HARGEISA (Somalilandpress) — Somaliland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday welcomed a high-powered Russian business delegation that is in Somaliland to explore investment opportunities and strengthen relations.
The delegation which consists of investors and journalists is in the country for a four-day visit and are expected to meet with different Somaliland ministers and the president.
The delegation will travel to number of locations where they will examine investment-related opportunities in a bid to strengthen bilateral economic and commercial relations in the region.
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According to sources the Russians want to renew their relations with the nations of the Horn of Africa under new foreign policy dubbed ‘Horn of Africa initiative’, similar to that one of the days of the Soviet Union. They added that Somaliland was the first of number of countries the Russians want to develop ties with in the region.
They will visit port of Berbera, where they will meet President Dahir Rayale. Berbera’s 12-metre deep-water facility was constructed in 1964 by Russian engineers at a cost of $5.6 million. They have also constructed the longest run way in the region in the 70s.
The reports added that the Russians want to invest in oil exploration and other infrastructures.
In the final-leg of their visit, the Russian delegation have been invited for a dinner at Mansor Hotel where they will meet with former Somali students who studied in the Soviet Union.
Last week, the Russian navy operating the coast of Somalia, turned over seven suspected pirates to Somaliland authorities in the Sanag region.
HARGEISA (Somalilandpress) – It was with great interest that I read an article published on March 14, 2010 entitled ‘Dream job turns into a nightmare’ on The Star, one of Malaysia’s leading English language newspapers, regarding telecommunications consultant Hor Chee Fei’s experience in Somaliland.
Somaliland is of personal interest to my husband and I as we lived and worked in Hargeisa last year as volunteer teachers, and intend to return to the country this August for another year.
After spending six months in the country and experiencing our own host of Somaliland adventures, I feel compelled to write in and express my disagreement with the tone used in this write-up. I will not deny that Somaliland is far from perfect and can definitely understand Hor’s situation. I can probably even relate to it a little having been threatened with deportation myself by a former employer in Hargeisa (one of many ‘adventures’), but the country (and its people) does not deserve the unflattering language used in Hor’s one-sided account published in The Star.
Somaliland was referred to as a lawless country not once, but twice in the article and it left me wondering what one defines as a ‘lawless’ country. Anyone who has been to Somaliland can attest to how far the country has come since being virtually leveled to the ground during the civil war almost twenty years ago. There is now a government, a more or less stable currency, a bustling and functioning main city and while there is plenty to be done in terms of public infrastructure and establishing a sustainable economy, people are happy (as happy as can be given their situation), proud and more importantly, peaceful. And let us remember that all of this was accomplished without formal international recognition. This is so much more than can be said about many countries in other parts of the world.
I will not presume to know how it was for Hor and his team members in Somaliland, I know nothing of the events that led up to their sudden departure from Hargeisa. The article talks about how Hor visited the country prior to his engagement and I can only assume that he and his team entered on appropriate work visas and had gone through all the normal government channels, of which there are many and admittedly, can be confusing at times. The government takes the security of the international population very seriously as all foreign workers are registered with the local police department and are required to be briefed upon arrival on security and safety measures in the country. Foreigners are technically not allowed to move about without armed personnel, especially in the later hours of the day and when traveling outside Hargeisa. While these regulations may sound a little frightening and alarming to newcomers and outsiders, they in no way suggest that Somaliland is unsafe or that foreigners are constantly in danger or harm’s way. If anything, it means that the Somaliland government prefers not to take any unnecessary risks when it comes to safeguarding the security of its guests and the overall peace that they have worked so hard to achieve since its formation in 1991. If this doesn’t speak of some working laws, I don’t know what does.
It is not apparent how much research was done by the writer before writing this article. From the international community’s point of view, the writer is not technically wrong in calling Somaliland part of Somalia, neither is he/she wrong when he/she writes that Somalia is currently one of the most dangerous places in the world; and yes, Somalia has been quoted as the most lawless place on Earth. However, I feel that it would be a grave wrongdoing to equate Somaliland with the rest of Somalia when the two countries’ political and social environments could not be more different. To put it briefly, most of southern Somalia is controlled by the Al-Shabab, an Islamist group bent on implementing its own interpretation of Islamic sharia, and the group continues to wage war against the internationally-backed, but weak government led by Sharif Ahmed.
Somaliland, in comparison, has succeeded in remaining independent and on the sidelines of this conflict and is governed by a democratically elected government, headed by President Dahir Riyale Kahin and Vice President Ahmed Yusuf Yasin. What this means on a more basic, day-to-day level is that while civilians are dying in Somalia whether from military offensives between Al-Shabab and government forces or from lack of basic necessities like food and water due to the war, Somaliland has peace and order on its streets, no one is dying a violent death, Hargeisa’s residents are not exactly starving and the country is moving forward despite the absence of international recognition.
To not acknowledge this difference, in my opinion, appears to be an oversight by the writer of this article. Even if one is only writing about Hor Chee Fei’s experience and not a narrative on Somaliland politics and history, journalist Shaun Ho has a responsibility to depict things accurately and objectively. Many are unaware of the existence of Somaliland and that it is not involved in the brutal war raging in Somalia. To write it off such as in the article, would be to disregard and disrespect the hard work of Somalilanders everywhere.
As for Hor’s situation, I can only share what I’ve learnt from my own experiences in Hargeisa. My husband and I left for Somaliland last year to join a university as faculty of engineering. Upon arrival, we found the university to be non-operational, and its founder and president had hired no administrative staff and was single-handedly running the whole show. He had yet to recruit students for our classes despite promises that it was already in the making. There were other issues as well, namely a lack of properly laid out job descriptions, and the realisation that our director had not really thought the whole thing through and wanted us to build and implement degree programmes from scratch when none of us were qualified to confer degrees (at least, not accredited ones)!
After two weeks of consideration and deliberation with three other volunteer teachers in the same predicament (two of whom had arrived two months prior to our arrival, and were still waiting on classes that were supposed to have begun weeks before), as well as attempts to voice our concerns with our employer in hopes that we would be able to work things out, we decided to submit our resignations and find work elsewhere in Somaliland. We had all come to Somaliland to teach and experience Somali culture, and we were determined to do just that. None of us had actually signed an employment contract with our director, so we felt that it was within our rights to merely inform him of our decision, and leave. He was understandably quite disappointed with our decision, but we parted on good, if not amicable terms.
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We had found employment with another local college on the other side of Hargeisa and was just settling into our teaching schedules when our new employers informed us that our former employer had submitted a formal complaint to the Ministry of Education, accusing them of underhandedly stealing away his teachers. He claimed that our departure had incurred unexpected costs and that our new school be held responsible for this. He also requested that we be deported from the country immediately. We were shocked (and somewhat fascinated by the absurdity of his accusations) and worried that we had bitten off more than we could chew as we were told by our college and the Ministry of Education that we had failed to go through the proper procedures of leaving one employer for another within Somaliland. Procedures that involved firstly, approaching the ministry with any grievances towards an employer in order for them to mediate the situation between the employee and employer and avoid ill feelings. Secondly, if disputes cannot be resolved by ministry officials, they will then bear witness to the resignation process. And lastly, the new employer must meet with the old employer as an act of courtesy and goodwill.
We were made to sit through what seemed like countless meetings with ministry officials and our new college president and his administrative staff. Our former director refused to back down on his demands and the ministry tried everything in its power to placate him without giving in to him. At the same time, they made it clear that our rights were not to be abused and since no contract was signed, it was our prerogative to seek new employment. While we were confused with the course of action taken by all parties involved (it seemed rather unorthodox to us that the ministry tried so hard to appease our old director, and our new president actually had to meet with him and apologise for not approaching him earlier), we were impressed with the effort made by the authorities to make us feel safe, secure and welcome to stay and contribute our expertise to the country. Despite our former employer’s accusations and demands, not once did we feel threatened or at risk of being harmed by anybody.
I understand that our situation differs from Hor Chee Fei’s. I can imagine how frightful it can be being in a situation where your employer threatens to make life difficult for you. Not to mention how his men followed Hor right up to the runway leaving Berbera (although, we’ve stopped a plane on the Hargeisa runway ourselves. We bought last minute tickets as the plane was pulling out and we ran down the runway chasing after the aircraft. I am happy to report that we succeeded in boarding it). Things are especially frightening when one is not accustomed to the local culture and cannot predict how people would respond to you and the things you do.
We’ve found ourselves in rather stressful situations ourselves, not knowing what to do or whom to turn to. Our accommodation was once broken into while we were away, allegedly by people that we knew. We felt a little uneasy for days afterwards, but let it slide as none of our things were missing. I was regularly approached by well-meaning men who felt it appropriate to comment on my un-Islamic dressing (ie pants instead of skirts) despite the fact that I was extremely covered and modestly clothed especially by Malaysian standards. My husband was constantly yelled at on streets, mostly unsolicited greetings, sometimes obscenities (which usually meant it was the only English they knew), and it took him a while to realise that raised voices did not necessarily precede aggressive behaviour. Children threw rocks at us from across the street. But then we noticed that parents threw rocks at children (to get their attention), so then rock throwing became commonplace.
The armed guard who sleeps in front of our house once fired his AK-47 and we almost got heart attacks wondering what could possibly have happened (it turns out that some teenagers were bothering him). And once, a man followed us all the way down the street inquiring where our armed guard was and thinking back he could easily have been mistaken as a potential harm doer. It took time and patience, but as we became more familiar with Somaliland, occurrences that were once frightening became less frightening and eventually we became used to the unexpected and learnt to roll with the punches a little more easily.
All our time there has taught us this: that the people of Somaliland really do value peace above all else. They have seen too much war and frankly speaking, they are sick and tired of it and want no more fighting. So we knew that no matter how unnerving some individuals were towards us, we had faith in the people. We had (and have) faith that whatever trouble we faced, we could trust the Somalilanders to choose the most peaceful solution to our problems.
JEDDAH (Somalilandpress) — Mohamed T. Gino has been residing and working in the Kingdom for the past 24 years. He calls himself a Somalilander and dreams of returning to Somaliland, the country of his birth, someday.
“It is a personal struggle to be away from home, but I am happy and thankful to this country, Saudi Arabia, and its leaders for extending the benevolent arms to us Somalilanders to stay and work in this place we now call our home,” Gino said.
Gino is one of the approximately 3,000 Somalilanders residing in the Eastern Province. The Somalilanders in the Kingdom work in government agencies and private business sectors. Gino works independently as a businessman and business development officer.
For over two decades, Gino has built strong ties with business communities in Saudi Arabia, leading him to a number of successes. “I plan to return home someday; I am saving enough money to start a fishing business because my country is endowed with rich fishing resources,” he said.
Gino, like his compatriots, is waiting for international recognition of Somaliland and the establishment of a strong and transparent government. “When all these issues are settled, then it will be time for me and my family to return home,” he said.
Somaliland was the first of the five Somali territories to achieve independence from the British Empire on June 26, 1960 based on its existing borders and, before the merger with Somalia on July 1, 1960, the first Somali country to be recognized by the United Nations and 35 member nations immediately after independence like the rest of the African States.
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Independent Somaliland tried to strengthen its unification with Somalia in its quest for Greater Somalia in the Horn of Africa, but Somalia hijacked the governments of the union for the thirty years of its existence, from1960 to1990, and treated Somaliland as one of its own provinces. The Somalilanders rebelled against the injustices perpetrated by Somalia in the twenty years between 1960-1980. In those 20 years, Somaliland had three consecutive elected presidents and two parliaments in addition to a municipal council.
Somalilanders held a national congress on May 18, 1991 and unanimously proclaimed the withdrawal of Somaliland from the union with Somalia and reclaimed the country’s independence on June 26, 1960 renaming it the Somaliland Republic.
Somaliland Republic’s fledgling democracy, however, encountered many serious obstacles since the first municipal elections that were held in 2002, resulting in the delay of the presidential election.
According to Gino, many of his compatriots who arrived and settled in Saudi Arabia in the early 1960s have become Saudi citizens. Like many Saudis, they continue to support Somaliland by investing and doing business in there. “We Somalilanders have strong links and ties of friendship with Saudi Arabia,” he added.
“Our country is rich in natural and mineral resources, and I plan, with the cooperation of my fellow expatriate Somalilanders, to harness this wealth for the benefit of our people,” Gino said.
Burao, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – The Somaliland police in Togdher have clashed with gunmen on Saturday. The police raided a house in Faqa Ayub village, around 170kms northern Burao while searching a man who killed a police officer in Burao last week.
It is reported that the man was hiding in a house in the village when the police attacked but faced with resistance from armed men. One of the militia died and two others were wounded, one of them is a policeman.
The regional admin confirmed the clash to the press saying they will capture the suspect soon. They did not give any further details to the incident.
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Reports say there are efforts going on in Burao in order to avoid more clashes in the Faqa Ayub village.
A gunman killed a police officer last week as he was coming out from a teashop in Burao. It is believed that the killing was related to a clan revenge.
Nairobi, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Nairobi — An estimated 2,500 Somali youths trained by Kenya to fight in Somalia are stranded at Archer’s Post in Isiolo, The Star has established.
A report by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia which was presented to the UN Security Council indicates the youths, majority of them from the Ogaden clan, started receiving training early last year at the request of President Sheikh Shariff under the auspices of his then Minister of Defence Mohamed Abdi Mohammed “Gandhi”.
“Kenya hosted the programme and Ethiopia has been closely involved.
Approximately 2,500 youths were recruited by clan elders and commissioned agents both from within Somalia (exclusively the Juba Valley) and Northeastern Kenya, including the Daadab refugee camp,” states the UN report.
The Star established that the youths cannot be deployed to Somalia as there was a stalemate between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia about where they would be most useful.
While the Kenyan security forces want to have the youths deployed in the southern Somali regions of Juba and Gedo to create a buffer zone with the militant Al Shabaab, Ethiopia and the Somalia transitional government want them sent to Mogadishu to help repulse the Al Shabaab who have taken control of large parts of the capital.
Somalia President Sheikh Shariff later fell out with his Defence minister Mohamed Ghandi, an Ogadeni, whom he suspected of pushing for the deployment of the youths in Juba and Gedo to not only fight the Al Shabaab but also lay the foundation for the establishment of an Ogaden autonomous region.
Ethiopia’s fears the deployment of the contingent in Ogaden might bolster and give the Ogaden National Liberation Front a launching pad for its attacks against Ethiopia.
The Ogaden clan live in the central Ogaden plateau of Ethiopia, the North Eastern Province of Kenya, and the Jubaland region of Southern Somalia. In Kenya, the Ogadeni have served the government in key positions since independence.
Yesterday Somalia Ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Ali Nur, confirmed there was a stalemate in the deployment process. He could not comment further “because the issue is sensitive.” “The government of Somalia will very soon address that. I am not an authority on this matter. I can’t talk about it, but I have heard the reports of the former Somali Defence minister meeting with Somali elders in Nairobi on the deployment issue,” said Ali Nur.
The Ministry of Foreign Affair spokesman Egara Kabaji denied the UN report that Kenya was training the youths to support Somalia transitional government. He denied the existence of the such a contingent anywhere in the country, Kabaji said the only training that the government was involved in was in accordance with an agreement between the EU and Kenya in which Kenya offered to train policemen for the Somalia government.
“The last time we trained Somali police officers was in 2006, when we trained 200 VIP protection police officers. But even as we speak there is a plan between Kenya and the EU to train Somali policemen,” said Kabaji.
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However, according to the UN report: “In December 2009, the Kenyan Minister for security, George Saitoti, reportedly confirmed to foreign diplomats the existence of Jubaland policy which is intended to establish a ‘buffer zone’ bordering Kenya in the Juba Valley.” Yesterday Parliament’s departmental committee of Foreign Affairs said they will in the next 10 days table a report on the recruitment in the House. Committee chairman Aden Keynan said the matter had serious consequences for security in the region.
“The issue we have been dealing with is about recruitment of the youth which the committee has concluded its investgigations,” said Keynan.
According to the UN report, two training centres were established at the Kenya Wildlife Service training camp at Manyani, and near Archer’s Post in Isiolo.
“A total of 36 Somali officers were recruited to assist in the training under the command of a General Abdi Mahdi and Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail ‘Fartaag’. The officers completed one-month training in September 2009”.
The youths under the command of General Mahdi, a former Somali warlord, were supposed to be deployed on February 16, 2010 immediately after they completed their training.
They have been at the training camps since then waiting for their deployment.
Yesterday security analysts were fearful that if the squad is allowed back into the communities it would pose a grave security risk. A few of the trainees escaped from the camp when they received reports they might be deployed to Mogadishu to fight the Al-Shabaab militants.
One of the Kenyan Somali trainers who sought anonymity told the Star that he and other trainers have not been paid since the programme started last September.
The youths who were each promised a salary of $150 (Sh11,400) a month after recruitment had also not been paid.
Last Tuesday the former Somalia Defence minister Mohamed Ghandi hosted elders from the Marehan and Ogaden clans to brief them on the training and deployment plans. The meeting, held at Chester House, Nairobi, also discussed the possibility of the two clans withdrawing their support to the Somali government.
Sources at the meeting said Ghandi assured the elders that the youths will be deployed in the Gedo and Juba region as he had initially planned when he was still Minister.
New York, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Condemning the continued flow of weapons that it said violated its arms embargoes on Somalia and Eritrea, the Security Council this afternoon extended for 12 months the mandate of the group monitoring those measures, expanding its mandate and giving it three additional experts.
Unanimously adopting resolution 1916 (2010) under the Charter’s Chapter VII, the Council also condemned the misappropriation and politicization of humanitarian assistance by armed groups in Somalia and called upon all Member States and United Nations units to take all feasible steps to mitigate such practices.
Through the resolution, in addition, the Council decided to ease some restrictions and obligations under the sanctions regime to enable the delivery of supplies and technical assistance by international, regional and subregional organizations and to ensure the timely delivery of urgently needed humanitarian assistance by the United Nations.
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The expanded mandate of the Monitoring Group includes oversight of the arms embargo on Eritrea and the designation of individuals subjected to a travel ban and asset freeze for violations, as set out in December 2009 by resolution 1907, which demanded that Eritrea cease its support for destabilizing elements in the region.
The Council, by today’s action, reiterated its intention to consider further specific action to improve the implementation of the arms embargo, which was first imposed by resolution 733 in 1992 on arms destined for Somalia. The country has been without a functioning Government and beset by factional fighting since 1991.
Kismayo, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – A senior official of Somali insurgent group al Shabaab was shot dead on Friday in a rare assassination in the southern port of Kismayu, which is tightly controlled by the al Qaeda-linked rebels.
Sheikh Daud Ali Hasan, a commander who has been leading fighting against rival insurgents in the town of Dhobley close to Kenya, was killed near al Shabaab’s military base in Kismayu as he returned home on Friday night.
“We are after running the killers. We have already arrested several suspects and we should bring them to the justice soon,” Sheikh Abukar Ali Adan, al Shabaab’s chairman in the area, told a news conference in Kismayu on Saturday.
While al Shabaab and rebel group Hizbul Islam have fought together in the capital against the Western-backed government, the two insurgent movements have been at loggerheads for months in the south of the Horn of Africa nation.
They have battled for control of Kismayu, the lucrative main port for rebel-held areas of southern Somalia, as well as the town of Dhobley on the main road linking the port to neighboring Kenya.
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Hizbul Islam denied having a hand in the killing, but said it would step up attacks on Dhobley after a raid on Friday night in which it said it killed a number of al Shabaab militants.
Somalia has had no effective government for 19 years and Western nations and neighbors say the anarchic country is used as a shelter by militants intent on launching attacks in east Africa and further afield.
At least 21,000 Somalis have been killed since the start of 2007, 1.5 million have been uprooted from their homes and nearly half a million are sheltering in other countries in the region.
HARGEISA, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – President Dahir Rayale Kahin met a Yemeni delegation in his office today. According to a press release made my the government spokesman, Mr. Saeed Adani Moge, the meeting took place at the president’s office to discuss several issues concerning the two countries.
Mohamed Rawishani, the leader of the delegation said he is delighted to visit Somaliland and observe the stability in the country. They said they will open a trade office before the end of their visit which will start operating as soon as possible.
The President welcomed the delegation and said Somailland is ready to build a strong bilateral relationship with the Yemeni government. Mr. Kahin talked about the background of the relationship between Somaliland and Yemen which was mainly based on trade and business between the two countries. He mentioned the meeting he had with the Yemeni President, Ali Abdalla Salah in 2007 where the two agreed on resuming the trade relationship between Hargeisa and San’a.
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“There are Yemeni family who always lived in Somaliland and there are Somaillanders who lived in Yemen throughout the history” Said the President. “This is the proof that the two countries shared a long history of good relationship” he concluded.
The Yemeni delegation arrived Somaliland few days ago and during their stay they had meetings with a senior government officials including ministers, politicians and others.
Yemen’s intention to open a new office in Somaliland will strengthen the relationship between the two countries in terms of trade, politics and fight against terrorism.
Niger, 20 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Weeks after the African Union boldly announced the end of an era of coups on its continent, Niger’s military staged a spectacular overthrow.
Heavily armed in armoured vehicles soldiers blasted their way into the presidential palace, arrested the President Mamadou Tandja and dissolved every democratic institution in the uranium-exporting nation.
Niger’s new military rulers, the Supreme Council for the Restoration of Democracy (SCRD), faced the standard flurry of strongly-worded statements from Western nations and regional bodies that condemned people taking power through unconstitutional means.
But, more interestingly, there was no insistence on Tandja returning to his job. Instead, the focus appeared to be on looking towards elections and a new government. Tandja had drawn the ire of many Nigeriens and the international community over his successful campaign last year to change the constitution and extend his time in power by at least three years.
Spontaneous celebrations in Niamey after the military take-over were, therefore, not surprising. But, faced with the illegal ouster of a president many believed had become unconstitutional, the international community also seems to have been quick to recognize the opening the coup has offered.
Analysts cite members of the junta having been involved in a previous coup that swiftly led to elections as a reason for optimism. They also say Niger’s military is more professional than in place like Guinea, where soldiers have also grabbed power but failed to deliver elections despite over a year in power.
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An aggressive, bold military operation has delivered a new dynamic that months of diplomatic and political wrangling failed to achieve.
Has the international community been too quick to jump at this opportunity? Or, if the politicians appear to be failing, should the military be allowed to play the role of arbitrator in crises like Niger’s?
Coups, especially in West Africa, seem to be alive and well. Niger’s takeover follows similar ousters in Mauritania and Guinea in 2008, and another one in Madagascar last year.
What impact are these actions having on confidence in a continent that is attracting unprecedented investment and is keen to draw a line under a violent and chaotic past?
Does swiftly accepting Tandja’s ouster not set a dangerous precedent for crises elsewhere?
ADDIS ABABA (Somalilandpress) — A high-ranking Somaliland delegation consisting of senior members of parliament and government ministers have departed the Ethiopian capital and are on their way to Washington on an official visit at the invitation of Obama administration.
The delegation is led by the Deputy Speaker of the Somaliland parliament, Mr. Bashe Mohamed Farah and the Deputy Chair of the Somaliland House of Elders, Mr. Saeed Jama Ali. The ministers are minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Abdullahi Duale, Minister of Planning, Mr. Ali Ibrahim, Minister of Internal Affairs, Mr. Abdullahi Ismael and minister of Natural Resources, Mr. Osman Sheikh.
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The Somaliland delegation are expected to hold high-level talks with senior members of the Obama administration, members of Congress and other officials including USAID and democratic organisations, on issues regarding security, development and democratic process in Somaliland.
The delegation are also expected to meet with the Somaliland community in the United States.
It is the first time a delegation consisting of members of parliament and the Rayale administration have visited the United States.
