(SomalilandPress)Amal Osman had come to Hargeisa not only to visit her uncle’s family but to also do some research for her PhD.  Her thesis focused on a microcredit NGO, ran by a cousin of hers named Fatima, which gave small loans to help support female entrepreneurs.  Fatima had, prior to living in Hargeisa, lived in Norway, where she had met, married and subsequently divorced her husband. After the dissolution of her marriage, like many independently spirited Somali women over 40, without an established career, she was faced with the difficult decision to either open up her own Somali related business or start an NGO. Having always viewed herself as being rather altruistic she decided pursue the latter and subsequently moved herself and her three small children to Hargeisa. Through, helping others she found a great deal of joy and satisfaction, and most importantly helped take away much of the bitterness of her failed marriage.

The morning after the wedding, Amal showed up to work and ran into Fatima at the gate of their office.

“Great news!” says Fatima beaming, as she closes her car door. “We’ll finally be able to get those computers we have so desperately wanted.”

“That’s awesome!” states Amal as she walks over to her. “Who’s the generous donor?”

“Sheeko Telecommunications. They are upgrading their systems and have decided to donate their old computers to various different charities, and they have selected us as one of those charities.”

Amal’s smiling expression faded to shock.

“The head of their company personally called on Thursday to inform me about the donation,” Fatima informs her as she began to walk towards the courtyard that led to her office.

“Ayub Dalmar?” asked Amal, following after her.

“Yeah! Do you know him?” asked Fatima.

“Not really. I just know he’s a jerk. I met him for like five minutes this weekend at a wedding and that was more than enough to last me a lifetime. Giving us his unwanted computers—-the nerve of that guy! Well, we don’t want any of his charity.”

“Ah—-Yes we do. Hello—you’re the one that is always going on about how desperately need computers for our clients. Imagine how much good we can do with them. We can final start giving those computer classes, you’ll always talked about.”

“We can hold off on that idea for a little while longer. I’m sure something else will come along.”

“No it won’t. Do you know how hard it is to get a donation like that? Next to impossible. Why are you so against the idea anyway? I thought you would be thrilled.”

“Because, our organization is setup to help improve the lives of improvised Somali women—-he has a very low opinion of and despises all Somalis and in particular Somali women. Taking anything from him would be like PETA taking money from a butcher. It’s just wrong!”

“Surely not!” protests Fatima.

“This is probably just some publicity stunt, you know,” Amal states. “And look at the timing of the offer— right before Ramadan—-He’s probably trying to paint himself as this generous businessman—-I bet he’ll have this place full of cameramen and journalist.”
“Well, I’m meeting with him this morning to discuss the offer and if I feel his views are not aligned with ours, I can always refuse.”

Just then they turned the corner and saw Ayub Dalmar standing a few feet away.

“Mr. Dalmar, how good of you to come so early,” says Fatima as she greets him.

“I thought you said to meet you at your office at 10:00am, if so, than I’m right on time,” he replies.

“Oh, but you know how we Somalis are, you tell us 10 and we show up at 11. It’s so refreshing to meet with someone who is actually punctual,” Fatima remarks.

“I think it rude and inconsiderate to waste other’s time,” he replies, with his usual somber tone of voice. “Somalis lack of respect for other peoples’ time has always irritated me.”

“It’s not being disrespectful— but rather just a cultural difference,” Amal states. “We, Somalis are a proud and free spirited people and refuse to be shackled to anything—-even time. This belief in being unshackled steams from our nomadic days. When one is living on the big open gazing lands, one has no conception of time, the hours and minutes simple melt together.”

“Which, I suppose, explains too the shocking lack of progress and development amongst the Somali people in general,” he says.

Amal’s, jaw drops, and Fatima, seeing that she was about to boil over quickly ushered Ayub into her office, before she could reply.

To make matters worse, when Amal got home that evening she was reminded that her uncle had invited the Bashirs’ over that evening for supper.  Khadra had also extended an invitation to Zahra and her family. She had two motives for doing this, the first was that she felt her daughters would appear at an advantage when compared to Zahra’s daughters, and the second, that Zahra would have to return the favour and invite them over when she invited the Bashirs over to her home.

A third benefit occurred to her after she saw Ayub, whom she had spent the whole of the morning bashing on the telephone to her friends; with the attendance of Zahra’s family, the dinner party was so large that no one need trouble themselves to speak with him.

After discovering that Ayub was the son of the famous owner of Dalmar group of companies, Mr. Ismail managed to seat himself beside him at dinner, for nothing made Mr. Ismail more proud than the sight of a successful enterprising Somalilander. He spoke consistently, about the “the wealth of investment opportunities in Somaliland”, and the “need to attract more Somalilanders to invest in business in Somaliland” and “how someday Somaliland would a great economic power!” Ayub not troubling himself to appear at all interested simply gave the occasional monosyllable reply.

After dinner, the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the living room, for it was the custom in Somali culture that ladies and gentleman eat separately. Ayub utterly bored began to study the people around him, passing unfavorable judgment on each one, when his gaze arrested by Amal Osman who was in the middle of relating a story to Zahra’s daughter Ubah, and his cousin, Salma. Her face was bright and animated, her eyes sparkled intelligently and her lips were curved into a very pretty smile. He remembered what she had said to him that morning, and smiled to himself as he did. And though he had convinced himself, last night, that he had found her utterly unattractive, this evening he decided he would be generous and say that she was in fact not unattractive. Though, he would hardly call her a beauty, as he watched her for a little while longer he felt that there was something almost bewitching about her. He continued to observe her throughout the evening, with a great deal of interest and curiosity.

To be continued…..

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The prisons in Somaliland and Puntland are part of a security solution to a problem that is, at its heart, economic and political — a worrying mismatch

By Jill Keenan

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Mowlid Ahmad Abidoon stands quietly in the small prison cell where he has lived for nearly two years. Slot windows on one wall let in only a little sunlight, leaving his face almost entirely obscured in darkness. Yet there are splashes of colour all around: The room’s bunk beds are covered in sheets with bright floral and geometric patterns, over which hang canopies of blue mosquito nets — cells within the cell.

Clad in a striped polo shirt and prison-uniform pants, Mowlid estimates that he is about 20 years old; the last traces of baby fat still cling to his cheeks. He insists that he shouldn’t be behind bars. “I’m a fisherman, not a pirate,” he says flatly, as though he has delivered this speech a hundred times before.
Court documents from Seychelles say otherwise. On December 6, 2009, Mowlid and a band of fellow Somali pirates used firearms and explosives to attack the Topaz, a Seychelles Coast Guard patrol vessel. (Seychelles, an island nation, is about 825 miles southeast of Mogadishu, Somalia’s coastal capital.) They were arrested, convicted and sentenced to 24 years in prison.

That’s how Mowlid ended up in Hargeisa Central Prison, home to 29 Somali pirates. The prison was born of necessity. Pirates are often tried in countries like Seychelles and Mauritius, in whose waters they are caught, but those states don’t want to keep the convicted in their jails. The Somali government can’t reasonably take them, given its extreme volatility. Yet one place has been eager to house pirates: Somaliland, a self-declared independent (but internationally unrecognised) republic in northern Somalia that wants to prove its state-like qualities and relative security in the tumultuous Horn of Africa

So the United Nations invested millions of dollars to build a prison in Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital. Opened in 2010 and run by local authorities, it was the first new prison in the region in 30 years.

Today, outside the prison’s main entrance, a sign warns visitors what they cannot bring with them: hand grenades, knives, assault rifles. Inside, inmates compete against guards in basketball, while feral kittens roam the dusty grounds. In the prison’s open kitchen, a huge pot of stew bubbles over a fire. Aside from spirals of barbed wire and armed guards atop open towers, there isn’t much obvious security.

Beneath the veneer of calm, however, the prison is nearing capacity. The facility can hold 506 prisoners, and it already has 480. (Pirates are housed alongside other criminals.) Mowlid, like many inmates, shares his cell with nine other men. Meanwhile, some 1,350 pirates currently incarcerated abroad await repatriation to Somalia. It’s clear that neither Hargeisa nor Somaliland generally will be able — or even willing — to take them all.

The solution, according to the international community, lies in another autonomous region in Somalia: Puntland, which encompasses the country’s northeastern coastline. The UN provided funding to upgrade and expand a prison in the port city of Bosaso, and, another UN-backed facility was to be opened in Garowe, Puntland’s capital, this year. But Puntland isn’t Somaliland. It is a less stable and more corrupt place.

Perhaps most worrying, however, is that it’s also considered the heart of Somalia’s pirate culture.
“Puntland is pirate land,”explains Michael Frodl, the founder of C-Level Maritime Risks, a Washington-based consultancy. “If I were a Somali pirate, I’d do everything I could to get sent to Garowe.”

Piracy began spreading rapidly in the waters off Somalia in the early 21st century because of civil war and poverty — offering a chance to make money amid an economic wasteland of opportunity.

In a typical operation, pirates armed with guns and other weapons approach commercial ships in skiffs, hijack them, and demand a ransom, a chunk of which they often pay to wily financiers. But even if Somali pirates can be considered products of circumstance, some have also become torturers and murderers:

Freed hostages have reported pirates hanging captives by their feet, submerging them at sea, staging mock executions, and locking them in freezers.

Reports of appalling violence, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in losses to shipping companies, have prompted the international community to focus on repressing, arresting, and prosecuting Somali pirates.

In 2008, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on countries with ships in the region to use military force against pirates. Nato and the European Union (among others) police the Indian Ocean, and private, foreign-funded security operations have also joined the fight. Meanwhile, shipping companies have fortified their vessels to repel attacks, using everything from armed guards to razor wire.

Their efforts have worked. There were only 15 reported attacks in 2013, according to the International Chamber of Commerce, down sharply from a peak of 237 in 2011. Analysts around the world have touted the drop as a huge success.

But while the most visible manifestations of piracy have diminished, the root causes of the phenomenon remain unaddressed back on dry land. Amid continuing political and economic instability, organised gangs of pirates still exist, looking for susceptible targets, and a new generation of young men like Mowlid could easily turn to a life of maritime crime.

Indeed, according to a 2013 World Bank report, “Current and proposed onshore or offshore policies for curbing Somali piracy are either ineffective or unsustainable.” As a result, the report states, “whether they [pirate attacks] will continue to be suppressed is a major question.” Similarly, Jon Huggins of the nonprofit Oceans Beyond Piracy, has called the recent gains against pirates “fragile and reversible” and has warned against “emphasis[ing] too much the declining numbers of attacks.”

The prisons in Somaliland and Puntland, in other words, are part of a security solution to a problem that is, at its heart, economic and political – a worrying mismatch. Ending piracy once and for all will require more than military might on the high seas and the threat of incarceration.

According to the World Bank, it will require incentivising — through both law enforcement and development initiatives — the local leaders enabling piracy to change their tune. Then there is the matter of jobs. “Ultimately, we need to get these Somali men, often youth, quality employment,” says Michael Shank, an adjunct professor and Somalia expert at George Mason University’s School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution. The UN Development Programme has pegged the unemployment rate for Somali youth between the ages of 14 and 29 at 67 per cent — one of the world’s highest.

Pirate prisons alone certainly cannot address this problem. Although inmates can complete training programs in trades like construction, metalworking, and plumbing in the Hargeisa and Bosaso facilities, it’s unlikely they will be able to use their newfound skills upon release. Even fishing jobs are largely out of reach. Shank explains that, in addition to “ransom pirates,” there are “resource pirates.” The latter, however, aren’t Somalis.

They are foreign fleets that threaten East Africa’s waters with overfishing and toxic-waste dumping, making it impossible for many Somali men to make money the way their fathers and grandfathers did.
“To put the problem of piracy in perspective, ransom pirates made $60 million (Dh220 million) in their most lucrative year, while commercial-resource pirates illegally harvest up to $450 million in fish annually,” says Shank. “Any sustainable solution for this problem, then, must address this exploitation.”

Ironically, pirate prisons may also be generating new security risks. Pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are held in the same facilities as members of Al Shabab, the Somali group with ties to Al Qaida, and juveniles are housed alongside adults. That means there’s a very real risk that impressionable, disillusioned young men could be radicalised — young men like Mowlid, who, if his estimated age is correct, was only about 16 when he and his friends attacked the Topaz. “I don’t see any future,” Mowlid says of his life.

John Wilcox, a prison adviser for Somaliland with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), says roughly 12 of the Hargeisa prison’s inmates are members of Al Shabab. There is a covert prison intelligence programme in place to ward off radicalisation, but Wilcox still worries that the facility could become a breeding ground for extremists.

“A lot of these guys don’t have father figures,” he says, alluding to another socioeconomic problem in Somalia: the disintegration of clan and family structures because of conflict and hardship. “And with Al Shabab in here, we certainly don’t want this to be the place where they find one.”

Radicalisation might be less of a concern if prison inmates were certain to remain behind bars. But in November 2013, Bosaso’s prison was attacked by Al Shabab militants carrying at least one rocket-propelled grenade; they killed three people as they sought to liberate fellow extremists from their cells.
The UNODC was quick to point out that, had it not been for its recent investments in Bosaso, the attack could have been worse. “However, we cannot close our eyes to possible attacks,” says Manuel de Almeida Pereira, a programme coordinator with the UNODC in Garowe. “We remain, of course, worried.”

It’s not just Al Shabab that threatens the prisons’ security: Puntland has a reputation for tolerating and even enabling piracy. Although Puntland’s former president, Abdul Rahman Farole — in office from 2009 until January 2014 —made repeated public pledges and some concrete efforts to undermine, arrest, and convict pirates, a 2012 report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea called into question “the authenticity of the Puntland authority’s commitment to fighting piracy.”

Gangs have reportedly paid off local communities in order to dock hijacked ships in Puntland’s coastal cities during ransom negotiations, and Puntland government officials have been known to receive pirate money in exchange for protection agreements and information about the location of foreign ships.
A 2012 Chatham House study also found that ransom money contributes heavily to the region’s economic development, particularly in provincial capitals. “Puntland’s political elites are therefore unlikely to move decisively against piracy,” the report concluded.

The decision to invest in greater detention capacity in Puntland — like Somaliland before it — was due largely to a lack of alternatives. (It didn’t help that, due to an ongoing border dispute, Somaliland has refused to imprison pirates born in Puntland, saying it must deal with its own problems.) But the large-scale transfer of pirate prisoners from abroad hardly seems like a safe solution.

Pirates have had success bribing their way out of custody throughout Somalia. The UN is working to ensure that prisoners are not unlawfully released from the facilities it funds, but some experts are worried that pirates may still slip through the cracks in Puntland.

“Pirates are basically being sheltered by the regime in exchange for protection money,” Frodl, the maritime risk consultant, says. “Those jails might hold a few foot soldiers, but if you tried to incarcerate any high-level pirates in Puntland, they’d buy their way out in a week.”

Mowlid, who grew up in the town of Barawe, south of Mogadishu, perks up slightly when asked about the Puntland prisons. Puntland might be better, he agrees. In Somaliland, he has never been able to have a visitor, and he misses his family. Puntland would be closer to home. A few of his fellow inmates nod. A transfer might be nice.

But that’s not what they really want to talk about. As the minutes pass, they shift in their seats, ignoring the bottles of fruit juice and water a prison guard has passed around.

“How can you help us?” demands Ares Isse Karshe, a 40-year-old pirate who was captured with Mowlid. He has a thin, ragged beard with hints of gray. When I explain that I can’t help him, he leans back in his chair and says nothing.

Across the room, Mowlid is willing to speak — but only a little. He claims once more that he is innocent and that his right to a fair trial was violated.

“Please leave us alone,” Mowlid says finally, looking down. “We give up the sea. It belongs to you now.” His fingers have curled into fists.

Jill Keenan is a New York-based journalist who writes for the Washington post

Source: Gulf News

As Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.”

On 3^rd March 2014, President Ahmed Silanyo unwittingly put his signature to a highly controversial decree regarding the formation of a Ministerial-Level Committee and a Taskforce responsible for the registration of Somaliland citizens for the purpose of issuing them with Voter/National Identity cards. The decree sharply divided the nation along clan lines and promptly elicited blistering condemnation from members of Arab clan who has been stealthily excluded from both the ministerial committee and the task force.

When civic and political leaders of Arab clan knocked on the Presidential Palace door and demanded an explanation from the president as to why they were singled out, the president was totally flabbergasted, groping for an answer. It was quite obvious that the president was caught off guard by the legitimate criticisms leveled against him.

Unfortunately, it was none other than the president’s most trusted aides who pulled the rug under his feet. The next morning, in the cold light of day, everyone realized that the whole thing stinks.

It has now emerged that the ministerial committee and the task force was secretly formed in a smoke filled room, outside the collective decision-making process of the government, by a tightly-knit group of clan fundamentalists within the cabinet who have the president’s ear. They selectively drew up a list of names, hand-picked individuals, which would make up these two important committees.

The ministerial committee and the task force was formed in such a way that some clans are disproportionately over-represented in both committees, others are woefully under-represented while others were completely excluded from the equation as if they do not exist. The whole thing was built on the idea of: scratch my back/and I will scratch yours. But the architects of this deceitful enterprise forgot one thing: that the people of Balligubadle who have been completely excluded from these committees won’t be shutting up or falling into line or be bullied into submission.

At first sight, the suggestion from the political parties, Electoral Commission and other stake holders that voters should be required to show photographic ID at polling stations appears sensible. Yet a closer scrutiny serves to establish that it is not so straightforward. The rationale for the move is to reduce the incidence of multiple registrations.

If the past experience is anything to go by, the result of the voter/nationality ID registration exercise undertaken in October/November 2008, with a supplementary registration in January 2009 had produced a Voter register with a high proportion of invalid and duplicate entries and efforts to clean the register using an Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and a Facial Recognition System (FRS) had completely failed.

According to the Electoral Reform International Services (ERIS), ‘Babies’ were registered and pictures which had clearly been taken elsewhere and held up to the camera “False Photos” were used by clans to outdo one another in their outrageous attempts to inflate their respective population counts.

Ghost villages with no more than few inhabitants and goats were suddenly bursting with non-existent people [ghost voters].

According to ERIS, the frauds and duplicate registrations took place during the registration process, partly because the registration officers came under pressure from local civic leaders. These civic leaders were, in turn, taking their orders from their clansmen belonging to Ministerial Committees and Task forces like these. 

It is important to point out that the illegal and duplicate registrations did not simply happen in a vacuum but was facilitated by the registration officers under pressure from government ministers and other representatives responsible for the voter registration process.  The winners, those with the highest number of registered voters, are almost always the clans who are disproportionately represented on such committees and registration officers.

Of course, there is no easy way to change the local cultural and political realities so as to eliminate this in the future. However, the only practical way to prevent these fraudulent practices is to set up a system which rapidly detects such frauds and duplicates, for the culprits to be immediately exposed, and for there to be public consequences.

According to ERIS, the errors and corrupt practices during both the main and supplementary registrations, including: registration of babies, children who were clearly under age; registration of individuals who were not present, using pictures taken elsewhere; deliberate multiple registrations, at the same or different registration centres, using different names.

Needless to say, it’s an absolute insanity to repeat the same mistakes and expect different results. So far, the government has not lifted a finger to put in place a mechanism and/or measures to prevent the recurrence of these wanton corrupt practices.

Far from it, it is quite clear that those who formed this Ministerial Committee and the Task Force had one thing in mind: to repeat the same wanton corrupt practices that got us into this mess in the first place.

What is different now is that some clans struck a secret pact and are planning to beat all other clans in their burning desire to inflate their numbers through deliberate and outrageous multiple registrations. The stage is set for another round of wanton corruption.

If the planned voter/ID registration system is going to be fair and free from manipulation as government officials would have us believe then surely there is nothing to be afraid of. But the brutal truth is that the system is far from being fair or free from manipulation and no one knows better than the very men who formed these committees.  They are the ones who are mortally afraid of the very system they want the public to believe in. Why would the rest of us have the slightest faith in the system then?

This is the reason why the Ministerial-Level Committee and the Task Force was deviously formed in such grotesquely unfair manner in its clan composition. The name of the game is inflating your clan’s population count.

Now that this Ministerial Committee and Taskforce is completely tainted and discredited, the majority of the people will have no choice but to refuse to let the government pull the wool over their eyes. The western donor countries must not equally allow themselves to fall for the ruse perpetrated by the clan fundamentalists within the cabinet who are masquerading as honest, God-fearing and Law-abiding government functionaries.

The western donors must lean hard on the Somaliland government to come clean on its abysmal failure to set up a fair system that treats all members of the public fairly and squarely. Funding a fundamentally corrupt system for a democracy’s sake will not only do a great disservice to the Somaliland people but will put the last nail in the coffin of the country’s democratic system as we know it.  The donors must insist that public trust and confidence in the system be restored as a pre-condition for funding. Expediency in such matters probably poses a greater threat to Somaliland’s survival than anything else.

If the planned system is perfect in anyway then one representative for each Somaliland clan in all committees will suffice otherwise no clan will have the right to register members of other clans and this will eventually mean the death knell of the registration process. If the process is to be successful, no clan in Somaliland should be left behind.

Winning with deception and bluff is not an option: we have seen this movie before.

Jamal Madar

adammadar@yahoo.com

Washington -The Executive Director of SONYO, Mr. Saeed Mohamed Ahmed, being part of the International Visitor Leadership Program participants, has taken meetings and interactive sessions with high profile members of the US government. He attended an official breakfast at the Congress whereby he participated in a congress discussion on African youth leaders as change agents. The breakfast was provided by the Chair of the Congress Sub-committee on African Affairs. In addition, the Executive Director of SONYO has visited to the Office of the United States Agency for International Development whereby the Chief of Policy, Outreach, Strategy and Evaluation Unit of the African Bureau received and cordially welcomed the delegation to the USAID Headquarter in Washington DC. Saeed has also attended a debriefing session that was hosted by the Federal Electoral Commission. In the evening of yesterday, Saeed Ahmed was highly welcomed by the Somaliland Mission in USA and the Somaliland Community in US.

The forum held at the Congress was a great opportunity for the African Youth in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP). There were high profile diplomats including ambassadors, heads of missions and executive officers of development agencies who all attended in both the Congress breakfast and forum and who attentively listened to the expressions of the IVLP participants. The Executive Director of SONYO daringly interacted with the Congresswoman and had a brief but effective interactive and introductory discussion with the Congresswoman. Saeed told the MP that Somaliland youth today need stood up to have prepare themselves for the leadership of their country by benefiting from the home-grown democracy and peace that Somaliland has been building for the last twenty years. He encouraged the Congresswoman to draw the attention of US policymakers to the significance of investing in the growing generations of Africa and in particular to the support of the empowerment and employment of the Somaliland youth who form the majority of country’s population and who embrace the peace of Somaliland—which is not only good for Somaliland but also good and safe for the whole East Africa region and the even rest of the world. The Congresswoman admired for the initiatives of the youth and how SONYO is also dedicated to “think strategically, act proactively and operate vibrantly”.

The African youth leaders in the IVLP program also visited to the USAID Office. The Executive Director of SONYO, being part of the International Visitor Leadership Program participants has delivered a very brief word on the status of the Somaliland youth, their needs and their way forward to getting empowered to their potential. Mr. Saeed, the Director of SONYO also praised the significant role of the USAID when it comes to the consolidation of the civil society initiatives on the ground. He said: “USAID has done a great and wonderful job. It supported many social and economic growth projects that were conducted in Somaliland for the last two decades. The current Somali Youth Leadership Initiative (SYLI) is one of those projects. However, USAID is needed more than it imagines. USAID needs now to acknowledge that long term, locally-owned extensive programs need to be meaningfully funded and implemented in Somaliland so as to address the key and the hot issues of unemployment, absence of recreational and resource facilities and inadequate availability of spaces and opportunities  for the youth to exercise their potential and voice up their concerns”.

The debriefing session at the office of the US Federal Electoral Commission was also imperative and learning opportunity for the IVLP participants. The US federal level elections were analyzed and debated upon. In addition, the challenges that still face most of African states and hinder them from pursuing fair and free elections were also discussed upon.

SONYO Director Meets The Kenyan Ambassador to US H.E. Elkanah Odembo and Botswana Ambassador to the United States, Madam Tebelelo Seretse.

The Executive Director of SONYO had also got a “welcoming banquet dinner” from the Somaliland Mission in the United States and the Chairman of the Somaliland and the Chairman of the Somaliland community in the United States. On behalf of SONYO Umbrella leadership, we are so grateful to Ambassador of Somaliland to US, Mr. Rashiid Gaaruf and Chairman of Somaliland Community in US, Mr. Haashi Ismail, for their warm welcoming and encouragement by standing side by side with SONYO Umbrella in US to support our honoured CED does his job smoothly with full motivation.   

Mubarak Ismail Taani

SONYO Umbrella Chairman

Above Ministry of Agriculture staff  loading pesticides used for the termination of locusts

By M.A. Egge

The country which has been  reeling against the fear of locust invasion, and steeling itself against the havoc they would leave in the spate of their wake, saw the city residents treated to a rude shock on Friday.

This was when large swarms flew over parts of Hargeisa and blanketed portions of areas in cloud films. Whenever they sojourned on trees their effects was vivid as it was chilling.

The city residents, most of them having never witnessed the scenario, stared agape.

Whereas the youth were naively mesmerized, the older folks held their fingers crossed while numbed with awe.

This brings us to the equally numbing revelation by the NERAD chief that there are expectations that larger swarms than the Friday fly-past were expected to invade the western parts of the country. Mr. Mohammed Muse Awale likewise disclosed the fact that his agency could not do anything about the situation.

Incidentally, the first warnings concerning the impending calamity were sounded in November last year.

Since then, the Agricultural minister Hon. F.E. Geedoole had frantically tried to do something hence control the plausible invasion but to no avail.

Now that it has come to pass, hence crippled with lack of technical capacity to fight the plague coupled with the compound negative international tentative control support, the horn region is left to put their hopes on fate.

The swarms of locust are getting out of control and would wreck havoc not only in SL but in the whole of the Horn region and other parts of the continent.

Hon. F.E. Geedoole had sounded a pessimistic warning that was so chilling to both the country and the region at large. Its effect have already affected the coastal areas and felt in areas spanning four regions.

“We have sent for SOS to Nairobi, Addis Ababa and even Cairo, but we have still yet received no support”, moaned the Agricultural Minister in a radio interview with the BBC.

Seriously enough, the Minister had all the rights of warning and being concerned because the repercussion of locust invasion is just quite well known in the region.

He was worried that the invaded areas were all grazing lands.

He revealed that they have already taken stoke of the situation and surveyed the extent of the infestation.

That siren of emergency help had been sent to Kenya, Ethiopia and Egypt but to no avail, are indeed not only mixed, but grave signals.

By the time some technocrats heeded the call, it was too little too late.

Hon. F.E. Geedole had announced that the expatriates from the international directorates  charged with the tasks of controlling desert locusts had arrived in the country, however, perhaps too late to save the situation; that is after unheeding to various SOS signals sent to them since last year.”The best part where the locust infestation would have easily has been controlled is gone since the eggs they left have already hatched into larvae (armyworms)”,said the minister. He was definitely meaning that spraying by air which wouldhave otherwise been effective with the flying adult insects has now been rendered in-effective for it has been overtaken by events.”To spray them now is quite dangerous since the pastures would be in-adventlypoisoned”, he said.

The ountry which was reeling against the fear of impending swarms of locust getting out of control is now sadly seething under the havoc it has wrecked.Hon. Geedoole had sounded a quite chilling and pessimistic warning, which sadly again, has come to pass; moreover its effect has already affected larger area than the original one felt in areas spanning four regions.

The minister has for more than two occasions sent officials to evaluate the situation and assess the damage left in the wake of the locusts, and subsequently, armyworms infestation.It was not a secret that that SL was left to the mercy of nature and has its wounds now to lick and let heal by itself. The minister was categorical that no one responded to our cries, and heeding the call now may be too little too late.The group was of course expected to take stoke of the situation on ground and survey the extent of the infestation.Initially it was two hundred kilometers along the coast, from Hagal in eastern Berbera, throughout Kalbarre in Togdeer and all along to Asha Addo in Loyaddo that had been invaded as far as Las Qoray.The main worry is that the invaded areas are all pasture and grazing lands.Ironically, Hargeisa happened to be a central command of desert locusts monitoring, control and management technical station with all accessories for the tasks in ready supplies hence whereof missions were catapulted.

The Food Agricultural Organization (FAO) runs auspices to combat this problem known as the Desert Locust Control Committee (DLCC).Igad was originally formed as IGADD to fight against desert and desertification, pinning anti-locust squadron at the heart of its policies before its priorities were re-aligned.History of the area as concerns locusts that cause havoc by accelerating desertification tenfold in the Horn region and parts of Saharan Africa emanates from our corner of the world.They first reported it to the Minister of Resettlement Hon. Ahmed Abdi Kahin when he had led a team which went to distribute basic necessities to the affected in the region.The Minister had then gone public on the locust issue sounding the first serious sirens of the warning.

By Goth Mohamed Goth

Press Release

29/03/2014.

Somaliland Minister of Civil Aviation and Air Transport Hon Mahmoud Hashi Abdi accompanied two ministerial legal experts flew out of the country today headed to Ankara, Turkey to discuss the issue Air Traffic Control management with SFG officials.

In a Press Statement released today by the Director General in the Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air Transport Mr. Omer Abdillahi Aden stated as Follows

The Minister of Civil Aviation Air Transport Hon Mahmoud Hashi Abdi and accompanied by Mr. Said Mahdi Ileeye(Saqirro) and Mr. Mahmoud Bihi Taarwale both who are part of the Ministry’s legal team by in accordance with article 8.    The parties agreed to appoint an ad-hoc technical committee composed of 4 members, ( two from each party) to  prepare the terms of reference of the Air Traffic Control Board. The Technical Committee work will be supervised by the respective two Ministers.

The Minister of Civil Aviation and Air Transport Shall brief the nation of the outcomes of the proposed upcoming in the coming days.

Signed By

Mr. Omer Abdillahi Aden

Director General

Somaliland Ministry of Civil Aviation and Air Transport

By Goth Mohamed Goth

Hargeisa-Somaliland Minister of Energy and Minerals Hon Hussein Abdi Dualeh was among those attending a one day youth integration basketball tournament held today in Hargeisa intended to promote social integration through promoting sports and aims to bring together youths from different social backgrounds for joint sporting activities that will help facilitate an environment in which they all interact.

Tamarta and Wahabarashada basketball teams squared off at the famous Tima Aade Centre in central Hargeisa aimed to use sport to address issues such as school dropouts, violence among youths and drug awareness.

I want the youths to know that we are all working for their better future because a sport in general is good for the physical wellbeing by keeping their body and mind healthy. These games are meant to help the youth stay away from drug abuse, illegal migration and other social vices. I urge our youngsters to enjoy the games and integrate well with the peers,” Energy Minister said before kicking a ball to open the one day basketball Tournament.

Hon Hussein Abdi Dualeh promised more support for youth programs through the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Resource basketball team which is sponsored by his Ministry which supply’s them with uniforms and other sports kit with the hopes the tournament will help nurture football and basketball talent as well as help it pick the best sportsmen who will in the future represent Somaliland in such international tournament. He urged the sporting youth to enjoy the opportunity presented to them.

“This is a very important event in Somaliland because youth are the most important and the largest group in the community. For the sake of integration, we hope this sporting event will help foster unity among the youth of Somaliland,” Hon Mahmoud Warfaa the deputy chairman of the ruling party central committee in Hargeisa stadium.

Hon Warfaa added “We are very glad our young players have been given this opportunity to take part in this important basketball tournament. The competition will help us pick the best youngsters who will automatically join the junior national team whom we hope to nurture and prepare well for future representation of Somaliland in international competitions.

“This is a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our talent. We really thank Ministry of Energy and Minerals and Ministry of Education and Higher Learning for organizing and funding this competition. The morale is very high among the boys and each one of us just wants to enjoy this rare sporting opportunity which will help foster friendship and integration among the youth of Hargeisa,” Mr. Mahmoud Tamarta Captain.

The one day basketball tournament was overseen by the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture and closely managed by both the Somaliland Basketball Federation and the Football Federation, the two bodies that run football and basketball affairs in Somaliland.

Tamarta emerged as the winners with 43 points over their opponents  Wahbarashada 35 points.

SomalilandPress.com

By Goth Mohamed Goth

The Chairman of the Justice and Welfare party (UCID) Hon Feisal Ali Waraabe was among members of the Socialist International Africa Committee who are currently meeting in Tanzania, hosted by the SI member party in that country, Chama Cha Mapinduzi, CCM.

The Chairman of the Justice and Welfare party Hon Feisal Ali Waraabe and other top party officials were among those other representatives from 20 other African nations which took part in the two day event held in the Julius Nyerere International Convention center after being invited by the chairman of Chama Cha Mapinduzi, the ruling party in Tanzania, CCM Hon Abdurrahman Kanini.

CCM Hon Abdurrahman Kanini addressing the social international gathering also touched on the legacy of the late President Julius Nyerere who through his African socialist “Ujamaa” collectives united his nation and made major advances in the fields of health and education and being the founders of the Socialist International.

The secretary General of Socialist International Lius Ayale speaking at the event said, “Most of the African countries gained independence during the 1960s, some of these newly formed governments rejected the ideas of capitalism in favour of a more afrocentric economic model. Advocates of African socialism claimed that it was not the opposite of capitalism nor a response to it, but something completely different.

Mr. Lius Ayale also paid tribute to the late Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Léopold Senghor of Senegal, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Sékou Touré of Guinea, who were the main architects of African Socialism and I am glad to say most African countries which gained independence at the time embraced the socialist ideology.

The President of Tanzania H.E President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete hosted a dinner in honor of members of the Socialist International Africa Committee attending the two at the Presidential Palace in Dar salaam.

Chairman of UCID Hon Feisal Ali Waraabe and the Secretary General of CCM Hon Abdurrahman Kanini to discuss future cooperation between the two political parties and how the Tanzania’s ruling party would in the future assist the Justice and welfare party (UCID) in the future to training and enhancing the role of youth and women

Among the issues discussed at the two day event were (1) Our commitment to peace and the resolution of conflicts in the region; (3) Participative democracy, solid institutions and good governance; (4) For an economy that serves all the people, respects nature and provides growth; (5) Brief reports on national situations in countries of the region; (6) Statement of the meeting; (7) Date and venue of the next meeting of the Committee.

Attending the meeting were participants from 21 countries namely Tanzania, Algeria, Angola, Somaliland, Benin, Cameroon, Chana, Greece, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, morocco, Namibia, South africa, Swaziland, Western sahara, Lesotho, Cap verde and Zambia,

The Socialist International is the worldwide organisation of social democratic, socialist and labour parties. It currently brings together 155 political parties and organisations from all continents.

SomalilandPress.com