ISSA Farah is a government minister who carries a pistol in his belt.
Melbourne, 20 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — After 25 years as a refugee in Melbourne, where he earned a university degree from La Trobe and worked in community radio, in January he returned to his homeland — the often violent anarchy that is Somalia.
Politics in this strife-torn country has a heavy cost. Mr Farah left behind his white Australian wife and two young daughters for fear of kidnapping. He is constantly shadowed by bodyguards. His final protection is the gun tucked into his trousers.
So why go? “Simple, because I’m a Somali.”
Mr Farah is now minister for oil and minerals in the state of Puntland, a northern Somali region commonly known as the Horn of Africa. He has joined a government in a country that has been ungovernable for almost two decades and an administration not yet formally recognised by the outside world.
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Much of Somalia has been torn by fighting between local warlords, Islamist fanatics believed to be linked to al-Qaeda, occasional US air strikes and troops from neighbouring Ethiopia.
But Mr Farah is convinced there is hope.
“The international community works with us,” he said at the weekend, during his first trip back to Melbourne to see daughters, Bishaaro, 5, and Bilan, 3, and wife Anna-Marie Treeweeke.
Puntland is generally calm, he said, not plagued by the war that since 1991 has afflicted the rest of the county. The president, Abdirahman Mohamud Farole, recently met US and British officials to discuss combating Somali piracy, which has become a major hazard to international shipping. Regional governments in Kenya and Djibouti are engaged.
Mr Farah describes Puntland as an embryonic democracy, one needing help — including from Australia.
“We are working very hard,” he said. “We want the Australian Government to engage Somalia and to engage Puntland for the simple reason we are Somali-Australians … (and) because the problems we face are global issues, in terms of piracy, radicalism and religious fanatics.”
Hargeisa, Jul 19 2009 (Somalilandpress) — As the calendar for the Somaliland presidential election approached, and as Kulmiye party which lost the last round yearned to go on the top this time, then serious, irreconcilable disagreement emerged, which caused the party to literally break down into pieces.
The event that caused the splinter was disagreement about the process of seating the committee that would nominate the party presidential candidate. Most senior party officials wanted the committee to consist of party activists. The founder and chairman of the party Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo wanted none of that. He handpicked individuals loyal to him as committee members excluding anybody he suspected would oppose his nomination.
Among those who were excluded was Dr. Ahmed Isse, who had declared his desire to be nominated as the party’s candidate. Mr. Silanyo put individuals from the Diaspora loyal to him in charge of running the convention and moved the venue away from Hargeisa to Burao, his home town, where he anticipated minimal opposition and much support. This so rankled rank and file party officials that many decided to abandon the party all together. Among those who left are:
Engineer Ali Gurey, the second person to join the party
Dr. Ahmed Isse, former professor at John Hopkins University and external secretary of the party.
Abdirahman Aw Ali, first vice president of Somaliland and running mate of Mr. Silanyo during the last presidential election.
Mohamed Hagi Mohamoud, Chairman of the Economy and Budget Subcommittee of the Lower House.
Osman Hindi, Chairman of Kulmiye Party Office in Hargeisa.
Ibrahim Degaweyne, Executive Committee member and key SNM leader.
Issa Oragte, a key SNM leader; and many, many more.
The men listed above have all high recognition names and are role models to their respective constituencies. The party lost influential leaders and their constituencies.
Thus Kulmiye party ended up being a one legged stool. The very dismal response to the call for mass demonstrations at the end of last April by party chairman Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo validates this proposition. No discernible demonstrations took place in Erigavo, Borama and Berbera.
According to one independent journalist about 20 people showed up for the demonstration in Gabille. As for the heavily populated capital city, Hargeisa, it has been said that the number of people who showed up for the demonstration at the party headquarters approximated the size of a crowd that would normally shows up for a wedding occasion. Only in east Burao did a sizable number attend the rally. It is fair to say that the one leg the Kulmiye’s stool has rests on east Burao.
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Outside this narrow sectional base, there are few holdouts, who are still hanging in there with the party in the hope of landing at high political jobs. The few from Awdal had a painful reality check when the entire Awdal delegation in the Upper House voted, without exception, in April 28, 2008, to extend the term of office of the president and vice-president for another six months.
There is no grass roots support for Kulmiye from Awdal because of the history of the opposition party’s anti-Awdal positions and because of the belief by many that the party was responsible for instigating the recent violence and bloodshed between the brotherly peoples near Eil Bardaale, which is a culmination of the party’s continuous and incessant talk of so-called jurisdictional dispute, with the unconscionable expectation that the party would harvest political dividends from the violent clash of brotherly people who live in the area.
The Awdal delegation at the Upper House reflected the strong sentiments of their people when they rejected Kulmiye’s position regarding the extension of the term of office for the incumbent.
The last five years have given us an ample opportunity to observe the performance of President Dahir Rayale Kahin and the activities and decisions of Chairman Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo. We have learned that leadership qualities are not something that is acquired but is a trait an individual is born with.
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We have witnessed that President Dahir Rayale Kahin is blessed with lots of this trait. The party he leads is a big tent filled with members from the eastern, central and western regions of the country. He presides over a country that is peaceful and democratic. He shepherded the unrecognized state into international respectability and put her on the cusp of recognition.
Today, Somaliland high level delegations visiting overseas are accorded by host countries with the same kind of protocol given to that of others. In contrast, Chairman Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud Silanyo has failed to maintain peace and hold his party together raising questions about his abilities to hold together a whole country peacefully, democratically and win for her recognition when he has already failed the much lesser challenge relating to his party!
Will the voters of Somaliland rehire a reliable and tested leader with a responsible track record or will they take the high risk of hiring some one who is very divisive, dictatorial, erratic and loyal only to a section of society and who has failed to keep his party together?
This is what the voters in Somaliland have to keep in mind when they go to the polls in September 2009.
May God bless Somaliland.
Views expressed in this article are solely that of the author and does not necessarily represent those of the editorial.
The Arab League secretary general has held a meeting with various
officials to discuss the situation in Somalia.
The Arab League Secretary General, Amir Musa has held separate
meetings with various African officials among them Kenya’s Vice
President, Kalonzo Musyoka and Ethiopia’s Foreign Affairs Minister,
Seyoum Mesfin to discuss ways of supporting the Transitional Federal
Government of Somalia [TFG].
The League issued a statement in which it was said that the meeting
was to specifically discuss the situation in Somalia and ways of
supporting the TFG.
Amir Musa said the current Somali government is a legal and should be
accorded all the necessary support now which is a good opportunity.
The Secretary General said support given to the TFG will in turn give
the government a sense of accountability and it will take its
responsibility seriously.
Amir Musa also said his meetings were to also discuss support for the
African Union Mission in Somalia [AMISOM] troops who are in the
country and particularly in Mogadishu so that they can restore peace
and security.
Amir Musa said African Union troops have the support of the wider
international community to continue with their operations in Somalia.
Relations between Arab League and Somalia have been improving in the
recent past despite the deteriorating situation in the country.
Eritrea has meanwhile, rejected the current TFG and said the support
it is getting from the Ethiopian government is not at all beneficial
to the Somali people and that it will not support the TFG nor
recognise it.
By Abdinasir Mohamed
Email: abdinasir4@gmail.com
Mogadishu-Somalia
Berbera, 19 Jul 2009 — Somaliland authorities arrested an MP from Somalia’s transitional federal parliament on orders from Somaliland police Commissioner, Mr Mohamed Saqadi Dubad on Saturday.
Mr Abdalla Ali Ahmed, who hails from Somaliland, was also the former mayor of Somaliland’s port city of Berbera and returned after five years in Somalia. MP Abdalla flew from the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Friday after officially resigning from the weak government of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed.
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Upon arrival he met with local reporters and held a brief press conference at the airport describing the situation in Somalia.
“I arrived in Berbera airport today, I came back for good, I’m done over there (Somalia), I want to hold a separate press conference later in the day here in Berbera or Hargeisa, but the truth is I have just arrived from Nairobi,” he said.
He added: “I want to tell you little about the situation in Somalia, it seems the extremist rebels – Hizbul-Islam and Alshabab group have the upper hand and the government faces onslaught. It will collapse; the honest truth is the government is on life support.”
The threat, Abdalla said, goes beyond these groups to individual extremists and that Somaliland could become a target like in the past [October suicide bombings] and that the government in Somalia is non-existence; it is just a “name”.
The authorities in Berbera did not explain why he was arrested but there is long history of suspicious and political tensions between Somaliland authority and Somali lawmakers from Somalia.
Somaliland became the first independent Somali state in June 1960 and unified with occupied Somalia but that union failed. Somaliland restored its constitution and independence in 1991 after a bloody war with Somalia’s military Junta; however, Somalia has not recovered from the war and has not had an effective central government since the early 1990’s.
Rebels have been making gains since Ethiopian troops, who intervened in 2006, left the country early this year. Many efforts were made by the international community to establish an authority for the failed state but all were unsuccessful.
Mogadishu, 19 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Two French security advisers seized in Somalia will be tried under Sharia law, an official from their captors, the Islamic al-Shabab militia, says.
The unnamed spokesman said they would be tried for spying and “conspiracy against Islam”.
The two, who were training government troops, were kidnapped by gunmen in a Mogadishu hotel on Tuesday and later handed over to al-Shabab insurgents.
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Al-Shabab and its allies control much of southern Somalia.
The al-Shabab official said no date had been set for the trial of the two men.
They were on an official mission to train the forces of the interim government, which has recently appealed for foreign help to tackle Islamist insurgents.
Moderate Islamist President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was sworn in in January after UN-brokered peace talks.
He promised to introduce Sharia law but the hardliners accuse him of being a western stooge.
Somalia has not had a functioning national government since 1991.
Nouakchott, 18 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Shooting has broken out in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott between “armed men” and police, hours before a presidential election was to begin, security sources say.
Mauritanians will be voting on Saturday in a presidential election a year after the overthrow of the country’s first elected president.
Security sources said one of the men that clashed with police was wounded as he threatened to blow up an explosives-filled belt.
Witnesses said another attacker was arrested while a third escaped.
The wounded man was lying in a street in the central Ksar district surrounded by security forces, who kept onlookers at bay, a correspondent for the AFP news agency reported.
One witness said the police had called in army sappers, as an arc light was shone on the scene.
A security source said the assailants might have been extremists under police surveillance.
The attack happened in the same district where an American teacher was shot dead last June. The fatal shooting was claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.
Christopher Leggett, 48, died outside a private language and computer school that he ran. He had lived for several years in Mauritania.
No clear winner
Voting was expected to begin in the early hours of Saturday, with analysts predicting a victory for General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who led the August coup but resigned from the army to contest the election.
But observers believe that no candidate is strong enough to emerge winner from the first round and that a second round run-off is likely on August 1.
At least 1.2 million of the nation’s three million people are eligible to vote.
The election follows an internationally brokered bid led by Senegal to end a political crisis in a country twice the size of France.
Abdel Aziz’s biggest challengers are Ahmed Ould Daddah, head of the main opposition party, the Rally of Democratic Forces; Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a parliamentary speaker and the candidate of the National Front for the Defence of Democracy; and Jemil Ould Mansour, leader of the Islamist party Tewassoul.
Sghaier Ould MBareck, a former prime minister, earlier this month announced that he was withdrawing his candidature to support Aziz, who overthrew Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdallahi as president in the August coup.
In all, nine candidates are standing in the election, designed to restore constitutional democracy to the northwestern African country.
Gabiley, 18 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Some 17 army trucks and their soldiers rolled into Elbardale farmlands on Thursday, shifted out of Sool region to help restore security following last week’s violent clashes that left five dead and three wounded after a farmland dispute sparked a fresh feud between two rivalry clans in the Gabiley region.
The latest clashes between the Hared and Mohamud Nur clans is the fourth time armed conflict has broken out in the region in the past six months. Both clans claim ownership of the land and efforts to resolve the crisis have failed in the past but now the government plans to establish a military post in the region.
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Along with the 17 trucks from Sool, the government also moved army divisions from Burao to Gabiley and Awdal regions as reinforcement as well as fresh police to work alongside the military.
In a related development, Rayale also fired his commerce minister, Mr Osman Qasim Qodah and the minister of the Presidency, Mr Amin Nur Ismael – after they disagreed on the Elbardale conflict.
The government also arrested Radio Horyaal journalists Mohamed Osman Mire and Ahmed Saleban Dhuhul, and has closed Horn Cable TV (HCTV) over their reports on Elbardale on orders from attorney general. The authority accuses both private media of stirring up the rift.
Many accuse the president of fueling the unrests during pre-election period so election can be postponed again for the third time – Somaliland is poised to hold presidential elections on September 27.
Mediation efforts to resolve the conflict through diplomatic channels are also underway both in Awdal and Gabiley region.
Meanwhile, Somaliland elders, religion leaders, Diaspora communities, opposition parties and the government have all called for calm and both sides to break a ceasefire. Tribal disputes are common among Somalis even in Somaliland.
Toronto, 18 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — When a Maclean’s reporter reached Somali journalist Abdi Ahmed Abdul on his cellphone as he walked back to his home through the streets of Mogadishu, he quickly ended the call, apologizing later that evening by explaining that it would not be safe for him to be heard speaking English by members of al-Shabab—the Islamist militia that controls much of the country and whose leadership has been linked to al-Qaeda. “I am scared,” Abdul said. “If they see me talking to somebody in English, I’d be in danger. If anybody is speaking in English, they think he is a spy. It means I am passing information to foreigners, what they call Christians or infidels, people they don’t like.”
Abdul lives near one of the main markets in Mogadishu, a place he calls a “stronghold of the Shabab.” He asked that his real name not be printed. “If they read this, they will come and look for me and blow my brain up.” His family has fled twice to other parts of the country. He’s considered leaving himself, but is now afraid to try.
Abdul’s description of Somalia under al-Shabab is similar to that of Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule. Al-Shabab’s rule is guided by a medieval and repressive interpretation of Islam, and it has attracted foreign jihadists—who may have international ambitions—to Somalia.
This spring, Abdul says, two teenage boys and a teenage girl were sentenced to be lashed 100 times for having premarital sex. The sentence has not yet been carried out, but in June, four men accused of stealing cellphones all had a hand or foot hacked off with machetes after they were convicted by an al-Shabab Islamic court. And in October, a 13-year-old rape victim was stoned to death in front of some 1,000 spectators. “It happens—the amputations, the stoning to death, the whippings, forbidding music,” he says. “They tell women to wear the hijab. They banned films. They even control the memory cards of mobile phones to check if there are pornographic films or films that are anti-Islamic. No cinemas. No music. They even force people to pray.”
Al-Shabab, meaning “the Youth” in Arabic, grew out of the Islamic Courts Union, which briefly controlled Somalia in 2006. Ethiopian troops and covert American Special Forces toppled the Islamic Courts Union in 2006 and 2007, and a “transitional” government was installed in its place. The most radical elements from the ICU then formed new Islamist groups, such as al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam, meaning “Party of Islam,” to oppose the government, which since January has been led by Sheik Sharif Ahmed. Ahmed was previously leader of the Islamic Courts Union but is a moderate Islamist compared to those in al-Shabab.
Al-Shabab receives money and arms from Somalis in the diaspora, from wealthy Arabs in the Gulf, and from Eritrea. Along with its allies, it controls all but a few pockets of Somalia outside the de facto autonomous regions of Somaliland and Puntland—the latter of which has become famous of late as an epicentre for piracy. The Transitional Federal Government has not been toppled because of the protection of some 4,000 African Union soldiers. Its writ barely extends over a few square blocks of Mogadishu. In recent weeks, Somalia’s security minister, Omar Hashi Aden, was killed in an al-Shabab suicide car bomb attack, and scores of parliamentarians have left the country. Barely half remain. “Even an AK-47 bullet fired by the opposition groups can hit the presidential palace,” says Abdul.
Abdul says most Somalis don’t support the Shabab, but are “ruled by fear.” Some still fight against it. When militants desecrated graves and mosques sacred to followers of the spiritual Sufi branch of Islam, normally peaceful Sufis took up arms on the side of the government against al-Shabab, defeating them in several battles in central Somalia.
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In a country that has not had a functioning government for almost 20 years, and where much of the population is malnourished, the fighting has made an already devastating humanitarian situation even worse. Tens of thousands have fled Mogadishu in recent months, and already there are some 250,000 Somali refugees in Kenya. Daniela Kroslak, deputy director of the Africa Program at the International Crisis Groups, describes their conditions as “dire in all aspects.” And, she told Maclean’s, “The Somalia situation is one of the worst, if not the worst, situation on the continent.”
What most worries the United States and other Western governments, however, is not the humanitarian crisis, but the possibility that Somalia may become a base for international terrorism.
Many of the ingredients are there already. Al-Shabab has sheltered several Islamist terror suspects with links to al-Qaeda, including Aden Hashi Ayro, who was trained by al-Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and conducted numerous attacks against foreigners in Somalia before he was killed in a U.S. air strike last year, and Fazul Abdullah Mohammad, who is wanted by the United States for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
Al-Shabab has also opened its camps to international jihadists. The suicide bomber who killed four South Korean tourists in Yemen in March was trained in Somalia, according to Yemeni security, and might have been the attacker who blew himself up in an attempt to murder the South Korean ambassador and investigators a few days later.
Even the insurgency inside Somalia has taken on international dimensions. Osama bin Laden, in a March audiotape address, described the conflict as “a war between Islam and the international crusade.” Al-Shabab echoes this. “They don’t recognize borders,” says Abdul. “They say this world is for Muslims, and there is no difference between an Afghan and a Somali. They do not use the word ‘foreigner’ to describe a non-Somali fighting alongside them.”
These foreign fighters in the ranks of al-Shabab are another worry. Abdul says al-Shabab no longer tries to hide their presence. They come from all over the world and number at least 1,000, according to J. Peter Pham, an Africa security specialist at James Madison University with contacts in Somalia and elsewhere in East Africa.
“The danger is not only that these fighters operate there,” Pham says. “But also there are ethnic Somalis from the diaspora who are taking excursions to fight in Somalia, including young men from the United States and western Europe. The real danger is that while there, they link up with other non-Somali extremists who may have an agenda that directly attacks or at least targets the United States and its allies.” We have already seen what might have been a precursor to such attacks. In October 2008, a series of suicide bombings in Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa, killed at least 20 people. One of the bombers was an American of Somali origin.
So what can the United States and its allies do to mitigate the danger coming from Somalia? It’s a vexing question, in part because all too often it’s near impossible to know just how serious a terrorist threat is until it’s too late. This is especially so in Somalia, where, according to a knowledgeable source, the CIA has only “an attempt” at a station. “Everyone knows who and where they are,” the source says.
“One of the problems that the United States faces is that there are a lot of poorly governed spaces around the world where al-Qaeda, or allies of al-Qaeda, or loose affiliates of al-Qaeda, could potentially set up shop,” says Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow for defence policy at the Council on Foreign Relations who previously taught at the U.S. Army War College. “If every time one of them comes up on the radar screen we decide that it’s going to require a massive effort by the United States to respond, then we’ll bankrupt ourselves.”
The other dilemma is whether responding to the threat might not make it worse. Sending soldiers risks provoking resentment. Air strikes can eliminate wanted terrorists, but often at a heavy price. It took the U.S. several attempts to finally take out Aden Hashi Ayro last May. The failed assassination attempts killed civilians and almost certainly increased popular anger against the United States.
“It comes down to this question: can we intervene without doing harm?” says Brownwyn E. Bruton, an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “If you want to deal with it properly, you’re looking at an Iraq-style investment, where 20,000 peacekeepers isn’t going to do it—maybe 40,000, maybe 60,000. You’re talking about building a government and security forces from the ground up. It’s going to be a 10-year effort. And there’s going to be a lot of violence in the short term, as there was in Iraq.”
Ahmed Abdisalam Adan, a former resident of Ottawa and deputy prime minister of Somalia until Sheik Sharif Ahmed’s government was sworn in this year
Ahmed Abdisalam Adan, a former resident of Ottawa and deputy prime minister of Somalia until Sheik Sharif Ahmed’s government was sworn in this year, hopes that the international community will shoulder this burden. In an interview with Maclean’s, he drew comparisons between Somalia and Afghanistan and argued that the international response should be similar. He wants the United Nations to send troops. While some Somalis would reject any international presence, Adan believes most would accept it as necessary. “Somalis are killing each other every day here on the streets, so why wouldn’t they accept anyone who is coming to save them?”But any large-scale intervention in Somalia would require a massive American contribution. And with its hands full in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, it’s unlikely the United States would contemplate such an investment. This leaves less intrusive options.
Some analysts, such as Daniela Kroslak, believe al-Shabab and its allies need to be brought into the government. “We have to offer something to those people to share the cake,” she says. “There is no way around negotiating with the insurgency.” Adan, the former deputy prime minister, considers this view naive. “This is what we tried to do in 2008, when I was in government,” he says. “I was leading the government delegation in a peace process. We tried everything possible to include them in the process, and they didn’t want to be a part of it. So anyone who now says there needs to be a dialogue with them simply doesn’t understand the reality of the situation.”
It is difficult to imagine much room for common ground between al-Shabab and any Western-backed government. President Ahmed agreed to implement sharia, or Islamic law, but is nonetheless dismissed by al-Shabab as an infidel’s stooge. Bin Laden declared him to be an apostate.
But betting everything on a government that is unable even to control the capital is also risky. The problem with trying to create a strong central government is that it discounts the decentralized and tribal nature of Somali society. “We keep investing in illegitimate top-down approaches, and Somalia has traditionally never had anything but bottom-up movements,” says Pham. “It’s a society where power is traditionally diffuse.”
To the extent that it’s possible, the West should engage directly with the Somali people. They have traditionally followed a moderate version of Islam and are therefore not natural allies of al-Shabab. “The Somali people in that respect are our best asset,” says Bruton. “The Shabab are so foreign and so harsh and so un-Somali in their conduct, that they’re just never going to be able to make it work. And if you accept that, then the best thing you can do is just let them go on and shoot themselves in the foot. What you don’t want to do is galvanize the population into seeing the Shabab as a defence against outsiders, who they really don’t like either.”
Bruton suggests investing in humanitarian relief, economic support, and microcredit projects. This doesn’t mean there isn’t a place for more direct, forceful intervention. Pham says the arms and money pipeline from Eritrea needs to be shut down. And high-value terror suspects should be tracked and captured or killed. But these operations must be conducted with precision and care.
Finally, it might be time for the international community to become more engaged with Somalia’s breakaway regions of Somaliland and Puntland. Engagement with Puntland might have the collateral benefit of undercutting piracy in the region, while Somaliland has constructed a stable, comparatively democratic society but remains diplomatically isolated. Protecting and strengthening Somaliland would restrict al-Shabab’s potential to spread. It would also provide Somalis with a visible alternative to the radical and violent Islam of al-Shabab.
“Partly it’s a conceptual problem,” says Jamal Gabobe, a writer for the Somaliland Times who now lives in Washington. Al-Shabab and its allies have offered their answer to Somalia’s broken society. “If there is another model that is working, you can say, ‘You don’t need to go that way. You can have a peaceful consensus that is not opposed to Islam. It’s a moderate way to express your belief.’ ”
None of these strategies promises quick results. And meanwhile, Somalis are dying from starvation and war, or suffocating under al-Shabab’s interpretation of Islam. There is also the risk that al-Shabab’s camps are already home to those plotting attacks abroad. Should such threats materialize, any strategies proposing patience and restraint will appear recklessly foolish. Somalia is a problem with no easy solutions.
HARGEISA, 18 Jul 2009 (Somalilandpress) — Somalia’s economy is dominated by trade in khat, a narcotic banned in the U.S. and much of Europe.
Eye-popping, head-buzzing khat is loved by Somali men who chew the leaves for their stimulant effect. While most of war-torn Somalia’s economy is moribund, khat does a bustling trade estimated at well over $50 million annually. Doctors warn, however, that the drug is not only a drain on limited Somali resources but is also destroying lives.
Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, the northern territory nominally independent from Somalia which maintains peace and economic activity, especially the khat trade.
Lounging on a rug on the second floor of an ostentatious glass and stone mansion overlooking Hargeisa, Mohamed Yusuf Moge, aptly known as “The Fat Mohamed,” lit up another cigarette. In front of him was a pile of leafless khat twigs. His eyes were wide and red-rimmed, a symptom of the leaves that have been chewed.
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“We bring in 80-tons of khat every day,” he said. “We have many vehicles and two airplanes for transporting our produce. We control the market: We are the De Beers of the khat industry!”
“We” is “571 Allah Amin,” a family business started 15 years ago that has grown to become Somaliland’s biggest khat importer. Moge is 571’s country rep. Although he would not reveal how much the company makes, it is estimated that its revenue is $320,000 a day.
Downtown at the company depot, the second of the day’s trucks arrives from the highland farms of neighboring Ethiopia mid-morning. Thursday is the busiest day of the week because, as one man explained, Friday is the Muslim day of rest so everyone can sleep off their khat hangover.
As the khat truck pulled in, barrow boys and vendors crowded round the tailgate to unload the 70 kg sacks of khat wrapped in hay to keep it fresh. Inside are small bundles of shoots that are bought wholesale for $1 and sold retail for $1.50.
“Business is good!” shouted Omar Hersi Warfa, 571’s depot manager, over the clamor. “We are working hard and people are chewing!”
Khat vendor Shamis Abdullahi Nur, 50, squatting on the ground nearby, agreed.
“Business is very good because of our security and peace,” she said as she directed a sack of khat to be loaded into the back of a beat-up station wagon for the drive across town to her stall. Others pushed smaller consignments away in wheelbarrows.
“I’ve been selling khat for over 30 years and now is the best time. There was a time of war, a time when I was a refugee, but now you can see I am sitting here eating my mango,” she said with a sticky, happy smile
Street prices are highest in the early afternoon because this is gayiil time when most men chew the khat and shoot the breeze. They can be found sitting on carpets in shady spots close to khat kiosks, with an ashtray, a flask of sweet tea and a jug of water at their feet. Women often sell khat but are not invited to chew.
But increasingly men are also chewing in the morning, the evening and throughout the night. The stoned man in a cotton wrap tottering in a daze along a crumbling potholed road with a fistful of green stems is a common sight.
Some warn the national habit does psychological damage. In the mental wing of Hargeisa’s main hospital, a staff member walked past the patients, many of whom were chained to a bed or a post or sat staring vacantly on the floor. “The majority of the men here are affected by
chewing khat, most are schizophrenic,” said Faisal Ibrahim.
Dr. Yassin Arab Abdi, the hospital’s chief doctor, said: “Chewing is part of it although there are many reasons for mental illness. Before they used to chew at a certain time for a few hours now there are four sessions 24-hours a day. These people are addicts.”
Back at the khat mansion, “Fat Mohamed” Moge and his colleagues, however, extolled the virtues of the drug.
“Khat plays a great role in our society. If there’s conflict people have to sit down, chew, talk about it,” Moge said. “It is not like a drug which destroys the mind. It is a stimulant. If you chew khat in the right manner it doesn’t affect you.” But, he admitted, “There are some guys who are addicted, this is because they are jobless and have nothing to do.”
Unfortunately this description applies to many Somali men. The last national government — a military dictatorship — collapsed in 1991. Since then the unrecognized state of Somaliland has declared itself independent while Somalia has descended deeper into war and chaos. Isolation on the one hand and war on the other have left the formal economy shattered with many surviving on remittances sent from relatives abroad.
Yet it is not unusual for men to spend $5 or $10 a day on khat, making the habit a huge drain on very limited resources. The government’s entire annual budget is less than $50 million, around $14 a head for each of Somaliland’s 3.5 million citizens.
Such is the love of khat that to outlaw it would be political suicide. Nevertheless a senior Somaliland politician, Musa Behe of the opposition Kulmiye party, said, “The Somali man works less because he chews khat. We won’t ban it but we need to raise awareness of the harm
khat does.”
Tristan McConnell and Narayan Mahon traveled to Somaliland on a grant from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting.
NAIROBI — Two journalists were arrested and a television station shut down in Somalia’s breakaway region of Somaliland while several others were beaten in the self-declared state of Puntland, a media watchdog said Friday.
The two Somaliland journalists Ahmed Saleban Dhuhul and Sayid Osman Mire were arrested Monday after police raided a private radio station in the region’s capital Hargeisa, Reporters Without Borders said in a statement.
They were accused by Somaliland president Dahir Riyale of stirring a tribal dispute that killed four people, while the region’s attorney general ordered a local TV station shut for airing the same dispute. [ad#Google Adsense (300×250)]
In Puntland, police attacked and beat up several journalists covering a trial of pirates in the port city of Bossaso.
“While the international community?s attention is focused on the abduction of two French government advisers who were posing as journalists in Mogadishu, the real journalists continue to be arrested and attacked with complete impunity,” the group said.
France has denied reports that the two security advisers kidnapped Tuesday in a Mogadishu hotel were posing as journalists.
Somalia is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists. Media houses have been routinely shut down by the authorities and many reporters, Somali and foreign, have been kidnapped by armed groups.
