society activist. "Many in the education sector have worked hard over the last 18 years to restore education, but that is being undermined by the volatile situation."
Abdi Haji Gobdon, the government spokesman, told IRIN the government did not condone "entering or attacking" educational institutions.
"The government is very concerned about these incidents and will do everything in its power to deal very harshly with the perpetrators," he said.
After the collapse of Somalia's central government in 1991, schools and universities were destroyed as the city was torn apart by militia. But private schools have been gradually re-established over the past few years.
"In the past 18 years we have not experienced these kinds of attacks on schools," said Roble.
Organisers of the school strike said they wanted to show the public and the government that “these targeted attacks must stop". They appealed to the government to deal with the attackers and called on the opposition to cease mounting attacks on government positions near schools.
Roble urged the international community to support his group "and provide both

Ethiopia’s Somali region is worst affected by drought, observes UN envoy

Medeshi Sept 4, 2008

Ethiopia’s Somali region is worst affected by drought, observes UN envoy
APA-Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) The Somali region of Ethiopia, inhabited mostly by ethnic Somalis is one of the regions worst hit by the current drought in Ethiopia, a visiting UN envoy said here Wednesday. The envoy, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes was speaking after visiting the area for the past two days.
“It is critical that the presence of NGOs and other humanitarian actors be expanded as soon as possible in this region. Mothers and children are in desperate need of food and water. Strengthening the response, including transparent and ongoing assessments, will be the key to saving lives,” said Holmes.
He is visiting the country following Ethiopia’s recent appeal to feed around 4.5 million people who depend on food assistance due to poor rain from February to April 2008.
He underlines the need to speed up the current humanitarian assistance in the area to avoid any deaths from the drought.
“In the absence of humanitarian assistance, Ethiopians’ attempt to adopt to the status of asylum seekers in the hope of accessing food, shelter and medical care. However, while they may not be asylum seekers, they live in grim conditions and need immediate assistance.” he added.
The Somali region is experiencing the worst emergency since 2001 following the failure of three consecutive rainy seasons.
According the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) Ethiopian office, more than one million people are being assisted through emergency food aid.
“Water is scarce, forcing emergency interventions to continue even throughout the rainy season,” the office said.

Court annuls Somali assets ruling

Medeshi Sept 4, 2008
Europe's highest court has overturned a ruling to freeze the funds of a Sweden-based foundation that used to be one of Somalia's biggest money transfer firms.
The European Court of Justice has given the EU three months to inform al-Barakaat International Foundation why its funds were frozen.
The court also overturned the decision to freeze the assets of Saudi businessman Yassin Abdullah Kadi.
EU governments froze the assets in 2001 because of suspected links to al-Qaeda.
The court's decision breaks with a UN ruling ordering member states to freeze the assets of people or groups accused of links to terrorism.
With the chaos and conflict in Somalia, many people survive through funds sent by their relatives abroad, using money transfer agencies.
Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991 and firms such as al-Barakaat are the closest institutions to banks which still exist.
'Conceivable'
"The rights of the defence, in particular the right to be heard and the right to effective judicial review of those rights were patently not respected," the court said in its ruling.
But it was not immediately clear whether the assets would be released.
The court said it was still "conceivable" that the measures might be justified.
Other groups or individuals have won rulings for similar reasons, but their assets have remained frozen.
EU governments argue that the court rulings do not oblige them to remove people from a blacklist - only to inform them that their assets have been frozen.
Swedish lawyer Thomas Olsson, who represented al-Barakaat, told the AP news agency he would examine ways of having assets released to the Somali immigrants in Sweden who used the network to send funds to relatives in Somalia.
A spokeswoman for the European Commission said the EU would try to rectify its failure to respect the parties' rights of defence.
"We have roughly three months to repair this," she said.
The court's decision overturns an earlier ruling in 2005.