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Video: Telecom Thriving In Somaliland

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Somaliland’s telecommunication business is booming despite the lack of recognition and having no access to international banks and credit unions.

Al Jazeera’s Jama Nur Ahmed went to Hargeisa to see firsthand how Somaliland’s leading telecom operators are improving the lives of ordinary people.

Six months ago, Somaliland’s leading operator, Telesom unveiled its mobile banking system dubbed “ZAAD Services”, since then more than 40, 000 people use it now in Hargeisa from all walks of life.

What makes Somaliland telecoms so different from others in Africa, is that Somaliland operators are owned by Somalis.

Here is a short footage of that program in Arabic.

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Source: Al Jazeera (Arabic), 24 March 2010

Somali-Canadians Caught In Alberta’s Deadly Drug Trade

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EDMONTON, 24 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Four months after he left Toronto, 21-year-old Abas Abukar was dead.

On Halloween morning in 2008, the former Humber College student’s body was found in Northmount Park, a wooded area in this city’s north end. Abukar had been shot a few hours earlier, an autopsy concluded. He was victim number 19.

A month later, Abdulkadir Mohamoud, 23, was found stripped, beaten and shot to death in a park. He, too, had moved from Toronto, about two years earlier. That same day, Ahmed Mohammed Abdirahman, 21, was gunned down outside a seedy townhouse complex. They became victim numbers 20 and 21. Eight more would be killed after that.

Since the summer of 2005, 29 Somali-Canadians ranging in age from 17 to 28 have been murdered in Alberta, in what police are calling an escalating gang and drug turf war amid the province’s booming oil economy. Some, however, have simply been killed in the crossfire, a situation of hanging out with the wrong people at the wrong time. The killings have occurred primarily in Edmonton, Calgary and Fort McMurray.

The victims were all from Ontario, mostly from the Toronto area, and almost all were either born or raised in this country.

Some moved to Alberta with their parents who, faced with an unemployment rate of 22 per cent in Toronto, the highest of any ethnic group, sought legitimate high-paying jobs while their kids succumbed to the lure of easy drug money. At least half, according to news reports, were known to police, in some cases small-time drug peddlers in Ontario who moved west to make better money in a lucrative drug market.

Edmonton police Chief Mike Boyd says his officers are working closely with investigators in Ontario cities to track the movement of gang members and drugs between the two provinces. But so far arrests have been made in only one case and members of the Somali community, having fled their own war-torn country, are growing anxious.

“I wish we had never moved to Edmonton,” says Faduma Arab, Mohamoud’s mother, who has since moved back to Toronto with her five other children.

“My son might have still been alive.”

——————

Drug trafficking is dangerous anywhere but in Alberta, Canada’s most prosperous province, it has become increasingly more perilous.

In Alberta, the drug business is worth over $5 billion annually and is controlled by well-established gangs such as Hells Angels, native gangs and Asian triads. According to criminal experts, the ‘newbies’ — what the Somali-Canadians are called — are running headlong into other groups, rubbing people the wrong way and triggering turf wars in which they are coming out the losers.

Edmonton police and criminologists suspect Somali-Canadians aren’t even part of true gangs with guns and backup — just young naïve men in loosely organized groups.

Some Somali-Canadians have been recruited by other gangs and are being used at the lowest level as peddlers or mules to deliver drugs, says William Pitt, a former RCMP officer and now a professor of criminology at Grant MacEwan College in Edmonton.

“That makes them a disposable commodity — if the police get them, they don’t know much or have large quantities (of drugs) on them; and if they die… they are no loss to the gangs,” he says.

Gang war has hit Edmonton streets before.

In the late 1990s, Vietnamese gangs in the city battled each other and other crime groups to gain a slice of the city’s drug trafficking, prostitution and gambling. At least 10 people were killed over five years.

Somali-Canadians are easy targets: they are a small Black minority, the largest African group in Edmonton; they typically don’t carry guns; and they likely don’t know the nuances of the established drug trade, says Cathy Prowse, a former police officer, gang expert and criminal anthropologist at Mount Royal University in Calgary.

“There are some rules among gangsters… you never encroach on anyone’s territory, never steal others’ clients or drastically change the price,” says Prowse, who retired from the Calgary Police Service after 25 years.

The new kids on the block aren’t familiar with such subtleties.

“Young people also think they can make some money (in drugs) and get out if there are any problems,” says Prowse. “They are delusional. It’s easy to get in, tough to get out.”

——————

“Come work for me. You’ll be rich,” says a tall man with a goatee, flashing a wad of notes at the three young Somali-Canadian men.

“It’s easy money.”

Jamal Yusuf, 16, a student at J. Percy Page High School in southeast Edmonton, says he had heard of teenagers being offered money to peddle or deliver drugs, such as crack cocaine and heroin, but it was the first time he had been approached.

It was during a house party last summer — a K’naan number was blasting, Yusuf was sipping iced tea and grumbling about homework when the stranger made the offer.

Speechless for a moment, Yusuf says he smiled and declined.

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He has been approached at least half a dozen other times with similar offers since moving from Toronto with his family in 2007. Each time, he has refused.

Yusuf, an easygoing teen with a quick smile, knows the dangers of the drug-related business, but says he wonders why others haven’t noticed the spike in funerals. “Everyone knows what’s going on… I don’t know why people still get involved.”

But according to one small-time drug dealer on the streets of Edmonton who gave his name as Bilal Ahmed, the lure of easy money is difficult to resist.

——————

Ahmed, 19, says he grew up in Toronto’s Kipling and Rexdale Aves. area and moved to Edmonton in 2007 along with his older brother. He never sold drugs in Toronto, he says, but was peddling ecstasy pills within weeks of arriving in Edmonton.

Someone he knew was selling cocaine and offered him the pills to sell, which go for $5 to $20 each. The money was too good to refuse, he says. On a good weekend, he claims to make as much several thousand dollars, although criminologist Pitt says a mid-level drug dealer can make up to $10,000 selling coke or heroin in a single evening. Ahmed says it is also an easy way to make friends, blend in with the crowd, gain acceptance.

Ahmed doesn’t know when or why the violence started but it hit home on Nov. 29 last year when his cousin, Robileh Ali Mohamed, 23, of Ottawa, was killed near a Somali restaurant in downtown Edmonton.

“I thought I was going to be next…”

Somali community leaders in Alberta say many victims appear to be related or knew each other beforehand; indicating one may have lured the other into the drug trade. Just last month, two cousins, Saed Adad, 22, and Idris Abess, 23, both from Toronto, were found dead in a Fort McMurray apartment.

——————

After his cousin’s death, Ahmed fled to Calgary, but returned two months later and is back selling on the streets. On this particular night, it’s about 2 a.m. and –10 C. The street lights are blazing at 107th Ave. near 105th St., close to the downtown core and its shiny corporate high rises, and a block away from a police station. The traffic never stops on the street, where hookers and pimps are known to hang out, and drugs are just a phone call away.

Ahmed, dressed in baggy jeans, a black sweatshirt and an Oilers hat, is sitting in a black Honda Civic in a shopping plaza parking lot where large billboards advertizing a nightclub, a liquor store and a massage parlour jostle for attention.

He’s waiting for a pick-up.

At 2:15 a.m., an SUV pulls up and the driver rolls down a window. The man nods and Ahmed steps out to meet him. Within a minute, money and pills have exchanged hands.

A year ago, Ahmed would have been cavalier — he says he may have hung around for another deal. Now he delivers pills to people he knows well and never stays in one place for long.

He is careful about his movements, never really feels safe. “It’s gonna get bad… like s**t… I’m ready to run back to Toronto,” he says.

—————

Edmonton’s Somali-Canadian community, pegged at 12,000 people, is the largest outside Ontario.

It is now under intense scrutiny, says Mahamad Accord, executive director of Edmonton’s Alberta Somali Community Centre. What angers him is when people call the murders a Somali problem. “It’s not — almost all of these men were born and raised in Canada,” says Accord. “It’s got nothing to do with their ethnicity.”

He acknowledges too many young men are being drawn to crime but says “marginalization combined with a lucrative drug trade in an oil-rich economy has drawn these young men.”

And, he adds, Alberta is less tolerant of diversity than Ontario. “If you are a person of colour, you will be treated differently… doesn’t matter whether you were born here or in Africa.”

Accord and Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, who met with police and Somali community groups in Alberta late last year, say they are trying to educate people and find ways to help Somali youths fit in by starting up homework and sports clubs.

A year ago, faced with criticism over the handling of the murder investigations, Edmonton police assigned Sgt. Patrick Ruzage and Const. Ken Smith, of the city’s gangs and drugs squad, as community liaison officers. Ruzage was sent to Ontario for a week to learn from Toronto police how to work with the Somali community. The two officers spend time mingling with the teens and organize friendly soccer games to try and build trust with the families.

“We are educating them… telling them how they can call Crime Stoppers, help solve a crime and stay anonymous,” says Smith, admitting there has been little success so far. “People are terrified of being snitches and then getting targeted.”

There have been a couple of small victories. The officers, both of whom are black, have been approached by a few young Somali-Canadians about how to become police officers.

—————

Faduma Arab has sworn off Edmonton. Just talking about the time her family spent there chokes her up and her eyes fill with tears.

“I wish we had never moved there… I lost my son there,” says Arab, who now lives in a highrise in south Mississauga.

She phones the detectives on her son Abdulkadir Mohamoud’s case every week; she flies there every few months to see if there is any progress.

“Abdulkadir did not traffic drugs. He was the kind of a son who would clean up the house and cook if I wasn’t there.” She pulls out photos, school report cards of Mohamoud — he got straight As.

One of her younger sons concedes Mohamoud may have hung out with “the wrong people” and was targeted. “I don’t think he even knew that,” says the 17-year-old who did not want his name published. “My brother was a role model for all of us – we looked up to him.”

He never wants to return to Alberta. “I can’t even remember the number of times I was chased from school because people thought I would have drugs… because I’m Somali.”

Mohammed Aden is another devastated parent trying to make sense of his son’s death.

Abas Abukar was only three when the family moved to Canada in 1991 and settled in Etobicoke. He enrolled in the business program at Humber College and worked at Home Depot and Rogers in summer.

He moved to Edmonton in June 2008 “because he wanted to earn tuition money,” says Aden. Abukar had heard from his friends about well-paying jobs and wanted to spend a year working. “I didn’t want him to go… but his words were: I’m 21, I’m a man. I can do this,” says Aden, adding that he spoke to his son every day.

And then one day, he got a call: his son was dead

For the four months that Abukar was in Edmonton, he lived with his sister and her husband. She was pregnant and visiting her parents in Ontario when he was killed. She has since refused to return to that city and her husband has found a new job in Toronto.

“They were shattered,” says Aden. “…we were all broken.”

Source: TheStar

Transforming Somaliland’s Brain Drain in to Brain Hope

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HARGEISA, 24 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – “A brain drain is said to occur when a country becomes short of skills when people of such skills emigrate”

Looking back in my student years, I remember loving memories of my teacher a man who was interested in contributing his ideas and values to his country. It was stiff time to undertake such work where almost social sectors were dead and functionless. Somaliland is now convalescing from the ruin that affected nearly all of its public infrastructures, starting from obliteration to the doors of nationhood followed building. Today, Somaliland people are charming in a democratic process that brought peace, stability and relative prosperity.

Now this young nation enjoys all requirements of modern sovereign state; A definite boundary, internal and external security, and independence and effective judicial system, and free press, Somaliland dramatically improving security situation and modest of political progress. The citizens of this peaceful country either inside or outside sought high and low to attest their country’s development as an evitable matter.

Being contributor and insightful to your society is not an easy chore, but needs handwork, dedication and commitment. Many Somaliland professionals living abroad are seeking ways to contribute to the development of their country. The International Organization of Migration instigated last year some initiatives that are targeted medical doctors, nurses and engineers and other highly skilled people in returning Somaliland to assist public institutions in the country.

Some Diaspora qualified nursed from Filand, Norway and Sweden was making it easier for them to provide services to patients within the hospitals in Somaliland. Others are return voluntary to support their country for their own skills; there were large figures that chose to invest their capital to their personal businesses.

During the wars of freedom a huge number of Somaliland professionals slant to migrate Western Europe and North America as means of getting security and better life. Migration from developing countries to developed one has speed up time after time due to the liberation and civil wars existed many African countries in the continent. Somaliland Diaspora is discouraged from returning home by the political disputes that have erupted in Somaliland for the last year. Failing economies, high unemployment rates, the lack of adequate social services, such as health and education, are some of these factors.

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While migration to the western was persistent act for Somali Landers in search of job opportunity and better life, it was a key challenge facing for Somaliland who already countenanced a staid of human resource shortages. The Somaliland human resource was persistently pooped as their highly skilled and non skilled prefers to emigrate and apply their skills and force abroad owing to the wars of freedom in their country. Rather than blame departing professionals in Somaliland. Many people views these highly Skilled Somalilanders located abroad as potential asset. A study made in Somaliland highlighted that 95% of people back home are living remittances send by relatives in overseas. The study is also tinted that 98% of them are females while the other remaining 2% are men.

Until recently, Somaliland government had expresses little concern about the loss of skilled people, while president Rayale actively attempting to address the challenges of the brain drain. On his trip in abroad in 2008, president Kahin meets professionals and intellectuals who have left Somaliland to ask them how they can contribute to their country’s development. The president said also in press release of his return that a conference between government and Somaliland intellectuals based in abroad will be held in Hargeisa. But that proposal is still missing.

The message is clear, my beloved people in abroad the summer is near, how you plan your summer, are you ready to volunteer this summer for contributing social activities in your people instead of going relaxing trip. You Somalilanders in abroad tighten your belt it time to make summer: A way to help in our
Country.

“Somaliland my country Somaliland my people
From the shimmering of Berbera, and the across the Golis range.
Live is full of hope and goes with lots of endurance and determination.
In the azure sky over Hargeisa lie clouds of hope.
Of course we have people that strive to improve our lives.
The springs that flood our soils, makes our land productive.
Our rich wildlife reserve, can earn a lot in foreign exchange.
The red sea port of Berbera will be the regional hub for the horn of Africa.
All that is needed how is to tap these resources and build our young nation.
That is how I love, study and work in my sweet home”

Written by: Farhan Abdi Suleiman (Oday)
Email : oday1999@yahoo.com
Hargeisa, Somaliland

SOMALILAND: America’s Underestimated Friend

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(SomalilandPress)-Think about Somalia and all that jumps to mind is the image of a lawless country where extremist forces have turned it into killing fields, where people are butchered, maimed and their dignities and human rights are trampled on in the name of a mangled Islam, where piracy is a lucrative business that brings brides and undreamed of wealth and luxuries to hapless maritime scarecrows.

It is a place where the President of the internationally-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) hides in a foxhole called Villa Somalia with the protection of African Forces but gets red-carpet treatment in western countries. A place where corruption is so rife that government officials as well as clan militias and unscrupulous local contractors get hefty bribes in order to allow world donated food supplies to reach the displaced and the needy sheltered in make-shift camps. A place where the TFG’s western trained military sells its weapons to their sworn enemies due to an intricate mix of clan loyalty and endemic indifference to military values and patriotic feelings.

Somalia is a place where each of the fighting groups is so fragmented that any hope of one group coming on top as dominant force to bring stability remains a distant dream. A place where internationally-concocted peace conferences have become a profitable industry that no sooner one is held to satiate the greed of some groups, another one is demanded by groups who feel left out of the spoils of the first by starting another horrendous conflict. Topping the list of these surrealistic images is the picture of the suicidal group Al Shabab that allures disillusioned youth of Somali origin from North America and Europe to be part of what they claim to be a legendary Islamic revolution of equal status to Prophet Mohammed’s conquest of Mecca from the pagan Quraishites or to die for the fantasy of wedding virgin girls in the life after death.

Compare this to another people of Somali stock who managed to avoid all the above vices and vagaries; people who are like your next door neighbors and have worked to restore peace and stability in their territory; people who opted to consult the fine products of their culture and human mind in running their own affairs and kept Islam in God’s turf and in its dignified place of being in the hearts of people to meet the individual’s spiritual needs. It is a place where its people distanced themselves from the lawlessness and butchering taking place in former Somalia. A place where pirates are captured as criminals and put on trial, where suicidal ideologies are shunned and not adorned with grand titles and noms de guerre that are alien to the Somali psyche and culture.

This latter place is Somaliland, a country that gained its independence from Britain in 1960 and has become a full member of the United Nations before it joined the Italian colonized South in a union that brought them only destruction and misery. Almost 30 years after the union, the former British Protectorate of Somaliland walked away from the union with their towns destroyed, their infrastructure in tatters and their whole population in refugee camps. But within two decades and after several inter-clan conferences under their acacia trees, they consolidated peace and established government institutions through a unique blend of customary laws and a multi-party democratic system. Today, while world favored Italian Somalia is still in mayhem, Somaliland has an elected president, an elected parliament, a free judicial body and a vigorous free media.

It also has its national flag, national currency as well as a military and a police force. A score of universities and colleges and hundreds of public and private schools sprang up in various parts of the country. Now as I write this piece, Somaliland National Election Commission is issuing voting registration cards for the upcoming second presidential elections due to take place sometime this year. This makes Somaliland one of the first countries in Africa to apply an electronic voter registration. The three political parties in the country have lined up their candidates and are on the campaign trail to sell their agenda to the people.

The people of Somaliland have achieved this without UN-sponsored conferences and with limited international assistance. But while Somaliland finds it hard to sell its success story of peace, progress and democratization to the international community, the world pours money to the bottomless vortex of lawless Somalia; money that doesn’t feed the needy and shelter the poor but lines the pockets of irredeemably corrupt diaspora carpetbaggers and terrorist groups.

It is amazing, however, how Somaliland people sustain such a strong belief that their resilience and determination would pay at the end, if not by gaining political recognition at least by getting the financial assistance they need for building their capacity in contributing to the safety of the maritime routes against piracy and for bolstering the security of the strategic Horn of African region against the threat of terrorism.

Given the significant role Somaliland plays in safeguarding its coastal waters and checking the spread of Islamism with its meager resources, it is clear that Somaliland can be a vital geopolitical partner for the United States and the EU. The fact that a high profile Somaliland delegation is currently in Washington DC at the invitation of the State Department, is a good indication that the Obama administration is quickly learning that Somalis might not be the same people after all and that spending American tax payers’ money on the good people in Somaliland might put the horse before the cart in dealing with the intricate situation of that Horn of African country and might win America grateful friends who see it as beacon of hope and freedom and not as infidels worth killing.

By Bashir Goth
Email: bsogoth@yahoo.com

__________________________________________________________________________
Views expressed in the opinion articles are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial

Working Mothers in Somaliland: Facts and Challenges

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HARGEISA, 23 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – In every corner of our country, mothers wake up very early in the morning and walk to work places and markets alone, sometimes accompanied by the song of some birds. These mothers are of all ages and their goal is the same. They work hard towards their goal even if circumstances are unfavorable. They have in mind that success has no lift but they should climb the stairs.

They know the situation back at home, the kids waiting to be fed, dressed and stayed with; the older boys and girls in schools waiting the payment of school fees and the bus fair. Many other things related to house pour like a heavy rain drops to the mind of the mothers while walking to the work. These things together occupy mothers’ thinking and a lot of uncertainties fill their mind. They ask themselves about the children, what will happen to them, will they manage to catch the school bus or not, will they be safe; even if there is some one else looking after them,mothers tend to ask themselves these and similar questions.

Our mothers are the back-bone of our existence, they are our everything and they are the source of courage, kindness and well being. In many cases, it happens that mothers work while fathers or the old boys are sleeping or chewing Qat. Surely, these men have neglected their role.They even don’t think that they should have worked and not the mothers. Mothers should have relaxed and enjoyed, they have already had many difficult years, starting from the day they gave birth to their loved children till they grow up. It should have been so, but why do they work? It may seem a little bit difficult to put all answers in a short and easily understood manner.

They work simply to earn for a living, for the betterment of their living standards and that of their children and family in general. Some work because of difficult circumstances forced them to do so. Reasons for working seem different and varied but their result are the same.All end in one point which is the struggle for well being, for better life and for livelihood. In reality it doesn’t deserve to be called a work, because jobs are paid and have definite working hours and conditions, but what mothers do to earn a living is just for survival and not a job. However, the terms work and job are more familiar to our ears and therefore I used them just for simplification purposes.

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Another important perspective is the working conditions and environment. They buy some products in some kiosks, shops and on wheel barrows. Many of them sit on the ground selling fruits and vegetables. They work in a sunny open space, very hot in the day and during rainy seasons unprotected from the storms and heavy rain fall. Dust is their best friend,overcrowding and noise and other pollutions are also their neighbors. Many times their few products are stolen by thieves. Passers by don’t care them and sometimes the police seem their biggest danger.

In many cases, police deal with them with anger and power, destroying and throwing away their belongings. It is a bad picture, yet many mothers never complain. They work under all these conditions. They have no proper places, and the government which should have helped them, takes some of their earning. They take tax from them, but they never get the reward. The tax and some other commissions they pay are never seen again. Those dealing with our mothers like that didn’t forget that they are their children, but their justification is not very pleasing.

Men on the other side forced women to work, many of them ignoring the importance of work, others cursing the circumstances and situations, then giving up. Many also throw an insult and bad words over the government and others blame themselves for not being lucky and born rich. Scapegoating is their only skill;many say that they lack available jobs. Unemployment is there, but they don’t know that they are the reason behind it. Yes, they are because many chew Qat and waste their time, not going to schools and acquiring knowledge. Others are busy with politics and useless speeches and debates in tea-shops.

They don’t know that they have let their mothers down, that they have put a burden so heavy over their shoulders, that they are spoon feeded although they are grown up. Younger girls and boys should have replaced them. Isn’t it disgusting to see seventy old mother working and her boys are loitering around. As far as the government is concerned it should have provided jobs, but it has its own reasons , perhaps right or misleading excuses. Mothers never ask the government about work, they never ever complain about what they are doing, they don’t curse the government rather they pray and ask Allah for leading their sons to the right path.

Our mothers wherever they are in our loved land are not in a happy situation.little do we know about their working conditions and their struggle, very few raise questions about their right for good jobs. The paradise is under the feet of mothers, that is what our religion teaches us. We should take care of them and answer their needs, otherwise we shall not live happily as long as they are working under these harsh times and environmet. Shall we understand our goals more, surely we will become good example and prosperious. Both men and women, we should act wisely, remember our mothers more, and become more responsible. Responsibility is the ability to respond.

Written By:
Ahmed Mohamoud Elmi-Shawky
Somaliland Education Network

KENYA: Terror Suspect Might Have Fled to Uganda

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Nairobi, 23 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Nairobi — A terror suspect who escaped from police custody in Busia is believed to have fled to Uganda, while three police officers suspected to have let him escape have been suspended.

Mr Hashi Hussein Farah, who holds an Australian passport, is alleged to have links with the al Shabaab rebels in Somalia and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda.

Sources at Busia police station said his escape was well planned.

Two area businessmen who visited him at the station and the police officers have been arrested.

“That’s the first step then they will be taken to court and charged,” said Police Commissioner Mathew Iteere.

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In a major operation on Monday morning, police arrested a man they believed was Farah only to realise later that he was a Kenyan businessman.

Busia police boss Micheni Muthamia declined to divulge more information on the operation, only saying that Farah had not been recaptured.

It is alleged that the terror suspect claimed that he was asthmatic and was put in an isolated room where he met the two businessmen, who had brought him food.

Police found Farah missing when they went to fetch him so he could be transferred to Nairobi for interrogation by anti-terrorism unit officers.

Source: AllAfrica

U.S. Contractor Flies AU Peacekeepers To Somalia

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STUTTGART, 23 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – U.S.-contracted flights, working under the NATO banner, ferried some 1,700 Ugandan troops into Mogadishu, Somalia, last week in response to an African Union request for transportation support, alliance officials said in a news release.

The troop movements were made as government officials in the Somali capital are preparing to launch a military offensive to reclaim parts of the city from al-Shabaab — an extremist group with al-Qaida links.

The airlift, which ran from March 5 through March 16, was conducted by the U.S.-contracted DynCorp International. In addition to shuttling troops into Somalia, the airlift also flew 850 Ugandan troops out of Mogadishu, NATO said.

Tensions have been on the rise in Mogadishu as the fragile Somali transitional government has been unable to turn the tide against Islamic extremist groups that seek to seize control of the country and impose a harsh form of Sharia law. And as AU forces dig in for the upcoming fight, a March 10 report by the U.N. Monitoring Group of Somalia raises questions about whether Somalia’s weak security forces and dysfunctional government are capable of achieving any significant gains.

“The military stalemate is less a reflection of opposition strength than of the weakness of the Transitional Federal Government. Despite infusions of foreign training and assistance, government security forces remain ineffective, disorganized and corrupt,” the report stated. “The government owes its survival to the small African Union peace support operation, AMISOM, rather than to its own troops.”

NATO has a standing agreement to provide strategic sealift and airlift support for AU troop-contributing countries that deploy to Somalia. Currently, there are more than 5,000 AU troops operating in there.

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There also has been widespread speculation that the U.S. military could become more involved in the conflict, supporting the Somali government by planting military advisers in the country and conducting surgical special operations forces strikes against the extremists. But earlier this month, Johnnie Carson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters that there were no plans for the U.S. military to become directly engaged in Somalia.

“The United States does not plan, does not direct, and it does not coordinate the military operations of the (Transitional Federal Government), and we have not and will not be providing direct support for any potential military offensives,” Carson said. “Further, we are not providing nor paying for military advisers for the TFG. There is no desire to Americanize the conflict in Somalia.”

So far, U.S. Africa Command’s work in the region has mainly been in the form of providing training to AU peacekeepers, who then deploy to Somalia.

Meanwhile, NATO’s last significant airlift contribution to the AU effort in Somalia was in 2008 when a battalion of Burundian peacekeepers were transported to Mogadishu, according to NATO.

NATO also has five warships operating in the region as part of its counterpiracy mission.

Source: Stars & Stripes

Somaliland Citizen Shortlisted for 2010 International Freedom of Expression Award

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HARGEISA, 23 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Dr. Jama Muse Jama, a Somalilander and PHD holder who currently lives in Italy has been shortlisted for the 2010 awards of freedom of expression.

According to Index on Censorship, Britain’s leading organisation promoting freedom of expression, the honor is for those who often at great personal risk, have given voice to issues and stories from around the globe that would otherwise have passed unnoticed. This award is given to a publisher who has given new insight into issues or events, or shown a perspective not often acknowledged, or given a platform to new voices

This year, for the first time, Dr. Jama comes into the short list as one of the awards most effective candidate from around the globe. He was selected along with other activists from Afghanistan, Israel, Lebanon, UK and others.

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Dr Jama Musse Jama is a Somaliland activist, author, publisher and founder/organiser of Hargeisa International Book Fair. In 2009, Jama published Weerane (The Mourning Tree), biography of Mohamed Barud Ali, one of a group of political activists known internationally as the Hargeisa Self-Help Group, who were imprisoned under the late dictator Siyad Barre. Jama is editor of www.redsea-online.com, the only forum dedicated to the exchange of views on Somaliland culture and literature in both English and Somali languages. The site also acts as online library and bookstore.

Jama wrote and published Somali Writers’ Association 2008 book of the year, Freedom is Not Free, which explains to ordinary citizens the significance of Article 32 of the Somaliland constitution, which “guarantees the fundamental right of freedom of expression and makes unlawful all acts to subjugate the press and the media”. The book is part of a wider campaign in conjunction with Somaliland human rights groups for freedom of expression.

Somalilandpress

Kenya Police Criticized For Losing Terror Suspect

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NAIROBI, (Somalilandpress) — A senior immigration official says the Kenyan police should explain how an Australian terror suspect handed to them by immigration investigators escaped from their custody.

The official said Monday that the man, Hussein Hashi Farah – identified as an Australian national of Somali origin – was arrested at the Kenya and Uganda border March 9 because he was on an international watch-list.

Farah went missing four days later. The immigration official was speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

Kenyan police spokesman Eric Kiraithe declined to comment. A second police official said the suspect was a member of the Somali terror group al-Shabab. The official also spoke on condition because he is not authorized to speak with the press.

Source: AF, 22nd March 2010

Who Do you Want to Dispense Justice – Committees or Courts of Law?

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HARGEISA, 22 March 2010 (Somalilandpress) – On 13 March 2010, the House of Representatives’ Judiciary, Justice and Human Rights Committee submitted to the House a report about Somaliland prisons which brought to the attention of the public again the number of persons currently imprisoned on the orders of the Somaliland security committees. The report stated:

• Of the 765 prisoners held at the Mandhera prison in February 2010, 373 were sentenced by courts of law, whilst 300 were in prison on the orders of the Somaliland. The security committees’ prisoners included one person held since 2006 and two persons held since 2005.
• At the smaller Berbera prison, there were 7 security committees prisoners and the prison governor confirmed that there are usually more.
• At Gabiley prison, of the 132 prisoners, 32 were held on the orders of the security committees. Of these, one was sentenced by a committee to 18 months imprisonment and another was held for a year.

The House Committee reminded the Minister of Interior (who is in charge of the security committees) that the Constitution and the laws of the land do not allow anyone outside the judiciary exercising judicial powers and that the question is not so much why these persons were in prison, but why they have not been brought to a court of law.

The response from the government came, surprisingly, from the Justice Minister . The Minister who has, in the past, being reticent about the extra-judicial activities of the security committees argued that, as far as the government is concerned, the actions of the security committees were legal and were based on the Public Order Law. If it is the 1963 Public Order Law that the Minister is referring to, then none of its 78 articles set up a security committee or allow any detention except in situations when a state emergency has been declared by the President and the Parliament, and even then any such detentions are time limited and are subject to confirmation and review by the ordinary courts of law. No such national state of emergency has been declared under the strict provisions of Article 92 of the Somaliland Constitution. It has been our view that the way the security committees work owes more to the dictatorship’s security decrees and practices than to the 1963 law.

The Somaliland government has so far disregarded the unanimous condemnation of the extra-judicial activities of the security committees by:

• many Somalilanders, at home and abroad, and including members of the House of Representatives ;
• the Somaliland opposition parties and civil groups
• the international human rights organisations (for example Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International in 2009 alone);
• the US State Department (in its yearly human rights reviews – latest 2009); and
• the UN Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Somalia/Somaliland – 2008 report, for example.

The detention and imprisonment of persons without due process is contrary to the Somaliland Constitution and the rule of law. The activities of these committees have also done untold damage to the reputation of a country which is aspiring to become one of the few in the region where democracy and respect for the rule of law and human rights are taking root. Human Rights Watch (2009) has summarised the government’s use of the security committees as follows:

“By using bodies that have no viable legal foundation, make no effort to conform to the rights enshrined in the Somaliland constitution, and which elicit no rebuke from the courts, the executive has appropriated much of the power of the judiciary for itself. In the process it has stripped away most of the fundamental rights that are guaranteed to everyone brought before the courts.”

Somalilandlaw.com and others have repeatedly called for the immediate end of the extra judicial activities of the security committees and for the latter to concentrate on their role of helping in the maintenance of security and peace and to leave law enforcement and dispensing justice to the police, the prosecution service and the courts. We repeat that call again and urge all civil groups to make similar calls.

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We appreciate that many of the provisions of the Public Order Law 1963 that have nothing to do with security committees, although dated and not fully in line with modern human rights law, can be used, in the interim, after the government publishes them clearly, until a new modern law can be passed by the parliament. The government has failed over the last 7 years to submit a modern bill to the parliament, and it is no wonder then that its misuse and abuse of the 1963 Public Order Law has led to calls for the total rejection of this old law.

We are disheartened by the fact that the continued intransigence of the government on this issue has made the constitutional/supreme court and the lower courts wary of challenging these unlawful detentions. Now that the Justice Minister pronounced that these detentions are made under the Public Order Law 1963, then even if we assume that such detentions were made under a declared state of emergency, surely the courts can then exercise their powers under Article 72 of the Law which states:

“Article 72 – Confirmation of Restrictive Measures
1. All measures concerning arrest or search of persons or premises taken during a state of emergency under the an ordinance referred to Article 71, paragraph 1(b) [relating to persons suspected of a crime or activities contrary to public order and security] shall be promptly notified to the competent court for confirmation within 30 days from such notification.
2. Except in cases of criminal proceedings, the arrest of persons suspected of such activities contrary to the public order and security may be confirmed for such period as is necessary to prevent the danger of disorders; provided that such period shall not exceed 90 days. The Regional Court within whose territorial jurisdiction the arrest was made shall have exclusive jurisdiction in the matter.
3. An appeal against the confirmation referred to in the preceding paragraph shall lie to the Supreme Court and shall be filed in the manner prescribed by law.”

Courts therefore have jurisdiction to review these detentions even when made under a state of emergency. But as there was no declared national state of emergency, the detentions are not lawful, even under this exceptional provision of the Public Order Law 1963, and therefore the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal can use their Habeas Corpus under Article 66 of the Criminal Procedure Code to order the release of the detainees. Habeas Corpus was the first power of the courts that the military dictatorship suspended in 1970, and it is sad that nearly 20 years after its reinstatement in Somaliland and the adoption of a Charter/Constitution which guarantees the right to liberty (specially under Articles 25 to 28), the Somaliland courts have not so far offered justice to these detainees. We hope the Supreme Court will show leadership in defending both the independent constitutional role of the judiciary, as well as the rights and freedoms of individuals.

Finally, we are coming this year (again) to numerous elections at national and local levels. Public order issues are always heightened during election times , and it is fitting, therefore, that every candidate must be asked a simple question: Do you want committees (of public officials) who hold no hearings or courts of law (with the police, prosecutors and judges) to dispense justice in Somaliland? It is a stark and simple choice – justice, sometimes, is that simple!

Ibrahim Hashi Jama
Somalilandlaw Editorial
editor@somalilandlaw.com