Copenhagen, 9 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The Mogadishu hotel suicide bomber who disguised himself as a veiled woman and blew himself killing 22 people including four transitional government ministers has been confirmed to be from Denmark.
A Press release from The Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) said that the suicide bomber was a Somali citizen who came to Denmark at the age of five. The man who PET did not want to identify was considered to be in his early 20s and was a resident of Copenhagen. Sources say the man’s parents who are Danish Nationals are currently living in the Danish capital Copenhagen. According to reports from TV2 of Denmark the man traveled to Somalia 18 months ago with his wife and a child, the whereabouts of the wife and child is currently unknown.
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The Mogadishu hotel bombing took place during a graduation ceremony that was being held for Banadir University graduates at Shamo hotel. Twenty two people and four Transitional Government Ministers were killed. The four ministers that died were Minister of Education, Minister of Health, Minister of Culture and Minister of youth and sports that was critically wounded at the scene and later died in Nairobi hospital.
MOGADISHU, 8 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Twenty four Somali nationals who are jailed in Mozambique (for being illegally in the country), have expressed concern over hardship they are facing in the prison.
They said they do not get enough food to make them survive in the prison, adding that they are also tortured frequently. The prisoners added that they have also been denied to perform their prayers.
Feysal Hashi Muhammad, who is among the prisoners, said that he was captured while heading for a refugee camp in Mozambique. He said the human traffickers who facilitated their trip did not take them directly to the camp, but instead they handed them (the Somali illegal immigrants) to the police.
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Among those facing the hardship in Mozambique are children, who because of Somalia conflict decided to join the Somali illegal immigrants travelling to Mozambique.
The concern of these Somalis comes as many other Somali refugees remain in the jails of Mozambique. Most of the Somali immigrants were arrested while heading for South Africa.
By Abdinasir Mohamed
Somalilandpress
Mogadishu-Somalia
Email: abdinasir4@gmail.com
Nairobi, 8 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Nine suspects arrested last week on suspicion of being members of Somali terror group Al-Shabab were arraigned before Mombasa court this afternoon.
The suspects were charged with being in Kenya illegally and being in possession of illegal weapons. Reports say the arrests point at the serious and direct threat posed on Kenya by the Al-Shabab group that operates freely in the neighboring lawless Somalia.
The suspected Al-Shabab operatives were arrested last Wednesday in Kipini in Lamu. None of the men could speak English or Swahili. Authorities later recovered an arms cache of assorted weapons hidden in the Indian Ocean. Among the weapons recovered were rocket launchers, rocket-propelled grenades and several AK47 assault rifles.
Interrogations of the suspects bore no fruit due to the language barrier. Sources tell NTV the suspects were moved to Mombasa on Thursday night under heavy security.
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This is believed to have led to a major operation in Nairobi where several people were arrested over the weekend. The Kenya government has now increased its surveillance of Kenya’s border with Somalia following the attack and capture of a Somali town close to the border by the Al-Shabab.
‘’ We have beefed up security within our borders stretching from Malindi, Lamu up to Kiunga’’ a police officer who asked not to be named told NTV.
NTV says that Al-Shabab has also claimed responsibility for an attack last week that killed three cabinet ministers and 17 medical students and their lecturers at a graduation ceremony in Mogadishu. Al-Shabab is on Washington’s list of groups involved in terror activities’’
By Abdinasir Mohamed
Somalilandpress
Mogadishu-Somalia
Email: abdinasir4@gmail.com
Hargeisa, 8 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Health officials in Somalia’s self-declared independent region of Somaliland have expressed concern over a rise in mental illness, which they attribute to post-war trauma, joblessness, drug abuse and khat use.
“Mental health problems have increased in Somaliland because of several reasons; that is why in October 2008, the Ministry of Health and Labour established a new department to deal with mental disorder coordination,” Mustafe Hussein Hirsi, the mental health coordinator in the ministry, said.
He said public and private hospitals across the region had recorded an increase in mental disorders, “for example, here in the Hargeisa Group Hospital, we had 140 patients in 2008 and now we have 180 patients”.
Hirsi said Somaliland public mental hospitals lacked adequate facilities to handle the caseload.
“Berbera Hospital was built in the late 1920s as a jail; the patients were held in small rooms without air-conditioning or a fan yet it is in a coastal climate area,” Hirsi said.
Mental hospitals also receive limited support from donors, he said.
“[The] World Health Organization [WHO] gives us the drugs but we do not get any other support except personal donations by members of the public; for example, today, Abdillahi Mohamed Dahir, chairman of the Union of Somaliland Journalists, gave us some money raised by Somaliland’s diaspora in Bristol in the UK,” Hirsi said.
He said aid agencies had displayed little interest in supporting efforts aimed at alleviating mental disorders.
“Aid organizations, both international and local, often work on HIV/AIDS and female genital mutilation but it is rare to see organizations who are interested in helping this community of the mentally challenged, who are suffering everywhere in the country,” Hirsi said.
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The International Day of Persons with Disabilities is marked every 3 December. This year’s theme was “making the [UN’s] Millennium Development Goals disability-inclusive”.
WHO said it was holding a three-month training programme in Hargeisa for health workers dealing with mental health issues.
“Health workers from Somaliland, Puntland and south-central Somalia are attending that training,” said Mohamed Mahamud Ali, WHO medical officer.
Officials of the mental health department of Hargeisa Group Hospital said the workshops undertook practicals in the hospital, under the guidance of a visiting WHO psychiatrist.
Omar Elmi Dihod, one of the few psychiatrists in Somaliland, said the increase in mental disorders was higher in males than females because of post-war trauma, khat consumption and stress.
“I worked for Hargeisa Group Hospital’s mental sickness department between 1991 and 1998, where I met a number of teenagers who had different kinds of mental sicknesses,” Dihod said. “But when I researched their backgrounds, I found out that when they were in refugee camps in eastern Ethiopia they used to chew khat a lot to prevent insect bites, and for this reason, they got mental sickness.”
Some of the mental patients have been in hospital for so many years that they have lost touch with their relatives, citing the case of Fadumo. “This woman, named only Fadumo, no one knows who brought her to hospital or where she is from but we know that she was admitted in 1970s, she has yet to recover,” Hirsi said.
Hargeisa, 8 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The stalled electoral process has plunged Somaliland into a serious political crisis that presents yet another risk of destabilisation for the region. If its hard-won political stability collapses under the strain of brinkmanship and intransigence, clan leaders might remobilise militias, in effect ending its dream of independence. The political class must finally accept to uphold the region’s constitution, abide by the electoral laws and adhere to inter-party agreements such as the electoral code of conduct and memorandum of understanding signed on 25 September 2009, so as to contain the crisis and permit implementation of extensive electoral reforms. International partners and donors should keep a close watch on developments and sustain pressure for genuinely free and fair general elections in 2010.
President Rayale’s third term of office should have expired on 15 May 2008. The election that was to have been held at least one month earlier has been rescheduled five times, most recently for 27 September 2009. The new National Electoral Commission (NEC) has yet to set a sixth date.
The latest delay was ostensibly caused by the unilateral decision of the previous NEC not to use a voter registration list tainted by massive, systematic fraud. This prompted both opposition parties to declare an election boycott and suspend cooperation with the commission. The resulting impasse triggered yet another crisis. Publicly the political elite sought to blame the NEC, its technical partner, Interpeace, and each other, but the crisis was one largely of its own making.
The recurrent rescheduling of elections and the fraud-tainted voter registration process are symptoms of deeper political problems. While President Rayale and his ruling party have benefited most from more than a year and a half of additional time in power, all the political stakeholders are in some way responsible for the selection and continuation of an incompetent and dysfunctional electoral commission, rampant fraud during voter registration, frequent skirting of the constitution and failure to internalise and institutionalise democratic practices.
The crisis was defused in late September, when the parties – under strong external and internal pressure – accepted a memorandum of understanding (MOU) agreeing to a change in the NEC’s leadership and composition, use of a “refined” voter registration list and delay of the elections to a date to be determined by the NEC, with input from independent international experts. The MOU brought the parties back from the precipice, but it is a vague document that must be complemented by additional measures to prevent new crises.
Somaliland has made remarkable progress in its democratic transformation, but political wrangling and wide-scale attempts to manipulate the political process have corrupted governing institutions and undermined the rule of law. Democratic participation, fair and free elections and effective governance need to be institutionalised and made routine, or non-violent means to resolve political crises could be replaced by remobilisation of militias, with significant risk of violent conflict.
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Improving the political culture will necessarily be a long-term, internal process, but as a start the institutions that manage elections – the NEC and the office of the voter registrar – need to be professionalised and depoliticised and the electoral laws and agreements adhered to strictly by both political parties and voters. International partners should encourage and support the government and parties to do the following:
– Civil society and international supporters must shield the new, inexperienced NEC from political pressure as it organises the presidential elections, and the NEC itself must actively resist succumbing to manipulation. The new commissioners must focus on preventing electoral fraud, working with international experts to develop a calendar for the vote, identifying problems with the current voter registration list and developing solutions for extensive duplicate registrations. The NEC also should be given the resources to hire adequate staff.
– All parties have agreed to the need for a revised registration list. The problem is that the list clearly still contains too many duplicate records and is not trusted by the political parties. Priorities for the new NEC should include hiring a competent, impartial permanent registrar and complementing the list with alternative methods and mechanisms for voter verification and fraud prevention, such as using indelible ink to identify those who have voted, limiting polling hours and imposing driving prohibitions to prevent parties and clans from transporting people to multiple locations. The emphasis should be on improving the process of updating the database and transferring the capability to do so to the Somaliland staff.
– Because of concerns for its accuracy, the registration list should not be used to determine the number of ballots and ballot boxes for particular areas, since that could lead to ballot stuffing where there was greater registration fraud. Agreement is needed on the number of boxes and ballots to be sent to the polling stations.
– Unconstitutional extensions of mandates must stop. Separate elections should be held for both the House of Representatives and district councils in 2010. More contentious will be renewal of the Guurti, presently the non-elected, clan-nominated upper house of the parliament. The constitution provides its members should be selected every six years, but does not stipulate how. Renewal has not happened since 1997, and the procedure needs to be defined urgently.
– The constitutional provision limiting the number of political parties able to compete in legislative and presidential elections to three has resulted in the monopolisation of power by the parties and leaders who were in place when the constitution was adopted. A new law clarifying how these three parties are to be chosen and permitting changes, coupled with a permanent system for the registration of new and independent political associations, should be adopted to encourage competition and accountability in political life.
– The new NEC, with donor support, should identify established, reputable local NGOs to prepare pre-election voter education and civic awareness campaigns. Materials should be developed for schools, and the education ministry should require classes on democratic practices. Clerics should be enlisted to raise awareness of election laws.
– Local NGOs, with foreign technical aid, should help train party and civil society observers to detect fraud, resist political and clan pressures and carry out nationwide election monitoring, partnering where possible with international monitors.
New York, 8 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – On December 1, a total of 25 journalists were imprisoned in Sub-Saharan Africa in retaliation for their journalism, and nearly 90 percent of these journalists were detained without charges in secret detention facilities, according to an annual census of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Countries as wide ranging as Eritrea, Iran, and the United States were on the list of nations who had imprisoned journalists without charge.
With at least 19 journalists behind bars, Eritrea by far leads the list of shame of African nations that imprison journalists. Eritrea holds this dubious distinction since 2001when the authorities abruptly closed the private press by arresting at least ten editors without charge or trial. The Eritrean government has refused to confirm if the detainees are still alive, even when unconfirmed online reports suggest that three journalists have died in detention. CPJ continues to list these journalists on its 2009 census as a means of holding the government responsible for their fates. In early 2009, the government arrested at least six more journalists from state media suspected of having provided information to news Web sites based outside the country.
Eritrea’s neighbor, Ethiopia ranked second among African nations with journalists in jail. Four journalists were held in Ethiopian prisons, including two Eritrean journalists who are detained in secret locations without any formal charges or legal proceedings since late 2006. The Gambia, with its incommunicado detention of reporter Ebrima Chief Manneh since July 2006, and Cameroon, which has imprisoned the editor of a newspaper since September 2008, completes the list of imprisoned journalists for Sub-Saharan Africa.
Worldwide, a total of 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists were behind bars, an increase of 11 from the 2008 tally. The survey also found that freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed across the globe.
China continued to be the world’s worst jailer of journalists, a dishonor it has held for 11 consecutive years. Iran, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma round out the top five jailers from among the 26 nations that imprison journalists. Each nation has persistently placed among the world’s worst in detaining journalists.
At least 60 freelance journalists are behind bars worldwide, nearly double the number from just three years ago. CPJ research shows the number of jailed freelancers has grown along with two trends: The Internet has enabled individual journalists to publish on their own, and some news organizations, watchful of costs, rely increasingly on freelancers rather than staffers for international coverage. Freelance journalists are especially vulnerable to imprisonment because they often do not have the legal and monetary support that news organizations can provide to staffers.
“The days when journalists went off on dangerous assignments knowing they had the full institutional weight of their media organizations behind them are receding into history,” said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon. “Today, journalists on the front lines are increasingly working independently. The rise of online journalism has opened the door to a new generation of reporters, but it also means they are vulnerable.”
The number of online journalists in prison continued a decade-long rise, CPJ’s census found. At least 68 bloggers, Web-based reporters, and online editors are imprisoned, constituting half of all journalists now in jail. Print reporters, editors, and photographers make up the next largest professional category, with 51 cases in 2009. Television and radio journalists and documentary filmmakers constitute the rest.
The number of journalists imprisoned in China has dropped over the past several years, but with 24 still behind bars the nation remains the world’s worst jailer of the press. Of those in jail in China, 22 are freelancers. The imprisoned include Dhondup Wangchen, a documentary filmmaker who was detained in 2008 after recording footage in Tibet and sending it to colleagues overseas. A 25-minute film titled “Jigdrel” (Leaving Fear Behind), produced from the footage, features ordinary Tibetans talking about their lives under Chinese rule. Officials in Xining, Qinghai province, charged the filmmaker with inciting separatism.
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Most of those imprisoned in Iran, the world’s second-worst jailer, were swept up in the government’s post-election crackdown on dissent and the news media. Of those, about half are online journalists. They include Fariba Pajooh, a freelance reporter for online, newspaper, and radio outlets. Radio France International reported that she was charged with “propagating against the regime” and pressured to make a false confession.
“Not long ago, Iran boasted a vigorous and vital press community,” CPJ’s Simon added. “When the government cracked down on the print media, journalists migrated online and fueled the rise of the Farsi blogosphere. Today, many of Iran’s best journalists are in jail or in exile, and the public debate has been squelched alongside the pro-democracy movement.”
Cuba, the third-worst jailer, is holding 22 writers and editors in prison, all but two of whom were rounded up in Fidel Castro’s massive 2003 crackdown on the independent press. Many have seen their health deteriorate in inhumane and unsanitary prisons. The detainees include Normando Hernández González, who suffers from cardiovascular ailments and knee problems so severe that even standing is difficult. Hernández González was moved to a prison hospital in late October.
With Eritrea as the world’s fourth-worst jailer, Burma is the fifth with nine journalists behind bars. Those in custody include the video-journalist known publicly as “T,” who reported news for the Oslo-based media organization Democratic Voice of Burma and who helped film an award-winning international documentary, “Orphans of the Burmese Cyclone.” Journalism is so dangerous in Burma, one of the world’s most censored countries, that undercover reporters such as “T” are a crucial conduit to the world.
The Eurasian nations of Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan placed sixth and seventh on CPJ’s dishonor roll. Uzbekistan is holding seven journalists, among them Dilmurod Saiid, a freelancer who exposed government agricultural abuses. Azerbaijan is jailing six reporters and editors, including investigative journalist Eynulla Fatullayev, a 2009 CPJ International Press Freedom Awardee. A seventh Azerbaijani journalist, Novruzali Mamedov died in state custody in August, after authorities denied him adequate medical care.
Here are other trends and details that emerged in CPJ’s analysis:
· About 47 percent of journalists in the census are jailed under antistate charges such as sedition, divulging state secrets, and acting against national interests, CPJ found. Many of them are being held by the Chinese, Iranian, and Cuban governments.
· In about 12 percent of cases, governments have used a variety of charges unrelated to journalism to retaliate against critical writers, editors, and photojournalists. Such charges range from regulatory violations to drug possession. In the cases included in this census, CPJ has determined that the charges were most likely lodged in reprisal for the journalist’s work.
· Violations of censorship rules, the next most common charge, are applied in about 5 percent of cases. Charges of criminal defamation, reporting “false” news, and engaging in ethnic or religious “insult” constitute the other charges filed against journalists in the census.
· Internet and print journalists make up the bulk of the census. Radio journalists compose the next largest professional category, accounting for 7 percent of cases. Television journalists and documentary filmmakers each account for 3 percent.
· The worldwide tally of 136 reflects a 9 percent increase over 2008 and represents the third-highest number recorded by CPJ in the past decade. (The decade high came in 2002, when CPJ recorded 139 journalists in jail.)
· The United States, which is holding freelance photographer Ibrahim Jassam without charge in Iraq, made CPJ’s list of countries jailing journalists for the sixth consecutive year. During this period, U.S. military authorities have jailed numerous journalists in Iraq—some for days, others for months at a time—without charge or due process. U.S. authorities appear to be using this tactic less frequently over the past two years.
CPJ believes that journalists should not be imprisoned for doing their jobs. The organization has sent letters expressing its serious concerns to each country that has imprisoned a journalist. Over the past year, CPJ advocacy helped lead to the release of at least 45 imprisoned journalists.
CPJ’s list is a snapshot of those incarcerated at midnight on December 1, 2009. It does not include the many journalists imprisoned and released throughout the year; accounts of those cases can be found at www.cpj.org. Journalists remain on CPJ’s list until the organization determines with reasonable certainty that they have been released or have died in custody.
Journalists who either disappear or are abducted by nonstate entities, including criminal gangs, rebels, or militant groups, are not included on the imprisoned list. Their cases are classified as “missing” or “abducted.”
Malabo, 7 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Equatorial Guinea is Africa’s third-largest exporter of oil and gas, but the vast majority of its 500,000 people live in dire poverty.
The small country pumps out nearly 300,000 barrels of oil each day but the production in effect is controlled by foreign companies, leading to fears that Equatorial Guinea is not developing the skills of its own people.
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There are also concerns that Equatorial Guinea will become too dependent on just one export – like most oil-rich African nations.
Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege reports from the capital, Malabo.
Johannesburg, 7 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Jamal Ali Hussein, former Somaliland Forum president and CEO of Citigroup Bank (Ivoary Coast) talks to South Africa’s leading network, South Africa Broadcasting Corporation (SABC).
Jamal Ali Hussein is an international banker with an MBA from Harvard University.
SHEIKH, 7 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) — It is always exciting when a new species are discovered in country, but the idea that most animals are long gone from Somaliland either by migration or the due to the civil war in the 1980s.
Now, it’s been reported that at least two gorillas has been discovered in mountains about 20-kms east of the town of Sheikh in Somaliland.
According to local reports, the inhabitants of the area, who never seen a gorilla before, described the animal about the size of a small donkey and moving around by knuckle-walking. At the time of the sighting, the locals said one of the gorilla was chasing a chimpanzee.
The sighting has created fear among the people of Geed-Lookor area. Many feared the animal could attack their livestock, which is livelihood to many here in Somaliland, while others feared it would create health hazards.
Mr. Mohamed Adan who is prominent expert on ancient studies, has been collecting data on the sighting of this animal. Mr Mohamed stated that the fear of the locals is that this animal might come to the water wells and ponds in search of water and could transmit diseases to local people and animals. Mr Mohamed is also a staff member of the Ministry of tourism in Somaliland.
In the past, diseases such as Ebola hemorrhagic fever broke out in number of African states and is highly contagious and causes a range of symptoms including fever, vomiting, diarrhea, generalized pain or malaise and in many cases internal and external bleeding. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is a deadly illness with case-fatality rate ranging from 50 percent to 89 percent that can occur in humans and in primates (monkeys, gorillas).
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Although, gorillas are strong and powerful animal, it is a ground-dwelling and predominantly herbivorous, therefore posses no direct threat to local livestock and other animals. However, because we share 98% genetic material with gorillas we can easily transmit diseases to each other, therefore it’s important that the government determines if there really are gorillas in Somaliland’s Geed-Lookor mountains and protects both the endangered animal and the locals.
Somaliland ministry of tourism said they plan to send a surveillance team to investigate further into the sightings and will do health examinations if required.
It is not clear how and when these animals arrived in Somaliland because gorillas typically inhabit the forests of central Africa.
Gorillas were unheard of in Somaliland until now, however due to over-hunting, climate change and socioeconomic unrest animals such as ostriches, lions, and kudu that once were found in great numbers in this land are either extinct or near-extinct.
Even though, in the past eighteen years, many animals have slowly returned because of stability in the region, many are endangered due to deforestation and land clearance.
According to a study by the Academy for Peace and Development, more than 2.5 million trees are felled annually and burned for charcoal in Somaliland in 2007. The report stated that each household in Somaliland consumed an equivalent of 10 trees a month.
On 30 April of this year, Hargeisa’s regional governor, Maroodi Jeeh, passed a bill banning the trade in charcoal and the burning of trees, however no one knows what impact it had thus far even though charcoal trade has fallen from 2007 levels in 2008.
MOGADISHU, 7 December 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The former president of the Transitional National Government [TNG] in Somalia, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, has said that they had sent a letter to President Museveni of Uganda over the bombardment of Mogadishu by AMISOM peacekeeping forces.
Mr. Hassan, who was speaking by phone from Egypt, said the bombardment by AMISOM of Bakara market in Mogadishu, the biggest trading center in Somalia, was regrettable.
He said he had conveyed to the president of Uganda on the need to end the bombardment of civilian areas by his soldiers.
The reply for that letter from Ugandan president remains unrevealed.
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Bakara, an open-air weapons bazaar, has long been viewed by the government and the AU force AMISOM as a stronghold of hardline Islamist al Shabaab insurgents trying to overthrow the country’s transitional administration.
For two years, the Al-Shabab and its allies such as Hezb al-Islam fought against Ethiopian troops in the country but after the Ethiopians pulled out their troops from Somalia in January, the militias have made the African peacekeeping forces their target, accusing them of being the fore guard of a Christian crusade.
Since May, more than 165,000 residents have fled Mogadishu amidst increasing violence, including several suicide bomb attacks, once a rarity in Somalia, authorities said.
