On the morning of Tuesday, October 22, 2013, Somali television journalist Mohamed Mohamud, nicknamed “Tima’ade,” was seriously wounded when unknown armed men attacked him on his way home from work. He was shot more than five times. Colleagues and local residents in Wadajir district, where the attack took place, immediately rushed him to Madina Hospital in Mogadishu.
His attack and previous assaults have increased the security concerns of journalists in the field who need greater protection and basic safety training. Every day we witness and hear unpleasant news about our dear fellow journalists. Attacks against the press in Somalia are common. Assassinations continue. Few investigations have taken place to find the perpetrators.
Intimidation and violations of human rights flourish in the absence of law and justice in Somalia. Many families live in sadness and ignorance, not knowing who killed their loved ones. We know of journalists who have died because of inadequate protection or lack of medical assistance when rushed to hospitals. A tragic, broken record is continually replayed: armed people walk free after they attack journalists; their families and media colleagues cry over their loss and government officials condemn the incidents, calling on security services to protect journalists.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud has strongly condemned the attempted assassination of Tima’ade, for instance, and has ordered security services to bring the perpetrators to justice. The president said:
We must bring to justice those responsible for the attempted assassination of Tima’ade. I also appeal to the management and the staff of Universal TV, as well as to all Somali journalists, to keep up their courageous activity to show these thugs and would-be killers that they cannot silence journalists who are doing a magnificent job in Somalia. I pray to Allah that Tima’ade will be able to recover speedily. These cowardly extremists want to show the world that Somalia is not safe and not stable. And they will fail because the cause of freedom on the one hand and journalists reporting freely on the other will prevail.
Despite such strong statements, why then, I wondered, have security services routinely failed to capture these killers? The police and criminal investigation officers are capable of arresting a rape victim in an IDP camp in Mogadishu and a journalist who interviewed her, but fail to capture the killers of the press in the nation’s capital and elsewhere.
The Somali authorities must turn their words into action so they can put the killers on trial.
Several journalists were killed this year and 12 others were murdered in 2012 as a result of doing their work. What is worse is that we aren’t even sure who is killing us. Who is it who is so determined to snuff out our voices? The government and allied AMISOM forces in Mogadishu have largely weakened the Somali hardliners known as Al-Shabaab, but their ability to target the press remains. And while Al-Shabaab is routinely labeled the guilty party, they are not the only ones threatening journalists.
Civil actors and government officials say there are other groups who target journalists. “We can’t charge only Al-Shabaab, there are also other members who attack civilians, district staffs, and journalists,” Ahmed Dai, Wadajir commissioner, told journalists on Wednesday.
Our hearts and prayers go out to those wounded reporters in hospitals, such as Tima’ade, and to their families. The journalists killed are sorely missed. However, grieving is insufficient. It’s time to end the war on journalists and capture those responsible for their deaths.
The insecurity and harassment, including threats via mobile phones, has forced many Somali journalists to leave and live in exile. CPJ’s global index of journalists in exile shows Somalia ranked as having the second greatest number of exiled journalists in the world, a total of 70 for the period June 1, 2008, to June 1, 2013, surpassed only by Iran’s 82.
It’s crucial for media professionals to be able to work in secure conditions, and attacks against journalists can no longer be tolerated. Another challenge reporters face in Somalia is the media bill recently sent to Parliament, which still contains many articles restricting freedom of expression and access to information.
Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) for Somalia Nicholas Kay completed a two-day visit to Garowe, the capital of the federal state of Puntland today, urging a free, inclusive and credible political process that should lead to a new Puntland parliament this year and presidential elections early in 2014.
“This will be the fourth government in Puntland and we salute the significant stability and progress made since 1998. Puntland has an important role to play in charting the way to a new federal Somalia,” Kay said.
“I hope Puntland can renew its relationship with the Federal Government and help move the whole Somali state-building project forward.”
SRSG Kay met with Puntland President Abidrahman Farole, ministers, parliamentarians, clan elders, civil society and UN staff from 20 to 21 October. He heard from them the current state of preparations, timelines and issues of concern.
Community leaders and clan elders will soon begin the process of nominating 66 new MPs to the Puntland Parliament.
Once in session, the MPs will elect a president of Puntland for a new term due to start in January 2014. Kay called for continued efforts to achieve one-person, one-vote democratisation for the future.
A vetting committee will review the nominated MPs to ensure they meet the criteria set out in Puntland’s constitution, and are people without a criminal record or history of violence.
The appointment of the committee should be completed promptly and transparently, Kay urged.
Despite making up more than half of Puntland’s population, women occupy only two seats in the current Parliament (fewer than any time since 1998).
SRSG Kay urged government, elders and civil society to work towards a greater representation of women in the next parliament. The representation of minorities and regions also needs careful attention, the envoy added.
All presidential candidates will need to be assured freedom of movement, association, security and should enjoy equal access to media. These issues are largely the responsibility of the current government.
Journalists should be free to do their work without interference, Kay told government and other stakeholders.
The process should be conducted peacefully within a context of reconciliation, despite the inevitable raising of political temperatures during the campaign, he added.
At the invitation of the government of Puntland, the UN will continue supporting efforts for an inclusive, fair and credible outcome and will remain closely engaged in the coming weeks and months.
A Somali Artefact and Cultural Museum opened on Saturday in Minneapolis at an event attended by many Somali’s and non-Somali’s.
The museum which showcases Somali art, culture and way of life is the first of its kind in North America. About 350 artefacts – including paintings of nomadic life, photos of Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu, jewellery, weapons, traditional rug, hand-carved utensils, functional items like water and milk containers and ancient writing tablets – are on display at the new museum.
The items are placed throughout the museum’s five rooms; each room with a different theme. The ‘War and Peace room,’ for instance contains weapons – including spears, bows and arrows – on one side and musical instruments on the other.
The museum’s owner, Osman Ali collected all the items on display over a period of five years starting in 2009. In this time, he made five trips to Somalia to visit his ailing father and brought back a few items for the museum with each trip.
He also went on national radio and TV stations in Somalia and asked people to collect and send items for the museum project. The Museum’s outreach director, Sarah Larson said they are still cataloguing the items but had decided “to get open and make this available to the community.”
Ali established the museum out of a desire to protect the artefacts from being destroyed due to the turmoil in Somalia. He also wanted to teach young Somalis what nomadic life in Somalia was like as more Somali’s are abandoning the traditional lifestyle and migrating to cities.
Before setting up the museum, Ali showed his collection at libraries and schools. He hopes that the Minneapolis Museum will become a place where parents and teachers can take Somali-American children to learn more about their native country and reclaim their heritage. The museum will remain open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and visitors will be able to access it for a fee.
Twenty years ago, Mogadishu was home to the world’s only Somalia culture and history museum which has since been destroyed by war.
I stumbled on the hyena treatment after seeing the new Tom Hanks vehicle Captain Phillips. I happen to have a personal connection to the film, being friends with Jim Phillips, the older brother of Captain Phillips, so I was clicking around the net looking for more info on what drives Somalis to such desperation.
Traditionally, families in the Horn of Africa cared for the mentally ill under the guidance of religious leaders and cultural healers, an arrangement that has broken down in the civil war that devastated the coastal country. But so many were raped and tortured and starved that trauma-inflamed mental illness has come to define the Somali community.
An unusual number of Somali immigrants to the United State have presented with psychotic disturbances too.
Famine Studies Do Not Bode Well
The problem is set to get worse as war and drought combine to produce famine that drives rates higher for the starving Somalis. Famine studies elsewhere have shown that children who endure severe malnutrition at a young age or while in the womb might be at a higher risk for certain diseases
Scientists from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Beijing have confirmed WWII Dutch Winter Hunger studies that show that famine nearly doubles rates of schizophrenia. That’s what happened following the Great Chinese Famine that lasted from 1958 to 1961.
Researchers spotted the same risks studying 1944’s “Hunger Winter,” a 6-month famine around Rotterdam and other easter cities of the Netherlands during World War II. Interestingly, the risks to those carried through a famine in utero during the famine were highest.
Famine also explains the historically high rates of madness once found in Ireland.
Can the Somalis eliminate such brutishness? Yes, as Dr. Hab hows.
But they could inhibit the spread of schizophrenia from the world’s highest rates just by reducing famine.
Nairobi, October 22, 2013-Somali authorities must work quickly to identify the motive in today’s murder attempt on a broadcast reporter and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The journalist, Mohamed Mohamud, has been hospitalized with serious injuries.
Unidentified gunmen in a car shot repeatedly at Mohamed’s car as he was driving to work at about 7 a.m. in the Wadajir district of the capital, Mogadishu, according to local journalists. He sustained six bullet wounds in his neck, chest, and shoulder, news reports said. He has undergone surgery at a local hospital, but is still unconscious, local journalists said.
Mohamed, 26, who is also known as “Tima’ade,” is a reporter at the private U.K.-based Universal TV. It is not clear if he had covered any sensitive stories before the attack.
Universal TV, which was established in 2005, covers news for the Somali diaspora with correspondents based in countries including Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya. In 2012, CPJ documented several attacks on Universal TV reporters. On October 23, 2012, unidentified gunmen shot dead Ahmed Farah Ilyas, a reporter for the broadcaster, and on July 7, 2012, gunmen attempted to kill Abdulkadir Omar Abdulle, a reporter and anchor for Universal TV. Abdulkadir survived the shooting.
“The pace of attacks on journalists in Mogadishu may have slowed slightly, but the capital is still an unacceptably dangerous place for journalists to work,” said CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes.
No one has taken responsibility for the attack on Mohamed. The insurgent militia group Al-Shabaab is routinely linked to attacks on journalists, although some cases are linked to personal grudges from officials volleying for power, according to news reports.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud issued a statement condemning the attack and calling for an immediate investigation. “There must be no impunity, and the government will do everything in its power to bring to justice all those involved in the killing of our journalists or any violence committed against them.”
Somalia’s Central Investigation Department arrested three suspects today in relation to the attack, according to local journalists.
CPJ’s Rhodes welcomed the government’s pledge, saying, “The only way of curbing this brutal trend is for the perpetrators to be held accountable.”
· For more data and analysis, visit CPJ’s Somalia page.
A recent conference on Somalia held in Brussels has endorsed a new ‘Somali compact’ with development partners who are mainly from the North, pledging funds. The pact has many serious flaws – among them are the appointment of several foreign advisors without Somali counterparts
After one year of consultations, planning sessions, and international conferences, representatives of the International Community (Development Partners) and High level delegation led by President Hassan Sh. Mohamud of the Federal Republic of Somalia (FRS) met at Brussels, Belgium, the headquarter of the European Union (EU) on 16 September, 2013 for a conference on a ‘New Deal for Somalia’, and jointly endorsed the Somali Compact (SC) based on the ‘New Deal Strategy for Engagement in Fragile States’ adopted in Bussan, South Korea in November 2011. On the basis of the new partnership, the Development Partners (Donors) pledged 2.421 billion dollars to Somalia to implement fifty eight (58) statebuilding milestones detailed in the SC over the next three years (2014-2016). The EU, UK, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Germany, USA, Switzerland, Ireland, Finland, Netherlands, African Development Bank and World Bank contributed 98.72 percent of the pledges. With the exception of Turkey, and the Arab and Asian countries didn’t make pledges, while Italy’s contribution was 12.47 million dollars.
Although the new partnership is better than the former abusive international relationship devised after the collapse of the Somali State, it is not free from fatal flaws and booby-traps that could cancel its promising prospect. Professor Michael Weinstein has highlighted some of the major flaws of the SC in his analysis titled ‘Somalia: the political poisoning of the FGS by Belgian Waffles’ of 21 September, 2013. Similarly, Mary Harper of the BBC cautioned in her report titled “another conference on Somalia” that ‘with so many challenges, it is possible that the Brussels meeting will simply be the latest in the long list of expensive conferences on Somalia that end with ambitious communiqués but have little or no impact on the development of the country.’
Somalia has been put on a peace and statebuilding path designed, directed and managed by the international community in concert with distrusted Somali Partners. The reestablishment of State institutions and authorities at all levels, the holding of constitutional referendum in 2015, and a political election in 2016 throughout Somalia have been made the central mission of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). It is not clear if the Development Partners, the Somali elite and people are on the same page and commit and deploy the efforts and cooperation needed to accomplish these ambitious but existential goals.
SHAMEFUL DIPLOMATIC AMBUSHES
As usual, before and during the Brussels conference, the government of Ethiopia engaged diplomatic ambushes against the sovereign leadership of the FGS to demonstrate its supreme authority over Somalia in collusion with Dr. Abdurahman Mohamed Farole, president of the regional state of Puntland. Against the protocol of the conference published in advance, the Ethiopian foreign minister arranged a publicized photo-op between president Farole and Baroness Catherine Ashton, EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, co-chair of the conference. He also lobbied to get president Farole be seated at the front row of the conference table rather than being seated behind the president of Somalia and to deliver a polemic speech, later expunged from the official record for violating the spirit of the conference and probably infuriating EU leaders. In strong disapproval, the President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel D. Barroso said in his closing remarks that ‘a country cannot live with two presidents. A country needs rule of law, of course in democracy, with inclusiveness, integrating all the parts in the federal structure of your country.’
THE PILLARS OF THE SC
The pillars of the SC include a binding and respected social contract among the Somali people through the Provisional Constitution, the existence of national (federal) representative government recognized by the international community, and the consensus that the international relations (foreign policy) of Somalia is an exclusive realm of the national (federal) government. Parallel or competing local governments in international arenas are incompatible with the New Deal for Somalia.
While the communiqué of the conference reaffirmed the unity, territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Somalia, the SC concedes that the northern regions of Somalia (Somaliland) enjoy advanced level of peace, democratic process, development and governance not achieved by the rest of Somalia. However, Somaliland has agreed to seek international development assistance as part of Somalia but with separate implementation mechanism until national integration is completed. Also, Puntland declared its commitment to contribute to the peaceful, just and productive life for “the whole of Somalia.” The South Central Somalia, the seat of the national body responsible for the representation and protection of the unity and sovereignty of Somalia, is under the stabilization plan authorized by the UN Security Council.
THE CONTENT OF THE SOMALI COMPACT
The SC focuses on three issues: Peace and statebuilding goals in line with the five goals of the New Deal for Engagement in Fragile States (the inclusive politics, security, justice, economic foundations, and revenue and services); the principles of partnership and the establishment of Somali Development and Reconstruction Facility (SDRF); and the Architecture and Monitoring Arrangement for mutual accountability and transparency. The SC lists nine principles of partnership for international assistance. The principles of Somali ownership and leadership, transparent and predictable aid, sound Public Financial Management (PFM) systems, and support of institutional development capacity offer a promising prospect.
TIMELINES AND CONSTRAINTS
The provisional constitution, the vision 2016, the national stabilization plan, and the SC, all are setting timelines for the implementation of overlapping priorities. The federal government agreed to develop an integrated plan which meets the requirements of an Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy (IPRS) with financial cost figures before January 2014. It has also agreed to identify limited number of top priority flagship programmers in December 2013. In consideration of the very weak human resource capacity of the FGS, the preparation and implementation of these multiple plans could take time and protracted or haphazard negotiations that will quickly dash the expectation of the Somali people.
Other constraints to the fulfillment of these deadlines include halted progress in the fighting against Al Shabab, general insecurity, resisted national integration, lack of domestic financial resources, delayed aid disbursement, weak central leadership, and corruption. The Federal Government expects to collect less than 50 million dollars per year as revenue while it needs at least one billion dollars per year to establish a functioning institutional structure at national, regional and district levels.
The SC underscores the formation of core public sector capacities as a precondition for the FGS efforts to support the functioning authorities at all levels of government. The injection of foreign advisors without capable and conscious Somali counterparts at all levels will lead to public discontent and failure.
FATAL FLAWS IN THE SC
One major fatal flaw in the SC is the contradictory positions of the Development Partners. On one hand, they emphasize the sovereign leadership of the FGS over the Somali affairs while on the other hand, they practically deal with FGS as a faction that must negotiate with militias, regions, and self organized opponents, or as a faction required to execute dictated conflicting tasks without strong diplomatic and financial backup. An urgent resolution of these contradictory positions is critical.
A second fatal flaw could come from the misinterpretation of claim made in the SC that the ‘Somaliland Special Arrangement (SSA) represents an important element of a larger shift in approach to development partners’ engagement’ and of the claim that ‘the people in Somaliland are citizens of Somaliland’ or from the use of the distinct names-Somalia and Somaliland- without qualification. On 16 September, the Foreign Minister of Somaliland, Mohamed Behi Yonis published a carefully crafted letter in which he supported the conference and explained Somaliland’s absence. In the same context, the separate security arrangement of US and UK with Somaliland without link to the overall national security structure and strategy of Somalia could trigger new grievances.
A third fatal flaw is related to the confusion surrounding the question of federalism and the tainted legacy of the UN led constitution making process. The international community is fully aware that the issue of the form of federalism in Somalia has not been settled among the Somali people and therefore, the UN has the responsibility to dispel immediately the false claims made on the basis of the provisional constitution in order to avoid protracted controversies. Territory owned/controlled in the name and spirit of clan is unconstitutional.
The Federal government must operate within the limits of the provisional constitution and should not be used as a backdoor to settle, without legitimate process, issues that have been left unresolved during the constitutional negotiation between the stakeholders of the Somali National Constituent Assembly (NCA). The legitimate scrutiny of the FGS actions under and through the agreed conditions and institutions is different from political manipulations and accusations under false claims. Somalia needs a strong democratic developmental central authority with well defined decentralized and accountable system of governance.
The Deputy Prime and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation in the federal government of Somalia Ms. Fowzia Yusuf Haji Aden is set to submit her resignation letter to the office of the President Hassan Sheik Mahmoud in the coming days due to long running rivalry between her and Dr. Mohamed Nur Gacan the minister of State for Foreign Affairs.
Unnamed sources close to Villa Somalia have leaked shocking revelations of increase infighting among top officials in the ranks and files in the federal of government of Somalia Foreign minister had several times before complained about the interference by the State minister to the SFG President Hassan Sheik Mahmoud and she hasn’t attended to her duties since.
President Hassan Sheik Mahmoud is in a fix and he cant have both ways the reason he has by all means failed to reconcile the pair and can’t afford to lose either ,one been a longtime ally and a fellow Dam Al-jadeed while the other is a fake symbol of Somalia unity which he propagates as mean of convincing the world his government is a broad based one.
It’s said the foreign minister recently sent a ministerial directive on the 12/10/2013 in which she orders the recall of twelve ambassadors from Somalia missions abroad because most of them have been accused being engaged in corruption and embezzlement funds .
The list of recalled Emissaries can be seen below
1 Somalia Ambassador to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
2 Somalia Ambassador to Egypt
3 Somalia Ambassador to Pakistan
4 Somalia Ambassador to the UAE
5 Somalia Ambassador to Switzerland’s
6 Somalia Ambassador to India
7 Somalia Ambassador to Turkey
8 Somalia Ambassador to Libya
9 Somalia Ambassador to Uganda
10 Somalia Ambassador to France
11 Somalia Ambassador to the UN
12 Somalia Ambassador to Russia
The ministerial directive orders were the emissaries should immediately and without delay to return to country by 20/10/2013 or else further steps shall be taken but her rival and also a close ally of the President Hassan Dam issued another one ordering the 12 Ambassadors to stay put and ignore the directive, this is when all hell broke loose and Madam Fowzia Haji Aden known for her standup attitude threatened to resign.
When the State minister was summoned by his superiors he simply answered I wasn’t informed of the directive which is seen as mare an excuse for the cover up corruption or he has the blessing of his boss who failed to punish the State minister for breaching the code of conduct.
The New Blood sect (Dam Al-jadeed), catapulted her to the second highest office in Somalia are the same ones who now demanding at all cost the replacement of the Foreign Minister, Fowzia Yusuf Haji Aden, as many see her position as being untenable.
A suicide bomber killed at least 16 people on Saturday in an attack on a cafe in a Somali town close to the Ethiopian border frequented by local and foreign soldiers fighting al Qaeda-linked rebels.
Al Shabaab said it had carried out the bombing, in the town of Baladweyne, targeting troops participating in an African Union peacekeeping force fighting the Somali Islamist group.
“A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat … and blew himself up,” said local elder Ahmed Nur, speaking from the scene of the blast.
At least 16 people were killed and 33 wounded, local politician Dahir Amin Jesow told Reuters by telephone from Baladweyne. “The death toll may rise.”
Somali and African forces pushed Al Shabaab out of Baladweyne, about 210 miles north of Mogadishu, more than a year ago.
But while the territory that al Shabaab controls has greatly dwindled over the past two years, it continues to control large rural areas and some towns and has ratcheted up guerrilla-style attacks.
“Our main target was Ethiopian and Djibouti troops who invaded our country,” said Al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab. He put the death toll at 25.
There was no independent word on whether foreign soldiers were among the casualties.
Horn of Africa analyst Rashid Abdi said: “Al Shabaab is sending a message that it has the will and the capacity to carry out these kinds of attacks. They are also sending a message that they have huge geographic reach.”
DESTABILISING KEY TOWN
Al Shabaab demonstrated the capacity to strike at far-away targets last month when its gunmen raided a shopping mall in Nairobi, hurling grenades and spraying bullets at shoppers as punishment for Kenya sending troops to Somalia.
Uganda on Friday heightened its “terror” alert to maximum for the first time since bombings in 2010 that killed 79 people, citing domestic and U.S. intelligence indications of a possibly imminent attack by al Shabaab.
Abdirahman Omar Osman, spokesman for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said of Saturday’s bombing: “That suicide attack was deliberately aimed at destabilize the city and this is something we will not tolerate and it will not stop our plan to establish a local government in the region.”
Straddling a major highway that links south-western Somalia to southern and northern parts of the country, Baladweyne is the main gateway to the Ogaden region in Ethiopia and a strategically vital area that Addis Ababa has often controlled.
Analyst Abdi said Baladweyne is now probably more secure than it was a year ago despite grenade attacks and targeted killings.
“In a way this attack is also a message of weakness as al Shabaab are not able to carry out a conventional assault on the town in the way they use to two years ago,” he said.
A human rights organization in Somaliland recently conducted a pilot survey on the impact of bank accounts closures to Somali remittance companies operating from the United Kingdom. A preliminary report it issued highlighted a number of alarming facts that prominently stood out of the findings. Among these were that illegal immigration among university-going students nearly tripled since May when Barclay’s made its intention of terminating operations with remittance companies first surfaced.
“We cannot wait for a day when there is no more hope for us to continue our University education,” a sophomore student who dropped out to prepare for an uncertain fate on the seas told the Somaliland-based human rights watch officers. “Now my uncle can at least see to it that I stand a fighting chance through the Libyan Desert onwards to a fifty-fifty survival chance to Italy by being able to send me some money before the last of the remittance companies’ accounts with Barclays finally closes”.
In a CCTV Africa story that the Chinese station aired recently, a Mogadishu University student said he will drop out of university if the Barclays decision went through. He said he was studying medicine, and had two more years left. He said his family received remittances from London. He said if remittances were affected, that will ‘severe’ the family’s lifeline, including their education and health.
Equally alarming was the despondence and resigned desperation showing among the bulk of beneficiaries receiving remittances from family members residing and/or working abroad. Even those that had no relatives in the UK felt uneasy and unsure of the negative influence the UK bank would have on others all over the world if it got away with its decision.
“The only effective social security system that Somalis always fell back on was the extended family system and the unwritten law that no family member went hungry when close relatives had something to spare him,” a University lecturer in Hargeisa told me. “Remittance beneficiaries cannot certainly live without it for a year or more until the UK government finds another ‘safe corridor’ for Somali-bound remittances,” he said.
The Presidents of Somalia, Somaliland, and of other IGAD countries all strongly pleaded with the UK government and the Bank to stop going ahead with the accounts closures.
Not only Somalis, but humanitarian organizations working inside Somali territories did not make a secret of their concern. The organizations highlighted in reports they sent to Barclays and the UK government that the lifesaving efforts on the ground will be severely curtailed if a workable solution is not found for the flow of remittances and money transfers to Somalis. Likewise, politicians, academicians, human rights organizations.
In a bid to make Barclays retract its decision, Dahabshiil, the largest African remittance company – and the last have its accounts still open with Barclays, served a high court injunction against the closure of its accounts to the Bank. The court hearing was concluded on Wednesday. A court decision is expected on Tuesday, October 22.
It is estimated that Somalis remit some 100 million Pounds from the UK. Among these are transfers bound for humanitarian programs that international organizations and institutions, such as the DFiD, are financing to help Somalis firmly stand on their feet once more. The primary purpose of allocated funds on the part of governments and international organizations is to avert dependence and deprivation – two certain results of the Bank’s decision if it wins on Tuesday’s ruling.
Turning a deaf ear to everybody is not an option – not for the Bank, not for the Court. If nothing else a diplomatic strain on African UK relations will ensue.
For Somalis – and Africans, in general – a court ruling in favor of the flow of remittances to Africa is the only one they can truly accept. Anything else, it is widely believed, is tantamount to a collective punishment for a crime or crimes that neither remitters nor beneficiaries were found guilty of in a court of law. The bank has proven no single case on ‘irregularities’ against Somali remittances, either.
The ‘benefit of the doubt’ considered by judges in all verdicts reached should rule in favor of beneficiaries.
The bank, working closely with regulators, has every chance to keep Dahabshiil accounts open in order not to deprive the millions of Somalis depending on the flow of remittances for basic needs such as daily subsistence, education, health and so on, and to, also, not encourage people to turn their backs on the law and go underground to send monies back home to family dependents.
Dahabshil the largest money remittance company in Africa shall remain open for business until Barclays’s next week when a high court judge will hand down a verdict on an injunction sought by Dahabshil, against a decision by Barclays’s to close its account after the hearing, which took place high court before Justice Henderson, ended on Wednesday.
The CEO of Dahabshil money remittance company speaking to reporters after the court hearing said, “We are pleased to reassure customers (both individuals and NGOs) who rely on our services in the UK and across Africa that Dahabshiil remains open for business this after Barclays agreed to continue to keep our accounts open until judgment is reached.”
‘” I take this opportunity to thank all those who have campaigned for this noble cause especially Oxfam,the various international NGOs ,UN and all those people living in the UK who have been tirelessly supporting us through this period”,stated Mr. Abdirashid.
Dahabshil Mr. Abdirashid Duale, said his company is ready to work with international financial institutions to find short and long-term solutions to the fears and concerns expressed by banks and western governments.
Dahabshil lawyer said, “One of the things we have been asking Barclays bank is to extend the services provided to Dahabshil and three other money transfer companies closed earlier to further 12 months and that extra twelve month window shall allow the treasury and the UK government to put in place a safe corridor which will give the banks a new confidence to resume the services they provide to this money transfer companies,
It claimed that Barclays is abusing a dominant position by proposing to end an existing relationship without objective justification and by treating Dahabshiil differently from other customers.
Dahabshil has in the past had a “good working relationship with Barclays for over 15 years” and such short notice on the closure of accounts is “both unreasonable and unfeasible.”
Dahabshiil is also used major international charities, NGOs and UN agencies to fund their operations around the world. 95% of the funding for humanitarian projects in Somalia is transferred through Dahabshiil. In a country with no functioning financial system, “money transfer companies provide a vital lifeline to citizens,” said a statement issued by the organization.
There is a fear that closing the accounts could drive the system underground into unregulated and illegal providers.
