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'Humanitarian crisis' in Somalia as fighting rocks capital
Al Jazeera's Ghida Fakhry talks to Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary for African affairs at the US state department, who defends the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia and denies that the...
“The international community has the responsibility not to abandon the Somali people to their fate but to help all concerned to find a way out of the traps they find themselves in.” -- John Holmes, Emergency Relief Coordinator
A teacher conducts lessons in the open due to lack of proper learning facilities. This is happening in places where IDPs have fled conflict in Mogadishu. Education partners in South Central Somalia are looking into ways of installing temporary tents to be used as makeshift schools in the new school year that started in August. Source: UNICEF
Address to the Security Council on the Situation in Africa: Humanitarian Affairs in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia
Statement by John Holmes, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator. 6 December 2007
Mr. President
Thank you for the opportunity to brief the Council on my visit to Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia, from 26 November to 4 December.
In Ethiopia I wanted to assess the humanitarian situation in the Somali Region, and discuss with the government widespread fears of a severe humanitarian crisis there. The Somali Region, one of the poorest regions of Ethiopia, has long been badly affected by the conflict between government forces and the Ogaden National Liberation Front. Intensification of this conflict during 2007 has led to fears that already chronic food insecurity could give way to real famine conditions for a significant part of the 4.5 million population.
A UN Assessment Team, which visited the region in early September, identified specific reasons for concern. First, the military operations, and in particular government concerns about the smuggling of weapons from Somalia, had severely limited movement of commercial traffic across the Somali border. This is a historic trade route supporting the livelihood of 1.4 million people, predominantly pastoralists, whose income to buy food from across the border depends on the export of livestock.
Second, insecurity had also had a direct effect on the delivery of food aid, required in recent years to assist the most vulnerable elements of the population. For example, it is currently estimated that 950,000 people require 53,000 metric tonnes of food for the next three months, but the process of moving the first 9,000 tonnes to the district capitals has only just been completed.
A poor recent rainy season and evidence of worrying health and nutrition situations have added to these fears. Finally, humanitarian access to the military zones, already heavily restricted, was aggravated in July when the government expelled ICRC and MSF-Holland from the region.
The government did not necessarily accept the evidence presented in the UN report but nevertheless agreed to implement its recommendations, in particular on commercial trade and food aid. And after further negotiations they have now allowed the UN to set up offices in two locations within the military zones, namely Kebredahar and Degahabur. 18 NGOs have been cleared to work in the military area to deliver much needed humanitarian assistance.
Mr. President, against this background, I visited Jijiga, the regional capital, and Kebredahar. I talked to the local authorities, and to UN and NGO humanitarian workers. I saw briefly a food distribution in Kebredahar, which might have been particularly staged for my visit. I was also able to look into the local market, where food was on sale, but at prices which seemed well above those in previous years, although food prices have increased significantly in Ethiopia generally in recent months.
In Addis Ababa, I talked to members of the Government, from Prime Minister Meles Zenawi down, about their views of the situation, as well as ways to improve the humanitarian response. We also discussed reported human rights violations.
The government’s view, in brief, is that claims of major humanitarian problems are much exaggerated; that there are now no restrictions on commercial trade; and that there should be no difficulty in getting food aid to the people, including in the remote areas. We had to agree to disagree about the analysis of the crisis, though we will try to reconcile our respective data. But the Prime Minister helpfully confirmed that the government would respond as if our worst case scenario predictions were justified. He assured me that all necessary steps would be taken to avoid any famine.
On this basis I urged him and the Deputy Prime Minister to allow full humanitarian access to the region, to speed up relief efforts, to enable more NGOs to operate within the military zone, to allow WFP trucks to move in at least the safer areas without military escorts, to allow local government officials to resume their normal work, particularly in the health area, and to establish a high-level regular coordination forum between the government and the humanitarian community.
There has not yet been agreement to all these requests but I believe we have made some progress, including in terms of access and presence on the ground. Nevertheless there is a huge amount still to do.
My own initial assessment of the crisis, on the basis of my visit and the contacts I was able to make, is that while there may not currently be a humanitarian catastrophe, there are strong reasons to believe such a catastrophe could occur in the next few months if all the necessary action to avert it is not taken. I should nevertheless make clear that no-one from outside has yet been able to visit many of the remote rural areas, where the conflict has been worst. The situation could well be even more serious there.
We have all also seen and heard worrying reports about the human rights situation. The UN report recommended that the Government allow them to be investigated independently. I heard, indirectly, further reports of the same alarming kind while I was in the region. I took these up with the Government and urged them again to allow independent investigation and monitoring. They contested the reports but said they would be responding to them. I take this opportunity to repeat the plea that any local investigation should also involve independent outside experts. Otherwise suspicions about dreadful things happening, involving all sides, cannot be dispelled.
In sum, Mr. President, the commitments of the Ethiopian Government, at the most senior level, to do everything necessary to make sure there is no famine give me a measure of hope. But I repeat that, if all the steps I have talked about are not taken, a disaster could unfold with frightening speed. For my part I will continue to monitor this very closely and am ready to authorize more resources, for example from CERF, if that should be needed. In the longer term, a return of peace and stability to the region would obviously be the best guarantee against disaster. I hope some kind of inclusive political dialogue to this end can start again soon. Meanwhile, I encourage the international community, not least members of this Council, to monitor the situation and to encourage political progress, in the light of the potential implications for peace and security in an increasingly explosive region.
Mr. President, the last leg of my mission was a brief visit to Somalia, for the second time this year.
I visited the area where a large proportion of those fleeing the capital have sought shelter. The UN estimates that more than half of the city has been emptied of its citizens, or 600,000 people altogether. Some 230,000 of them are now living along a 15-kilometre stretch of road between Mogadishu and the small town of Afgooye, probably the single largest IDP gathering in the world today.
I drove along most of this road and was able to see the extent of the over 70 IDP camps. Some have mushroomed in the past month. Others already have signboards advertising the name of the settlement and even the phone number, as if they expected to last.
All the people I spoke to in the camps had fled the violence and intimidation that have made life in Mogadishu so unlivable. Some spoke to me of snipers fueling panic in the streets. Many left with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
I visited a recent IDP settlement called Gutale, hosting about 600 families. The shelters were rudimentary, literally branches and cloth, and people’s distress was clear. Nevertheless an active relief response is now visible. Clean water is being trucked in; distributions of plastic sheeting are providing cover; building of much-needed latrines and sanitation facilities is making progress. A five-day vaccination campaign for all the children in the areas was well underway while I was there, and WFP had recently distributed food to 180,000 people.
I also visited the largest camp known as Hawa Abdi, named after the doctor who has run a clinic there for the past 16 years, with more than 4,000 families or 25,000 people. Dr. Hawa Abdi runs a treatment centre there, which also hosts a therapeutic feeding center run by MSF Switzerland. Every one of the 60 beds for malnourished children was being used, reflecting the alarming malnutrition rates. Dr. Abdi herself is an inspiring example of the dedication of some Somali citizens to relieve the suffering of their own people.
Virtually all these relief activities are implemented through local partners or national staff of international NGOs and UN agencies. With very few exceptions international humanitarian staff do not feel able to work in the area because of security concerns, including extortion and violence at check points and road blocks. Our convoy had the benefit of heavy security arrangements. Armed elements were nevertheless clearly visible along the road. The prevailing atmosphere of mistrust between the authorities and the international organizations, and resulting incidents and administrative difficulties, have not helped.
Let me therefore pay warm tribute to the humanitarian workers who operate in such a hostile environment, particularly national staff who have often themselves now been displaced from Mogadishu with their own families.
Mr. President, while a decent relief effort may now be underway in the area I visited, there are still huge challenges. I am particularly concerned about the seriousness of the situation of the other hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Mogadishu, scattered over inaccessible areas in South and Central Somalia.
I am even more concerned about those still in Mogadishu. A WFP programme to serve up to 50,000 prepared meals a day to the most vulnerable has just started. However, such efforts are far from enough to cover the needs – particularly if violence and displacement continue at their current pace.
In Baidoa, I met the newly appointed Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, former President of the Somali Red Crescent Society. Mr. Hussein shared my concern about the severity of the humanitarian crisis and agreed that there should be no distinction among vulnerable people when it comes to the right to be assisted. He also promised the Government’s full help. We discussed ways to overcome the mistrust between the Transitional Federal Government and the international humanitarian organizations and the priority to be given to the protection of civilians, particularly in Mogadishu. He made clear that the humanitarian crisis, security and political reconciliation were his three top priorities. We need to see that translated into action.
Meanwhile we need to step up our relief efforts further. There are some 1.5 million people in need altogether. I therefore appeal to the donor community, the Agencies and the international NGOs to increase their presence and the resources dedicated to Somalia. In 2007, we requested $300 million for the Somalia Consolidated Appeal. In 2008, that figure will rise to at least $400 million.
But a robust humanitarian response cannot make up for the absence of desperately needed political and security progress. I fear, on the basis of what I heard, that increasingly terrible things are now happening in Mogadishu, as it descends into the nightmare of urban guerrilla warfare and reciprocal atrocities. Respect for International Humanitarian Law is essential now more than ever, a point I raised strongly with both the Ethiopian and Somali Governments, but which applies just as much to those fighting them.
The international community has the responsibility not to abandon the Somali people to their fate but to help all concerned to find a way out of the traps they find themselves in. There is no simple solution, certainly not a military one. And peacekeeping forces need a peace to keep, above all in this troubled country. But lack of high-level attention is not an option for Somalia, any more than it is for Darfur.
Mr. President, I am extremely concerned by the humanitarian situation in all three areas I visited. They are a reflection of the huge linked political and security challenges which this region now faces, and which must be a major concern for this Council.
This project is expanding VETAID’s work beyond Somaliland into Puntland and other areas of Somalia.
The goal of this project is to reduce poverty amongst 14,000 pastoralists in the districts of Dhahar, Qardho, Hudun and Taleh of Sool Plateau.
Pastoral communities in Sool Plateau are faced with numerous challenges to their food security. Sporadic and decreasing rains, environmental degradation, population growth and civil conflict have all contributed to their vulnerability. The ban on importation of Somali livestock by the main Arab importing countries has also had a crippling impact.
Key project activities:
- Train 50 community-based animal health workers to enhance livestock production and ultimately help increase food security in target pastoral communities.
- Develop community-based management and conservation of natural rangeland resources. Through cash-for-work schemes managed by local communities, 80 site-based erosion control structures are being built, 8 rangeland sites are being re-seeded or planted with trees and 8 surface-water dams are being constructed.
- Improve food security assessment at community level. Informants are being trained to coordinate surveys of local needs and feed these into the regional assessments of bodies such as the UN and FSAU (Food Security Assessment Unit). This will improve drought preparedness and assist in ensuring needs are met before they become critical.
- Develop 4 Pastoral Associations to build the capacity of beneficiaries to plan and manage their own development and to increase the representation of pastoralist communities in the decisions that affect them.
Pastoral Dairy Development Project
Pastoralist livestock production systems in Somalia traditionally depend on the export of slaughter animals to the Middle East. The devaluation of Somali livestock due to imposed export bans have however led to a deterioration of the terms of trade and to an increased vulnerability of pastoralist livelihoods. This project aims to contribute to addressing this vulnerability by promoting and supporting the Somali dairy industry.
In Somalia, camel milk and milk products are a very important source of protein and the main source of Vitamin C for human nutrition (Muslims do not eat blood and Somalia meat is mainly exported). Milk is available over most parts of the year and plays an important role in the diet of children, elderly and sick people. Milk sales provide a regular and reliable income to meet the daily needs of pastoralists.
Despite the large number of livestock kept in the country, the growing domestic demand for milk is largely met by imports of milk powder and apart from one pilot milk plant in Gardo there is no dairy industry or modern milk processing in Somalia. Large volumes of raw milk are handled by the informal market and supplied daily to urban consumers. However, milk transporters and milk traders lack the technical skills and basic understanding of milk hygiene to be able to provide quality fresh milk to the markets. Milk that has gone bad or sour fetches a 25-40% lower price than fresh milk, which puts pressure on incomes of both traders and producers. The paradox is that in a country where milk represents a staple food, pastoralist milk producers and urban milk consumers are poorly interlinked through a weak and unreliable trade chain.
VETAID is coordinating this project in partnership with Tierärtze ohne Grenzen, the German partner from the network Vétérinaires sans Frontières Europa.
This project aims to:
- Alleviate poverty for livestock owners and others in the dairy sector (milk traders, processors) by providing an increased and stable income from dairy products.
- Enhance food security through improved quality of dairy products. Build the capacity of stakeholders in the dairy sector.
Key activities:
- Provide training on basic milk hygiene, milk collection, milk handling during transport and milk quality control.
- Improve market access and strengthen milk collection networks through simple cooling facilities on charcoal-water basis (evaporative cooling).
- Diversify income for poor pastoralists by introducing appropriate processing technology to support a seasonal “cottage industry” production of storable and marketable milk products, for example oriental sweets, condensed milk and ghee. This will enable beneficiaries to turn a seasonal surplus of milk into income.
Towards the end of 2006, US-backed Ethiopian forces, with the direct support of American air power, rolled into Somalia to oust the Union of Islamic Courts that had restored peace and security in much of southern Somalia during their brief reign of power.
The illegal invasion and occupation of Somalia that installed a puppet war-lord regime marks a new phase of US imperialism in Somalia, plunging the war-torn nation into further anarchy.
It is also part of US militarist agenda meant to complete the unfinished business of the so-called "Operation Restore Hope," which went up in smoke in 1993 when nationalist forces defeated and humiliated US forces that occupied Somalia.
Somalia has endured a long history of imperialism both at the hands of European colonial powers and the US. But the Somali people have always demonstrated their strong determination to resist Western imperialism, and, in 1960, European colonizers were eventually defeated when Somalia attained its national independence.
In the early 1980s, US imperialism gradually took hold in Somalia as the US administration propped up the Barre military dictatorship through financial aid and the massive transfer of arms.
Working in collusion with Barre, US destabilization in this era was aimed at suppressing and dividing the Somali people, thereby making Washington directly responsible for state collapse in Somalia.
The primary objective of the US hegemonic designs in Somalia is the unfettered access to Somalia's untapped but massive oil reserves and vast uranium deposits. In geopolitical terms, Somalia is strategically located because it lies at the confluence where the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, and the Red Sea converge. It oversees the daily passage of oil tankers that go through the Suez Canal while its close proximity to the Middle East and Sudan makes it ideal for the US to launch military strikes against perceived "Islamist threat" in the region.
Worse still, the US plans to use the strategic City of Berbera as the base of its newly launched Africom (Africa Command), a Pentagon-orchestrated scheme aimed at completing the militarization of the entire African continent.
Just as the Somali people rallied to defeat US imperialism in 1993, Somali resistance against the ongoing occupation will stop at nothing short of stamping out the remaining vestiges of imperialism
As well, the Somali Diaspora has stepped up its peaceful resistance to US imperialism, and this is evident in the recent well-attended Somalia Peace rallies organized by the Somali Canadian Diaspora Alliance (SDA). The SDA has also built alliances with like-minded organizations and other solidarity groups fighting against war and occupation in other parts of the world.
In fighting the occupation, and by forging ahead to rebuild a united, peaceful Somalia, an umbrella organization bringing together eight progressive Somali Diaspora organizations from both Canada and the United States was formed in November during a major conference held in Virginia.
The mandate of the new organization known as Somali Cause, is to demand an immediate end to the Ethiopian occupation and rampant war crimes, promote an all-inclusive national reconciliation process, and call for the establishment of an International War Crimes Tribunal for Somalia.
The main objective is to forge a united front to peacefully free Somalia from occupation and oppression, and to bring lasting freedom and democracy to the Somali people.
As Africa’s worst humanitarian crisis, the last that Somalia needs is another layer of political complexity; another reason to perpetuate violence and further fragment this failed state.
In the spirit of averting a worst case scenario, the Somali Cause expresses its unequivocal disinclination to support the secessionist aspirations of “Somaliland”. This week marks the start of the first visit to the United States by Mr. Dahir Riyale Kahin, “President” of Somaliland, the self-declared breakaway region of Somalia. Compared to the rest of Somalia, Somaliland, in the North West, has enjoyed relative stability yet the potential for conflict is real and always just under the surface as was demonstrated recently when heavy fighting over disputed territory broke out between Somaliland and its neighboring region Puntland, in the North East of Somalia. In this volatile and dangerous environment, Somaliland seeks recognition as an independent state over contested territory and with no legal foundation. Understandably, no country or international organization has offered such recognition to date.
The African Union (AU) has wisely rejected calls to recognize Somaliland as an independent state understanding that it was likely to set a dangerous precedent that could descend Africa into secession based conflicts. The official United States policy on Somaliland rightly defers the matter to the AU stating that “the African Union is the most appropriate forum to address the question of recognition of Somaliland as an independent state” (US Department of State fact sheet, 12/05/2007).
Furthermore, in both most recent United Nations’ resolutions on Somalia, 1725 (2006) and 1744 (2007), the Security Council reaffirms “its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence and unity of Somalia.”
Official or otherwise, the visit by Mr. Kahin is a marked departure from the stated and official policy of the United States on Somaliland. Furthermore, it lends much credence to the recently published desire by Defense Department officials to recognize Somaliland as an independent state (Washington Post, 12/03/2007).
This at a time when there is almost unanimous agreement that the US supported Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) has been an utter failure. When there is also agreement that the Ethiopian invasion and the occupation that followed it, both tacitly approved by the United States, have led to a humanitarian catastrophe dubbed “the worst on the continent” by Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top United Nations official for Somalia (New York Times, 11/19/2007).
In so far as it is designed to groom world opinion on Somaliland, in general, and that of the African Union in particular, Somali Cause is extremely disturbed by Mr. Kahin’s visit to the United States. On the heels, it seems, of recent failed policies such as the CIA support for warlords (New York Times, 06/08/2006) and the tacit approval of Ethiopia’s invasion (New York Times, 12/27/2006), any efforts to further disintegrate Somalia into mini-states are no more likely to succeed than supporting the ineffectual TFG or the brutal Ethiopian occupation.
In fact, they are likely to add more fuel to the fires of the raging conflict in Somalia and the instability of the region as a whole. Most Somalis recognize that self-serving politicians are behind the calls to secession of the North West region from the rest of Somalia. They also know that the patriotic people of the North West wish to remain in a united Somalia.
The legitimate grievances of Somalis in that region against the previous regime should be addressed within the Somali Union.
Somali Cause expresses its strong wish that the United States continues to uphold and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia; Somali Cause urges the Defense Department to adhere to the letter and spirit of the official policy of the United States on Somaliland, the official and stated policy of the Security Council on Somalia and follows the example of the African Union in rejecting any efforts to further destabilize Somalia.
Somali Cause also appeals to the patriotic people of Northern Somalia to maintain their historic achievements of uniting the nation after colonialism and to reject the weakness and indignity of a fractured Somalia.
Somali Cause is a Union of Somali organizations working to end the Ethiopian occupation of Somalia and and calling for a replacement with Muslim and non-frontline troops with a clear mandate. The grouping wants humanitarian assistance to the suffering people of Somalia and calls for safeguarding the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia.
Asthma is a well recognized disease in Somalia, both in urban and rural environments. One person said asthma is very common there because Somalia is a hot, dry, dusty country and dust causes asthma. Asthma is called /nef/ or /az' ma/. /Nef/ means asthma. Asthma was distinguished from colds, tuberculosis, and pneumonia.
Symptom recognition
A term exists for wheeze. It is called /hu' urrto/ (with a rolled r). This was a term that all people interviewed also recognized. Symptoms recognized with asthma included /hu'urto/, difficulty breathing in and out, and difficulty sleeping. One mother recognized her child's nighttime cough, as well as wheezing with exercise, crying hard, or emotional upset.
Disease causation
People did not know what caused their asthma. Some mentioned that other family members had asthma too, alluding to inheritance as a possibility. One person did not get asthma prior to coming to the US. She thought the new weather caused her asthma. Asthma is not thought to be curable.
Symptom exacerbation / relief
Carpeting, bedrooms, dust, cigarette smoke, animals, and crying (in a child) were all reported to worsen asthma. One family with asthma avoids smoke. Although one person in the family smokes, he smokes outside. In addition, they avoid smoke from incense (although burning incense is a common custom in Somali culture). Pets or animals are not kept in the house according to Somali culture.
Treatment
At home Somali people treat symptoms with honey and butter mixture. In the United States, one Somali woman uses only honey because she cannot find butter from a cow. She gives her child one spoonful of honey every night before bed as well as massaging her child's chest and keeping her warm.
Traditional healers often use a sesame oil with water mixture. It works by causing one to vomit, expel mucus, and then improve. They also use an egg, butter, and milk mixture to treat asthma.
Western medication is also available. Somalia was a colony governed by Italy until 1960. Even after gaining their independence, however, Italy still helped with medical and schooling issues. Consequently, they have received western medicine from Italy, as well as Germany and England. One woman had received IV aminophylline and hydrocortisone when she was pregnant and had asthma. She had also received IM epinephrine and steroids for acute episodes.
During the past week, there were no measurable changes in security in Mogadishu or other parts of South Central Somalia. Clashes between Ethiopian/Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and anti-government elements were reported daily causing additional displacement.
In Puntland and Somaliland’s disputed border region of Sool, tension remained high following clashes on 13 January between pro-Puntland militia and Somaliland forces in a village called Dhabansaar, around 60km west of Laas Caanood. No displacements were reported.
During the reporting period, several episodes targeting the freedom of the press occurred. On 12 January, a journalist working for Radio Gaalkacyo, was shot and critically wounded by unidentified gunmen. On 13 January, Somali security forces raided the offices of a private Mogadishu-based radio and arrested two of its journalists. On 15
January, the BBC’s provincial reporter for Hiran region was arrested by the local authorities. The National Union of Journalists (NUSOJ) and the Paris-based advocacy group Reporters without Borders condemned these attacks against freedom of the press in Somalia.
On 16 and 17 January, demonstrations against the rising rates of inflation took place in Bossaso and Gaalkacyo towns. According to the Food Security Analysis Unit’s (FSAU) latest brief (December 2007), imported food commodities prices for rice, sugar, vegetable oil, increased sharply throughout 2007 and are now at all time high levels in all the main markets of Somalia, which is negatively affecting poor families’ purchasing power and access to food . The soaring prices are caused by several factors including the continuing devaluation of the Somali shilling, increasing transportation costs and the escalating fighting in South Central parts of the country.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Mayfaa Reception Centre in Yemen reported that during the first two weeks of 2008, approximately 1,240 persons have arrived on the Yemen shores from Puntland. A majority of these new arrivals originate from Banadir, Hiran and the Shabelle regions and have explained that they fled due to the ongoing fighting in Somalia. According to UNHCR’s Population Movement Tracking (PMT), during the first two weeks of January, nearly 20,000 IDPs have been displaced from Mogadishu.
On 14 January, members of the Education Cluster visited the Mogadishu/Afgooye stretch and noted the critical need for additional emergency education structures. There are currently 30 emergency schools catering for 7,400 displaced children. However, due to the constant influx of IDP families, around 4,000 children are on a waiting list to attend school.
WFP reported that a new round of monthly food distributions to 200,000 displaced in mogadishu /Afgooye areas started this week. They will receive 3,286 MT of food. Three incidences of looting took place during the reporting period. On 11 January, food and NFIs items provided by
the Swiss NGO CARITAS were looted at a distribution point in Buuhoodle town (130km southwest of Laas Caanood). Due to the incident, CARITAS suspended further assistance to 500 IDPs in the area. Looting of WFP food aid was also reported in Dinsor (Bay region) and Kismayo.
MOGADISHU — Protesting a disappointing performance and failure to rise up to the needs of the country and its people, the seniors of the Muslim Brotherhood group in Somalia recently elected a new leadership.
"Dr. Ali el-Sheikh Abu Bakr has been replaced by Sheikh Othman Ahmed Ibrahim," the group, known as the Islamic Movement in the Horn of Africa, said in a statement obtained by IslamOnline.net.
The decision came at the conclusion of an extraordinary five-day meeting, held in an undisclosed location, that brought together senior members of the group.
Sheikh Ibrahim, the former dean of the Shari`ah College in Mogadishu University, will serve as leader of the group for only two years until the 2010 general congress.
The meeting also decided to disband all the bodies of the movement, including its Shura and executive councils, and amending its bylaw to separate the posts of leader and chaiman of the Shura council.
Senior leaders were for years critical of the fact that outgoing Abu Bakr held both positions, undermining any chance for self-criticism and improving within the group.
Somalia's wing of the Muslim Brotherhood is locally known as the Reform Movement.
It was formed in 1978 and slowly grew in the 1980s.
The group became a key player after the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991.
During the 1990s, the movement devoted much effort to humanitarian efforts and providing free basic social services.
It contributed to educating the Somali people and the establishment of Mogadishu University.
Ethiopian Factor
The group statement particularly criticized the sacked leadership over its position with regard to the Ethiopian deployment in Somalia.
"Instead of standing firmly against this brazen aggression and mobilizing the people against it, the leadership continued to work with the proxy interim government that invited the occupiers," said the statement.
The group accused its outgoing leadership of justifying the Ethiopian "invasion" and thus discouraging many from joining the "jihad" against the Ethiopian troops.
Backed by the United States, the Ethiopian army invaded Somalia last year to topple the Islamic Courts at the request of the weak interim government.
The Islamic Courts, which ruled for six months after routing a Washington-backed alliance of warlords, managed to briefly restore unprecedented order and stability on most of the Somali territories after more than 15 years of unrest.
But since their ouster, Somalia has descended into chaos with almost daily attacks against Ethiopian troops and government forces.
At least nine people were killed and more than 75 wounded Thursday in clashes between Ethiopian forces and Somali fighters in southern Mogadishu.
The Islamic Courts fighters have recently been recapturing key towns in south-central Somalia.
Somali experts have told IOL that the Courts fighters have grown more powerful in recent months, regaining control of nearly one-third of Somalia thanks to sophisticated attacks and unified ranks in the face of the weak government.
The 'War on Terror' and the Humanitarian Crisis in Somalia
Sadia Ali Aden, December 21, 2007
The Ethiopia-backed government in Somalia is currently battling an insurgency in Mogadishu, blamed on an Islamist movement that was expelled from the country's south and central regions early this year. (Photo: Jose Cendon / AFP-Getty Images)
Approximately three months ago, Somalia's Transitional Federal Government, pressured out Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi. Surprisingly, this political rearrangement of deckchairs generated many noisy headlines.
Meanwhile, the real story—the great unfolding humanitarian disaster—continued unnoticed.
For the Somali people, the Ethiopian invasion of December 2006 could not have started at a worse time. Defeating the Union of Islamic Courts and propping up the Transitional Federal Government was Ethiopia's immediate rationale for invading Somalia. The larger goal was to forge a partnership between Washington and Addis Ababa in order to execute the "war on terror."
A year later, this mission has not been accomplished. Instead, the war on terror has become the terror of war being visited on the Somali people.
Admittedly, a handful of Somalis have benefited from the invasion, specifically the dozens of warlords previously driven out of Mogadishu by the Union of Islamic Courts. These warlords, the instigators of Somalia's current civil conflict, were reinstalled in their fiefdoms riding on the backs of Ethiopia's invading tanks. As a result, the reviled checkpoints and roadblocks used to bully cash out of unarmed civilians were reintroduced in southern Somalia, particularly Mogadishu.
To keep the invasion and Africa's worst humanitarian catastrophe going, heavy and modern weapons, including airplanes were used. One was a United States Air Force AC-130 gunship that attacked and killed Somali villagers and countless livestock in the hunt for three foreign men suspected for the 1998 bombing of American embassies in Africa, who yet remain at large.
Among those caught in the chaos were visiting Somalis from the diaspora. In the period between June and December 2006, Somali technocrats returned to their native country to partake in the rebuilding in the six-month period of peace and stability that was established under the rule of the Union of Islamic Courts. The diaspora arrived with the intention to give back to the land and the people they left behind and contribute to rebuilding their lives.
Unfortunately, extraordinary rendition programs were the gratitude they received; in that, the Transitional Federal Government, Kenya, Ethiopia, and the United States can all be implicated. Young men as young as 12 years of age were taken out of their homes in the dead of the night, blindfolded, and carried off to unknown destinations.
Fleeing refugees of mostly women and children met a similar fate. Unfortunately, these refugees had nowhere to escape to, as Kenya decided to close its borders and deny them entry. This paved the way to the current nightmare scenario: 1 million internally displaced persons, mostly children and women, without any provision or protection from the United Nations or other humanitarian agencies or nongovernmental organizations.
In order to create a safe haven for the displaced refugees, the international community must demand that neighboring countries open their borders. It is all too often that the casualties of war are those that go unmentioned. The innocent men, women, and children, caught in the middle, left with no way out.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, said border security measures should not impair the ability of deserving Somali civilians to enter Kenya to seek safety and protection as refugees. The neighboring nations have a humanitarian responsibility to safeguard these refugees.
On Oct. 30, 40 international N.G.O.'s released a joint statement ominously warning against a gathering cloud of humanitarian catastrophe in Somalia and urging the international community to respond to this man-made calamity as the Ethiopian forces and militias loyal to the Transitional Federal Government callously prevent the delivery of assistance, and bluntly stating that "there is an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in south central Somalia."
Meanwhile, Ethiopian forces continue their shelling of Mogadishu neighborhoods, having killed, according to the Elman Human Rights group, 7,000 civilians, mostly women, children, and the elderly, between January and November of 2007.
"In 'Shell-Shocked,' Human Rights Watch's August 2007 report of our investigation of the March-April hostilities, we documented many of the most serious patterns of abuse by Ethiopian troops, such as indiscriminate attacks on civilians, summary executions, and repeated targeting of hospitals," wrote Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, in an open letter to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
However, the international media by and large remain morally selective in what they show to the world.
Somali caricaturist Amin Amir (http://www.aminarts.com) depicts this moral selectivity in his Dec. 12 cartoon. The powerful imagery shows a representative of the international media zooming his camera in on a severely malnourished child standing in the middle of a killing field where many bodies are on the ground and Ethiopian fighter jets are flying overhead and dropping missiles. The child retorts: "I don't need your coverage; it is these atrocities"—pointing to the dead—"that you need to be telling the world."
The current Somali nightmare was exacerbated by the systematic assassination of Somali independent media groups who are not pro Transitional Federal Government and the Ethiopian occupation. And the silence of the international community on this matter is deeply disturbing and sadly deafening.
This year alone, eight Somali journalists were killed—their crimes being to have simply dared to report on the reality on the ground in Mogadishu. The Transitional Federal Government and Ethiopian forces are terrorizing Somali reporters creating an uncomfortable environment of terror and coercion.
According to the United Nations Children's Fund, one-quarter of the refugees around Afgooye are younger than the age of 5. Sick children and pregnant women often are turned away at checkpoints, and trucks carrying food and other humanitarian aid are routinely charged $500 each to pass through.
"Things are now getting absolutely worse," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, the UNICEF representative for Somalia. "There is a dirtiness to this war. Children are a real target."
The level of food security in central and southern Somalia has deteriorated dramatically since June owing to an inadequate rainy season, ending in May. Because of the poor harvest, many farmers have been unable to set aside seed for the planting season, which usually begins in October. This problem has been compounded by the disruption in trade in the capital, Mogadishu, where the price of basic consumer goods has risen sharply.
In late September the ICRC distributed seed, together with food rations for two months (including 48 kg of beans and 24 l of oil per family), to 26,750 poor farmers and displaced families who have access to land. This operation improved food security for 160,750 people facing economic hardship.
"When both food security and livelihoods are threatened, providing seed alone is not enough. Food must be included in the assistance package to prevent people from consuming the seed and to enable them to bridge the gap until the next harvest," said Mathias Frese, the ICRC's economic security and relief coordinator for Somalia.
Despite the dire situation elsewhere in the country, farmers in areas bordering the rivers Juba and Shabelle brought in a good harvest thanks to flood-recession production. In October 2006, after devastating floods, the ICRC had distributed seed kits to 59,000 households in these areas, enabling them to reap the latest harvest.
The ICRC is closely monitoring the threat of renewed flooding during the upcoming rainy season, particularly in areas where river banks have been weakened. It has already distributed 110,000 sandbags in five regions as a preventive measure.
Treating the wounded in Mogadishu
A displaced Somali girl holds her younger brother on her back as she waits for food distribution in a camp outside the capital Mogadishu after another round of street violence, 9 September 2007 – In a country ravaged by more than 15 years of armed conflict, compounded by droughts and flooding, the light at the end of the tunnel still seems to be just out of reach. The ICRC has been present in Somalia since 1977, working in close cooperation with the Somali Red Crescent as a key provider of emergency aid to the victims of armed conflict and natural disasters.
Medical facilities in Mogadishu, such as the Keysaney and Medina hospitals, continue to treat dozens of weapon-wounded people every week, with surgeons regularly performing operations night and day. In the first three weeks of September alone, the two hospitals treated 158 wounded. Since the beginning of the year, they have treated a total of 3,387 wounded, including 965 women and children.
In August and September, a four-member surgical team from the Qatar Red Crescent Society, working together with the ICRC and the Somali Red Crescent Society, performed 86 operations in the Keysaney and Medina hospitals. This significantly increased the surgical capacity of the two hospitals and paves the way for future cooperation with the Qatar Red Crescent.
The ICRC's priority in Mogadishu is to assist and support surgical referral facilities. Since January the ICRC has airlifted 102 tonnes of surgical and medical supplies to hospitals in the Somali capital.
The ICRC regularly reminds all parties involved in the armed conflict of their obligation to ensure that the civilian population is spared the effects of the hostilities and that medical facilities and services are available to all those who require them, whether civilians or wounded fighters. It emphasizes that medical facilities, their staff and aid workers are clearly protected under international humanitarian law.
In addition to its emergency programmes, the ICRC continues to carry out other activities, such as providing support for 24 Somali Red Crescent clinics in the country's central and southern regions and hospitals in Mogadishu, building and repairing water-supply systems, conducting agricultural and livelihood projects, handling Red Cross messages and restoring family links.
Present in Somalia since 1977, the ICRC, working in close cooperation with the Somali Red Crescent, remains a key provider of emergency aid to victims of armed conflict and natural disasters in the country.
Overview of assistance
Since June 2007, the ICRC has:
- distributed, together with volunteers from the Somali Red Crescent, a third monthly food ration to 225,000 displaced people from Mogadishu now staying in the regions of Mudug, Galgadud, Middle and Lower Shabelle, Lower Juba and Galkayo, and in the Danile district;
provided 55,520 people with essential household items, including plastic sheeting, kitchen sets, jerrycans, mats, blankets and clothing, in Lower Juba (including Kismayo), Middle and Lower Shabelle, Galgadud and Gedo;
- distributed 20,000 mosquito nets to 10,000 families in North Gedo and the Badhade district;
- handed out 110,000 sandbags for flood prevention in Lower and Middle Shabelle, Gedo and Lower and Middle Juba;
- rehabilitated two systems for the irrigation of 240 hectares of agricultural land in Hiran;
- rehabilitated seven gates used to irrigate 700 hectares of agricultural land in Lower Shabelle;
- distributed vegetable-seed kits to 20,000 farmers in the northern, central and southern regions of the country;
- treated 890 people for weapon wounds in Mogadishu;
in the southern and central regions, renovated 17 hand-dug wells and continued work on 18 others, drilled four boreholes and continued work on four others, rehabilitated six rainwater catchments and continued work on two others;
- collected over 2,500 Red Cross messages and distributed over 4,120 such messages, and enabled 109 families to locate their relatives.
19 December 2007 – The Security Council today called on all sides in Somalia to use peaceful means to consolidate peace in the East African nation that has not had a functioning national government since 1991.
Foreign Minister Massimo D’alema of Italy, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month, read out a statement urging “all Somali parties to reject violence and… to enter into substantial dialogue aimed at achieving a full and all-inclusive national reconciliation.”
The 15-member body lauded last month’s appointment of Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, which “offers a renewed opportunity to make further progress on dialogue and political reconciliation,” as well as on tackling the humanitarian crisis in the country.
Mr. Hussein’s appointment, the Council said, also bodes well for the implementation of the National Reconciliation Congress’ outcomes, “leading to a road map for the remainder of the Transitional Period and democratic elections in Somalia, as set out in the Transitional Federal Charter.”
The Council also welcomed a briefing it received earlier this week from Special Representative of the Secretary-General Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who warned the body that “the situation in Somalia is dangerous and becoming more so each day.”
He cautioned that “business as usual” would have dire consequences for both the country and the greater region, and called for immediate and effective action on the political and security fronts, with the objective of forming a government that can support itself and administer the country effectively.
In today’s statement, the Council also took note of the 6 December briefing by Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes, who recounted his recent visit to Somalia and estimated that some 1.5 million people there are in need of aid.
“The Security Council expresses its deep concern at the deteriorating humanitarian situation, aggravated by the prevailing security conditions in Somalia, and emphasizes again the need for strengthened efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to Somalia,” Mr. D’alema said.
In addition, the Council appealed for unobstructed access for aid workers to vulnerable populations.
Instability continues to undermine emergency humanitarian assistance, recovery and development. Access is dangerous and difficult. In spite of this, the three Somali entities continue to work together on the AIDS response. Somaliland, Puntland and South Central Somalia have established multisectoral AIDS commissions and secretariats with leadership from the President. Civil society, including religious leaders and government authorities have made the AIDS response a building block in reconciliation processes - elevating it above clan politics. The three AIDS commissions work together and with international partners in Nairobi. They are not perfect and lack capacity, but they strive to integrate the “Three Ones” principles. A roadmap is close to being approved with all partners involved to increase Somali partnership and management responsibility of the response and its resources.
Global Fund, bilateral and UN resources have been secured to implement a comprehensive response although new resources are needed. Somalis have one Strategic Framework and an Integrated Prevention, Treatment, Care and Support Plan in place in each entity. In the past year, access to antiretroviral treatment and voluntary counselling and testing and other services have vastly improved. However, critical capacity gaps remain. Attaining universal access to services for Somalis will require much more work on youth, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, orphans and vulnerable children, uniformed services, governance and religious leaders.
There is one harmonized monitoring and evaluation framework with common reporting tools and a Country Response Information System database for all entities. Monitoring and evaluation technical working groups support the monitoring and evaluation units based in each entity and in Nairobi. AIDS has been mainstreamed in a Joint Needs Assessment, Reconstruction and Development Framework, Consolidated Appeals Process and a new UN Transition Plan for 2008 - 2009. The HIV/AIDS UN Implementation Support Plan which was developed in 2005 is being revised and will form an integral part of the Joint UN Programme.
Limited data indicate a significant TB-HIV coinfection problem. Although a second generation surveillance plan has just been put in place, little data exist on young people, internally displaced persons, returnees, refugees and other mobile populations.
Challenges and emerging issues for 2007
Somalis will need the help of others to halt and reverse the spread of AIDS. Representatives of AIDS Commissions from the region met in November 2006 to jointly respond to HIV vulnerability among mobile populations and the host populations with whom they interact. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the World Bank have recently agreed to help develop this partnership. It will be crucial to ensure that an immediate plan of action between the seven countries is put into place to address cross-border vulnerability, and a Global Fund Round 7/8 proposal is put together under a Regional Coordination Mechanism to mobilize longer-term resources for the partnership.
KAPB (Knowledge, Attitudes, Perceptions and Behaviour) surveys indicate a serious lack of understanding and awareness of basic information on HIV within Somali populations. Major work still needs to be done with vulnerable populations (including young people) at high risk of infection due to mobility and lack of services. Significant progress needs to be made on governance and the rule of law and security - especially uniformed services. A major challenge for the response will be to build the capacities of the AIDS Commission to better manage the response strategically and financially. AIDS will become a cornerstone of the joint UN Programme and Transition Plan for 2008 - 2009.
UNAIDS SUPPORT TO THE NATIONAL RESPONSE
Activities in 2006
The UNAIDS Country Office was established in September 2004 and has built a successful tripartite collaboration with the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator and the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS. Cosponsors work together through the UN Theme Group on HIV/AIDS to deliver integrated assistance guided by the United Nations Implementation Support Plan (UN-ISP). The UNAIDS Country Coordinator (UCC) and his staff provide support to the Joint UN Team on HIV/AIDS, the different Nairobi, Somaliland, Puntland and Somali-based Technical Working Groups and other stakeholders. The continuing humanitarian crisis, conflict and emergencies have necessitated decentralization of the UCC office through national officers in Puntland, Somaliland and Mogadishu for south central Somalia. This has has served to strengthen systems, structures and mechanisms for local AIDS response coordination and management; harmonized monitoring and evaluation and improved mechanisms for information sharing between partners; and provided technical support to the AIDS Commissions and their secretariats.
Plans for 2007
The overall objective of the Somali Country Team is to scale up integrated prevention, treatment, care and support services in line with universal access and Global Fund targets. This will be done by mainstreaming AIDS across the 2008 - 2009 UN Transition Plan sectors, to make significant progress in: access to quality health and education services and livelihoods; build better governance capacities; contribute to peace, stability, the rule of law and security; and promote dialogue and reconciliation among Somalis.
The Joint UN Team on AIDS will work with partners over the next 12 months on a Joint Strategic Review of the Strategic Framework for the Prevention and Control of HIV/AIDS and STIs within Somali Populations June 2003 – June 2008. This is scheduled to be completed by June 2008 – leading to a revised strategic framework and costed action plan towards Universal Access for all Somalis by 2010. However, significantly more data and strategic information on the response is urgently required to do this. Although we have HIV prevalence data from pregnant women, patients with STIs and tuberculosis and some behavioural data and a 2nd Generation Surveillance plan is in place, we have not established the stage of the epidemic since only one round of the survey has been conducted. Program implementation data and regional trends suggest a strong possibility that we have a concentrated/low prevalence epidemic amongst vulnerable/at risk populations such as sex workers, MSM, truckers and cross border and other mobile populations (including pastoralists). While this suggests the need for an emphasis on prevention and management of the response there is a concern that partners may be spreading resources too thinly in trying to address a generalized epidemic. The Joint UN Team will work with partners to generate dialogue, data and strategic information on at-risk populations and populations of humanitarian concern. Thereafter it will be crucial to scale up operational research and develop more appropriate strategies and interventions that address the drivers of the epidemic.
There is also a need to strengthen the human rights base of the response by effectively mainstreaming AIDS into the Somali emergency humanitarian response, scaling up access to integrated prevention, treatment and care, systematcally engaging beneficiaries throughout the programme cycle and making national authorities and other key stakeholders more accountable to the beneficiaries for the type, quality and quantity of service. Protection monitoring also suggests that the multiple vulnerabilities of women and girls to HIV and AIDS needs greater programming attention with an emphasis on reproductive health and sexual gender based violence.
The focus for 2007 will be on:
* scaling up integrated prevention, treatment, care and support aligning antiretroviral treatment, voluntary counselling and testing, tuberculosis and sexually transmitted infection services scale-up in the three entities with Global Fund and universal access indicators;
* building a better strategic base for the use of Global Fund resources in the response with respect to: addressing the multiple vulnerabilities of women and girls and young people; governance, rule of law and security including uniformed services work; prevention of mother-to-child transmission, orphans and vulnerable children, internally displaced persons, returnees, refugees;
* building the Joint UN Teams in Somaliland, Puntland and south central Somalia to support capacity-building of AIDS commissions;
* boosting monitoring and evaluation efficacy in the response - especially among Global Fund sub-recipients; and
* building the Regional Partnership to address HIV vulnerability and cross-border mobility in the Horn of Africa focusing on populations of humanitarian concern.
I. DEMOGRAPHIC, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC INDICATORS Estimated Population (thousands) 8228
Population Growth Rate 3.2%
Life expectancy at birth Men Women 43 45
Human Poverty Index Rank Value – –
Human Development Index –
Percentage of people living with less than US$2 a day –%
Per Capita Gross National Income, ppp, Intl dollar rate US $ –
Per Capita Government Expenditure on health at Intl dollar rate –
II. HIV AND AIDS ESTIMATES Number of people living with HIV 44 000 [23 000 – 81 000]
Adults aged 15 to 49 HIV prevalence rate 0.9 [0.5 – 1.6]%
Adults aged 15 and up living with HIV 40 000 [21 000 – 72 000]
Women aged 15 and up living with HIV 23 000 [11 000 – 45 000]
Deaths due to AIDS 4100 [2000 – 8000]
GENERALIZED EPIDEMICS
Children aged 0 to 14 living with HIV 4500 [1500 – 13 000]
Orphans aged 0 to 17 due to AIDS 23 000 [11 000 – 45 000]
III. COUNTRY PROGRESS INDICATORS GENERALIZED EPIDEMICS
Expenditures
National funds spent by governments from domestic sources National Programmes
Percentage of pregnant women receiving treatment to reduce mother-to-child transmission 3.3%
Percentage of HIV-infected women and men receiving antiretroviral therapy 1.0%
School attendance among orphans 14.0% non-orphans 21.0%
Knowledge and Behaviour
Percentage of young people aged 15 to 24 who correctly identify ways to prevent HIV Men Women 12.5% 7.9%
Percentage of young people aged 15 to 24 who had sex with a casual partner in the past 12 months Men Women N/A N/A
Percentage of young people aged 15 to 24 who had sex before 15 Men Women N/A N/A
Percentage of young people aged 15 to 24 who used a condom last time they had sex with a casual partner Men Women N/A N/A
CONCENTRATED/LOW PREVALENCE EPIDEMICS
Expenditures
National funds spent by governments from domestic sources
Policy Development and Implementation Status
Policy on information, education, communication and prevention for most-at-risk populations No
Policy to expand access to essential preventive commodities among most-at-risk populations
National Programmes
Percentage of HIV-infected women and men receiving antiretroviral therapy
Percentage of most-at-risk populations reached by prevention programmes
Injecting drug users Men who have sex with men Sex workers
N/A N/A N/A
The Somalia town of Galkayo is known as a refuge from the violence to the south. But girls and women who are separated from their clans know little safety: An 8-year-old was raped and her mother must keep working with the man who did it.
GALKAYO, Somalia (WOMENSENEWS)--The man who raped 8-year-old Amina still keeps his shop a few hundred meters from the stick-and-rag shelter where she lives with her mother and three baby sisters. Her friends know what to do when they see him.
"If we see him, we run and hide," said Amina, who four months ago fled Mogadishu with her family for a camp called Bulo Kontrol on the outskirts of the central Somali town of Galkayo.
Chubby-cheeked with a stubborn tilt to her chin, the child in her olive green abaya hasn't got much more than a tough front and swift feet to protect her.
Until the early 1990s Galkayo was little more than a gathering point for camel-herding nomads.
That changed in 1991 when dictator Mohammed Siad Barre was driven from power and Somalia's civil war flared up. Members of a powerful sub-group of the Darod clan left Mogadishu to build a city of their own here, bringing their militias with them.
Today this dusty town on the dividing line between restive central and southern Somalia and the relatively peaceful autonomous state of Puntland serves as a beacon of stability. Here a densely packed warren of low stone buildings is spiked with delicate minarets of mosques gleaming white and blue in the desert sun. A handful of schools, small businesses and a brand new hospital testify to a steady trickle of remittances from relatives overseas.
But in a society where the power of one's clan is the only real guarantee of safety, it can be extremely risky for girls and women such as Amina and her mother who have lost the protection of elders and their entourage of militias.
Rapes Unchecked in Camps
Last year the United Nations, together with dozens of local organizations, conducted a survey on rape in Galkayo's nine settlements, which hold tens of thousands of displaced people.
"Rape is rampant," said Hawa Aden, chair of the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development, who helped conduct the survey. "We have been saying this for quite some time. But since 2006, the more people come, the more it happens. And not only the rape; it is the camps themselves that are dangerous."
In interviews with Women's eNews, women and girls who fled Mogadishu for Galkayo in recent months and did not want their real names used--including Amina and her mother--described rape, robbery and beatings as they traveled through militia checkpoints blocking roads out of the city and as they settled in camps far from the clan connections that once might have afforded some security in the south.
Galkayo's reputation for stability nonetheless continues to draw people from all of Somalia's five main clans.
"Everybody knows of Galkayo as a peaceful place," said Madina, who arrived in Galkayo last month and is from the minority Somali Bantu group.
Madina said she left Mogadishu with three of her six children after insurgents broke into her house and forced her younger sister to carry a paper-wrapped parcel past a group of Ethiopian soldiers. The gunmen detonated the bomb by remote control, killing Madina's sister and then ran, leaving the enraged Ethiopians to trace the bomb to her family.
"Mogadishu is the worst," she said.
But the fetid camp where she and her family share the tiny shelter of a generous stranger--a man in his 30s who gave his name as Hassan--is hardly safe, particularly for minorities like her.
"I was very sorry after my wife went out to use the toilet. She was raped by a gang," said Hassan. "I saw and I could not say anything because I would have been killed. You can't try to fight with them with sticks. Unfortunately they have guns. Our wives are being used by them."
Many gangs carry knives in case they come across a girl who has undergone female genital mutilation and then had her vagina stitched nearly shut to safeguard her chastity, a custom of many families here.
A woman is only as safe as her clan is formidable.
Aliya, a 55-year-old woman from Bulo Kontrol whose name has been changed, is certain that the man who pushed through the cloth door of her rag hut to rape her in early December knew that she was not from a powerful clan.
"I don't think they would have raped me if I were Majertan," she said, referring to one of the most powerful sub-clans in Galkayo.
Though two of her nephews tried to chase the man, neighbors warned them not to. Shaming the men could only bring more trouble to the camp.
Even if they had caught him, nobody can remember that a rapist has ever been convicted in a Galkayo court.
Influential Relatives
The man who raped Amina was charged with robbery and taken to jail for a couple of days. Though a minority himself, the man had been born in Galkayo and had influential relatives, who quickly let the child and her neighbors know they'd best stop talking about rape.
Amina's mother cannot afford to run. Work is scarce for displaced people who live in Galkayo. She still depends on the man who raped her daughter for the dime a day he pays her for the rubbish she collects from the town's roads. She sees him every day.
"When I see him, I cry," she said.
Recently a local women's group offered to rent a house for the family so they would not have to live next to the man. But Amina's mother does not dare move away from the few people she knows here. Two of her children have already died of malnutrition. Her neighbors are the only protection she has.
"I already know the people who live around my hut," she said. "Sometimes I'm away and they take care of my children; they provide food when we have nothing to eat. I have priorities."
Most days, Amina has to watch her younger sisters while her mother works but, twice a week, she attends a religious school, where the teacher has agreed to waive her fees. As her mother speaks, she makes her way seriously through the Arabic alphabet, her small fingers punctuating the curling script from right to left with wobbly dots.
Is her mother sure this is the best place she can find for her children?
"I have my doubts. If I can go some other place I would go happily," she said. "But I fled Mogadishu and I don't feel any place in Somalia is better than this place now. My hope is that my girls would go to school and learn something so they can survive."
Zoe Alsop is a freelance journalist based in Kenya. In December she traveled to Galkayo on assignment for Women's eNews.
The bodies of Islamist fighters, top, lay Sunday near Idaale, Somalia. Ethiopian warplanes struck deep inside Somalia territory, and tanks pushed farther into towns, in support of Somalia’s interim government.
Events during the weeks following PINR's December 11 report on Somalia have confirmed its judgment that the country has settled into a chronic condition of statelessness characterized by devolution of the political community to clan-based solidarities, dispersion of power to local warlords and insurgent groups, and resultant multi-faceted conflicts. [See: "Somalia Completes its Devolutionary Cycle"]
With the collapse of Somalia's internationally-supported Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) after a power struggle between its president, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and its then prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, ended with the latter's resignation on October 29, Somalia has lacked even the semblance of the possibility of an effectively functioning government. The new prime minister, Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein, has already failed in a first attempt to name a cabinet and is negotiating on another list. The transitional parliament is factionalized along clan lines. The transitional high court is inoperative as a consequence of its chief justice's arrest by Yusuf's allies during the October power struggle. There is little likelihood that Somalia's failed transitional institutions can be made to function, much less mesh with one another, in the foreseeable future.
The T.F.G.'s abject failure has left Somalia without a domestic political protagonist that would play the role of offering a programmatic challenge or initiative to stabilize the country, and would draw on a power base that would make its challenge credible. The judgment that the T.F.G. has reached a dead end is becoming current among Somali intellectuals, the political and military opposition to the T.F.G., and external actors. There is no consensus, however, on how to pull Somalia out of chronic conflict, with many contending proposals springing from a common sense that a new chapter of Somalia's political history has opened.
A strategic overview of the current political situation in Somalia shows all the domestic and external players acting at cross-purposes, with none of them willing and/or able to transform the existing power configuration decisively. Since the defeat of the Islamic Courts Council (I.C.C.), which controlled most of southern and central Somalia and sought to set up a state based on Shari'a law, in December 2006 by an Ethiopian military intervention, the T.F.G. has been propped up militarily by a partial Ethiopian occupation and financially and diplomatically by Western donor powers and the United Nations.
Meanwhile, the militant elements of the Courts movement and disaffected clans have carried on a steady armed insurgency against the occupiers, and the political wing of the Courts has formed an alliance with other anti-T.F.G. elements from exile in Eritrea. At present, Addis Ababa -- strained by the insurgency, a separatist movement in its ethnic Somali Ogaden region and border tensions with Eritrea -- is increasingly desperate to end its occupation and has begun to criticize the donor powers for failing to support stabilization in Somalia adequately.
The donor powers continue to back the T.F.G. half-heartedly, unwilling to commit substantial resources to an unpromising cause. Emboldened by the T.F.G.'s collapse, Addis Ababa's exhaustion and the donor powers' tentative stance, the Courts-led opposition remains intransigent in its demand that the Ethiopian occupation must end before discussions on power sharing might begin. Pushed and pulled by the other major actors, the T.F.G. executive appeals for help that does not come.
An Imploded T.F.G.
The implosion of the T.F.G. is a direct result of the power struggle between Yusuf and Gedi, which was described in PINR's December 11 report. By maneuvering Gedi's resignation, Yusuf had sought to become Somalia's sole power broker; instead, he fell ill and was shoved aside by domestic factions and external actors, all of which launched bids for influence over the new transitional executive. [See: "Somalia Completes its Devolutionary Cycle"]
With clan factions, Addis Ababa and the donor powers presenting different candidates for the prime minister's post, Yusuf chose Hussein as a compromise candidate who lacked his own power base and was left without cover to respond to conflicting demands concerning the composition of his administration. On one side, factions in the transitional parliament pressed for a government composed of holdovers from the preceding administration; on the other side, the donor powers pushed for an "inclusive government" staffed by intellectuals and technocrats, moderate figures in the political opposition, and leaders of dissident clans.
Hussein initially presented a cabinet list drawn preponderantly from parliament, but it failed to gain approval due to opposition from clan-based factions that claimed that they were under-represented and had not been consulted. Addis Ababa, which had been marginalized by Hussein's appointment, and the donor powers, which had welcomed Hussein as a politically neutral "technocrat," made clear their "disappointment" with his list.
Having failed to satisfy parliament and having alienated the major external actors, Hussein dissolved his proposed cabinet on December 16 and jumped to the side of the donor powers, promising to reduce the cabinet to 18 ministers from the previous 31, and to choose nine from outside parliament. The donor powers had pressed for a reduction in cabinet posts in order to streamline the T.F.G. executive and make it more efficient, and had demanded ministers be named from outside parliament in order to make the T.F.G. more representative of previously excluded political forces and to infuse it with expertise.
Hussein's problems in forming a cabinet spring from the weakness of his position. Lacking his own power base, Hussein is subjected to contradictory demands for clan-based domestic factions for representation in his government and from the donor powers for an effective administration and broader power sharing. It is highly unlikely that he can satisfy both demands or even either one alone. As Hussein attempts to please the donors, he will rouse the opposition of the factions, which have on their side the fact that the T.F.G. is based on a system of clan representation. Just because the factions failed to unite on Hussein's original list does not mean that they will be ready to acquiesce in a reduced list that will diminish their power substantially.
It is also unlikely that even if a list satisfying the donor powers carries parliament, they will provide the financial and technical aid necessary for the T.F.G. actually to govern, deliver services and initiate reconstruction. Hussein appears to be in an untenable position and the T.F.G. appears to be destined to continued failure.
A Resurgent Opposition
The failure of the T.F.G. has been underscored by statements from some of its own officials that the security situation in Somalia has gone out of control. On December 13, Sheikh Qasim Ibrahim Nur, director of security at the National Security Ministry, announced that 80 percent of the country was outside the control of the T.F.G., and that the Courts' forces had regrouped and were "everywhere." Presidential spokesman Mohamed Mahmoud Nur followed, saying that the Courts' fighters had been reinforced by up to 4,500 foreign jihadists. Both officials appealed to external actors for immediate help.
On December 20, the T.F.G.'s temporary interior minister, Mohammed Mahmoud Guled, appealed specifically to the Arab League for aid in hunting down al-Qaeda cells in Somalia that he said are working with an alliance of the radical Islamist Youth Mujahideen Movement (Y.M.M.), which had split from the I.C.C. after the Ethiopian intervention, and "old leaders from the Courts" to intensify the insurgency against the Ethiopian occupation.
Although the grim assessments of T.F.G. officials are possibly exaggerated in order to get the attention of external actors, PINR's monitoring of daily reports of violent events confirms that despite continued Ethiopian attempts to crush it, the insurgency continues unabated and has spread to most of the regions of Somalia south of the sub-state of Puntland.
More significant than the mere continuation of the insurgency are signs that the opposition has begun to coalesce around a more militant line emphasizing armed resistance. Warnings from T.F.G. officials that the Y.M.M. and the Courts' leadership had healed their rift were confirmed through December. On December 10, Yusuf Indha'ade, defense minister of the Courts-dominated Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (A.R.S.), who had been reported to have joined with the Y.M.M., declared that the T.F.G. was a "colonial government" and that Hussein was a "yes-man" for Yusuf.
On December 16, Mukhtar Ali Robow, former deputy defense minister of the I.C.C. and then commander of the Y.M.M., announced from the Bay region -- where the T.F.G.'s transitional capital Baidoa is located -- that his forces were planning to launch "the most enormous attacks," and repeated that the Y.M.M. was committed to establishing a Somali state based on Shari'a law. (Robow was reported to have been replaced in late December by Sheikh Mukhtar Abdirahman Abu-Zubeyr, who had trained in Afghanistan under the Taliban, and is likely to continue the hard line.)
On December 18, A.R.S. spokesman Sheikh Abdirahim Mudey said that Courts officials and fighters were "everywhere" in Somalia. He denied that the insurgents were preparing to invade the key southern port city of Kismayo, adding "we are there right now." On December 16, a Y.M.M. commander in Kismayo had told the Associated Press that he was sending fighters to Somalia's official capital Mogadishu "every day" to engage the Ethiopians.
Although both the speaker of the transitional parliament, Adan Madobe Mohamed, and the U.N. special envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, reported discussions between the T.F.G. and some A.R.S. leaders, those reports were not confirmed by the A.R.S. and, according to Madobe, met with mixed results. On balance, it appears that the opposition senses Hussein's weakness, allowing the hawks to gain preponderant influence. Whether or not the military option is timely for the Courts, the fact that it is being taken makes it nearly impossible for Hussein to woo the opposition into his government and thereby satisfy the donor powers, which want to isolate the militants by co-opting the moderate opposition.
Hussein has also had little success with the dissident clans linked in the Hawiye Tradition and Unity Council, which have resisted the Ethiopian occupation in Mogadishu, have suffered most from Ethiopian crackdowns and population displacements, and whose leaders have been arrested or gone into hiding. Speaking from a safe haven, Tradition and Unity leader Mohamed Hassan Haad told ISN Security Watch that Hussein does not represent the Hawiye clan family and "does not have the blessing of the elders."
An Impatient Ethiopia
The consensus of all domestic and external actors, as well as analysts and journalists, affirms that the T.F.G. could not currently survive the withdrawal of Ethiopian military support. After a year of occupying Somalia, however, Addis Ababa -- faced with the T.F.G.'s implosion and the persistence of the insurgency -- is losing patience with the donor powers over their failure to give sufficient support for the expansion of a small and ineffective African Union peacekeeping mission (AMISOM) in Mogadishu, and appears to be considering a policy shift that would distance it from the T.F.G., over which it no longer has preponderant influence.
Addis Ababa wants a robust international or regional peacekeeping mission to be implemented that would replace its forces in Somalia, but sees little promise that its interest will be satisfied. At present, there are 1,600 Ugandan troops in Mogadishu out of a projected force of 8,000, with an advance party of Burundian peacekeepers on the ground to prepare for a deployment of 1,700.
The rift between the donor powers, which favor an Ethiopian withdrawal, but only on the condition that there is an effective replacement for the occupation, and Addis Ababa surfaced on December 20, when Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, told the BBC that even increasing the present AMISOM deployment to half its projected number would "go a long way to making the appropriate environment for us to withdraw." He joined his remarks to a condemnation of U.N. humanitarian agencies for their charges that the occupation had been committing serious human rights abuses in its crackdown on the insurgency, saying that the situation in Somalia -- as "bad as it is -- could do with less hype and exaggeration."
On December 10, an Ethiopian government statement had attacked the donor powers and regional states for not delivering on their pledges to recruit and supply a peacekeeping force: "Ethiopia has single-handedly been playing its role by bearing the large responsibility that the international community and countries failed to accomplish in collaboration or individually."
Signs that Addis Ababa was reconsidering its strategy toward Somalia appeared in an interview with Ethiopia's foreign minister, Seyoum Mesfin, published in the newspaper Nouvelles d'Addis and posted on December 12 on the Nazret website. Mesfin remarked that "Somalia cannot be reconstituted in the old way," noting that the country's regions were "insisting on decentralized state structures." He concluded that the "new reality" needed to be "addressed by peaceful means."
Both Zenawi's public expression of displeasure with the donor powers and Mesfin's acknowledgment of a "new reality" in Somalia indicate Addis Ababa's slackening resolve to continue the occupation. Ethiopia would be satisfied with a "decentralized" Somalia, which would eliminate the latter as a potential security threat and would allow Addis Ababa to gain influence through its traditional divide-and-rule strategy.
Addis Ababa has made it clear that it is not a reluctant ally of the donor powers, to which it is tied by a marriage of convenience that is under severe strain. Although Addis Ababa, which is itself financially dependent on donor powers, is unlikely to make any precipitous policy shift, it is preparing an exit strategy. Ethiopia's faltering commitment does not bode well for Hussein's prospects of staying afloat.
An Irresolute "International Community"
If Ethiopia is the T.F.G.'s military support, the donor powers -- the United States, the European Union and the U.N. -- are its economic lifeline; without them, not only would there be no aid to alleviate Somalia's devastating humanitarian crisis, but there also would be no funds to sustain the T.F.G.'s existence.
Having, for the moment, taken center stage by pressing Hussein into their corner, the donor powers are confronted with Somalia's "new reality" -- an imploded T.F.G. on which they have staked themselves, a defiant and militant Courts-led opposition alliance, and a flagging Addis Ababa. Reluctant to take up the challenge to be a protagonist, they have stood pat in their diplomatic support of the T.F.G. and their unwillingness to make that support materially effective, dealing Hussein his final blow.
The U.N.'s envoy to Somalia, Ould-Abdallah, understood the gravity of the situation, the slim opportunity presented by the donor powers' momentary position of influence, and the new reality. In advance of a Security Council meeting on Somalia on December 19, he told the Financial Times that international efforts in Somalia had been "half-hearted" and were dissipating, even as the insurgency had "escalated." He warned that a robust peacekeeping presence would be essential to "political progress" in Somalia, and concluded: "The credibility of the U.N. is at stake."
Ould-Abdallah expanded upon his comments when he addressed the Security Council and bluntly stated that its "wait-and-see attitude" was a prescription for failure in Somalia, and that it was "time to decide whether to give up and withdraw aid" or to "find a new strategy." He suggested trying to convince Saudi Arabia to coordinate a mission to expand AMISOM that would be recruited from Muslim countries and would receive logistical support from "one or two NATO states."
On December 19, the Security Council took up Somalia and issued a non-binding presidential statement disregarding Ould-Abdallah's warning and plea, and reaffirming its previous policies, including support for AMISOM and calls for contributions to it, calls for "full and all-inclusive national reconciliation," and calls to strengthen efforts to provide humanitarian relief. The Council said that Hussein's appointment offered "a renewed opportunity to make further progress," and called for the T.F.G. to provide a "roadmap" for the transitional period that is supposed to end in 2009 with national elections held under a permanent constitution that has not yet begun to be drafted.
As a Somali proverb would have it, the T.F.G. has become "sand in the hands" of the donor powers. They fail to acknowledge the new reality in Somalia because any other alternative seems to be too costly to them. They realize that in Somalia's current security environment, a broadened peacekeeping mission would be a high stakes gamble, would be difficult to recruit for, and would be expensive to fund were it to be effective. They are ambivalent about dealing with the Courts. They fear the destabilizing effects of "decentralization," yet are unwilling to expend the resources for nation-building. That is why they clutch the sands of the T.F.G. and watch statelessness settle in.
On December 21, the African Union Peace and Security Council (P.S.C.) issued its own statement, scoring the international community for failing to "seize the window of opportunity" opened up by the Ethiopian intervention. The P.S.C. concluded that the international community and Somalia's domestic political actors needed "to explore new avenues in order to effectively address the current situation and to muster the required political will and resources."
Conclusion
With general acknowledgment among the major actors in Somalia's conflicts -- except for the donor powers -- that the country has returned to its former condition of statelessness -- the meaning of Mesfin's "new reality" -- what "new avenues" might there be that would lead to stabilization?
One possibility is the revival of the Islamic state that had begun to develop when the Courts movement controlled much of southern and central Somalia in 2006. That alternative, which seemed to have been eliminated by the Ethiopian intervention, has again become actionable, although its probability of realization remains low, given resistance from the other major players and much of Somali society. Nonetheless, at the moment, the opposition is the only actor evincing momentum.
The other alternatives for Somalia's political future, which are increasingly proposed and debated on Somali websites, break with the T.F.G.'s hybrid structure of a central government grafted on a system of clan representation, taking one of its elements for a new political formula. Centralists recommend a unified and streamlined government transcending clan representation, where as decentralists urge a "bottom-up" approach in which regional conferences would pave the way for local conflict resolution and the establishment of legitimate regional administrations.
The roadblock to progress up either "new avenue" is the lack of mobilized popular impetus, which, in consequence, means that the impulse to move would have to be provided by external actors with the will to commit the required resources. In practical terms, the centralist approach finds its correlate in the attempts of the donor powers to impose an efficient central government on the clan-based T.F.G., and the decentralist approach translates into the proposal circulating in the U.S. military and reportedly in Addis Ababa to cantonize Somalia in order to contain the insurgency.
Neither of the practical alternatives would draw Somalia out of statelessness, the first because the T.F.G. executive is too weak to bear its burden, and the second -- especially if it would involve recognizing the independence of the self-declared republic of Somaliland -- because it would void the possibility of an integrated political community in Somalia.
The "required political will and resources" that would lift Somalia out of its "new reality" are nowhere to be found.
Oxfam is extremely concerned that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Somalia and that the situation continues to deteriorate at an alarming rate.
The situation
88,000 people fled Mogadishu between 27-30 October (UNHCR figure). This number will almost definitely increase. People have fled to areas that were already inundated with thousands of displaced people, into host communities whose coping capacities are already at breaking point and to areas in which there is little or no access by humanitarian agencies.
Over 400,000 people fled violence and insecurity in Mogadishu earlier this year. After a relative lull, fighting between TFG/Ethiopian troops and anti-government forces has now increased again triggering another mass exodus from the city.
The UN estimates that 1.5 million people in Somalia require some form of humanitarian assistance. This is up 50 per cent since the beginning of 2007. Approximately one in seven children in South Central Somalia are ether malnourished or severely malnourished.
Ongoing violence and insecurity continues to severely exacerbate the already dire humanitarian crisis in the country. This most recent displacement will severely test the ability of the humanitarian community to respond effectively, given that efforts were already insufficient to meet needs. Lack of access and deteriorating security are happening at a time when needs are increasing at an alarming rate. As a result, NGOs are struggling to deliver assistance in the face of impediments such as harassment, intimidation, roadside bombs and landmines, checkpoints severely delaying access, and rising financial costs of movement.
Oxfam is working with several Somali partner agencies providing funding and technical assistance to allow them to deliver aid to tens of thousands of internally displaced people in the areas surrounding Mogadishu. We are providing emergency assistance including the delivery of water and sanitation, shelter, food and basic household necessities, and we offer psycho-social support for survivors of gender based violence and cash relief and cash-for-work programs.
In Somalia, conflict, drought and floods have created a chronic humanitarian crisis for many of its estimated 8 million people. While Oxfam has been working in the country since the mid 1960s, the agency now offers assistance through a network of local organizations that understand both the needs of the people and the dynamics of working in a country plagued by instability.
Mogadishu on verge of falling to Islamic forces as transitional government faces disintegration
by M A Shaikh, January 18, 2008
"Washington is not interested in bringing peace to those two regions – whose populations are all Muslims – and the continuing violence suits its “anti-terrorism” game."
A year ago (December 2006) the US government persuaded Ethiopia to invade Somalia, giving it military and financial backing to remove from power the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and replace it with the transitional federal government (TFG). Both Washington and Addis Ababa thought at the time that they had gained effective control of Somalia by replacing the UIC with an administration made up of warlords, military officers and secular officials. But now they have no doubt that whatever control they had has crumbled: Muqdisho (Mogadishu, the capital) is engulfed in violence, and the TFG admits openly that it has no control over events, appealing publicly for international aid to prevent the UIC from retaking the capital and other parts of Somalia.
On December 13, a TFG official said that “radical Muslims” had regrouped and were poised to attack. A few hours later, mortars were fired into the biggest market in Mogadishu and gun-battles erupted across the city, killing at least 17 people. Before the attacks Sheikh Qasim Ibrahim Nur, director of the National Security Ministry, said that the government had no power to resist the Islamic fighters. “About 80% of Somalia is not safe and is not under the control of the government.” In his statement to the Associated Press, Nur added that the “Islamists are planning to launch a huge attack against the forces of the government and its allies,” and urged the international community to support the government as the “Islamic fighters are everywhere.” This was somewhat confirmed by a presidential spokesman, Hussein Mohamed Mahmoud, who said that Islamic fighters were realigning their forces – adding that they had “a lot of arms and many foreign fighters”.
It is a totally new development for government officials and spokesmen to admit publicly that their own forces and those of their Ethiopian allies are unable to prevent the UIC from reasserting its control of Mogadishu and the country’s southern regions. They even admitted that the Ethiopian troops had withdrawn from the southern areas of the capital, which had been attacked by the Islamic fighters, although they insisted that their withdrawal was simply due to a change in military strategy. But this admission of defeat is not surprising: it is common knowledge that the transitional government has disintegrated to the extent that it cannot even be restored to the very limited and shaky clan-based influence it had earlier.
The final stage of this disintegration began in October, when president Abdillahi Yusuf, a former army general, fell out with Ali Mohammed Ghedi, his prime minister, and the dubious clan-basis of their cooperation was destroyed. Yusuf belongs to the Darod clan, which is based in the north; Ghedi belongs to the Hawiye clan, which controlled Mogadishu. The former was elected president by the Somali parliament in exile in Kenya on October 10, 2004, and the latter became his prime minister. Both men are now gone, Ghedi having resigned as prime minister and Yusuf falling seriously ill early in December. He was hastily removed to Kenya for medical treatment, and then to London for further medical checks and treatment. Yusuf, who is 73 years old and still in London, is in effect gone from Somalia’s political scene.
In any case, both men are considered too weak to be allowed to continue their roles (which are dead anyway) by the Western press, whose comments on “the resurgence of the UIC” are bound to be taken seriously by the US government. The US regards its intervention in Somalia as an integral part of its “international war on terrorism”. The London Daily Telegraph, for instance, carried an editorial (December 14) that condemned Yusuf’s failure and warned that the UIC should never be allowed to resume power. “Mr Yusuf has proved a woeful head of state, doubly hated by the inhabitants of Mogadishu, first because he is a Darod in a Hawiye city, second because he owes his presence there to a foreign army.”
But the editorial went to the absurd extreme of warning that any return to power by the UIC would expose Europe to acts of terrorism. “A Somalia run by the Courts would afford a springboard for terrorist attacks on Europe,” it said. “Two of the four men convicted this summer for plotting to bomb London’s transport system on July 21, 2005, were part of the large Somali community in this country,” it added.
However, the extent to which the US government has gone to exaggerate the extent of the threat of “Islamic terrorists”, not only to East Africa but also to the entire African continent, is even more absurd: it claims that al-Qa’ida is heavily involved in the violence in the continent. To combat “this threat” it has opened a military base in Djibouti to house the combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa. In 2003 Washington allocated $100 million to the East Africa Counter-Terrrorism Initiative, “an inter-agency taskforce focused on the continent,” as Time magazine (December 10) put it. According to this article, the US Navy’s Sixth Fleet, based in Gaeta, Italy, “now spends much of its time patrolling the coasts of Africa”.
Even more alarmingly, the article added: “This year, using another $100 million allocated to Africa under the Global Peace Operations initiative, US soldiers will train and equip units from 13 to 15 African countries. The pattern of a growing US military interest in the continent was confirmed on October 1 with the opening in Stuttgart, Germany, of Africom, a 200-officer command dedicated to operations in Africa. The immediate focus of the new command is likely to be the Horn.”
This explains why Somalia is – and will continue to be – the a major victim of US aggression. But the Bush administration is not likely to engage US troops on its various fronts before the units from the dozen or more African countries are trained. Instead it will ask African countries to send their forces to the chosen battlefields. For instance, it is now pressing Nigeria to send troops to Somalia and to Darfur. Having already pressed Ethiopia to dispatch its forces into Somalia, it is also now urging it to send them to Darfur.
However, Washington is not interested in bringing peace to those two regions – whose populations are all Muslims – and the continuing violence suits its “anti-terrorism” game. The fact that Muslim countries and organisations are not opposing its actions or criticising them encourages it to persist. Meanwhile, the region’s people will continue to pay the price for the US’s megalomaniac ambitions.
Report of the Chairperson of the Commission on the situation in Somalia
PEACE AND SECURITY COUNCIL, 105th MEETING, 18 January 2008, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
I. Introduction
1. In the communiqué on the situation in Somalia adopted at its 80th meeting held on 18 July 2007, Council decided, inter-alia, to extend the mandate of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) for an additional period of six months. In the press statement adopted by its 104th meeting held on 20 December 2007, Council, having stressed that the situation in Somalia represents one of the most serious peace and security challenges facing the continent, agreed to meet by mid-January 2008, before the expiry of the mandate of AMISOM, to review the situation and determine the best way forward in preparation for the 11th Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government, scheduled to take place from 31 January to 2 February 2008, in Addis Ababa.
2. This report, which is submitted in accordance with the above-mentioned communiqué and press statement, covers the political, security and humanitarian developments in Somalia since last July, as well as issues relating to the deployment of AMISOM and the implementation of the arms embargo imposed on Somalia by Security Council resolution 733 (1992) of 23 January 1992. It concludes with recommendations on how best the African Union (AU) could further support the peace and reconciliation process in Somalia.
II. Political Developments
3. One of the major political developments during the period under review was the convening of the National Reconciliation Congress (NRC), in Mogadishu, from 15 July to 30 August 2007. Over 2,600 delegates took part in the Congress, which was independently organized and managed by a National Governance and Reconciliation Committee (NGRC) headed by former President Ali Mahdi Mohamed. However, some of the actors who could have contributed significantly to the NRC decided to stay away; these included a section of the Hawiye clan in Mogadishu, as well as opposition groups based abroad. The AU, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda sent officials to the opening ceremony. Representatives of the international community based in Nairobi, who were expected to travel to Mogadishu, did not finally attend the opening ceremony, due to security concerns.
4. Council will recall that, at its meeting of 18 July 2007, it welcomed the launching of the NRC as a significant step towards an all-inclusive and genuine reconciliation process, within the framework of the Transitional Federal Charter (TFC). In this respect, Council requested all the representatives of the Somali people participating in the Congress to bear their responsibilities and engage constructively in the process, and to seek peaceful solutions to the problems facing Somalia. It urged the Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs), in keeping with the objective of the NRC, to spare no effort to reach out to all sections of the Somali population, with a view to facilitating the reconciliation process.
5. In its resolution 1772 (2007) of 20 August 2007, the United Nations Security Council also welcomed the convening of the NRC, urged the TFIs and all parties in Somalia to respect the conclusions of the Congress and to sustain an equally inclusive ongoing political process thereafter, and encouraged them to unite behind the efforts to promote such an inclusive dialogue. The Security Council reiterated the need for the ongoing political process to agree both on a comprehensive and lasting cessation of hostilities and to produce a roadmap for a comprehensive peace process, including democratic elections at the local, regional and national levels, as set out in the TFC.
6. Immediately after the opening, the NRC went into bridging the existing inter-clan, as well as intra-clan differences, which have now become central to the crisis in Somalia. The early discussions were marked by solemn expressions of repentance for the wrongs committed and declarations of amity and reconciliation. The second phase of the Congress debated the programmes of the Government in general and sought to chart out a roadmap towards progress in governance and development. During this phase, particular attention was paid to the establishment of basic administrative structures and the re-invigoration of the judicial system, as crucial components towards the consolidation of peace and security.
7. Significantly, the Transitional Federal Parliament (TFP) adopted, earlier on, formal decisions to recognize the NRC, and undertook to institute legislation necessary for the implementation of the recommendations of the Congress. A similar undertaking to ensure the implementation of those recommendations was made by the President of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
8. The Congress concluded its deliberations with the parties agreeing on a number of issues. Among others, mention should be made of the announcement of an end to the civil war and conflicts that have torn Somalia apart since 1978; the call on all Somali parties to voluntarily disarm and return looted property; the request to the TFIs to implement all the constitutional processes provided for by the TFC that would lead to the achievement of federalism in the country; the conduct of a population census, and the holding of free and fair elections that would usher in a democratically elected government before the end of 2009. The Congress also called for the establishment of an effective government, whose members would be drawn both from within and outside the TFP.
9. At the closing of the NRC, President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed pledged to continue the dialogue process. Furthermore, just prior to the conclusion of the NRC, members of the international community supporting the Congress, including the AU, met with the NGRC Chairman, in Nairobi. On that occasion, they stressed the need to devise ways to fully implement the outcome of the Congress, to pursue efforts to reach out to all opposition groups both within and outside Somalia, as well the need for the TFIs to fulfil their obligations under the TFC, especially with regard to federalism, the constitutional process and the preparations for elections. In a separate meeting with Mr. Ali Mahdi, my then Special Representative for Somalia, Ambassador Muhammad Ali Foum, insisted on the need to urgently establish a mechanism to ensure the implementation of the NRC recommendations.
10. Following the conclusion of the NRC, the TFG President, Abdullahi Yusuf, the then Prime Minister, Mohammed Ali Gedi, the Speaker of the TFP, Adam Mohammed Nour, the Chairman of the NGRC, Ali Mahdi, as well as tribal sheiks and other representatives of various Somali factions, travelled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Under the auspices of King Abdullah, the Somali leaders signed, on 16 September 2007, an agreement regarding the implementation of the recommendations made by the NRC. In the remarks he made on the occasion, King Abdullah urged the Somali parties to follow through the undertakings made, stressing that "reaching an agreement is the first step and must be followed by a full commitment to its provisions, as well as hard work to put it into practice". On his part, President Abdullahi Yusuf called for the deployment of a joint Arab-African force in Somalia, under the command of the United Nations, to restore peace and security in his country, and urged all Somalis to back such a force. The agreement reached in Jeddah was rejected by the opposition groups, in particular the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC).
11. In the meantime, the various opposition groups met in Asmara from 6 to 13 September 2007, where they held a parallel Congress, attended, among others, by representatives of UIC, the 'Free Parliamentarians' led by the former Speaker of the TFP, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, members of the Somali Diaspora and some clan leaders. The meeting agreed on the formation of an Alliance for the Liberation and Reconstitution of Somalia, with the stated aim of liberating Somalia from "Ethiopian occupation" and launching a political process that would involve all Somali stakeholders and rebuild the Somali state. The Alliance, which predicated talks with the TFG on an Ethiopian withdrawal from Somalia, elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, a senior UIC member, as Chairman of its executive committee, while former TFP Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden was appointed Chairman of its Central Committee, which comprises 191 members. The TFG dismissed the Alliance as a terrorist one, stating that it did not pose a real threat. Furthermore, members of the opposition to the TFG, including from the Hawiye clan, disassociated themselves from the Asmara conference and its outcome.
12. On 10 September 2007, the International Contact Group (ICG) on Somalia met in Rome. The meeting, at which the AU was represented, welcomed the commitments of the NRC, as well as those of President Abdullahi Yusuf made at the closing session of the Congress to "pave a new political path that will win the confidence of the Somali people" and to continue the dialogue process. The ICG called upon the TFIs to implement in good faith the recommendations of the NRC, including the urgent elaboration of a roadmap for the remainder of the transitional period. During the meeting, the AU offered to host the next meeting of the ICG, at its headquarters, in Addis Ababa. Subsequently, the Commission initiated steps for this meeting to take place towards mid-December 2007. The idea was to organize this session of the ICG back-to-back with an AU-sponsored high-level meeting on Somalia that would bring together regional, continental and international stakeholders, with a view to re-focussing international attention on the situation and promoting a concerted and better coordinated approach in support of the peace and reconciliation process in Somalia. However, due to calendar constraints, the Commission could not proceed with its plan. Efforts will continue to be made for the convening of the meeting at the appropriate time.
13. The period under consideration also witnessed heightened tension within the TFG, with a deepening rift between President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Gedi over issues of transparency and accountability, as well as diverging interpretations of the TFC regarding the term of office of the Prime Minister and the implications thereof. This tension was eventually overcome with the resignation of Mr. Gedi. In an address to the TFP, in Baidoa, on 29 October 2007, Mr. Gedi called on all the members of the Parliament to stand firmly behind the TFG, stressing that, "for all its imperfections, it provides a blueprint for the way forward towards the creation of a new state and for development in Somalia". He stated that time had come for someone else to lead the Government and take the ongoing process in Somalia to its next stage, and confirmed that he had offered his resignation to the President. On his part, President Abdullahi Yusuf issued a declaration accepting the resignation of Mr. Gedi, seen as a remedy to the then unfolding constitutional crisis, and stating, among others, that there would be no "exclusion and marginalization of the associates of the Prime Minister or any other negative action against them".
14. Subsequently, Deputy Prime Minister Salim Aliyow Ibrow was appointed as acting Prime Minister. He has since been replaced by Nur Hassan Hussien, a former Head of the ICRC in Somalia. Following extensive consultations, the Prime Minister has now formed a new cabinet based, as the previous one, on the 4.5 clan power sharing formula. The TFP has overwhelmingly endorsed the new cabinet, which includes a substantial number of technocrats, including those from the Diaspora. The first cabinet appointed by the Prime Minister was met with strong disapproval within the TFP, as well as the international community, and, as a result, had to be dissolved even before being presented to Parliament – among others, mention should be made here of the fact that only a few of its members were non-parliamentarians, although the TFP had amended the TFC to allow appointing ministers from outside Parliament.
15. I am glad to note that, since his appointment, the new Prime Minister has repeatedly stressed that reconciliation would be at the core of his activities during his tenure in office. In this respect, it is worth noting the assurances he gave to the AU, as well as to the participants to the meeting convened by the United States' Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, in Addis Ababa, on 5 December 2007, to discuss developments pertaining to peace and security in the region. In a presidential statement adopted on 19 December 2007, the Security Council, on its part, welcomed the appointment of the new Somali Prime Minister. The Security Council stressed that his appointment offered a renewed opportunity to make further progress on political reconciliation, addressing the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, and on implementing the outcomes of the NRC, leading to a roadmap for the remainder of the transitional period and democratic elections in Somalia, as set out in the TFC.
16. On 17 December 2007, the new Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, briefed the Security Council on the situation on Somalia. On that occasion, he proposed three possible approaches regarding the involvement of the international community in Somalia: status quo, with the continuation of the current "business as usual" attitude, with the attendant likelihood of further divisions and violence; organized withdrawal of the international community, which, in effect, would recognize its inability to protect the population and bring about a lasting peace; and, finally, an immediate and effective action both on the political and security fronts, including the establishment of a government of national unity and the deployment of extra troops to reinforce AMISOM and stabilize the country. In its 19 December presidential statement, the Security Council, while strongly supporting the efforts of the Special Representative, indicated that it was looking forward to hearing more details on the proposals he submitted.
17. In an effort to enhance AU's efforts in support of the peace and reconciliation process in Somalia, I appointed, in October 2007, a new Special Representative for Somalia, in the person of Mr. Nicolas Bwakira. Mr. Bwakira, a Burundian national, has held several senior international positions, including that of Director for Africa at the UNHCR. I would like to seize this opportunity to pay tribute to my former Special Representative, Ambassador Ali Foum, for his tireless efforts and commitment and for the key role he played both during the Somali National Reconciliation Conference, held in Kenya from October 2002 to October 2004, and in subsequent initiatives aimed at furthering peace and reconciliation in Somalia.
18. Following his appointment, Mr. Bwakira undertook, in December last year, visits to Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda, to establish initial contacts with the national authorities concerned, as well as with members of the international community, including the United Nations, the European Union (EU) and AU's bilateral partners, and representatives of regional and international NGOs. He seized the opportunity to stress the need for renewed and concerted efforts to overcome the current difficulties in Somalia and to reiterate AU's determination to do whatever it can to contribute to the early restoration of peace and stability in Somalia. My Special Representative is scheduled to travel to the other countries of the region for further consultations. In the meantime, steps are underway to staff his office with the required personnel as well as facilitate his early deployment to Mogadishu, to assume the overall leadership of AMISOM.
3 December 2007
The Somalia Health Cluster Bulletin
Situation Overview
* Fighting between Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces and anti-government groups in Mogadishu continues. An increased number of civilian deaths have been reported; three hospital staff members were injured when mortars landed at the SOS Hospital in Mogadishu. Access inside the city is limited, as Ethiopian and TFG soldiers have closed the main roads.
* In Baidoa, the situation is calm in spite of tensions due to the appointment of a new prime minister by the parliament, three weeks after his predecessor was forced from office.
* An increased number of IDPs from Mogadishu have reportedly arrived in Afmadow and Kismayo district, heading to Kenya.
1 Somalia Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM); Food Security Analysis Unit (FSAU); Famine Early Warning System (FEWS)
Highlights
* The estimated number of Internally Displaced People (IDPs) along the 30 km Mogadishu/Afgoye road has now reached 190,000, according to the UNHCR. Humanitarian partners are scaling up the response to ensure access to basic services. Muslim Aid UK and the International Medical Corps (IMC) are providing basic health care services to the IDP settlements through health and mobile clinics with support from WHO.
* Heavy rains causing severe flooding announced the beginning of the Deyr rainy season. At the beginning of November, serious floods damaged about 350-400 houses and latrines in Burhakaba town, affecting between 700 and 800 families. More flood damage was reported from the Juba and Shabelle regions. The UN Flood Working Group technical partners (SWALIM, FSAU, and FEWS1) issued a flood advisory at the beginning of November due to heavy rains in Ethiopia and weak river embankments,
despite relatively low river levels.
Health Response to the Humanitarian Crisis
1. Assessment and monitoring
* A joint UN assessment mission to 4 out of 32 IDP settlements on the road from Afgoye to Mogadishu was carried out on 17 November. UN partners visited Onad camp (600 families), Tawakal Jango’an camp (420 families), Ex-Stadium Mogadishu 2 camp (333 families) and Hawa Abdi hospital. Besides the hospital, health care is provided through nearby health centres in Afgoye, and mobile clinics for the most remote settlements. A rapid assessment mission was conducted early November, showing the urgent need for increased humanitarian response.
* A monitoring visit from the Italian NGO Comitato Collaborazione Medica (CCM) CCM was conducted to the TB centre run by Muslim Aid UK in Jamame.
* ACF completed data collection of the Wajid nutrition survey and preliminary results will be available soon.
* As a result of several assessments Medair has decided to implement per 1 March 2008 an integrated water and sanitation, health education and hygiene promotion program in Jowhar and Mahadey districts and at the same time, a primary health care, nutrition, water and sanitation and hygiene promotion program in Adale district.
* A joint assessment visit was conducted into flood damage in Wadajir, Howlwadaaga, and Waberi sections of Burhakaba town, between the Ministry of Health, UNICEF, WHO and WFP. The Mother and Child Health Care (MCH) centre run by Word Vision in Burhakaba reported a lack of essential drugs, in spite of continuing health concerns regarding Acute Watery Diarrhoea, Malaria, and Acute Respiratory Infections. WHO has provided World Vision with essential drugs for treatment of key diseases as well as sufficient amounts of household chlorination tablets to provide the affected population with safe drinking water for at least 1 month.
* UNICEF and WHO assessed the health situation in Dayniile district, in Mogadishu, where thousands of displaced people have settled. Dayniille Hospital is the only health facility that provides preventive and curative services and has been overwhelmed with large numbers of war-injured from Mogadishu.
* FSAU is conducting another 5 nutrition assessments in Shabelle, Afgoye and Merka.
The assessment results will be comparable to the May 2007 results.
* A large scale Knowledge, Attitude and Practices (KAP) study conducted by FSAU with support from UNICEF and Gedo Health Consortium (GHC) in Somalia shows that lack of knowledge is one of the main obstacles for mothers to seek health care in Somalia.
The study was focused on the contribution of poor childcare practices to malnutrition. Clear recommendations from the study are to raise awareness on the importance of breastfeeding, complementary feeding and health seeking behaviour; the collaboration with traditional healers in the community and last but not least: to drastically improve interagency coordination at the field level.
2. Health coordination
* An interagency coordination meeting was held in Jamame at Mercy corps where all humanitarian partners working in Jamame and Kismayo discussed a range of issues, including health.
* The Ministry of Health and WHO conducted the first Avian Influenza Preparedness Planning workshop from 12 to 14 November in Baidoa. Over 30 health cluster partners, who came from Mogadishu, Huddur, Wajid, Jamame and Baidoa, were trained in how to identify possible cases of avian influenza in birds and in humans, as well as in rapid response and treatment.
Interagency assessment mission to Afgoye Decentralization of clusters More and more cluster activities are being decentralized: The first intercluster coordination meeting organized by OCHA and normally held in Nairobi was conducted in Jowhar on 24 October 2007. Many health partners active in the Middle Shabelle region were present.
3. Communicable diseases and Environmental health
Acute Watery Diarrhoea (AWD)
* Six new cases of Acute Watery Diarrhoea (suspected cholera) including one related death were admitted in Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa between 25 and 29 November 2007. One stool sample was sent to the AMREF public health laboratory in Nairobi. WHO is providing technical support to ensure appropriate case management, together with control and prevention measures. The hospital has sufficient amounts of cholera supplies in stock.
Water and sanitation
* As a major cholera prevention measure, Action Contre la Faim (ACF) started chlorination of 326 wells in Mogadishu with support from UNICEF.
* To improve the sanitary condition of the large number of IDPs on the road from Mogadishu to Afgoye, Oxfam started the construction of 1500 sanitation facilities for 26 IDP settlements. At the same time, Oxfam is supporting its local partner HIJRA to carry out hygiene promotion campaigns to IDP communities. Oxfam is also supporting the Centre for Education and Development (CED) to distribute safe drinking water to all IDPs settlements and to rehabilitate 9 water wells.
* UNICEF is supporting Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) cluster partners to lay a new pipeline on the Mogadishu/Afgoye road to provide clean drinking water.
* Muslim Aid UK with support from WHO chlorinated water wells and conducted health education campaigns in an area in Jamame town from where two AWD-related deaths were reported. Another health education campaign targeting AWD and other diarrhoeal diseases is ongoing in Jilib district sponsored by Mercy USA.
Vaccine Preventable Diseases
* Coverage for the October polio Sub National Immunization Days (SNID) was between 98 and 92%. The total number of confirmed polio cases for 2007 is 8, although no more cases have been reported since March 2007. The last Sub-National Immunization Days were conducted from 26 to 28 November in Togdheer, Nugal, Mudug, Galgadud, Banadir, and Hiran regions.
* Rumours of 45 suspected measles cases were reported from two villages in Jilib district by Mercy USA, with no related death. Mercy USA promptly initiated a localized vaccination campaign and treated 11 of the patients in its health clinic.
Kala Azar
* “A 7-fold increase in the number of Visceral Leishmaniasis cases, also known as Kala Azar, was reported from Huddur, Bakool region between early 2002 and end 2006”, shows a study published in the Public Library of Science Neglected Tropical Diseases.2
Vector control
* Conclusion from a WHO entomological research in Baidoa shows that community awareness on the use of bednets, and insecticide spraying with pyrethroid are the most effective measures to decrease morbidity from malaria. Malaria is endemic in Baidoa district all year round, with Plasmodium falciparum as the predominant species, causing high morbidity and mortality. Seasonal rivers and rainwater form favourite breeding sites for the malaria-transmitting mosquito Anopheles arabiensis.
4. Primary and Secondary Health Care
Primary health care and reproductive health
* Health partners with support from UNICEF and WHO are currently conducting an accelerated measles campaign in Afgoye. The campaign includes supplementary Vitamin A for children and Tetanus vaccines for pregnant mothers.
* Muslim Aid UK with support from UNICEF concluded an accelerated campaign of the Expanded Programme of Immunization (EPI) in Jamame villages and Kismayo IDP camps through its outreach teams. The total number of immunized are shown in the table.
* Health response to the 190,000 IDPs along the road from Mogadishu to Afgoye has been significantly scaled up: Muslim Aid UK has started mobile clinics to provide basic health services to 45,000 IDPs for a 3-month period in Km 13 and Celasha settlements with support from WHO, which also provided the with one basic kit. International Medical Corps (IMC) started its mobile health services in 26 camps in Elasha and Arbis areas. Each team is composed of 2 qualified nurses and 4 auxiliaries.
* In response to the critical nutrition situation in the Shabelle regions, Intersos mobile clinics are providing basic health services to over 300 villages in Middle Shabelle. Intersos is implementing 20 Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP), most of them located in riverine areas. To get a more complete picture of malnutrition in the area, Intersos is screening children through active case finding as a part of their selective feeding programme.
* Mercy USA is planning to establish emergency nutrition activities in their Gambole
Shimbirole health centre in Middle Shabelle.
* Save the Children-UK are broadcasting health and nutrition messages through the local radio in Beletweyne, micronutrient and de-worming provision and ITN distribution. A new proposal for another project phase of an integrated response has been developed to various donors, among them UNICEF.
* Nine OTPs are now operational in Northern Gedo (mainly Belet Hawa, Dolow and Luuq), run by GHC and Concern Worldwide. GHC reports an increased incidence of diarrhoea with the onset of the rainy season.
* ACF opened an Outpatient Therapeutic Programme (OTP) and suplementary Feeding Prgoramme (SFP) in Dusamareb, complementing existing interventions of other health partners in Dusamareb area.
* UNICEF is conducting training workshops on cholera prevention, protection, education and HIV/AIDS for community workers from 33 IDP settlements on the road from Afgoye to Mogadishu.
* The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) supports 24 clinics from the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS) providing health care to a total population of 269,000 with salaries for 3 key staff, supervision costs (car rental, fuel, security) and medical supplies for children above 5 years and adult population. UNICEF provides medical supplies and vaccines for mothers and children under 5 years.
Kismayo IDPs Jamame villages
BCG* (0-11 months) 412 988
Polio 97 173
Total DPT** 488 2195
Measles 267 925
Tetanus (pregnant women) 347 1731
* Bacille Calmette Guerin (BCG) vaccine against Tuberculosis
Diphtheria, Pertussis, and Tetanus (DPT) vaccine
Nutrition situation still critical in Shabelles (Data from international NGO) MCH/OPD malnourished severely
Gololey 15.1% 4.8%
Bulo Skeikh 9.2% 4.2%
Kulmis 11.5% 2.6%
Support to hospitals
* Last preparations are made for the opening of the recently renovated Outpatient Department (OPD) of Bay Regional Hospital in Baidoa. The OPD is being equipped by WHO and UNFPA. A WHO senior surgeon is arriving soon to provide surgical operations to patients as well as training to the only medical doctor in the hospital, while UNFPA is mobilizing a qualified obstetrician gynaecologist.
More rehabilitation works will start soon in the hospital, starting with the operating theatre and the laboratory. The reconstruction is implemented by UNOPS, with support from UNDP, WHO and UNFPA.
According to an illuminating reportage published earlier today in the Somali portal Wardheer News by the Abyssinian journalist Tamrat Nega (http://www.wardheernews.com/articles_07/october/28_Two_State_solution_Nega.html), who quotes a personal advisor to the Abyssinian dictator Meles Zenawi, Africa’s most appalling and bloodthirsty tyrant is portrayed as fully involved in the inner politics of neighboring Somalia.
Meles Zenawi in Somalia = Saddam Hussein in Kuweit
The extraordinary attitude of Africa’s Saddam Hussein is identical to that of the late Iraqi dictator, who invaded tiny Kuweit only to be driven out by the Americans in the First Gulf War.
In the same way the Mesopotamian butcher considered Kuwait as his own province, Meles Zenawi finds himself well positioned to decide about the future of the partly invaded Somalia.
The only difference between the two acts is America’s position against Saddam Hussein in the case of Kuwait, and in favour of Meles Zenawi in the case of the Horn of Africa, which underscores how erroneous the latest decision has been.
In the aforementioned reportage, Tamrat Nega quotes "a source with intimate knowledge about the affairs of the hilltop palace of Meles Zenawi" in order to publish an outline of the Abyssinian tyrant’s illegal and inhuman involvement plan in Somalia that caused already more than a million of refugees. Tyrant Zenawi’s latest plan seems to be the result of great anxiety about the eventual collapse and disintegration of Abyssinia. As regards the source that disclosed dictator Zenawi’s plan, Tamrat Nega keeps it under the veil of anonymity, stating that the source " is not willing to be quoted (by name) due to the sensitivity of the issue".
The title of Tamrat Nega’s article is very indicative: "Meles Proposes a Two-State Solution for Somalia". In the present article, we intend to enunciate a preliminary commentary on the Abyssinian tyrant’s monstrous and racist, anti-Somali plan.
A Committee to Prevent the Forthcoming Death of ‘Ethiopia’
According to the aforementioned reportage, earlier this year, tyrant Zenawi tasked a committee of Amhara and Tigray monitors of Somali affairs with a study, a strategic analysis, and a menu of options as regards the Abyssinian “national interests” and the way they would be better served in Somalia.
Of course, using the term “national interests” for a colonial dictatorial state like the Abyssinian obsolete and nonfunctional caricature is rather a figure of speech; in real terms what is meant through this expression is the combined, lawless interests of the Monophysitic Christian (heretic) populations of the Amhara and Tigray tribes that consist in a most racist and barbaric minority within the colonial caricature of Abyssinia.
In fact, all governments and diplomats, military and educational elites of the Abyssinian tribes express and serve their own tribal interests that are in straight and severe contradiction with those of the overwhelming majority of the country; we cannot therefore truly but only conventionally talk of “national interests”.
The African Dr. Jekyll Alemu Tekede, and the Dark Future of Abyssinia
As a matter of fact, the committee was chaired by one of the Zenawi regime’s most horrendous and criminal butchers, the notorious African Dr. Jekyll, Alemu Tekede, the guiding mind of all the misfortunes and injustices, crimes and felonies perpetrated in Somalia over the past decade. This multi-denounced and multi-repudiated individual has the position of minister of state for foreign affairs, which obliges him to travel constantly to Somaliland in order to dictate further policies to the pathetic lackeys of Hargeysa.
The aforementioned committee comprised senior officials of the ruling EPRDF, the tribal gang organization supporting dictator Zenawi, several military generals and security and intelligence officers (all exclusively Monophysitic Christian Amhara and/or Tigray).
Last August, in the aftermath of five months of consultations and deliberations, the committee “submitted to Meles a well-thought-out “red” dossier containing confidential policy proposals in last August”. They devised ways Abyssinia would overcome the geographical constrains of a landlocked country, as Abyssinia turned out to be in 1991, when Eritrea seceded.
They enumerated several pending threats for the country, involving
a) “the possibility of landlocked Ethiopia becoming “sandwiched” between two hostile countries, i.e. Eritrea in the north and Somalia in the south”,
b) “Ethiopia’s vulnerability to gruesome civil-war”,
c) “Ethiopian disintegration (if the current Ethiopian efforts in Somalia fail and the country fall back to the hand of ousted Islamic forces)”, and
d) the “possibility of Ethiopian Muslims becoming influenced or radicalized by Somalia’s Islamists which could ultimately ignite a devastating religious war in the country”.
The Recommendations of the Neo-Nazi butchers of Africa
To avert the aforementioned dangers, the committee recommended the following:
A two-state solution for Somalia along the pre-independence colonial boundaries. The committee suggested the Ethiopian government play a lead role in advocating for the international recognition of the breakaway republic of Somaliland”.
Southern Somalia (former Italian Somaliland) to be divided into four federal regions in line with ethnic based Ethiopian federal system, namely, Puntland, Hawiyeland, Jubbaland and Rahanweinland”.
The Somali region of Ethiopia to be “isolated” from the rest of Somalia, and limit to the extent possible commercial and traffic links between the Somali region and Somalia.
An Analysis
The first point targets the National Unity of an Independent and Sovereign Nation that the Amhara and Tigray Abyssinian racists always coveted.
The historical hatred of the Abyssinians is due to their vast and unhealed complex of inferiority in front of the Somalis.
Compared to Somalia, Abyssinia has:
- A shorter, poorer, and lower historical record
- A less significant contribution to the History of the Mankind
- A definitely lower and more limited culture and education
A mean and miserable socio-behavioural system, due to the fact that most of the Somalis have been more exposed to communications with India, Indonesia, Persia, Yemen and the Arabic peninsula, the Red Sea world, Sudan and Egypt. All this is summarized in the epigrammatic identification of the Somalis with a mundane and cosmopolitan character and the association of the Abyssinians with an isolated, raw, mountainous and barbaric ‘personality’.
A bitter, historical defeat at the hands of the Somalis that, as a non-assessed and non-accepted reality, intensifies the barbaric instincts of the Amharas and the Tigrays, who throughout the modern times never underwent any socio-cultural change readjustment.
A total lack of National Unity within its present – false – borders. On the contrary, Somalia features a supreme potentiality for National Unity, including even a province of Abyssinia (Ogaden). In fact, Abyssinia was never a nation, as the oppressed and tyrannized peoples never accepted the slightest trace of the abyssianization racist programs that tyrannically the Abyssinian dictators imposed on them. Thus, whereas the Somalis make an entire nation with one Cultural, National Heritage, the Abyssinians, despite decades of terror exercised against the Oromos, the Ogadenis, the Sidamas, the Afars, the Anuak, the Agaw, the Kaffas, the Shekachos, the Wolayitas and others, never became a nation, being even gravely divided among themselves into Amharas and Tigrays.
Quasi-absolute lack of natural resources. Contrarily, the Somali natural resources are far more significant than what can be possibly found in the soil and the arid mountains of the Amhara and Tigray provinces. It is essential to bear in mind that all rich natural resources of Abyssinia are located in occupied territories of the subjugated nations.
To better assess the Abyssinian policy making dynamics, it is of seminal importance to understand the aberrations contained in the undeveloped and self-belittled minds of the Abyssinians, who tried ceaselessly in the 19th and the 20th centuries to take revenge for an event that occurred before almost 500 years, namely the Somali invasion and occupation of Abyssinia. By itself this highlights the racist and chauvinist attitude pursued by the Abyssinian religious, political, educational, military, and diplomatic class, which imperatively imposes an in-depth research, and the subsequent international denunciation and castigation of the Abyssinian policies.
Abyssinia against Somaliland’s international recognition
The first point illuminates a well hidden reality that all the Somalis of the Somaliland have to learn: Abyssinia, fallaciously renamed Ethiopia, promised a lot to Somaliland over the past 16 years, particularly in terms of international recognition. Yet, this reportage clearly indicates through the lines that Abyssinia never deployed the slightest effort for Somaliland’s international recognition thus far. This is only normal; as the Abyssinian tyrannical regime want to have Somaliland at their mercy, they have good reason to avert a perspective that would enable Somaliland get disentangled from the Abyssinian ruse and trap.
Peace in the Horn of Africa: after the elimination of the Abyssinian hyena
The second point expands the Abyssinian ‘divide et impera’ approach in the Somali South; it is therefore an even clearer proof of Abyssinia’s commitment and dedication to the appalling genocide that has been taking place in Somalia over the past 16 years. It demonstrates that peace and security in the Horn of Africa region will return only when the UN isolate and severely punish the Abyssinian hyena of nations and innocent peoples. It becomes apparent that what the inhuman monsters of Abyssinia intend to apply in the Somali South is what the already did in Ogaden, Oromia, Sidama Land, Afar Land, Kaffa Land and other territories and countries that they invaded in the past, subjugating the indigenous peoples.
Abyssinian intentions to perpetrate a genocide in Ogaden
The third point bears witness to the Abyssinian inhuman but adamant will to perpetrate in Ogaden the already started genocide; this point automatically cancels all the unbalanced approaches and suggestions of US Assistant Secretary Jendayi Fraser, who irresponsibly, immorally, and inhumanely said that Ogaden is an “internal affair” of Abyssinia.
The fabrication of the ‘Coptic Republic of Ethiopia’
All three points corroborate our earlier analyses about a criminally secretive and cruelly inhuman plan geared to produce a huge dictatorial circumference of butchery from the Egyptian border until Kenya that would be called ‘Coptic Republic of Ethiopia’; the same method suggested by Meles Zenawi’s disreputable committee for Somalia will be later proposed for Sudan, and then the prefabricated butchery of all the non Abyssinian nations of Eastern Africa will start.
That is why we will dedicate more articles to further analyze the subject, examining references to a possible collaboration of the political elite of Somaliland with the Abyssinian Zenawi regime of gangsters.
If this is correct, then all the Somalis of the non recognized state of Somaliland will have to join the Ogadenis and the other Somalis in an overwhelming revolution that will eradicate the Amhara – Tigray pestilence from all the still occupied countries and territories.
In case the Somaliland’s regime collaborated with the gangsters of dictator Zenawi, it becomes clear that it loses the last traces of legitimacy, becoming a burden for the northern Somalis – a burden that must be removed irrevocably.
I am a Somali woman. I am from a tribe: the one I belong to. But that does not make me “tribalist”; I am also the sister to one tribe, cousin to another, mother to a different, and spouse of one more.
The Somali women factor
There was a time that we all believed in the greater Somalia. However the dream is shattered today beyond any possible reparation. Men have killed, looted and have done something unbelievable to the once existing Somali tradition.
Complicity of women
Men raped their own mothers, sisters, daughters and common wealth to all Somali men. We, as women are not innocent of these hideous crimes. We incited those crimes. We asked of our men to revenge us to other women. We did and still doing the King Kong gesture of slapping our chest and citing past clannish grandfathers as heroes. We have pushed and still pushing our beloved men afar. And we did get what we preached, as the old saying goes: women’s will is God’s will. Somali women and men are the origin of their own actions.
The mirage sellers
We tried to reunite the five Somali state in one. One must say we were fooling ourselves. We could not even manage two. But the sad part is even today, many educated men, looking for their interests, want us to buy the old agenda of the Greater Somalia, but are they suffering some kind unnamed undiscovered disease?
The sole foundation of the Greater Somalia was founded on the premise that we should reunite all the Somali territories in one. Ethiopia, Kenya and any other nation that will prevent us was our enemy. We are today competing for the attention of our erstwhile historical enemy, who is present everywhere today in the entire five Somalis region. In Djibouti they are governing them by their economy, in Somaliland they lured them for hope of recognition, and Somalia, shameless, they are invited to kill, rape and destroy their own kind so they can have the upper hand. And it is those vultures that are telling us what to do for our nation?
Reality check
Let’s not become amnesiac! I said that if we have better scores separate than united, then let be so! Djibouti refused the merger with Somaliland and Somalia. And see where they are today…. Sine their separation from Somalia, Somaliland even though unrecognized is not doing badly either. To this latter one, lot is to be done. Unemployment is high, the infrastructures is almost nonexistent. And it needs to secure its borders, but it is doing relatively well.
We are not the only homogeneous nation. We should take the eighteen Arab states as an example. They share, like us; same language, tradition and religion. Each nation kept has its identity, and, lives in harmony with their bothers. And at time of pain, they are all there for each other unlike Djibouti serving her own agenda in the Somali issue.
Setting the records straight
Every Southern Somali and the international community talked about the sixteen years of war, but unlike the other parts of Somalia, the Somalilanders struggle started in 1978, and, not 1991. The only memories of the generations late seventies and until the liberation they experienced fear and genocide perpetrated on their people. They suffered killings, jail, rape, and living in squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia.
The only decent life they ever had is the true one of Somaliland. Do they really believe that they will make the same mistake as their fathers sacrificed their country and people for a reverie? The few old men from Somaliland hallucinating still from a marvelous dream of the Five Somali are fading. And there is absolutely nobody to keep that torch unlighted in this northern part of the five Somali.
So what are the so-called Unionist will do now: call on the Ethiopian to come and unite us all five region by force? And then what is the Ethiopian gaining from that strong union? Let us not be ridiculous!
The question is very simple: What do we really want? A fantasy Somali State or two twin brotherly states that can help each other at times of need?
As women, we are tired to see our kids dying by the thousand! Killed by the bullets of their arch enemies, defenseless in their own territories, vanishing of hunger while their soil is rich. Dying of disease while their doctors are spread throughout the globe. Each Somali life lost is a terrible agony for every Somali woman, that cares, not matter under which flag they are.
Somalia TB Review, Third Quarter 2007
Dr. Aayid Munim
1. Background
All TB centers have reported the Second Quarter for the year 2007 to the STB/MO. Almost 98% of these centers reported before the deadline. This quarter includes DOTS coverage until the end of September 2007, TB case notifications for the Third quarter of 2007, sputum conversion for Second quarter of 2007 and the treatment outcome results for Fourth quarter of 2006. Descriptive analysis of such data yielded the following results:
2. Results
* The percentage of population covered by DOTS is 100% based on one center in each region.
* The percentage of pulmonary smear positive to all pulmonary cases was 74% compared to 70% in Q2 2007; 74% in Q 1 2007 and 78% in the 4th quarter 2006.
* The percentage of pulmonary smear positive to all pulmonary cases is higher than 65% compare with the following countries in the region (EMRO):
This indicator reflects the quality of sputum smear examination which is basically depend on laboratory personnel capacity and training, the extent of their adherence to the diagnostic guidelines, quality and availability of laboratory supplies and equipment, the existence of a good laboratory quality assurance system, and the extent of laboratory network expansion.
The ratio of new smear positive cases to new smear negative and extra pulmonary cases in the country was 1.4 compared to a ratio of 1.4 Q 1 ;1.5 in Q 2,,1.6 Q 3, 1.7 in Q 4;1.3 in Q 2 2007 and 1.4 during Q 1 2007. All centers reported ratios higher than one. The proportion of extra pulmonary TB cases accounts for 19% of all forms and ranged between 0% in El Guula; Eldere; Haradere;Mogadishu Mercy and Tiyeglow and 53% in luuq.
All centers reported less than 20% except the following centers: Adala; Berbere; Boroma; Bulomarer;Galkaio;GalkaioSouth;Garbaharey;Hargeisa;Jalaqsi;Jamame;Luuq; Merka Hospital COSV; Mog Ayan; Mog Finsom;Mog Saacid;Wanlawein and Xuddur.
Sputum Conversion in DOTS for the Period April to June 2007
This quarter reported 91% smear conversion rate compare with 91% in Q1 2006, and Q2; 93% in 2006; 92% during Q 4 2006 and 91% during Q1 2007. Eight centers reported sputum conversion rates below the acceptable level of 85% (Abudwak;Bosaso;Garowe;Jamame;Jowhar;Mog MuslimAid; Mog Saacid and Qoryole). Low sputum conversion rates could be attributed to the fact that sputum smear examination was not performed for some of the registered cases or to non-conversion of sputum smear positive to negative as a result of suboptimal treatment of cases: inadequate treatment support, reduced compliance to treatment, etc.
Treatment outcome results of the new smear positive TB cases registered from Oct to Dec 2006:
* For this period the program has successfully treated 89% of total case registered comparing with 88% in Q 2 2006 and 89% during Q 3 2006
* Success rates have reached 85% and above in 39 TB centers out of 47.
* TB centers that reported success rates less than 85% were: Barava; Beletweine Zamzam; Burtinle; DarylB/Burte,GalkaioSouth;Mog Mercy ; Mog Muslim Aid; and Wajid.
* The treatment failure rate is 0.01 in the current round. A high treatment failure rate of more than 3% was reported from Garowe(7%); Mogadishu-Mercy;Booma and Beletweine Zamzam (4.%)
* Treatment failure may be due to inappropriate treatment regimens or underlying primary resistance. When treatment failure exceeds 3%, case management should be reviewed to determine whether these failures could have been prevented and/or whether program interventions are warranted.
Drug resistance surveys and drug susceptibility testing should be also considered.
* The default rate was 4% however few center show more than 4% defaulter rate(Mog MuslimAid 23%;Galkaio South 13%;Beletwein Zamzam 11%; Qoreyole 11%; Mog Manhal 6%; and Mog Saacid 5%), so these centers reported low success rate and the causes of defaulting need to be determined in order to take remedial action.
* The death rate in the country was kept a round 3% as the previous quarter.
A high death rate of more than 5% was reported from the following centers (Belet-Hawa 7%; Belet Zamzam 11%;Berbera 6%; Bulomarer 10%; Daryl B/burte 8%; EL Gulae 8%; ;Garowe 7%;Kismayo 12%;Jamame 9% and Mog Ayan 17%).Deaths of these patients should be investigated to determine whether they are TB-specific or attributed to non-TB causes. However, the association of high rates of treatment failure and deaths raises doubts about the emergence of drug resistance in the country.
Recommendations
General
1- Conduct regular supervisory visits to discuss the identified weaknesses and devise solutions.
2- Ensure timely submission of the reports to DOTS quarterly online in order to allow timely monitoring of country performance.
DOTS Coverage and Case Notifications
1- Laboratory: Expand the laboratory networks with an established quality assurance system and ensure confirmed diagnosis of extra-pulmonary TB cases.
2- Suspect management: Raise awareness of health workers at all levels, mainly at the peripheral level in the primary health care centers (PHCs), or in Chest clinics/centers about TB suspects, and ensure that “ALL INDVIDUALS SUFFERING FROM COUGH FOR MORE THAN 2-3 WEEKS I.E TB
SUSPECTS” are investigated by sputum smear examination, properly registered in the OPD or suspect register, and followed up for their results in the laboratory register. Such adequate suspect management will definitely result in increased case detection.
3- Contact tracing: Household contacts are a high risk group. Experience and reports have shown that the incidence of smear positive tuberculosis among them could reach thousands per 100, 000 population. Accordingly, they should be thoroughly investigated for early detection of cases among them and eligible individuals should be given preventive therapy to reduce disease burden.
4- Quality of care: Ensure adherence of health care workers to NTP guidelines in diagnosis and follow up at all levels through training, supervision and proper monitoring and evaluation.
Sputum Conversion
1- Ensure that all patients are treated under direct supervision.
2- Educate patients on the importance of adherence to the follow-up tests and treatment regimens.
3- Provide continuous training to the treatment supporters.
Treatment Outcome
1. Strengthen reporting and improve its accuracy.
2. Ensure that all patients are treated under direct supervision.
3. Strengthen default-tracing activities.
4. Ensure that all cases whether are properly registered and managed till cure once diagnosed.
5. When treatment failure exceeds 3%, case management should be reviewed to determine whether these failures could have been prevented and/or whether program interventions are warranted.
6. Centers that reported relatively high death rates should investigate the causes of deaths to determine whether they could have been prevented or programmatic interventions are warranted.
The BBC has the story http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7129562.stm about the most recent humanitarian catastrophe unleashed by the neoconservatives in their pursuit of establishing an "American Caliphate" in the Middle East:
The once-bustling streets of Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, are now eerily empty. The southern neighbourhoods are littered with the scars of recent fighting between the insurgents and Ethiopian-backed forces of the transitional government.
Ethiopian tanks have taken up positions outside the houses of the hundreds of thousands of residents who have fled the city - estimated to be 60% of the city's population.
60% is about 600,000 people. This story gets zero coverage in the American media, and for that reason I think it's important to explain what is going on in Somalia and how the neoconservatives are primarily responsible.
In December of 2006, the United States sponsored and coordinated the invasion of Somalia by Ethiopian forces targeting an Islamic fundamentalist group known as the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) who had taken over much of the country and the capital of Mogadishu. Thousands were killed in the ensuing fighting that resulted in the defeat of the ICU and the dispersal of its fighters. American AC-130 gunships even participated in the fighting despite the fact that there was no debate in Congress and no declaration of war as required by the Constitution.
The situation has now devolved into a protracted guerrilla war that has trapped the occupying Ethiopian forces in Somalia with no easy avenue for withdrawal. As in Iraq, many analysts maintain that the government installed by the occupying forces in Somalia would collapse in a matter of days without the massive presence of a foreign occupying force. While Secretary of State Rice has been trying to spur the deployment of an African peacekeeping force, the Ethiopians are growing increasingly uncomfortable with their position:
"Ethiopia has single-handedly been playing its role by bearing the huge responsibility that the international community and countries failed to accomplish in collaboration or individually," an official statement from the government said on Tuesday, "The deployment of the peacekeeping force was among the major pledges made by the international community. However, deployment of the peacekeeping contingent was not carried out as promptly and as it was expected." Maybe the Ethiopian government should have thought twice before it became an extension of Bush's neoconservative army that is waging jihad in the Muslim world?
Meanwhile, the fighters of the ICU have melted into the population where they continue to carry out hit-and-run attacks, assassinations, and road-side bombings designed to slowly bleed the Ethiopians. The Islamists reject the puppet government that has been installed by the Ethiopians at the behest of their American masters.
"There is no government we recognize because there is no government set up by the Somali people...they [government] were built by colonialists," Indha Ade added.
The Islamists are backing up their rhetoric with advances on the ground: Bule Burte, a strategic town in central Somalia, has fallen out of government hands, residents said, and a militia allied to the Islamist movement is in control. The militia forced out government troops after a clan-related dispute.
International aid organizations like the ICRC are struggling to cope with the monumental disaster precipitated by the neoconservative intervention in Somalia. And the UN has issued an appeal for $406 million in 2008 to help the destitute Somalis who have been driven from their homes by the fighting. Doctors Without Borders also issued a statement:
Underscoring the depth of the crisis in Somalia, the aid group Doctors Without Borders released a statement late Tuesday saying recent fighting had spurred a new exodus from the capital Mogadishu. It said there are about 200,000 displaced people living in miserable conditions along the road from Mogadishu to the city of Afgooye.
Congratulations neocons. You've once again succeeded in creating new recruits for Islamic extremist movements who will undoubtedly be attacking Americans and American interests for decades to come. Of course, maybe that has been your plan all along?
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Three days of fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu displaced 88,000 people from their homes, adding to hundreds of thousands who fled By Andrew CawthorneNAIROBI (Reuters) - Three days of fighting in the Somali capital Mogadishu displaced 88,000 people from their homes, adding to hundreds of thousands who fled violence earlier this year, the United Nations said on Thursday. In an unprecedented statement, 39 aid agencies also said they could not respond effectively to Somalia's unfolding "humanitarian catastrophe" due to insecurity in the Horn of Africa nation that has been in turmoil and anarchy since 1991.
"Almost 90,000 people have fled Mogadishu or moved to safer areas within the city," the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR said of the fighting between Sunday and Monday.
That violence killed several dozen people, residents say. "You see groups of people spontaneously protesting, crying for help from the international community and wondering how long Mogadishu will keep on being destroyed," UNHCR quoted a staff member in Somalia as saying.
A U.N.-backed interim government set up in 2004 is struggling to impose real authority across the country.
Somali forces and their Ethiopian military backers face daily attacks from Islamist-led insurgents.
With foreign correspondents largely staying out of Somalia for security reasons, and the international agenda dominated by other hotspots including Sudan's Darfur, aid workers say the Somali crisis is not getting the attention it deserves.
When allied Ethiopian and Somali government troops launched two offensives against Islamist hideouts in Mogadishu earlier this year, hundreds of civilians died and 400,000 people fled the coastal city, according to U.N. and aid group figures.
Most of those have not returned.
"TOO MUCH SUFFERING"
The exodus this year from Mogadishu -- a city of between one and two million, depending on estimates -- has been the worst such refugee movement in Somalia since the war that brought down dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
"Everyone is afraid that the lull in fighting is not going to last. They fear the insurgents are organizing themselves and that violence is going to be unleashed on an even higher scale," UNHCR quoted a Somali aid worker as saying.
About 46,000 refugees have settled along the road between Mogadishu and Afgoye town, to the west, UNHCR said.
"Entire families are now crammed in tiny huts," its staff member said. "Those who arrived this weekend were hoping to go back to the capital in a matter of days, but now they see their relatives who have been here for months, they lose hope."
The U.N. World Food Programme said since the weekend, it had delivered 2,557 tonnes of one-month food rations to 110,000 people at 27 places between Mogadishu and Afgoye. Many of the newly-displaced were women and children, living under rain.
"WFP and its partners are assessing where exactly people who left Mogadishu at the weekend went -- in addition to the Afgoye area -- and will expand its distributions...as soon as possible," the agency added in a statement. The U.N. humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Christian Balslev-Olesen, said 100 people were injured at the weekend, adding to 3,400 war-wounded civilians since January. Insecurity, checkpoints and "ad hoc taxation" were hampering aid flows.
"There are now roughly 450,000 people who have been displaced by fighting this year, bringing the total number of displaced persons in Somalia to more than 800,000," he said.
FSAU Monthly Nutrition Update December 2007
General Overview
FSAU and partners conducted five nutrition surveys1 in South Central Somalia in the last two weeks of November 2007. Results indicate sustained Critical levels of acute malnutrition in most areas, without any significant change from previous surveys conducted in the same areas. Quality checks using Nutrisurvey indicated the findings of all surveys were of an appropriate standard to publish. These results are also in line with the findings of the majority of the nutrition surveys
conducted in 2007 in South Central Somalia, and again, highlight the chronic nature of the nutritional crisis in Somalia. Two additional surveys were conducted in November by MSF Spain in Bossasso protracted IDP population and ACF in Dusamareb and Guriel Districts. The results of the five FSAU and Partner surveys funded by UNICEF and the MSF Spain survey are summarised below. ACF are yet to release their findings....
Constructing Education in a Stateless Society: The Case of Somalia
Author Abdinoor, Abdullahi Sheikh, (PhD), Ohio University, Cultural Studies in Education (Education), 2007.
Abstract This study investigates the current state of education in Somalia since the collapse of the central authority in 1991. Since all educational systems and infrastructure have been destroyed by the civil war, the study seeks to explore the educational institutions and systems that have emerged throughout the crisis. Similarly, the study looks into the various actors that have contributed and are contributing to the revival of education after the destruction of the old system. Investigating the education that has emerged during the conflict, the study seeks to examine the coping capacity of various local communities living through such conflicts with regard to education. It also explores the role that education can play as a tool of protection and educational institutions that are used as part of the coping mechanism.
This study employs qualitative methods of inquiry and is basically a case-study. Therefore, its findings are not intended to be generalized and replicated to other cases (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992). However, this does not preclude important lessons to be learned from the case study as methodology and policy implications. Nevertheless, this study is limited to probing the current educational experiences in Somalia in the absence of the central state.
As a theoretical framework, this study utilizes the concept of social capital in the sense of informal social networks, trust and connections among community members (Clark, 2006; Coleman, 1988; Mundy & Murphy, 2001; Putnam, 1995). The study also draws on the capability approach which is “a set of basic human entitlements” for all people, outlining what people are “able to do and be” (Nussbaum, 2003, p.3; Robeyns, 2005, p.94; Sen, 2005; Unterhalter, 2003).
The findings of the study suggest that the Somali people have adapted rather well, under the circumstances, to the absence of the state, despite continuing insecurity and lawlessness prevailing in the country. The study documented that educational institutions that have emerged since the destruction of the old system are still in their nascent stage and need to be supported for them to yield the desired results.
Were there such a category, Somalia would hold a place in Guinness World Records as the country with the longest absence of a functioning central government. When the Somalis dismantled their government in 1991 and returned to their precolonial political status, the expectation was that chaos would result — and that, of course, would be the politically correct thing to expect.
Imagine if it were otherwise. Imagine any part of the globe not being dominated by a central government and the people there surviving, even prospering. If such were to happen and the idea spread to other parts of Africa or other parts of the world, the mystique of the necessity of the state might be irreparably damaged, and many politicians and bureaucrats might find themselves walking about looking for work.
If the expectation was that Somalia would plunge into an abyss of chaos, what is the reality? A number of recent studies address this question, including one by economist Peter Leeson drawing on statistical data from the United Nations Development Project, World Bank, CIA, and World Health Organization. Comparing the last five years under the central government (1985–1990) with the most recent five years of anarchy (2000–2005), Leeson finds these welfare changes:
Life expectancy increased from 46 to 48.5 years. This is a poor expectancy as compared with developed countries. But in any measurement of welfare, what is important to observe is not where a population stands at a given time, but what is the trend. Is the trend positive, or is it the reverse?
Number of one-year-olds fully immunized against measles rose from 30 to 40 percent.
Number of physicians per 100,000 population rose from 3.4 to 4.
Number of infants with low birth weight fell from 16 per thousand to 0.3 — almost none.
Infant mortality per 1,000 births fell from 152 to 114.9.
Maternal mortality per 100,000 births fell from 1,600 to 1,100.
Percent of population with access to sanitation rose from 18 to 26.
Percent of population with access to at least one health facility rose from 28 to 54.8.
Percent of population in extreme poverty (i.e., less than $1 per day) fell from 60 to 43.2.
Radios per thousand population rose from 4 to 98.5.
Telephones per thousand population rose from 1.9 to 14.9.
TVs per 1,000 population rose from 1.2 to 3.7.
Fatalities due to measles fell from 8,000 to 5,600.
Another even more comprehensive study published last year by Benjamin Powell of the Independent Institute, concludes: "We find that Somalia's living standards have improved generally … not just in absolute terms, but also relative to other African countries since the collapse of the Somali central government."
Somalia's pastoral economy is now stronger than that of either neighboring Kenya or Ethiopia. It is the largest exporter of livestock of any East African country. Telecommunications have burgeoned in Somalia; a call from a mobile phone is cheaper in Somalia than anywhere else in Africa. A small number of international investors are finding that the level of security of property and contract in Somalia warrants doing business there. Among these companies are Dole, BBC, the courier DHL, British Airways, General Motors, and Coca Cola, which recently opened a large bottling plant in Mogadishu. A 5-star Ambassador Hotel is operating in Hargeisa, and three new universities are fully functional: Amoud University (1997) in Borama, and Mogadishu University (1997), and University of Benadir (2002) in Mogadishu.
The Call to "Establish Democracy"
All of this is terribly politically incorrect for the reason I suggested. Consequently, the United Nations has by now spent well over two billion dollars attempting to re-establish a central government in Somalia. But here is the irony: it is the presence of the United Nations that has caused virtually all of the turbulence we have seen in Somalia. Let me explain why this is the case.
Like most of precolonial Africa, Somalia is traditionally a stateless society. When the colonial powers withdrew, in order to better serve their purposes, they hastily trained local people and set up European-style governments in their place. These were supposed to be democratic. But they soon devolved into brutal dictatorships.
Democracy is unworkable in Africa for several reasons. The first thing that voting does is to divide a population into two groups — a group that rules and a group that is ruled. This is completely at variance with Somali tradition. Second, if democracy is to work, it depends in theory, at least, upon a populace that will vote on issues. But in a kinship society such as Somalia, voting takes place not on the merit of issues but along group lines; one votes according to one's clan affiliation. Since the ethic of kinship requires loyalty to one's fellow clansmen, the winners use the power of government to benefit their own members, which means exploitation of the members of other clans. Consequently when there exists a governmental apparatus with its awesome powers of taxation and police and judicial monopoly, the interests of the clans conflict. Some clan will control that apparatus. To avoid being exploited by other clans, each must attempt to be that controlling clan.
The turmoil in Somalia consists in the clans maneuvering to position themselves to control the government whenever it might come into being, and this has been exacerbated by the governments of the world, especially the United States, keeping alive the expectation that a government will soon be established and supplying arms to whoever seems at present most likely to be able to "bring democracy" to Somalia. The "warlord" phenomenon refers to clan and independent militias, often including leftovers of the former central government, who promise to establish a government under the control of their own clan. They often operate outside the control of the traditional elders and sometimes in opposition to them.
Hence the most violent years in Somalia were the years following 1991 when the United Nations was physically present, attempting to impose a central government. When the United Nations withdrew in 1995, the expectation of a future central government began to recede, and things began to stabilize. But the United Nations continued it efforts to re-establish a government through a series of some sixteen failed "peace conferences." In 2000 it set up a straw government, the Transitional National Government (TNG). However, not only did the northern Somali clans not recognize the TNG, it was unable to control its intended capital city of Mogadishu. Today a combined "peace-keeping mission" of United States–backed troops from Ethiopia, Somalia's traditional enemy, and Uganda under the aegis of the African Union is in Mogadishu attempting to prop up the TNG and secure its control over the rest of Somalia. Violence soars.
The situation is curiously like an event in Greek mythology. The gods on Mt. Olympus were enjoying a festive party, to which, understandably, they had not invited Eris, the goddess of discord. Eris, just as understandably, took the matter personally. She had the blacksmith Hephaestus fashion a golden apple, on which was written ???????? — "To the fairest." Then she opened the door a crack and rolled the golden apple into the festive hall. In no time at all, the gods were fighting over who should have the apple. The golden apple in Somalia is the expectation that there will soon be a central government. As long as there is that expectation, the clans must fight over who will control it.
Somalia and the Rule of Law
Now, I've gone this far without telling you much about Somalia. It's the Horn of Africa, that part of northeast Africa that juts out into the Indian Ocean just below the Arabian Peninsula. The Somali culture area includes all of the Horn and is home to some 11.5 million people. The colonial powers arbitrarily fragmented this culture area so that today parts of it fall under the jurisdiction of Kenya in the south, some in Ethiopia in the west, and some in Djibouti in the north. The remainder along the coast is now without a working government.
What these people have in common, even more than similar language, lifestyle, and physical character is a body of customary law, the Xeer, which differs from clan to clan in nonessential ways such as founding myths but is remarkably uniform with respect to its provision for the protection of persons and property. The Xeer provides a rule of law — customary law, that is — permitting safe travel, trade, marriage, and so forth throughout the region. The Xeer is most intact in the north of Somalia, which was under British rule; in the south, the Italians tried to eradicate it. Nonetheless, it survives to a significant degree everywhere, even in the urban areas, and is virtually unaffected in rural Somalia.
The Xeer is the secret to the whole perplexing question of Somalia's success without a central government, since it provides an authentic rule of law to support trade and economic development. Fortunately, we know something about the Xeer because of Michael van Notten, a Dutch lawyer who in the early 1990s married into the Samaron Clan in the northwest of Somalia, the fifth largest of the Somali clans, and lived with them for the last twelve years of his life. He took full advantage of that opportunity to research the Xeer. The result was his pioneering study, The Law of the Somalis (Red Sea Press, 2005). Van Notten died when his manuscript was half finished. Fortunately, he had largely completed assembling the ethnographic material. In his will, he asked that I edit and complete the manuscript for publication. The task ahead is to see the work translated into Somali.
Highlights of the Xeer
There is time in this short talk to give you only some of the highlights of the Xeer. First, law and, consequently, crime are defined in terms of property rights. The law is compensatory rather than punitive. Because property right requires compensation, rather than punishment, there is no imprisonment, and fines are rare. Such fines as might be imposed seldom exceed the amount of compensation and are not payable to any court or government, but directly to the victim. A fine might be in order when, for example, the killing of a camel was deliberate and premeditated, in which case the victim receives not one but two camels.
Fines are used in another interesting way. It is expected that a prominent public figure such as a religious or political dignitary or a policeman or a judge should lead an exemplary life. If he violates the law, he pays double what would be required of an ordinary person. Also, it should be noted, since the law and crime are defined in terms of property rights, the Xeer is unequivocal in its opposition to any form of taxation.
Second, in order to assure that compensation will be forthcoming even in cases where the perpetrator is a child, or penniless, or crazy, or has fled abroad, the Xeer requires that every person be fully insured against any liability he might incur under the law. If an individual cannot make the required payment, a designated group of his kin is responsible. Van Notten describes in an interesting way how this happens:
A person who violates someone's rights and is unable to pay the compensation himself notifies his family, who then pays on his behalf. From an emotional point of view, this notification is a painful procedure, since no family member will miss the opportunity to tell the wrongdoer how vicious or stupid he was. Also, they will ask assurances that he will be more careful in the future. Indeed, all those who must pay for the wrongdoings of a family member will thereafter keep an eye on him and try to intervene before he incurs another liability. They will no longer, for example, allow him to keep or bear a weapon. While on other continents the re-education of criminals is typically a task of the government, in Somalia it is the responsibility of the family.
If the family tires of bailing out a repeat offender, they can disown him, in which case he becomes an outlaw. Not being insured, he forfeits all protection under the law and, for his safety, must leave the country.
Customary law is similar in this and many other respects throughout the world. An instance is told in the founding legend of my own Clan MacCallum in Scotland. The founder of the Clan supposedly was exiled 1,500 years ago from Ireland because he was a hothead whom his family disowned for embroiling them in fights. In the loneliness of his exile on the North Sea, he became a man of peace. He couldn't return to Ireland, as he was no longer under protection of the law and could have been killed with impunity. So he went instead to Scotland and there founded our clan.
A third point about the Xeer is that there is no monopoly of police or judicial services. Anyone is free to serve in those capacities as long as he is not at the same time a religious or political dignitary, since that would compromise the sharp separation of law, politics, and religion. Also, anyone performing in such a role is subject to the same laws as anyone else — and more so: if he violates the law, he must pay heavier damages or fines than would apply to anyone else. Public figures are expected to show exemplary conduct.
Fourth, there is no victimless crime. Only a victim or his family can initiate a court action. Where there is no victim to call a court into being, no court can form. No court can investigate on its own initiative any evidence of alleged misconduct.
Last, the court procedure is interesting. From birth, every Somali has his own judge who will sit on the court that will judge him should he transgress the law. That judge is his oday, the head of his extended family consisting of all males descended from the same great grandfather, together with their spouses and children. Several extended families make up a jilib, which is the group responsible for paying the blood price in the event a member kills someone of another jilib or clan. The oday, or judge, is chosen carefully, following weeks or months of deliberation by elders of the clan. He has no authority over the family but is chosen solely for his knowledge of human affairs and his wisdom, and he can lose his position if his decisions are not highly regarded in the community.
When an offense is committed, the offender goes first to his oday, who then forms a court with the oday of the plaintiff. If the two odays cannot resolve the matter, they form another court made up of odays representing additional families, jilibs, or clans. A virtue of each person knowing from birth who will be one of his judges, and vice versa, is that an oday knows each person in his extended family intimately and can observe and counsel him before what might seem to be a small problem escalates into a crime.
Once a court forms and accepts jurisdiction over a case, its first action is to appoint a recorder, who will repeat loudly during the hearing each important point made by the speakers. The court then announces when and where it will hear the case. When the court session opens, the court invites the plaintiff to state his case. The plaintiff has the right to appoint a representative to make the presentation on his behalf. During the presentation, the plaintiff has opportunity to confer with his family to make sure that he has not forgotten anything. When the plaintiff has finished, the court asks him to summarize his case and state his demands. Lastly, the court asks the defendant to present his defense and any counterclaims.
Then the court adjourns to deliberate on whether any witnesses should be heard. A disputed fact is admitted as evidence only when three witnesses have testified to its truth. The parties can also call in experts and character witnesses. If the victim has died or has been wounded, the court will instruct a religious dignitary to assess how the victim died or was wounded. These dignitaries assess injuries usually by applying the standards enumerated in the commentary of the twelfth-century Muslim scholar al-Nawawii's Minhaaj at-Talibiin. When the plaintiff has elaborated his case with witnesses and evidence, the defendant is given a chance to refute the plaintiff's charges, arguments, and evidence. It is not customary to cross-examine witnesses.
Finally, the court adjourns again to evaluate the evidence. If less than three witnesses support a fact, or if the witnesses contradict each other, the court will proceed to oath taking. There are several types of oaths. The simplest starts by the oath giver saying, "I swear by my virility." Alternatively, he can say, "I swear by Allah." A stronger oath is the so-called triple oath, in which he swears the same oath three times. A stronger oath yet is the one that is repeated 50 times. Also, there is the so-called divorce oath, in which the oath giver swears by his marriage(s). If it is later found out that he lied, his marriage(s) become null and void.
It should be noted that even when the plaintiff fails to convince the court of his case, the court will usually not rule in favor of the defendant until the latter has taken an oath of innocence.
In a longer talk, I could discuss the role of police and enforcement of judgments, but this much should give some flavor of the legal system practiced by the Somalis. It provides an effective rule of law entirely without the backing of a government.
The Xeer takes its place among such great legal systems of the world as the Roman law, the English common law, the Law Merchant, and the Jewish traditional law (Halacha). It must be extremely old and is believed to have developed in the Horn of Africa. There is no evidence that it developed elsewhere or was greatly influenced by any foreign legal system. The fact that Somali legal terminology is practically devoid of loan words from foreign languages suggests that the Xeer is truly indigenous.
Michael van Notten's book describing this system of law deserves to be better known and widely read. It is the first study of any customary law to treat it not as a curiosity of the past, but as potentially instructive for a future free society. In his book, Van Notten lays out some practical applications to the world in which we find ourselves today, applications I haven't had time to touch on here. Whether or not the intervention of foreign governments, which has intensified with the refusal of Somalis to die or remain poor, will frustrate this potential, only time can tell.
I would like to end with a plea to help get this book into wider circulation.
Many of them will find it highly appropriate. A review by a distinguished legal anthropologist on Amazon.com ends on this note:
"The readability and relative brevity of the text highly recommend The Law of the Somalis for classroom use. It fits comfortably alongside, and is a refreshing addition to, the scholarly tradition reflected in such classic ethnographic legal-political titles as, Tswana Law (I. Schapera), The Cheyenne Way (K. Llewellyn and E.A. Hoebel), and The Judicial Process among the Barotse (M. Gluckman)." – Howard J. De Nike, J.D., Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico
Spencer Heath MacCallum is a writer and social anthropologist in Chihuahua, Mexico. Send him mail. Comment on the blog.
This paper was presented at the 26th annual World Freedom Summit, International Society for Individual Liberty, Williamsburg Lodge, Williamsburg, VA, August 11-15, 2007.
Bibliography
- De Nike, Howard J. 2006. "Customary Law Upholds Natural Law." Amazon.com Customer-Reviews
- Leeson, Peter T. 2005. "Better Off Stateless: Somalia Before and After Government Collapse." West Virginia University. (PDF)
- Powell, Benjamín, Ryan Ford, and Alex Nowrasteh. 2006. "Somalia after State Collapse: Chaos or Improvement?" Independent Institute Working Paper No. 64. (PDF)
- Van Notten, Michael. 2005. The Law of the Somalis: A Stable Foundation for Economic and Social Development in the Horn of Africa. Trenton NJ: Red Sea Press.
The relation between Ethiopia and Somalia has not been a healthy one. In the recent historical period, one major and one lesser war were fought between the two countries. The empty dream of the so-called "Greater Somalia", an expansionist policy, had brought to Somalia nothing but hostility and conflicts with all its neighbors, especially Ethiopia. Moreover, Somalia had always allied with all groups and countries it believed were anti-Ethiopian and had disturbed Ethiopia's peace. On the other hand, Ethiopian Somalis had resisted the oppressive system in Ethiopia. Related to this, Somalia had succeeded in mobilizing a large number of Ethiopian Somalis as allays in its attempt to execute its expansionist policy. In this regard Ethiopia has been exposed to threats emanating from Somalia and other quarters.
Ethiopia, for its part, rather than responding to the threat by respecting the right of Ethiopian Somalis and by fostering brotherhood between the peoples of Ethiopia, so Ethiopian Somalis could live in voluntary unity with their other fellow Ethiopians, resorted to dismantling Somalia to the extent possible. The policy was to respond to Somali aggression by taking the war to Somalia and, along the way, aggravating the contradiction between the Somali clans.
The situation has now fundamentally changed. The "Greater Somalia" ideology has been discredited. It is now over ten years since Somalia has become stateless. On the other hand, in Ethiopia, a constitution in which peoples' rights are guaranteed is being implemented. Ethiopian Somalis are living in brotherhood and voluntary unity with other Ethiopians in a newly defined, inclusive Ethiopian identity. Together with other Ethiopians, Ethio-Somalis are, in the spirit of equality, democracy, development and an Ethiopian identity, resting on strong foundations and contributing to the building of the country. Ethiopia's vulnerability to the "Greater Somalia" ideology has been greatly diminished.
On the other hand, the disintegration of Somalia has in itself brought ever-growing danger. The crisis in Somalia has allowed religious extremism to take hold. Somalia has become a haven and conduit for terrorists and extremists. Anti-peace elements are using the country as a base and place of transit in order to threaten Ethiopia's peace. Somalia's disintegration has brought danger to the peace in our country.
b) Significance of the relations
There is no condition whereby Somalia could contribute as a source of investment and financial development or as a significant market for Ethiopia. After a process of some length, followed by peace and stability in Somalia, there is the chance that it could become a significant market, but this is difficult to imagine in the short and medium term. Regarding natural resources, all the big rivers in Somalia flow from Ethiopia. The irrigation schemes in Somalia which effectively served the people are in a poor state. On the other hand, as our country steps up its development, we will have to dam the rivers for irrigation purposes. The harnessing of rivers in Ethiopia can help Somalia resist floods, and so the benefit would be mutual. But on the other hand, these rivers could be used in Ethiopia - mainly in the Somali region - for development purposes. This could create a minor conflict but the problem can be tackled by the principle of give and take in a way that takes into account the national interests of the two countries.
As can be understood from the above, in the short and medium terms, Somalia does not have a positive or negative influence of note in the development of our country. And yet, in Somalia there are numerous ports that can provide services to Ethiopia. Starting from the port of Zeila which gave services to Ethiopia during its long history, all the way to Kismayo, there are no less than seven ports in Somalia that can be used by different parts of our country. These possibilities could significantly contribute to our development, but due to the "Greater Somalia"-driven conflict and national oppression in Ethiopia, they were never seriously considered (not to forget that Ethiopia had ports of its own). The current collapse of the state in Somalia makes it unrealistic to think of using the ports at the present time.
Even if the chances to use the ports were to arise, and though that would increase Somalia's relevance to our development, one cannot see a positive role that Somalia can play at this time. On the negative side, it is worth noting that the disintegration of Somalia has posed dangers for peace and stability in Ethiopia. This situation has spoilt the image of our sub-region, and the Horn is now perceived as an area of conflict. Our chances to attract investment have been reduced and the "Somalia effect" has contributed to the uncertainty about regional peace and the lack of economic linkages between the two countries.
Ethiopia’s Somali Region is undergoing a gradual but important transition that has multiple implications concerning violent grassroots conflict (defined, in this context, as conflict largely driven by local factors, as opposed to macro-political factors). Home to more than four million people, the vast majority of whom are ethnically Somali and Somali-speaking, the region’s inhabitants are undergoing a fundamental shift in their livelihoods, started about two decades ago, that affects many facets of life. This shift is driven by multiple factors and results in a measured move away from the traditional nomadic pastoralist way of life towards a foundation of agro-pastoralist activities and sedentary farming. There are many implications of this shift at multiple levels of society; this report focuses on the implications for community-based conflict and argues that the shift brings with it new drivers of conflict in addition to conventional drivers. Aggravating the situation is the recent drought professed by some to be the worst in the region’s history.
This project is expanding VETAID’s work beyond Somaliland into Puntland and other areas of Somalia.
The Ethiopia-backed government in Somalia is currently battling an insurgency in Mogadishu, blamed on an Islamist movement that was expelled from the country's south and central regions early this year. (Photo: Jose Cendon / AFP-Getty Images) 
A displaced Somali girl holds her younger brother on her back as she waits for food distribution in a camp outside the capital Mogadishu after another round of street violence, 9 September 2007 – In a country ravaged by more than 15 years of armed conflict, compounded by droughts and flooding, the light at the end of the tunnel still seems to be just out of reach. The ICRC has been present in Somalia since 1977, working in close cooperation with the Somali Red Crescent as a key provider of emergency aid to the victims of armed conflict and natural disasters. 
