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CPJ condemns suspension of VOA service in Puntland.

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New York, October 2, 2009—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the suspension on Thursday of three Voice of America (VOA) reporters in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland in northeastern Somalia. Puntland’s Deputy Minister of Information Abdishakur Mire Adan issued a letter suspending all three VOA correspondents and any other VOA journalist from reporting in the region.

The suspended VOA correspondents included Nuh Muse in Garowe, Mohamed Yasin in Galkayo, and Abdulkadir Mohamed in Bossasso. According to the director general of the Somali Broadcasting Corporation, Mowliid Haji, the deputy minister also sent a decree banning all VOA affiliate FM relay stations from airing VOA programs from Friday onward.

Security Minister General Abdullahi Samatar and Adan wrote a separate letter on October 1 claiming the VOA reports from Puntland were “negative” and instigated instability in the region. The two officials held a press conference in Bossasso today and announced the VOA suspension in Puntland was indefinite, local journalists told CPJ.

The Washington-based VOA Somalia bureau chief, Abdirahman Yabarow, told CPJ he believes the suspension stems from a VOA interview Wednesday of Sheikh Sayid Khalif, a religious leader who allegedly opened a branch of the religious group Ahlu Sunna Wal-Jama’a in Puntland. Ahlu Sunna Wal-Jama’a is a non-militant, moderate Sufi group with considerable influence in the region, local journalists told CPJ.

“This suspension contravenes Puntland’s constitution and is a serious affront to press freedom in the region,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Tom Rhodes. “Puntland authorities must lift this ban immediately and allow VOA Puntland coverage to continue without harassment.”

On August 25, Galkayo police briefly detained VOA correspondent Yasin after reporting that a former governor’s son had killed a man in broad daylight, local journalists told CPJ. Galkayo police warned Yasin the next day to stop all work for VOA.

According to local journalists, many parliamentarians are opposed to the suspension and have said they will raise the matter in the next parliamentary session.

CPJ is a New York–based, independent, nonprofit organization that works to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more information, visit www.cpj.org.

Halkan Ka Daawo Kulmiye oo Casuumay Ardaydii Ugu Badnayd ee ka Qalinjebisay Jaamacadaha Wadanka Sanadkan

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Qaar ka mid ah Hablaha ka Baxay Jaamacadaha Wadanka
Qaar ka mid ah Hablaha ka Baxay Jaamacadaha Wadanka
Qaar ka mid ah Wiilasha ka qalinjebiyay jaamacadaha wadanka sanadkan
Qaar ka mid ah Wiilasha ka qalinjebiyay jaamacadaha wadanka sanadkan
Hogaanka Sare ee Xisbiga Kulmiye
Hogaanka Sare ee Xisbiga Kulmiye

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It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.. How Somalia's legendary 'Mad Mullah' prefigured the rise of Osama bin Laden—and the 'forever war' between Islam and the West.

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Friday, October 02,2009 (SomalilandPress)-At Dul Madoba, which means Black Hill in Somali, a jihadist known to his enemies as the Mad Mullah enjoyed a great victory in 1913. It is a place and a moment of legend in these parts, but the site remains as it was, a wilderness of thorn bushes and termite mounds. No heroic memorial marks the spot. No restored ruin, no sturdy plinth holding up a statue. The place is venerated in other ways.

Every Somali with an education knows what happened here, back when the area was a protectorate ruled by British authorities. Some have memorized verses of a classic Somali poem written by the mullah. The gruesome ode is addressed to Richard Corfield, a British political officer who commanded troops on this dusty edge of the empire. The mullah instructs Corfield, who was slain in battle, on what he should tell God’s helpers on his way to hell. “Say: ‘In fury they fell upon us.’/Report how savagely their swords tore you.”

The mullah urges Corfield to explain how he pleaded for mercy, and how his eyes “stiffened” with horror as spear butts hit his mouth, silencing his “soft words.” “Say: ‘When pain racked me everywhere/Men lay sleepless at my shrieks.’ ” Hyenas eat Corfield’s flesh, and crows pluck at his veins and tendons. The poem ends with a demand that Corfield tell God’s servants that the mullah’s militants “are like the advancing thunderbolts of a storm, rumbling and roaring.”

They rumbled and roared for two full decades. The British launched five military expeditions in the Horn of Africa to capture or kill Muhammad Abdille Hassan, and never succeeded (though they came close). British officers had superior firepower, including the first self-loading machine gun, the Maxim. But the charismatic mullah knew his people and knew the land: he hid in caves, and crossed deserts by drinking water from the bellies of dead camels. “I warn you of this,” he wrote in one of many messages to his British foes. “I wish to fight with you. I like war, but you do not.” The sentiment would be echoed almost a century later, in Osama bin Laden’s 1996 declaration of war against the Americans: “These [Muslim] youths love death as you love life.”

History doesn’t really repeat itself, but it can feed on itself, particularly in this part of the world. Sagas of past jihads become inspirations for new wars, new vengeance, until the continuum of violence can seem interminable. In the Malakand region of northwest Pakistan, where the Taliban today has been challenging state power, jihadists fought the British at the end of the 19th century. In Waziristan, a favored Qaeda hideout, the Faqir of Ipi waged jihad against the British in the 1930s and ’40s. Among the first to take on the British in Africa was Muhammad Ahmad, the self-styled “Mahdi,” or redeemer, whose forces killed and beheaded Gen. Charles George Gordon at Khartoum. But no tale more closely tracks today’s headlines, and shows the uneven progress of the last century, than that of Muhammad Abdille Hassan.

His story sheds light on what is now called the “forever war,” the ongoing battle of wills and ideologies between governments of the West and Islamic extremists. There’s no simple lesson here, no easy formula to bend history in a new direction. It’s clear, even to many Somalis, that the mullah was brutal and despotic, and that his most searing legacy is a land of hunger and ruin. But he’s also admired—for his audacity, his fierce eloquence, his stubborn defiance in the face of a superior power. Among Somalis, the mullah’s sins are often forgiven because he was fighting an occupier, a foreign power that was in his land imposing foreign values. It is a sentiment that is shared today by those Muslims who give support to militants and terrorists, and one the West would do well to better understand.

The Rise of the Mullah
Muhammad Abdille Hassan was slightly over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and intense eyes. Somalis called him Sayyid, or “Master.” (They still do.) He got much of his religious training in what is now Saudi Arabia, where he studied a fundamentalist brand of Islam related to the Wahhabi teachings that have inspired Al Qaeda.

Stories abound about how he came to be called the Mad Mullah. According to one popular version, when he returned to the Somali port of Berbera in 1895, a British officer demanded customs duty. The Sayyid brusquely asked why he should be paying a foreigner to enter his own country. Other Somalis asked the Brit to pay the man no mind—he was just a crazy mullah. The name stuck.

Many Somalis would come to think him mad in another sense—that he was touched by God. “He was very charismatic,” says historian Aw Jama Omer Issa, who is 85 years old and interviewed many of the Sayyid’s followers before they died off. “Whenever you came to him, he would overwhelm you. You would lose your senses…To whomever he hated, he was very cruel. To those he liked, he was very kind.” His forces wore distinctive white turbans and called themselves Dervishes.

The first British officer to hunt the mullah and attempt to crush his insurgency was Lt. Col. Eric Swayne, a dashing fellow who had previously been on safari to Somaliland, hunting for elephant and rhino, kudu and buffalo. He was dispatched from India, and brought with him an enterprising Somali who had once worked as a bootblack polishing British footwear. Musa Farah would serve one British overlord after another. He would gain power, wealth, and influence beyond anything he could have imagined, including a sword of honor from King Edward VII.

Swayne’s orders were to accept nothing short of unconditional surrender. For intelligence he relied on Dervish prisoners, who sometimes gave him false information. “We were in extremely dense bush, so I decided to move on very slowly, hoping to find a clearing, which was confidently reported by prisoners,” Swayne wrote in one after-action report. But the bush only became thicker. Soon the Dervishes were advancing from all sides. Men and beasts fell all around, as great shouts of “Allah! Allah!” rang out. Somali “friendlies” panicked and fell back. Pack animals stampeded—”a thousand camels with water tins and ammunition boxes jammed against each other…scattering their loads everywhere.”

The British faced an enemy “who offered no target for attack, no city, no fort, no land…in short, there was no tangible military objective,” wrote Douglas Jardine, who served in the Somaliland Protectorate from 1916 to 1921 and later wrote a history of the conflict. One defeat was so humiliating that some British soldiers imagined they had seen a “white man” among the Dervishes—how else could these “natives” be inflicting so much pain? At times, the British coordinated with forces from Christian Ethiopia in an attempt to trap the mullah. The Dervishes were able to avoid capture by crossing the border into Italy’s colonial territory to the south.

A Mouthful of Spit
Somali jihadists engage in a similar type of war today. The Qaeda-connected group Al-Shabab, based in the area that was once colonized by Italy, targets Somali land to the north. On Oct. 29 of last year, six suicide bombers hit the Ethiopian trade mission, a United Nations office, and the presidential headquarters in Hargeisa, killing at least 25 people. A few of the plotters were later captured and are being held at a 19th-century prison in Berbera, along with others convicted of terrorist attacks.

When I visited the Berbera prison recently, the warden told me the militants wouldn’t see visitors. The guards didn’t want trouble. “These men are serving life sentences and have nothing to lose,” said one. “They don’t give a damn.” Finally the warden agreed to let a Somali colleague and me walk past the barred cell, which housed all 11 of the men. It was part of a decrepit free-standing building that stood in the center of a dirt compound.

We could see figures in the shadows behind the bars. I asked from a distance if anyone spoke Arabic. One bearded man emerged and said with a smile (in Arabic), “Accept God’s word, and you’ll be safe.” Another prisoner, older and larger, told him to shut up, then shouted in our direction: “Get lost, dog,” and blew a mouthful of spit. Our guards hurried us away. My Somali interpreter said later that the spitting prisoner was known as Indho Cade, or “White Eyes,” and was serving life for shooting an Italian aid worker in the head.

The Islamist radicals see parallels between their struggle and the war waged by the Sayyid. Osama bin Laden’s “enemies may call him a terrorist,” one top Shabab militant told a NEWSWEEK reporter in 2006, defending the Qaeda leader. It is “something that exists in the world”—a form of infidel propaganda—”to name someone a terrorist, [just] as the British colonialists called the Somali hero Muhammad Abdille Hassan the Mad Mullah.”

The militants have sometimes used the mullah’s words as a rallying cry. During the American intervention in Mogadishu in the early 1990s, pamphlets appeared in the city with a copy of the Sayyid’s poem to Richard Corfield. “Say: ‘My eyes stiffened as I watched with horror;/The mercy I implored was not granted.’ ” It’s impossible to gauge the impact the poem had on the thinking of Somali fighters. What is known is that sometime later, militants dragged the nearly naked bodies of American soldiers through the streets, images that were captured on camera and beamed back to the United States.

In an age before television, the Internet, and streaming video, the mullah used poetry as a propaganda tool, both to gain sympathy and to terrify his foes. Today poetry is also written and recited by bin Laden and just about every other Qaeda leader with a following. The poems proliferate on jihadi Web sites.

The Final Campaign
As the mullah gained strength and power, some British politicians argued for a more aggressive stance—a “surge,” in today’s parlance. Others thought the whole enterprise was a waste of re-sources. Among the latter was Winston Churchill, who briefly visited Somali-land in 1907 when he was undersecretary of state for the colonies.

Churchill had already engaged other “mad mullahs.” As a young man, he served as a military correspondent in the North-West Frontier province of what is now Pakistan, where he battled jihadists and wrote about it in his first book, The Story of the Malakand Field Force. Then he fought the followers of the Mahdi at Omdurman, in Sudan. He disparaged Islam. “Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities…but the influence of [this] religion paralyses the social developement [sic] of those who follow it,” he wrote in The River War: An Historical Account of the Reconquest of the Soudan. “No stronger retrograde force exists in the world.” (In the same passage, he also noted that the “civilization of modern Europe” had been able to survive largely because Christianity “is sheltered in the strong arms of science.”).

After seeing the Somaliland port of Berbera, Churchill wrote a tough-minded report. “The policy of making small forts, in the heart of wild countries…is nearly always to be condemned,” he wrote. Britain should withdraw from the interior and defend only the port of Berbera. After much debate, London ordered a policy of “coastal concentration.” Officers in Somaliland could further arm the “friendlies,” but were not to engage the mullah themselves. Chaos ensued, as clans battled each other for ascendancy and loot. Tens of thousands of Somalis were killed.

This was the dilemma that Corfield faced in 1913. The son of a church rector, he had a moralistic streak. But he’d also served in the Boer War and was “made of stuff that does not thrive in offices,” wrote biographer H. F. Prevost Battersby. When the Dervishes began marauding against friendly clans, Corfield rashly defied orders and went in pursuit. A Dervish soldier shot him dead 25 minutes after the battle at Dul Madoba began. Some of the mullah’s fighters later took Corfield’s severed arm as a war trophy to present to their master. “It was a great morale booster for the Dervishes, no doubt about it,” says the Somali-born Rutgers historian Said Samatar. “Corfield was a symbol—the British colonial man. In a sense it was a blow against colonialism.”

To some in Britain, Corfield was a fool who damaged national prestige by disobeying orders. To others, he was a man of principle—he was “the straightest, whitest, most honorable man I have ever met,” said one colleague, displaying the casual racism of the time. The prevailing view was that Corfield’s death had occurred, in part, because the British had encouraged the mullah by withdrawing to the coast and seeming reluctant to fight. It “had been proved once more that ‘there is nothing so warlike as inactivity,’ ” wrote Jardine.

The decisive turn in the conflict came only years later. In 1920 a decision was taken to send warplanes—one of the early uses of air power to put down an insurgency. Churchill, by now the minister of war and air, had become convinced that air power could do what ground forces had never been able to accomplish. He was instrumental in getting backing for the mission.

The Z Unit arrived in Somaliland disguised as geologists, and assembled the de Havilland 9A planes on site. By this time, the mullah had grown tired of running around the bush and had built many stone forts. On Jan. 21, 1920, he awoke at his fort in Medishe expecting nothing out of the ordinary. He was sitting on a balcony with his uncle, other Somalis, and a Turkish adviser.

According to Jardine’s account, Somali aides suggested the spectral objects coming out of the sky might be the chariots of God coming to escort the Sayyid to heaven. But five minutes after a first pass, the pilots returned and dropped bombs. “This first raid almost finished the war, as it was afterwards learned that a bomb dropped on Medishe Fort killed one of the mullah’s amirs on whom he was leaning at the time, and the mullah’s own clothing was singed,” wrote Flight Lt. F. A. Skoulding, who took part in the raid.

For two weeks the planes provided air support to ground forces—including some organized by the mullah’s Somali nemesis, Musa Farah. But the mullah, hiding in caves and outwitting his pursuers, again managed to escape. The British made a peace offering; the mullah responded by listing conditions of his own, including a payment of gold coins, diamonds, cash, pearls, feathers of 900 ostriches, two pieces of ivory, and books, all of which he said had been taken from him. Somali allies of the British chased him farther into the bush, where he aimed to rebuild his forces once more. But the mullah succumbed to flu later that year. With his death, his Dervish movement died out.

Jardine didn’t gloat. “Intensely as the Somalis feared and loathed the man whose followers had looted their stock, robbed them of their all, raped their wives, and murdered their children, they could not but admire and respect one who, being the embodiment of their idea of Freedom and Liberty, never admitted allegiance to any man, Moslem or Infidel,” he wrote.

Up the Black Hill
In the mullah’s old battlegrounds, the tensions of the past are alive and the divisions are complex. Ever since the overthrow of the Somali government in the early 1990s, southern Somalia has been a Mad Max landscape of warlords, terrorists, and pirates. (The mullah’s statue once stood in Mogadishu, but looters long ago tore it down and sold it for scrap.) The northern territory of Somaliland, however, is relatively stable. The region, dominated by a clan that generally aligned itself with the British during the protectorate, declared its independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991. Somaliland has held free elections and maintained a very fragile stability, while the rest of Somalia has become a void on the political map.

Somalilanders are pleading for diplomatic recognition—as an autonomous region if not a full-fledged state—so the area can attract foreign investment and be a part of the world. As it is, So-ma-li-land’s public schools lack books and other supplies, and the number of private madrassas is growing. Young people with no opportunities smuggle themselves across deserts to Libya, hoping to board a creaky vessel to Europe, or they jump aboard a dhow to Yemen. Others join Al-Shabab. “The whole nation is a big prison,” says Abdillahi Duale, Somaliland’s foreign minister. “We are nurturing an infant democracy under trying circumstances in a tough neighborhood…and all we’re getting is a slap on the back.”

Many Somalis, not surprisingly, are ambivalent about the mullah. Rashid Abdi, who follows current wars and abuses in the region for the International Crisis Group, recalls learning the Sayyid’s poetry as a child, and can still recite some of his verses by heart. He’s also aware that the mullah was a warlord who committed abuses very similar to those that Abdi chronicles today. “There is nobody who can claim to be a Somali historian who can whitewash the atrocities of Muhammad Abdille Hassan,” Abdi told me on a phone call from Nairobi, Kenya, where he’s stationed. “He wanted to unify the Somalis, and if he had to break a few clans to do that, he would. In the evening he might craft a poem about his dying horse, and the same day he might have burned down whole villages, killing hundreds of people. It’s the nature and the tragedy of how Somalis have existed all through the years and centuries.”

Hadraawi, a renowned Somali poet who goes by a single name, has mixed feelings about the Sayyid. “He was a power maniac…a dictator,” he says. Still, Hadraawi admires the man for his unequaled talent as a Somali poet and the leadership he showed in the struggle against colonial powers. “He was the light I was following in my youth—my guide,” says Hadraawi, who was a teenager during the heady days of Somali in-de-pend-ence in 1960. “It was later on that I realized his mistakes.” Hadraawi still rejects the name Mad Mullah—mostly, he suggests, because it’s a simplistic caricature.

Hadraawi is my companion on a trek to the Black Hill. The journey from the capital, Hargeisa, is long, but not as difficult as it was in Corfield’s time. To get there, a foreigner is required to fill out an “escort-authorization form” for the “Special Protection Unit” of the police and hire two armed guards for $20 a day. The area is much safer than the chaotic mess to the south, or the pirate-infested coastline of Puntland to the east. But ever since terrorists killed the Italian aid worker and two British teachers in 2003, the government has required foreigners to travel with armed guards.

Hadraawi, who has spent time in London, has found a way to honor Hassan without admiring all that he was. Rather than dwelling on his more violent and divisive poems, he has focused more recently on the mullah’s astonishing knowledge of the natural world. “The poems I like are not political,” he says. “He writes about trees and stars, the rivers and rains and seasons…He’ll tell you about the camel, and he’ll capture the innermost nature of the camel.”

When Hadraawi and I trek up the Black Hill, we know there is no victory monument to the Sayyid there. But we’ve heard of another memorial, a marker for Richard Corfield. One source has suggested that it’s a pillar three meters high; another believes it’s made of white stone. Perhaps it has some writing on it. Nobody really knows: it’s out there in the bush.

At the tiny village of Dul Madoba, we pick up a guide who thinks he can find the place. Then we travel on a road more populated by goats than by vehicles, until we turn off the tarmac between thorn bushes and drive a short distance till we can go no farther. With guards in tow, we get out and hike. We pass termite mounds that stand like giant sentries. A neon-yellow grasshopper flits by, and a wild hare dodges among some brush.

Up the Black Hill we march. As the sun is near to setting, we come to a giant pile of large brown rocks. It’s a burial place, and the guide insists this is Corfield’s tomb, but his tone doesn’t inspire confidence. The rock pile looks more like a tomb from the Cushitic period, before the advent of Islam. We scout around a bit more, but the monument can’t be found. Soon we spy another giant pile of rocks on another small ridge. It seems there are several tombs up here of uncertain origin. But none of these are likely for Corfield. Nor are they Dervish graves. The Sayyid’s soldiers, anxious to make off with their lives and their loot, left their dead as they fell on the field. They believed the souls of their Dervish brothers were already enjoying the pleasures of paradise.

Verses from the poem “The Death of Richard Corfield” come from a translation by B. W. Andrzejewski and I. M. Lewis.

Source: NewsWeek

Where have all the good men gone? The coming of age of the ‘lost generation’.

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A few days ago as I sat nonchalant reading an article for a class at one of the many cafes that litter the university campus I attend, I happened to overhear two Somali sisters conversation. One of the sisters was modestly dressed while the other was a more modern ‘liberal’ minded sister. After talking about their courses, professors, and future ambitions (they were both political science majors and wanted to go on to law school), the topic soon turned to love and marriage.
“There are no Somali guys worth marrying,” the liberal sister stated. “They’re all such losers. No ambition, no drive, no interest. They’re all just wanna be thangs.” Then a ten minute rant bashing Somali men followed. As the liberal minded sister continued on her rant, I couldn’t help but smirked to myself because I had been expected the conversation to ‘go there’. Never have a group of Somali women gather without complaining about Somali men. However, these days the vitriol seems to have intensified and who could blame them? We as Somali men have given them plenty of reasons to be angry with us. Many of the older Somali men living aboard have abandoned their families to return home in search of political glory and new young wives. Their sons having no father figures to look up to have mostly become “gangstas” and ended up in jail, if not dead. But though Somali women have always complained about Somali men, they have always stood by us, and support us…that is until this new generation.
The conversation between the two Somali sister from there then turned to marrying outside the Somali community. The liberal minded sister said she would consider marrying a non-Somali, and the other sister asked her if the stigmatism attached to that would not bother her. “Who are they to judge me?” she replied. In fact, more and more brighter sisters have chosen to look elsewhere for husbands feeling our community has nothing to offer them.
What’s significant about the new generation of young Somali adults is that because of the civil war many of us were either born or raised aboard. We’ve had to learn quickly how to blend our parents’ traditions, expectations, and culture with that of the new country in which we were raised. This is a delicate balancing act and there are few people who have managed to successfully balance both. Many have been lost through large gaps that exist between the two cultures, others have succeed and still other believed they have succeed but are truly lost. The guys in jail and who think they’re thangs are the most obvious example of failure but the not so obvious example is the liberal minded sister in the story. She personifies perfectly the Somali who thinks that they are so high above their own race that they can bash them in public. She may have been successful at school but she still lacked a great deal of decorum and culture.
As I got up from my table to head to class I passed by the table the Somali sisters were sitting at and placed a card on it. “There’s still some successful Somali guys around. We’re not all extinct yet.” I said giving them a cocky smile, before walking off. The liberal sister picked up the card and read my name, “Mahad Omar, Ph.D candidate Political Science”. She starred after me too surprised to speak.
By: Y. Ismail

Somaliland Political Parties Sign Agreement to End Political Deadlock

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Hargeisa, 1 October 2009 (Somalilandpress) – Somaliland’s President Dahir Rayale Kahin and the leaders of the two opposition parties signed a Six Point Agreement with the presence of John Marshal from Great Britain and an Ethiopian delegate. By signing this agreement this should ease the tensions that has been rising in Somaliland in the last few weeks.

The agreement puts constraint on the current administration that it shall not ask for an extension in office, that election observers be allowed to return to Somaliland to finalize the voter registration and election be held once the voter registration is completed by the experts.

Also present at the signing as observers were the heads of the parliament and house of elders Mr. Abdirahman Irro and Suleiman Aden. Mr. Suleiman played a major role in bring all parties together to sign this agreement.

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“I was hopping that we could have resolved this issue on our own rather than getting foreigners’ involved in our affairs”. Said President Rayaale during the event. He also gave an acknowledgment to all the people that made this agreement to be signed.

The leader of KULMIYE party, Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud (Siilaanyo) said he is happy that an agreement has been finally reached. He called the government to release those who were arrested during the last demonstrations in Hargeisa.

The Leader of UCID party, Eng. Faisal Ali Warabe thanked all the participants and those who participated in bringing all the sides together.

The sigining of this agreement is a historic achievement for Somaliland as chaos has been feared in the last few months due to the political crisis in the country. The international community have been engaged in this agreement for the first time in Somaliland’s history. In the coming months, Somaliland will enter a new phase where people will follow closely the implementation of those agreement points.

Here is an audio of the three political leaders right after the agreement was signed:

strong>Listen Now/Maqaal:

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Source: SomalilandPress

USA: Court to weigh lawsuit against former Somali PM

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HARGEISA, 1 October 2009 (Somalilandpress) – The Supreme Court will consider throwing out a human rights lawsuit against a former prime minister of Somalia who is accused of overseeing killings and other atrocities.

The court said Wednesday it would review an appeals court ruling allowing Somalis to sue Mohamed Ali Samantar of Fairfax, Va., who was defense minister and prime minister of Somalia in the 1980s and early 1990s under dictator Siad Barre.

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The lawsuit alleges that Samantar was responsible for killings, rapes and torture, including waterboarding, of his own people while in power, particularly against disfavored clans. The lawsuit was filed in 2004 at federal court in Alexandria under the Torture Victim Protection Act.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema tossed out the case in 2007, ruling that Samantar was entitled to immunity under a separate U.S. law, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

But the appellate court ruled that the law does not extend immunity to individuals, only to foreign states themselves and their agencies.

The high court will consider whether Samantar is immune from the lawsuit. The case will be argued early next year.

Source: AP

The Somaliland Independent Scholar’s Group

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Political Brinkmanship: A Close Call for Somaliland

(29 September, 2009. Hargeisa Somaliland)

I. Introduction 

On 26th of September 2009, the ISG members met to discuss the implications of recent Agreement sponsored by the international community between the Somaliland parties and the subsequent historic  unanimous vote of the House of Elders on the 25th of Sept, 2009, to endorse it. The meeting was sponsored by the Social Research and Development Institute (SORADI). It was moderated by its Director, Dr. Mohamed Fadal. The Somaliland Independent Scholar’s Group (ISG) members are all long-term participants of Somaliland rebuilding and democratization process, who are considered to be highly competent to provide an objective analysis and strategy to address the issues at hand. The ISG members are: Abdi-shakur Sh Ali-Jowhar (Psychiatrist and political analyst: warkamaanta.com), Amina Mohamoud Warsame (Executive Director of NAGAAD); Abdilkadir H Ismail Jirde (Ex-Deputy Speaker and Member of Parliament- now travelling), Shukri H. Ismail (Former National Electoral Commissioner and Member of African Democracy Forum and Chair of Candle Light); Ibrahim Jama Ali -Raite (Member of Parliament and Lawyer), Fawsi Sh. Yonis (Somaliland Lawyer’s Association); Abdi Ahmed Nour (Forum for Peace and Governance-FOBAG), Bobe Y. Duale (Research Coordinator, APD), Haroon H Ahmed Qulumbe (ActionAid), Jafar Mohamed Gadaweyne (SONSAF); Mohamed Hassan Ibrahim (Researcher-APD), Suad Ibrahim Abdi (Researcher-APD); Wais Muse (Executive Director of  Samatalis Coalition of Human Rights)), Dr. Mohamed Fadal, Director of (SORADI);Muse Abdi Elmi (U. of Hargeisa; Dean Academic Affairs) Dr. Yusuf Kariye (Researcher in  Anthropology; Hinda Mohamed Jama (an Associate of Burao University).

 

Implementing the Agreement

 

II. Tension Diffused

 

The people of Somaliland won in this critical moment of the development of their nation. Through their steadfast stand to support reform peace and reconciliation they have brought about the victory we see today.

 

The Somaliland Independent Scholar’s Group commends the Guurti for choosing the path of dialogue and consensus building against a unilateral imposition. We thank Ethiopia, Britain and the supporting donor community to bring the political party leaders to a consensus agreement. We also thank the Somali well-wishers, who expressed their support to Somaliland from all over the world.

 

The tension has been diffused and the expression “win-win” situation is already in the media. However, the hard work is still to be done. The greatest achievement so far is that goodwill and cooperation between the opposition and the ruling party has been restored. A window of opportunity is opened; however, it may close sooner than we realize if not utilized. The ISG urges the Guurti to continue leading the process to put the implementation of the agreement on track. The ISG believes that the key to successful implementation of the international agreement is to disband the present NEC and to constitute a new National Electoral Commission (NEC) within the next two weeks.

 

 

III. Gateway to Implementation: Constituting a New NEC

 

After the necessary signature ceremony takes place, the Guurti needs to bring together the key stakeholders (the three political parties and the House of Representatives) in consultation with the civil society to work out a mechanism to disband the sitting NEC and to constitute a fresh new NEC. Institutions mandated to select the NEC members, ie the Presidency, the Guurti and the two opposition parties should not take more than seven days each to appoint their allocation of the members.  Our target date for the NEW NEC to be in place is on the 15th of October, 2009.

 

Why a new NEC?

The New NEC should be able to fulfil the duties it is appointed for effectively and diligently on behalf of the Somaliland people. During the tenure of the present NEC, the whole nation was trying to do its job and to cover its shortcomings: They were expected to organize and manage free and fair elections held on time in every five years; create a neutral ground for all stakeholders in the election, especially among the three competing candidates and their supporters; interact with the Executive Branch as an independent entity and provide it with objective and truthful information and assessments of election process; engage the media and other stakeholders to abide by their code of conducts; work with our international friends and donors and to make elections something the Somaliland people can be proud of to exercise their right to vote and not to view it as a source of conflict and uncertainty. The sitting NEC has failed in fulfilling the above responsibilities.

 

What kind of NEC?

A NEC, whose members have integrity, proven work track record, across-party trust and a good national standing. The new NEC should also be gender balanced.  The above criteria need to be observed by the institutions mandated to select the members and the House of Representatives, which has the final approval of individual membership.

 

 

Possible Scenarios Arising from the Implementation Process

 

 

1. Win-Win Situation: The New NEC is Constituted on Time

 

All parties cooperate to use this window of opportunity to bring the Somaliland Presidential election process on track. The New NEC, with the requisite qualities to manage and to lead us to a successful free and fair election is constituted within the next two weeks. It approves the Terms of Reference of the Team of Experts and the international community recruits them. They deliver their assessment of the election preparation time before the end of October, 2009. The New NEC sets a date for the Presidential election on the basis of the assessment provided by the Team of Experts. The President and VP terms are formally extended as in the agreement. The technical support needed for the election (both technical and financial) is made available by the donor community. The political parties’ candidates exercise their right to campaign and to bring their message across to the Somaliland people. The people exercise their right to vote and choose a President and a VP. The elected President is inaugurated by February 2010. Somalilanders prove their resilience to maintain the path of peace and democracy and to pursue their aspiration to achieve their rightful place in the world community.

 

2. Our Worse Nightmare Situation: NEC Reform is Squandered

We do not learn from our past experience. We do not use the window of opportunity we have.  Personal and group interests overshadow cross-party cooperation and due diligence to reform NEC. Our worst nightmare is realized when forming the new NEC drags. Lack of cooperation and mistrust among the key stakeholders overshadows reason and progress.  The Team of Experts has no counterpart to work with and hence, their recruitment and engagement is delayed. No election schedule assessment and election date are in sight within the next two months. The bad guys regain the upper hand in the Somaliland election process.

3. A Catalyst Situation: Conflicting Expectations from the Server

Unrealistic expectations from the team of experts to work out miracles to come up with everybody’s wish list will definitely spoil the cooperation and goodwill we need in abundance to bring the election process on track. On the other hand acting maturely and accepting whatever the outcome of this last trial to clean up the mess we made, will pave the way for the election and will boost the moral of the Somaliland people and their confidence on their system of government. The team of experts may not change much in terms of numbers, but they are independent from and neutral to our fears and internal contradictions. We have no other option but to trust the process. Their first final verdict should be accepted as is, if we want to move forward. We expect the team to be cognisant of the baggage that comes with their assignment and hence should keep it strictly technical and deliver their result transparently and in the presence of the all stakeholders and the international community. We advise against any interim reports and we urge the key stakeholders to let them deliver a Final Voter Registration List.

 

4. An Unfortunate Situation: Engaging Team of Experts or Delivery of their Assessment and Final Voter List Takes Longer than Expected

Such a situation will have a similar impact as the worse nightmare scenarioThe window of goodwill opportunity will be closed. Personal and group interest will derail the election process. Worse still no National institution will be accountable for the Somaliland people. Fears of some sectors that the international community have no good intentions for the Somaliland state will get credence. The international initiators of this agreement need to do everything possible to avoid such a situation to arise and to be transparent about any difficulties encountered.

 

 

Summary of Recommendations and Action Sequence Chart

 

1. Recommendation

 1. The House of Elders continues to lead the process to ensure signing ceremony takes place as soon as possible and that political parties and the House of Representatives are clearly on board to keep the Agreement on track.

2. All stakeholders act proactively to move the election process forward and to avoid any action which contradicts the cooperation and goodwill attained and expected by the Somaliland people.

3. The key stakeholders expedite the process of constituting a new NEC and hence facilitate the Team of Experts to start its work.

4. The international community need to stand behind this agreement and monitor all stakeholders to fulfil their roles. The international community is also is expected to make the Team of Experts available in time to work with the new NEC.

5. The International community is requested to make available the financial and technical support needed for the forthcoming Somaliland Presidential election.

6. The people need to be informed to ensure peace and have confidence that the election is going to be   free and fair.

 

2. Sequencing of Implementation Activities: See attached chart. 

 

Ethiopia vows to continue oil venture amide rebel threat.

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September 29, 2009 (ADDIS ABABA) — Despite Ogaden rebels repeated warnings against foreign oil exploration in Somali region, the Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy vowed to continue the oil project.

Two weeks ago the Ogaden National liberation Front (ONLF) threatened foreign oil firms to refrain from engaging in oil exploration in the region or face harsh consequences.

However Ethiopia’s ministry of mines and energy down plays the threats saying that every empty threat by the Ogaden rebels cannot obstruct the ongoing oil venture.

“There is no any serious security threat in the region that could lead to closure or endanger foreign oil firms” said minister Alemayehu Tegenu.

Ethiopian forces launched an assault against the rebels after the 2007 attack on a Chinese-owned oil exploration field which killed 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese. Addis Ababa now says the ONLF has been defeated.

“The group, unlike it bluffs, is so weaken at this point and doesn’t have capacity to carry out attacks” he added.

ONLF’s latest warning came after a Malaysian oil firm reportedly resumed drilling at the region.

In a statement it issued on September 16, the rebel group said “No business should be conducted in Ogaden, until there is a political solution to the conflict,”

We “will not be responsible for any collateral damages that occur from its engagements with the Ethiopian army,” it added accusing oil companies of “disinheriting the Ogaden people of their natural resources.”

The rebel group in the past directly threatened Petronas , the Malaysian state-owned company, which is one of more than a dozen international explorers hunting for oil and gas in Ethiopia.

Source: Sudan Tribune, Sept 30, 2009

Ambulance offers hope in war-torn Somalia.

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MOGADISHU, Somalia (CNN) — Chaos and death on the streets of Mogadishu: unfortunately, it’s nothing new in the Somali capital.

Government forces are fighting against insurgents on this day in September in a bloody battle that leaves 30 dead. Dozens of wounded Somalis are taken out of the danger zone, some of them in the back of insurgents’ pick-up trucks.

One of the trucks races through the streets, zig-zagging to the echoing booms of the ongoing shelling. The truck comes to an abrupt halt, stopping at a rare sight in the Somali capital — an ambulance, waiting at the heart of the chaos to ferry the dead and the injured to the hospital.

The wounded are transferred onto the ambulance. People shout and run as the mortar attacks continue. One woman screams over and over for her son.

The ambulance is one of seven medical vehicles paid for with donated funds from local and expatriate Somalis. Residents can simply call for the ambulances without charge, and the vehicles will be dispatched to the scene.

“It is amazing,” said Rufai Salad, one of the founders of the ambulance service in the Somali capital. “We have this toll-free number, 777, that you dial. Someone is giving you a free call and then coming and giving you free help.

“People here find it hard to believe it is real.”

Life Line Africa, a local Somali charity, started its ambulance service in Mogadishu in December, bringing a small amount of order to the lawless country that is in the midst of a brutal Islamist insurgency.

Apart from the short-lived rule of the Islamic Courts Union in 2006, there has been no genuine central authority in Somalia since the collapse of Mohamed Siad Barre’s repressive regime in 1991.

Now, the United States and other Western powers are propping the U.N.-backed transitional government forces in their attempt to fend off the insurgency, particularly Al-Shabaab — a Somali militant group that has ties to al Qaeda.

Basic amenities in Somalia, like electricity, water and sanitation – and even luxuries such as wireless Internet facilities — are provided by enterprising businessman, which is partly how the ambulance service came to life.

In the Somali equivalent of a public-private partnership, clan elders and local businessman donated the money to fund the ambulance service, helping fulfill a crucial need.

The ambulance drivers are well compensated, earning about U.S. $200 a month in a country where the average yearly income is $130, according to the United Nations.

Life Line Africa’s monthly budget for its Mogadishu ambulance service is $3,200, including fuel, running costs and the salaries of the 10 drivers. They hope to increase their driving staff to 14.

Salad, 24, is an information technology officer for the Somali president’s office, but volunteers his time to help keep Life Line Africa running.

His enthusiasm about the ambulance service obscures the very real danger he and his drivers face. Part of the problem, he explains, is trying to stay neutral in a war zone.

“We did have one driver killed by Al-Shabaab,” he admits. “They told us that it was because we were carrying government soldiers to hospital. But I said to them that this is what we do – we are working for all of you.”

And it’s not just the insurgents that Salad and his drivers fear.

“We had to take the body of a Syrian ship captain who had been killed by pirates to the airport,” he said. “The government and African Union soldiers opened fire on the ambulance. We were later told they’d received information that the insurgency was planning on using an ambulance to stage a suicide attack.”

“But what can you do?” he asks. “Our driver ran away and then later was allowed to come back for his ambulance.”

Salad says the relatively high pay is not the real reason his drivers are willing to take the risks they do.

“If you go to the area of the fighting then the combatants [from both sides] say ‘You must carry us to the hospital or we will kill you,'” he says.

“It is so dangerous but when we see the problems of the people, we’re trying to find a way somehow, to keep on working.”

Source: CNN, Sept 29, 2009

West London Somaliland Community: The Annual Report

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HARGEISA, 20 September 2009 (Somalilandpress) – West London Somaliland Community (WLSC) has been created two years ago in order to be a real community organisation that not only provide service but also build a sense of community among the Somalilanders and create an environment that encourages participation and development.

As a single nationality organisation, the organisation wants to be closer to the Somaliland community to build the trust so it will be able to build a sense of a community, which in its turn will allow us to deal with the sensitive issues and remove the cultural and social barriers.

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The establishment of West London Somaliland Community is also an opportunity for Somalis in general to address their diversity openly and start to build understanding and respect for it, which is conducive in understanding and valuing the British diversity as well as integrating meaningfully to this society. The aim is also to encourage a culture of tolerance among the Somalis in general, which will allow them to respect their differences and in general the human nature diversity so to make possible to create a situation where commonalities can be build on.

Since the creation of the organization two years ago, it undertook important steps to lay down a strong foundation for a community owned organisation. Many activities have been carried out in order to achieve the goals set and the organization is moving ahead with more projects in the near future.

WEst London Somaliland Community publishes its Annual Report From April 2008 to March 2009 and share it with all the stakeholders as well as other Somalis living worldwide. You can download the full report here:

WLSC Annual Report