Shams Hussain, an academic who recently visited Dubai, said there are also ‘invisible actors’ intervening in Somalia.
Dubai: An analyst on Somali affairs has said foreign intervention in Somalia — left without a central government since the 1991 ousting of its then military ruler — is “the root cause of civil strife”.
Shams Hussain, an academic who holds dual Somali and British nationality, said: “One would argue that 90 per cent of the problems in Somalia are based on foreign intervention. They include regional and international actors.”
Shams, on a recent visit to the UAE, identified the regional actors as mainly the neighbouring countries of Ethiopia and Kenya, as well as the “IGAD counters”. IGAD — the Intergovernmental Authority on Development — is a regional bloc of east African nations including Somalia. One of its stated objectives is to support “the prevention, management and resolution of inter-state and intra-state conflicts through dialogue.”
Meanwhile, the international actors, according to Shams, include the US and the European Union. In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, Shams said: “There are also invisible actors who intervene through others. Piracy and the [Al Qaida-linked] Al Shabab militia were created by outsiders.
“But exactly who is behind it all, I don’t know. What I do know is that without outside support and a blind eye, they would not have lasted this long.” Shams pointed out that divisions in Somalia go back to the colonial period that led it to be divided into five parts: British Somaliland, French Somaliland, Italian Somalia, the Ogaden-Haud and reserved areas (given by the UK to Ethiopia) and the Northern Frontier Districts (ceded to Kenya by the UK).
She added that in 1991, the former British Somaliland in the north west dissolved the union and engaged in separate peace processes inside the country, which were “locally funded, implementing and electing a government and a parliament that is also regulated by the House of Elders.” However, Somaliland so far remains unrecognised internationally.
“Somaliland emerged as a hot potato to potential interventionists. On the one hand, its stability was not conducive for foreign troops. When they were united Somalis were accused of being ‘expansionists’ and not adhering to the boundaries left by the European colonial powers. When divided, they were accused of being secessionists.”
Meanwhile, developments have taken a different turn in the southern regions, Shams added. “The southern region — a former Italian colony — branched out differently. Two decades have passed with internal conflict and despite 13 peacemaking conferences worldwide the likelihood of peace stays delayed,” she said. From 2000 to 2012, a series of internationally recognised ‘transitional’ institutions were formed. Today, a permanent Federal Government of Somalia is in place. “We are pleased that the so-called transitional governments ended,” Shams said, but though “the recognition of the Somali federal government is a positive step, one has to bear in mind that there are foreign troops inside Somalia. This time they are fellow Africans funded by international actors who purport to ‘help stability’. When asked why foreign powers would be interested in Somalia, Shams replied: “The answer is simple: strategy and resources. Somalia is located in one of the most strategic places in the world, connecting Africa, Asia and Europe through shipping lines of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, not to mention the Suez Canal and the oil routes of Arabia.”
She added that Somalia is rich in mineral resources, including oil and gas, livestock, agriculture and fishery. “I think both the regional and international actors should revisit the nature of their involvement in Somalia. These actors are talking about their security, but nobody mentions the sovereignty infringement of Somalia, the illegal fishing, toxic waste dumping,” she said.
Despite the challenges facing Somalia, Shams remains an optimist, putting her faith in the spirit of her people. “Somalis have suffered a lot, but they exhibited a magnificent strength and resilience.”
New York, April 5, 2013–Police in Somalia say they have been holding a woman in custody for much of this week after they say questions were raised about the veracity of reports that a journalist was fatally shot in Mogadishu on March 24.
Police said they have been questioning the woman in connection with reports that gunmen killed an individual identified as radio journalist Rahmo Abdulkadir. Police said they did not find evidence of a killing. The woman in custody is said to have publicized the shooting, although it was unclear whether she notified police directly.
Numerous news organizations published reports saying that the journalist had been fatally shot, many of those reports citing information from a person described as a former employer and people described as witnesses. CPJ, citing those initial news reports and its own interviews with local journalists, issued a statement in the aftermath, as did numerous other press freedom and human rights groups.
Police have not disclosed any formal charges. They said they expect to issue a statement on the case.
CPJ is reviewing the circumstances of the initial report and the police response. Somali police have not solved more than 20 journalist murders that have occurred in the country over the past decade.
Somali Prime Minister Mr. Abdi Farah Shirdon Sayid has on behalf of the government of Somalia received assistance fromthe government of Djibouti inform of military aid and consisting of armed personnel carriers and heavy duty vehicles to be used by Somali National Army.
The Somali PM who is currently visiting Djibouti was accompanied by Somali defense Mr. Abdi Hakim Mahmoud Haji Faqi minister who signed a military cooperation agreement with the Djiboutian defense minister Mr. Hassan Dharaar Hufane inside Sheik Osman military Base,Djibouti City.
Somali PM reiterated that this visit intends to boost cooperation in multiple areas particularly in trade, security and political cooperation.
During the handover ceremony the Djiboutian Defense said,”We shall continue to support the Somali government as we have been doing in the past”,.
Mr. Abdi Shirdon Sayid said that his visit aims at strengthening existing bilateral ties and will mainly focus on business, security and political ties between the two countries.
Djiboutian is the first nation to assist the new Somali government with arms since lifting of a two decade UN arms embargo.
The Current Prime Minister of Somalia Mr. Said Abdi Shirdon becomes the first serving public official to visit grave and pay respects to the late dictator Mohamed Said Barre.
The Somali Prime minister accompanied by several minister of his cabinet and MPs paid a visit to the grave of the late dictator Mohamed Said Barre which is located in the town of Garba-Haaray ,in Gedo region his ancestral home.
PM Shirdon who happens to be kinsman of the late dictator led lengthy prayers for the late President Said Barre during a visit to his burial place.
The visit by the Somali PM to the grave of a man who orchestrated one of the worst killings of this century is seen by many as adding insult to injury , not to mention his recent immunity request for a convicted war criminal and r has also dealt another major blow to the already fragile relations that exist between Somalia and Somaliland.
JOHANNESBURG, – Parts of southern Somalia are yet to recover from the battering they took in 2010-2011, when severe drought followed excessive rain, and now the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) says insufficient rain may fall in the coming months. “We are concerned – our forecast shows that there is 80 percent probability that rains could trend from normal to below normal across Somalia,” said Gideon Galu, a regional FEWS NET scientist based in Africa.
The situation appears to be particularly bleak in southern Somalia, where rains during June/July are likely to be inadequate.
Accurately predicting the weather and its possible impact is tricky, and even more so in a year marked by the absence of strong climatic signals from the oceans. Phenomena like La Niña, when sea surface temperatures are cooler, or El Niño, when they are warmer, are part of the normal climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean and occur once every four to seven years. They can also provide clues as to how the weather may behave.
So agencies can have varying views on the intensity of the forthcoming rains. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said they were “somehow optimistic” about the rain forecast for Somalia as it was better than a prediction of poor rains. “This is a seasonal climate forecast which will depend very much on the spatial and temporal distribution of the rains during the season,” said Hussein Gadain, chief technical advisor at FAO. “In fact, we expect some areas might even be flooded, especially along the Shabelle River, where farmers cut the… [banks] for irrigation.”
Somalia has two distinct rainy seasons. The first is ‘Gu’, the long rains from March to June that support the main cropping season. The second is ‘Deyr’, the short rains, which occur at different times across the country but usually from October to November, according to FAO.
The FAO believes that the absence of the La Niña/ El Niño would not affect the Gu rains as much. “Normally, the climatic conditions in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean ( El Niño and La Niña) tend to affect the Deyr rains more than the Gu rains, which are affected by the Somali Jet [a narrow wind-stream running north along the east African coast] and the conditions in the western Indian Ocean,” Gadain noted.
Galu said FEWS-NET uses an analogue year – when a similar forecast has been made – to build a picture of the likely impact on agriculture. “The year we used as a reference especially 2002 (the most likely scenario), indicates that rainfall distribution during the coming months is also expected to be erratic in both space and time,” but he added that no two seasons/years can be exactly the same.
Some parts of southern Somalia received good Deyr rains between October and December in 2012, and farmers have managed to harvest an almost average crop of sorghum, but FAO noted that the agro-pastoral areas of Gedo, in the southwest, as well as Lower and Middle Juba, the country’s southernmost regions, received inadequate rainfall.
The severe drought in the Horn of Africa in 2010/11 displaced millions of people and left tens of thousands dead, and led the United Nations to declare a famine in parts of southern Somalia.
“We are particularly concerned, as the same communities – who have not really had sufficient time to recover – could be affected by insufficient rains,” said Galu. “Crop yield prospects in southern Somalia, particularly for the rainfed cropping areas, are likely to be reduced in [the] case of below-normal rainfall amounts and erratic distribution during the season.”
DOHA (Reuters) – The Somali government expects to get its first shipment of light weapons within two months after the United Nations partially lifted an arms embargo to strengthen security forces fighting al Qaeda-linked militants, Somalia’s president said.
Aware of international wariness about sending arms to a volatile country already awash in weapons, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said he knew the world was closely watching how his government would manage a fresh inflow of arms.
“We take full responsibility. The world is looking at us and monitoring us,” Mohamud said in an interview in Doha on Wednesday after taking part in his first Arab summit focused on Syria and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
“We are not worried about getting supplies, we’re concerned about the management of these supplies,” he said, adding he expected the first shipment to arrive within the next two months.
He described as “really useful” the U.N. Security Council resolution earlier this month to allow sales of weapons such as automatic assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.
While the United States had supported the move, other Security Council members were wary about completely lifting the ban on a country where al Shabaab militants are still able to launch major attacks.
Somalia’s poorly equipped military – more a collection of rival militias than a cohesive fighting force loyal to a single leader – has had the support of African Union peacekeepers as it has battled al Shabaab fighters on several fronts.
The Security Council imposed the embargo on Somalia in 1992 to cut the flow of weapons to feuding warlords, who a year earlier had ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and plunged the country into civil war. Last year Somalia held its first vote since 1991 to elect a president and a prime minister.
This month’s resolution left in place a ban on surface-to-air missiles, large-calibre guns, howitzers, cannons and mortars as well as anti-tank guided weapons, mines and night-vision weapon sights.
Mohamud said Somalia was approaching different states for the weapons, mainly small arms and ammunition. “We’re looking for equipment that is fit for … the internal security of the country. But in the future Somalia is a very big country with a long coastal line and open air, so we may need bigger arms.”
PIRATE ATTACKS
Mohamud also said he needed about $450 million to fund small development projects across Somalia’s 72 districts to help move the country from aid dependence to economic recovery.
The president is no stranger to the threat of violence that still grips Somalia. Just two days into his job last September, he survived a suicide bomb attack at a Mogadishu hotel.
As part of Mohamud’s efforts to bring back stability, he also granted amnesty to hundreds of Somali pirates and promised to help them seek new careers. But the amnesty does not included those convicted by courts or wanted by Interpol.
The number of successful pirate attacks has fallen sharply since 2011, when Somali pirates amassed about $160 million, after international navies stepped up patrols to protect marine traffic and struck at pirate bases on the Somali coast.
Mohamud said the amnesty, which applied to about 1,000 individuals, had also helped win the release of six hostages held by the pirates for three years. Somali pirates still hold four large commercial vessels, a number of fishing dhows and about 130 hostages.
It was a sign of hope to see both the self declared Independent state of Somaliland and the Republic of Somalia in the same week take steps towards forming a functioning civil service. Proud graduates in Hargiesa, already government employees, paraded their Civil Service Institute certificates after the successful completion of their training and in Mogadishu on Friday 1 March 2013 would be diplomats boarded a plane for South Africa to begin the process of becoming architects of future Somali foreign policy. This caused much excitement among the watching public in the country and in the Diaspora but this is premature.
The Civil service is the genuine mind and engine of government. It is where those appointed on MERIT, who are politically neutral and working in the national interest advice government and implement policies. They mainly work in departments, although many more work locally within communities, led by a Cabinet Minister and also write speeches, draft polices and evaluate them after. Most national civil services like that of Britain and its former colonies such as India and Pakistan are hierarchical, if not as efficient and effective. While Civil servants are allowed to vote they are not allowed to stand for political office nor are they to support extremists groups. Political neutrality is crucial to the post and even when governments fall the same civil servants remain to work with the new administration. This is important because they give policies and politics continuity and where policies have been successful regardless of the political persuasion of its initiator, they continue with it if allowed to by the new government.
The power and influence of the developed nation’s civil service especially at the senior levels is not disputed and critics have argued in the past that they wield too much power. Some have even gone as far as suggesting that they have a hidden agenda while others have referred to them as wise counsellors. On occasions under the past Tony Blair administration in the United Kingdom, where the civil service clashed with government, they were sidelined by Special Advisers appointed directly by the Prime Minister himself. Yet despite this, bureaucrats, both those who sit in high office and those on the front line (street level bureaucrat) play a crucial role throughout the policy process. It is their abilities, skills and service that keeps the nations running. It is they who offer much needed assurances to the public, businesses and international community.
The self declared independent state of Somaliland has had peace for over two decades now and as such has established, with the help of the United Nations, a civil Service academy. All the government Ministries have civil servants both in the offices and on the ground. However, to say the public administration of Somaliland is any better than that of Somalia simply because of the peace is wrong. Both are equally weak, flawed and without real reform can hamper the development of future and existing institutions. More than anything today, both require strong institutions that drag them from their political insignificance in the eyes of their poor public in desperate need of leadership and change.
Somalia has been and parts of it still remain a war zone controlled by Al-Shabaab. Getting anything done requires full control of the country but while this is a long term goal other key factors hold back the creation of an effective civil service. These include very weak institutions that do not even have an internal mail system and where key people have to rely on speaking in the corridors to relay policy concerns and donor outsourcing of key government functions to their national NGOs. This further weakens institutions and does not allow for the few competent civil servants to get the practice they need in doing their job with the available resources. However, the nation’s capacity in the short term will be hampered by an over reliance on donors. If it is able to escape this, the future of institution building, human capital development and economic growth in Somalia will be far brighter. This is the same for both Somaliland and Puntland, an autonomous region which is part of Somalia, as despite their long peace, they are economically still heavily reliant on international handouts distributed by aid agencies and not their civil servants.
The benefits of a strong and effective bureaucracy are illustrated to a great extent by Somalia’s neighbour Ethiopia. This to many would be surprising as this nation was for the most part of the 20th century stereotyped as one of the poorest and most dysfunctional of all in Africa. However, creating a civil service that was fit for purpose was one of the strategic goals that the subsequent Ethiopian governments were struggling to establish since Emperor Menelik II who in 1907 established the current civil service regime modernised by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. As soon as Meles took over the reins of power in the country he launched the Ethiopian Civil Service College as machinery to produce skilled and capable professionals within a short period of time. The primary objective of this college was to reform Ethiopia’s civil service and more precisely, to create bureaucrats that could execute his socio-economic vision for his nation. Since 2005 Ethiopia has been implementing a Business Process Reengineering program. Many believe that this helped Ethiopia to improve the competence of service provision of its institutions and as result of that Ethiopia has become one of the fastest growing economies in Africa. Whatever the view of critics, Ethiopia under Zenawi won the trust of donors who give it budgetary support today and help them strengthen their institutions. The best example of the growing sophistication and effectiveness of the Ethiopian civil service is its successful management of the transition of power after Meles Zenawi’s recent death. Despite ethnic issues, no blood was shed and the Prime Minister’s office was merely vacated for a new man and managed by similar civil servants. There is much for Somalis to learn from this.
What there is in abundance in Somalia at present is political will to change, learn and develop. President Hassan Sheikh has made this clear throughout his presidency. The evidence of this is the advert for advisers on the Somali National Television in January, the renegotiations over aid payments directly to government with the donor nations and the arrangement of training for Diplomats and other public servants. More is been done by this government in its few months in office than has been achieved in the last two decades of state failure. However, Somalia is so far behind that it cannot waste time looking back and congratulating itself. Somalia is only desperately attempting to catch up with the rest of the developing nations in its continent and not speeding ahead.
A neutral, professional civil service is the back bone to stability, peace and development in Somalia. Africa’s key failure to attract investors and develop like India and Brazil has not just been war and lack of infrastructure, but the lack of key institutions to advice, guide and oversee investor relations and interests. It is also the reason why the public vehemently distrust politicians altogether and prefer to seek the security and counsel of their tribal leaders. Wider reforms are now been openly debated in Somalia, the self declared independent State of Somaliland and Puntland. A strong, functioning professional civil service has been recognised by all of them as one of the cures for their many social and political illnesses. However, in formulating the cure, it appears the Somali governments as a whole have taken too much of the wrong dosage of key ingredients to create something far worse and potentially dangerous.
Quality v Nepotism
In rushing to find special advisers and civil servants, the current Somalia government has initiated a system of nepotistic appointments. Many of the local and Diaspora educated Somalis who are working in government today have dubious qualifications or none at all. Even those with qualifications, are not trained in the fields they specialise in. Links rather than skills, knowledge, passion and ability override everything. More worryingly, because Ministers have been appointed under a policy of 4.5, their staff members are likely to be the same.
It is never advisable in business to employ friends and family members who are not qualified, so why do it at the heart of the weakest and poorest nation’s government? This is not just unethical but also socially unjust. What it further creates is an environment where the Somali administrations representatives are not respected abroad because they are not equally trained, educated and appointed upon merit like their counterpart hosts. Somalia needs more than poorly fitted suits and wide smiles from its international delegations and this will not happen until the nepotism that poisons the system is rooted out.
Nepotism cripples Somalia in other ways. The President has tirelessly argued for budgetary support and for funds to build vital state institutions. But which nation would have any faith or risk any funding for institutions that will be run like family businesses? Where is the benefit when the best are forsaken for the tribally and personally connected? Building institutions requires the return of the genuine educated Diaspora class. These would and should include technocrats and experienced advisers past and present. What it does not need is the appointment of those appointed after staying in an expensive Mogadishu hotel for months and waiting long enough outside Villa Somalia with their kinsman banging the door hard for them. The only way the genuinely educated Diaspora would return is if they are able to work with competent people who do not tarnish or risk their reputations. This is not selfish but a simple global human reality. Both the Federal, Puntland and Somaliland governments must prove themselves to the world and more specifically to their citizens but this will be disastrous if they are not able to entice their best from abroad because of nepotism and its potential catastrophic impact.
Aside from nepotism and the perception of insecurity, it is a going to be a real challenge for the Somali government to woo back the well paid professionals in the country and abroad they need because of the job security many enjoy even in this most turbulent global financial crisis. Many within this lucky well to do group have careers with structures and future prospects for promotion and wealth. Public service employment in Somalia cannot at present offer either. This is perhaps why only the uneducated, unemployed or underemployed Diaspora members who have nothing to lose in both nations are returning to take up posts far too senior for them. A further difficulty for the government in recruiting the best is its ability to reach them. Unlike those that flock to meetings to distribute their resumes or bang on their uncles door for a job, most educated members of the Somali community globally have ethics and values that do not allow them to even want to benefit from nepotism even if they could. To attract these, the government posts must be advertised publicly and in a manner in which they are able to access it and apply for it in the safe knowledge that all qualified candidates will be considered. This is the only way to entice the best of Somali human resources globally to return and rebuild their home.
Targets and results
Quality in public sector leadership is inspired by good governance, strong laws and transparency. On the issue of civil service recruitment, all these are needed. Civil servants need to be appointed on merit and not by whether they are able to buy a plane ticket to Somalia or not, and they need to be trained, well paid, given early responsibility and real oversight by an Independent Civil Service Commission. They need to be informed of their duties and their rights and immediately investigated and disciplined where there is any suspicion of corruption. This sounds all too perfect but it is possible. The way to achieve this is to make the civil service work like a business and set all employees targets that must be achieved annually. If at their yearly appraisal they have not met all the requirements they ought to be disciplined and where there is gross failure, dismissed. The beauty of this system is that if it is independent of the Ministers, there will be no protection for the weak that shelter behind nepotism and tribal affiliation. The Civil Service Commission should oversee professional appointments and all applicants should be given a full statement of reasons as to why they did not secure a post. This surely will professionalise the civil service rapidly.
In Somaliland, despite the claim to improving institutions, it is difficult to find any civil servant who works a full day. Most retire after lunch to eat khaat and chat in hotels and restaurants. This needs to immediately halt and all employees should work their full hours. This is currently the same in Somalia as advisers and Ministers rush to beat each other to the hotels, restaurants and beaches. Who then is left to build the institutions?
In the self declared independent state of Somaliland, the early Kulmiye administrations action of examining all civil servants was a step in the right direction. However, while the intention of professionalization was to be applauded its poor implementation is to be condemned as so much cheating occurred and most civil servants kept their posts despite this. The resulting political cowardice of not tackling the cheating is what the Somali government needs to avoid in any exams it asks future civil servants to sit.
The Somali people have very little respect for authority and systems. Well connected individuals and groups and even members of the public with tribal affiliations go over the heads of the limited bureaucrats that exist today and directly deal with government Ministers. This indiscipline is encouraged by Ministers who allow this to continue. In order to build their capacity, encourage their independence and teach people to adopt and work with an orderly system, civil servants should deal with all front line issues and Ministers should only get involved as a matter of last resort. The division of labour is simply that, even in a tribal post conflict society like Somalia, the government makes the policies and the bureaucrats and their partners implement it. The civil servants must be and remain as the face of the State.
Entrepreneurial
Only dreamers would have hope of a strong functioning bureaucracy in a post conflict society where the majority of potential government employees are unreliable and addicted to khaat. But never the less we remain hopeful. Things are changing and there are signs of progress within the Somali people globally. The key to joining all this emerging positive energy and managing the future development of Somalia are the civil servants. However, Somalia does not need and will not benefit from a heavy top down French style monolithic State but more from a clever lean one working in partnership with the private sector and other key partners. The days of the African big man in every department are dead and buried and as such the Somali civil service of the future ought to reflect and gear up for the difficult challenges ahead. An entrepreneurial civil service is one that is driven by public interest, strong internal and external checks and a belief that they do not always know best. This would allow them to consult key stakeholders such as the public and contractors and even learn from them and forge the kind of lasting partnerships that can truly deliver the success of the second Somali republic.
Selecting, educating and training civil servants can be, while worthwhile, costly for the government as all this investment could easily find its way to the private sector and NGOs who regularly entice the best Somali talent needed to rebuild institutions with higher salaries if not more fulfilling work. The nationalism and sense of public service that ought to act as a moral barrier against this on the part of public servants is easily side lined by professional uncertainty and the resulting short term need to make as much money as possible.
Nationalism and a sense of public duty will not appear over night but what can encourage this is simple and clear career planning with regular appraisals as well as solid, iron cast contracts that reflect the investment in the civil servants education, training and personal development. If civil servants want to leave before the end of their service the Somali government ought to ask their new employers to pay for the full training of their replacement. The Somali government at present is poor and it cannot afford to waste precious resources and be a spring board for ambitious future NGO chiefs.
In a later development stage after reconstruction, the creation of institutions, employment and basic key public services, the Somali government could enhance its bureaucratic capabilities and cut corruption as well as deliver service through the use of Information Technology. This day though, seems far away now but is achievable with commitment. What can potentially be around the corner though is the collapse of the fragile State if it does not tackle its very own institutional and inherent weaknesses such as the big man syndrome and nepotism. In any case, the outcome of the May 2013 London Somali conference which is so crucial to the future of the Somali nation needs to come up with a plan that promotes good governance in which transparency and fairness are core values. For this, the President has to choose the best to join his team in order to accomplish the mission that may seem impossible to the rest of the watching world.
Liban Obsiye is a law graduate with a Masters in Public Policy from the School for Policy Studies, the University of Bristol. He currently is a Director of a Housing Association in Bristol, UK.
Abdihakim Yusuf is a Masters graduate of Development and Project Planning from the Bradford Centre for International Development (BCID) at the University of Bradford, UK. He manages a community wellbeing project in Bristol, UK.
Both writers welcome comments and feedback. They can be reached at:
“He’s free! He’s free!” a friend of mine from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, shouted down the phone line on Sunday. For a fleeting second I did not know whom he referred to, given the high number of journalists imprisoned in the Horn region of Africa–but then it dawned on me: Abdiaziz Abdinuur had finally found justice. The 25-year-old freelance reporter was arrested on January 10 in Mogadishu for the most incomprehensible alleged crime: conducting an interview.
“Interviewing an alleged victim of rape got me in prison,” Abdiaziz told international broadcaster Al-Jazeera soon after he was released. “The interview that got me in prison was not even published. I didn’t do anything wrong. As a journalist it is my job to interview people.” He said he shared his cell with about 40 others.
After he spoke to a woman who alleged that security personnel had raped her last year, Abdiaziz faced a confounding series of charges. He was first sentenced to a year in prison for “offending state institutions” and “false reporting,” although he had not published any story based on the interview. An appeals court later reduced his sentence to six months on charges of “not reporting the [alleged rape] case to relevant authorities.” The confusing court rulings, which the local journalist union termed “completely insane and unjust,” appeared to be a tool for state institutions to save face rather than exact justice. After most Somali journalists had given up hope, the Supreme Court threw out the charges, with Chairman Aidid Abdilahi citing lack of evidence, according to news reports. Similar charges against the woman who alleged rape–“offending state institutions” with “false allegations”–were dropped, citing lack of evidence, during the appeal.
“I can only summarize my feeling that my colleague who was sentenced by the injustice was freed by the justice,” said Mohamed Garane, Somali journalist and producer at Kenya-based Radio Ergo.
The Supreme Court’s action followed pressure from Somali journalists and the international community. David Cameron shared his concerns with CPJ after we wrote a public letter to the U.K. prime minister, urging him to address the case with Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud during the president’s February visit to London. Cameron told us in a letter that he personally raised the issue during his February 5 meeting with Hassan and that he “was very concerned to hear about the conviction in this case,” and would continue to raise it.
Some scribes in Mogadishu were puzzled why this case took such prominence, given the high number of journalists killed with impunity in what is possibly the most dangerous city in Africa to be a journalist. But, as Garane put it, Abdiaziz’s case represented the injustice against all victims of Somalia’s judiciary, while his release represented a glimmer of hope for the future. Local journalists’ expectations for the establishment of rule of law in Mogadishu by a new government after decades of conflict were quashed by Abdiaziz’s imprisonment, and his arrest sent a chilling message to the press not to cover sensitive issues such as rape or activities related to national security.
All the same, “I will continue to be a journalist,” Abdiaziz said. “With my experience I hope to help others who are going through what I went through.”
Celebrations were short-lived within Mogadishu’s media fraternity. Just one day after Abdiaziz was released, a car bomb exploded near the presidential palace and National Theater, killing journalist Mohamed Ali Nuxurkey and wounding three colleagues, local news reports said. Some sources said Mohamed was sitting in a nearby café when the explosion killed 11 total; others said he was waiting for a public bus to take him to work. In either scenario, Somalia lost yet another bright, young reporter. Mohamed was working with several independent local radio stations and associations, including Radio Mustaqbal and Radio Kulmiye, local journalists told me. “The 29-year-old had been contributing to VOA for the past several months, gathering material for breaking news stories, including past bomb attacks in the Somali capital, and the controversial trial of a woman who said she had been raped by Somali forces,” the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Voice of America said in a statement.
Mohamed was well versed in the risks he faced as a prominent journalist in Mogadishu. In October 2012, he had written to me expressing his fears. After a suicide bomber killed three journalists in a café in September near where this latest attack occurred and unknown gunmen killed three more reporters in the same month, Mohamed was considering fleeing the country. In October he received death threats from unknown callers, and neighbors reported that strange men were asking for him near his home. Like many Somali journalists, Mohamed started to live like a nomad, moving from location to location ensure his safety and only going out when necessary. He told me at the time a piece he wrote about the plight of Somali journalists may have triggered the warnings by suspected Al-Shabaab militias. But then the threats seem to dissipate and the journalist killings in Mogadishu appeared to taper off at the end of the year. With the apparent calm, Mohamed jumped full-swing into his profession in a bid to support his wife and newly born baby, local journalists told me.
It does not appear Mohamed was the target of the car bomb attack. According to news reports, Al-Shabaab insurgents were trying to kill the city’s security chief and several other intelligence officers. But such reports provide little comfort to Mohamed’s family and colleagues.
The injured journalists were Abdirashid Nur, Mohamed’s colleague at Radio Mustaqbal, Ilyaas Sheikh Ahmed, a photographer for the European Press Agency, and Munasar Nur from the independent Radio Goobjoog. All the journalists received treatment at Medina Hospital and have been discharged, local journalists told me.
At least one Somali journalist has already been targeted for murder this year. Unknown gunmen killed veteran Shabelle Media Network producer Abdihared Osman Aden on January 18 while he was walking to work. Somali authorities have not convicted a single killer of Somali journalists despite pledges by the president to end this impunity.
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A militant official and a Somali resident say al-Shabab fighters have stoned to death a man for carrying out a homosexual sex act.
The resident, Yusuf Abdi, said the group buried a blindfolded man to his waist last Friday and threw stones at him until he died.
An al-Shabab official said one of its judges sentenced the man to death because he forced a 13-year-old boy to have sex with him. The al-Shabab member insisted he not be named.
Al-Shabab implements a conservative and austere brand of Islam in areas it controls.
Sheikh Ibrahim Ali, a Somali religious leader in Mogadishu, said homosexuality is controversial inside Islam. One strict reading of Islamic law, he said, is that a married man who engages in a homosexual act should be killed.
African Union forces battling Islamist insurgents in Somalia are preparing troops to take over should Ethiopia withdraw more soldiers from the region, their commander said Thursday.
“We have in place contingent measures to ensure that areas in Bay and Bakool…remain stable and secure in the event of further Ethiopian troop withdrawals,” said Andrew Gutti, commander of African Union Mission for Somalia (AMISOM), referring to southwest Somali regions currently controlled by Ethiopia.
Ethiopian troops, the strongest military power in Somalia’s southwest ever since their November 2011 invasion, pulled out of the town of Hudur on Sunday, the capital of Bakool region.
Hours later, Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab swept into the town, their most important territorial victory for over a year.
The capture prompted jubilant celebrations, which included the beheading of an influential cleric in the town.
Despite a string of losses in recent months, the Shebab remain a potent threat, still controlling rural areas as well as carrying out guerrilla attacks in areas apparently under government control.
Somali militia forces allied to the Ethiopians, as well as a column of some 2,000 terrified civilians, fled shortly after the Ethiopian pullout.
Security sources say the withdrawal from Hudur could signal a wider pullout of Ethiopian forces including from the key city of Baidoa, warning that if this happens, the 17,000-strong AMISOM would be hugely overstretched.
AMISOM, which fights alongside Somali government forces, “is closely monitoring developments following the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Hudur,” the force said in a statement.
“We are conducting a review of our troop deployments…and remain confident that there will be sufficient coverage,” Gutti added.
Security sources say that AMISOM would struggle at its current capacity to take over Ethiopian positions, while Somali troops who have worked closely with Ethiopian troops might not necessarily cooperate so well with other forces.
So far, Hudur is the only major town Ethiopians have pulled out of, but troops are also packing kit in Baidoa in apparent preparation to leave.
Ethiopian troops entered Somalia in late 2011 to attack Shebab bases, shortly after Kenyan troops invaded Somalia from the far south.
While Kenyan troops have since joined AMISOM, Ethiopia remained separate.
