Ainashe.net

In an opinion peice on the East African Standard, Abdulkadir Khalif  writes: 

ON JANUARY 6, a roadblock was re installed at Bakara crossroads, a strategic section of the heavily used Wadnaha Street. A group of armed militia claiming to be loyal to the Minister of Internal Security, Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, manned the roadblock, demanding leejo.  The public reaction was one of outrage, as people could not believe that someone claiming to be a government minister could allow armed youth to harass people, especially motorists and their passengers. The “Minister in Mogadishu” did not issue a statement disassociating himself from the youngsters’ acts, further infuriating the city’s residents.  In Karan district, a stronghold of Al-Hajji Muse Sudi Yalahow, the Minister of Commerce, the situation is even worse. There are armed youth everywhere and gunfire is frequent, giving the lie to the minister’s claim that he would make the city completely free from violence.  The growing expression of opposition to warlords in Mogadishu is an obvious reaction to their obstruction of the president and the prime minister. Their promises to disarm their forces have not materialised and the militia they assembled at two camps outside the capital have long been disbanded. 

Click here to view the full piece on the East African Standard. 

The Institute of Practical Research and Training (IPRT) headed  by Dr. Ahmed Hussein Essa helped the regional “Guurti” (House of Elders) Hall to be renovated through a grant by the National Endowment for Democracy here in Washington, DC.

 

According to the BBC News: 

A small community in wintry Norway wants to help a group of East African refugees back to work by importing a flock of camels. 

As someone who takes a great pride for being Norwegian “camel man” who happens to be originally from Somalia, I am quite excited to hear that camels are being brought to Norway. However, the camels we are talking here are NOT real camels; they are from Mongolia! 

Click here for the full story on the BBC News. 

Think about this! There is a starving wife with small and hungry children in her care with no food to feed her dying children. Luckily the WFP is trying to rescue this unfortunate family with the needed food that could keep those children alive. Unfortunately, her husband, the father of the children is a member of the tribal militia that is preventing the food to reach that family! Can any anyone understand the twisted logic of the apparent destructive tribalism on display here? This mad and rather cruel father seems to be prepared to kill his own children! For what? 

This is how the story is reported by the the Reuters’ news agency.   

When Habiba Hassan’s food ran out, she fed her four children on boiled bones and aran, a bitter leaf that grows in Somalia. She blamed her husband for the family’s plight, and not just because he abandoned her. Hassan said her husband was with a militia group manning a roadblock near the Wajid refugee camp where she lives in a small shack made from plastic bags, dirty rags and pieces of cardboard box since fleeing fighting in southern Baidoa.  “He is with the militia who are holding the (World Food Program) food aid that was coming our way,” she said last month. “He does not care about us.” The 14-truck aid convoy was the first in years to risk the land route from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Wajid, a town in barren and dangerous south-central Somalia. The United Nations’ food agency was forced back onto Somalia’s potholed and perilous roads after pirates hijacked two of its ships last year, complicating efforts to get food aid to people hit by years of conflict and a severe drought.   

Click here to view the full dispatch on the Reuters news agency.

M.J.Akhbar went to Somalia recently and sent a dispatch. He wrote:

Somalia is not a country in search of a government. It is a government in search of a country.  

Mr. Akhbar went on by saying:    

The true sadness of Mogadishu is not what it has become, but what it once was, and what it could have been…… Somalia is now one of two regions where the Red Cross uses armed guards, rather than the humanitarian credibility that keeps it safe elsewhere. The only other place is Chechnya.  

This is very descriptive article with lots of details about the devastation of the tragic Somali civil war. 

Click here to view the full article on the Khaleej Times.     

The World Bank and UNDP Joint Secretariat has released it lastest briefing on the Joint Needs Assessment for Somalia. The JNA technical expersts are now in session in Hargaysa and will address the regional parliament on Tuesday, January 17th, 2006. 

Click here to view the full briefing.    

Somalia: Hunger and Starvation on the Horizon 

Sadly the question here now is not if people will die — but how many! 

Paul Smith-Lomas, OXFAM International, Regional Director, East Africa. 

M.J.Akhbar writing for the Asian Age newspaper went to Somalia and sent this dispact from Magadishu.      

Fear is rational. As long as one is anonymous death can only be an accident. It is superfluous to fear an accident in a minefield: the mine has nothing personal against you. It became different when my friend said, while we were dining on the terrace of the Shamo Hotel and Residence Plaza, a heavenly breeze blowing from the Indian Ocean, the stars of the southern hemisphere dominated by Mars to my left and the Orion belt to the right of my occasional gaze: “This is an oral society.” We were at the hotel where a few months ago Kate Peyton of the BBC had been shot dead.    So far, I felt far more protected by anonymity than the “technicals”. The Red Cross does not advertise its travel plans. Unlike the United Nations (when it is around, and it disappeared from Somalia in March 1995), which believes in the power of the press release, the Red Cross appreciates the virtues of silence. But by now word would have spread that a journalist was in tow: this is an oral society.

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Donors must respond now if we are going to avert a humanitarian catastrophe.

Arthur Holdbrook
Regional Director for Eastern and Central Africa
World Food Program

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) released its monthly report for December and paints a grim picture about the looming hunger and starvation facing the Somali Nation.

The report states:

Children, women and vulnerable communities in Somalia face a serious food shortage in the coming months. With people already suffering from the effects of poor health and insecurity, a food crisis will compound their anguish further.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO’s) Food Security Assessment Unit (FSAU), with information verified by numerous agencies operating in Somalia, asserts that the humanitarian situation is steadily worsening and that poor rains have dramatically affected food availability. FSAU estimates, released on 20 December 2005, put at two million the number of people vulnerable to humanitarian emergency and/or acute food and livelihood crisis in Somalia with 1.7million of them being in Central/Southern Somalia. In the worst affected regions of Gedo, Bakool, Bay and Middle and Lower Jubba, agencies are already reporting increased admissions at feeding centres and a rise in cases of diarrhoea in certain areas. There is urgent need for interventions in the health, water, nutrition and other sectors to ensure livelihood to avert a major crisis.

Click here for the full report on the ReliefWeb .

You may also like to click here for UNICEF’s Somalia page.

The United Nations launched its Humanitarian Appeal 2006 and says:

The “Humanitarian Appeal 2006”comprises the Consolidated Appeals for relief projects of UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for Burundi, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, occupied Palestinian territory, Republic of Congo, Somalia, Uganda, Zimbabwe, the Great Lakes region of Africa and the West African region.

Click here for the full report on the UN News Wire.

Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) published its annual list of the 10 most under-reported humanitarian emergencies. Needless to say, Somalia is on the list.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) says:

Since 1991, Somalia has been a state without a functioning central government. Fourteen years of conflict has precipitated the collapse of public health structures and a total absence of health care services. In most parts of the country, clinics and hospitals have been looted or seriously damaged by armed groups, while the UN estimates that there are only four doctors and 28 nurses or midwives for every 100,000 people. Sometimes, people travel 500 miles just to reach one of the few existing health centers. The result of this situation has been catastrophic, with malnutrition, extreme poverty, and drought just some of the many scourges faced by Somalis.

Médecins Sans Frontières went on by saying:

Last year’s lack of rain - one of the worst droughts to hit the country in twelve years - may expose nearly two million people in the south to acute food shortages in the next six months. Few aid agencies, though, choose to work in Somalia because violence is so widespread and the country’s clan structure so complex, yet with no state medical services, there is a desperate need for assistance. MSF has been working in the country since 1986, and provides emergency assistance in the worst-affected areas in south and central Somalia.

Click here to view the full list on MSF’s website.

The Relief Web reports:

Trócaire has launched a targeted emergency response that will commit some €750,000 to the emerging food crisis in the Horn of Africa: Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti.
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) an estimated 11 million people in the region are on the brink of starvation following severe drought, crop failure and the loss of livestock, which has been triggered by poor rainy seasons in the effected countries over the past year. Last year in Somalia the rainfall was less than 20 per cent of the annual average.

The report went on by stating:

In southern Somalia - traditionally the most prosperous area of the country - it is anticipated that crop harvests will be the lowest in the past decade. Likewise in Kenya poor rainfall in the north and east for three rainy seasons in a row has worsened food shortages there. Only 16,400 of the required 64,000 tonnes of food have been made available and conditions are considered to be at the worst level in the area for the past ten years. Trócaire is significantly increasing its work in both Somalia and Kenya as a result.

Click here for the full report on the Relief Web.

Rosemary Heenan of the Irish Aid Agency Trócaire was quoted as saying:

The situation here in Somalia is extremely grave and immediate action is required to prevent a full-scale famine.

Ms. Heenan went on by saying:

This is as bad as things have been here for at least 10 years. We will be concentrating our efforts on trying to contain the situation. The international community should also work on a coherent response.

I agree with Ms Heenan the food crisis in Somalia is so grave that without an immediate international invention the situation could get out of control with millions of Somalis starving to death. Help must come and it must come NOW!

Click here for the full dispatch on the Ireland Online site.

A new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre says:

The suffering of hundreds of thousands of people displaced in Somalia during almost 15 years of conflict has long been ignored by the international community. Over the past couple of years, however, and in particular during 2005, a certain dynamic has unfolded within Somalia and among the involved UN organisations, which could eventually lead to a more effective response to the enormous protection, assistance and reconstruction needs of the country’s internally displaced people (IDPs) and other vulnerable populations.

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The VOA reports:

Drought continues to takes its toll in East Africa, causing food and water shortages throughout the region. The Somali Transitional Federal Government has called for immediate assistance for communities affected by the drought. It says thousands of people in parts of southern Somalia may starve unless help arrives.

Click here for the full dispatch on VOA.

Rt. Hon. David Drew; member of the British House of Commons (Parliament) from Stroud asked the Secretary of State for International Development, “if he will make a statement on the threat of famine in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti”.

To my knowledge, the Secretary is yet to make that statement. I will publish it here as soon as it is made public. So stay tuned!

Good News: The world seems to notice the plight of the Somali people that are facing severe food crisis and starvation. We must keep the moment going until the crisis is averted.

Daawanaayow waa dalkaagii!

The Somali Transitional Federal Government made a desperate appeal to the international community today to help alleviate the food crisis and the looming starvation in the country. To its credit, the TFG scrambled a new ministerial team to coordinate the crisis. I believe this is a step in the right direction. However, as I wrote yesterday (see below or click here) the government must do more by elevating this crisis to the top of its agenda.

The lives of millions of Somalis are in an eminent danger. Hence, neither the TFG nor anyone else should rest until the crisis is averted.

Click here for a dispatch by IRIN News.

I believe deeply in the dignity of every individual

Rt. Hon. Donald Anderson MP
Swansea East, Wales, UK.
Former leader of the Select Foreign Affairs Committee
British House of Commons

By the way, I consider the Rt. Hon Donald Anderson as a good friend. I met him several times in the House of Commons and I attended many meetings he chaired. I was doing some research at the time on British development policy towards Africa. I was student at University of East Anglia. Mr. Anderson retired from the Commons before the last general election.

Following is a short translation of Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush’s recent speech in London. The reporting is done by the BBC Persian service.

Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush, in his most recent speech in London entitled “The Ideal Islamic State”, has spoken about the inability of fiqh [Islamic jurisprudence] to deal with many of the concerns of modern-day society, as well as about the challenges faced by Muslim immigrants in non-Islamic societies. Dr. Soroush argued that, despite the assumption made by many Muslim thinkers that fiqh contains solutions to “all human concerns”, the experience of the establishment of the Islamic Republic by an Iranian faqih (cleric/expert) in Islamic jurisprudence] proved that, despite its broad scope, fiqh does not have answers to many of the questions and concerns of modern-day human beings.

Dr. Soroush seems to be taking a very narrow view about the Islamic faith and indeed about other religions and the world in general. He should know that there is no system or religion that could claim to address, as Dr. Soroush puts, “all human concerns” to its infinitesimal level. The idea that religion deals with human conditions from a very broad point of view is not peculiar to the Muslim faith. Islam gives universal set of beliefs and guidelines regarding how believers (Muslims) should live their lives in accordance with the Holy Koran and the Hadith. The rest is left to individual to decide as long as his/her actions do not conflict with those guidelines and teachings of Islam. For instance, you will not be able to find in the Holy Koran instructions on how to iron your trousers nor will you able to learn anything about computer programming by reading the Holy Koran or the Bible for that matter. In short, Dr. Soroush’s attempt to argue for secularism by saying that the Islamic religion is too general to solve world problems is self defeating. (more…)

Trócaire; the official overseas development agency of the Catholic Church in Ireland says:

Health workers in Somalia are dealing with the worst cases of malnutrition for years, because of inadequate rains and the continuing insecurity in the country. The worst-affected region is Gedo in the south west of the country where, in some districts, entire crops have failed. This has had a disastrous effect on the population who are predominately agro-pastoralists, dependent on a few crops, including sorghum and maize. Cross-border fighting, leading to disruptions in trade and an influx of displaced people from El Waq, near the Kenyan border, has exacerbated the situation.

Click here for the full dispatch on Trócaire website.

According to Reliefweb:

Six million people are on the brink of starvation in the Horn of Africa region due to severe drought, crop failure and depletion of livestock herds, according to the United Nations. The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said about 2 million people needed urgent humanitarian help in Somalia. The situation was also very serious in southeast Ethiopia, with up to 1.5 million people affected, and Djibouti. According to the United Nations at least six million people in Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti need food, but only 16,400 tonnes of the required 64,000 tonnes have been made available. Trócaire is currently developing a targeted response by expanding its work in both Somalia and Kenya, at an estimated initial cost of €23,000.

Xasan Maxamed Nuur (Shaatiguduud); the Minister of Agriculture of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) should be applauded for being less troublesome than the destructive Mogadishu warlords such Qanyare and Yalaxow. However, he must come out to the limelight now and he must stand up for the Somali people and address the severe food crisis issues that are facing our nation. He must appeal to the international community on behalf of our people as Minister for Agriculture. He cannot keep sitting under the cool shade of big tree and eat his mango till eternity. In short, he must act like a Minister who takes his duties seriously.

The Somali people are getting tired of the so called government ministers who want to be ministers for the sake of the title without having any clue whatsoever about what to do with their powerful government positions let alone how to discharge the duties entrusted upon them. Perhaps, I should not single out Shaatiguduud since the majority of the ministers failed and failed the Somali people miserably, but we must remember that the lives of millions of Somalis are on the line and that’s something that cannot be taken lightly. Hence, Shaatiguduud must act and he must act NOW.

Click here for the full report on the ReliefWeb.

Eid Mubarik to you all from Amina, Khadija and me.

May the blessings of the Eid be upon you!

“Labbaik Allahumma Labbaik” (Here I am O God, answering your call).

Peace on Earth!

Here is a letter sent to the “Dear Economist”-Tim Harford of the Financial Times and the IFC of The World Bank Group.

The letter reads:

Dear Economist,
My husband is a successful accountant in his early 40s but his behaviour can only be described as workaholic. He is often at the office until 8pm and always brings work home. How can I convince him to cut back on his workload and spend more time with me and the children?
Margot Hillens, London

Here is how the “Dear Economist” replied:

Although you describe your husband as workaholic, that term is ambiguous. (You may wish to consult a paper by Hamermesh and Slemrod on “The Economics of Workaholism” subtitled “We Should Not Have Worked on this Paper”.) The first possibility is that your husband is not addicted to work, he simply prefers working to being at home - or, to be blunt, he prefers accountancy to you. If this is true, the solution is to make home life more attractive: learn to cook, invest in a better haircut and spend some time on an exercise bike. Alternatively, your husband may be desperately trying to cut down on his work and need your help. He may be wracked with guilt after every late night. If this seems more accurate, you must remove temptations and create strong barriers against relapses. Hide his BlackBerry and take him out to dinner with important guests.

This sounds quite scary… but it is true to the extent that a “rational” and a calculated decision is made by the individual! Unfortunately, that is not always the case despite the fact that economists (I am trained as an economist) tend to make that assumption about human behavior, in particular, when they are making economic decisions. Having said that the fact that I tends to spend more time on blogging about Somali politics and advocate strongly for Somali Nationalism rather than watch MTV says quite bit about my personal preference on how I chose to spend my scare resource (time) . In that sense, Mr. Hartford’s analysis is correct!

Click here to view the column on Tim Harford’s weblog. Alternatively, you may like to click here to see the full column on the Financial Times-(It is a paid service!).

The Heritage Foundation declares Hong Kong as the World’s freest economy. Simon of the Simon’s world disagrees and says:

I shall give you my choice for the world’s No1. It is Somalia, which has no government at all and where a very free village-based economy is emerging. It is doing so with no foreign aid, for which Somalia may be grateful. Going by a benchmark measure that staging a one-hour African gun battle costs about US$100,000, and taking into account that Somalia no longer has any foreign money to divert to this pastime, it is also a more peaceful country than it might otherwise be. But Somalia certainly does not fit the foundation’s cookie-cutter approach to rating economic freedom and it was not even included in the index.

We have our rating, largely thanks to the approach the foundation has taken, which, whether deliberately or not, happens to emphasise foreign trade and foreign investment over domestic economic considerations. We fit that cookie cutter perfectly. And this suggests one last question for the foundation. How much of your funding, sirs, comes from Hong Kong donors?

I agree entirely with Simon, Somalia has, without a doubt, a truly “Laissez-faire” economic system and thus the world freest economy. And it should stay in that way forever. Neither the TFG nor any future Somali government should make any regulatory intervention in the economy. The socialist “Command and Control” economic system failed and failed us miserably. Our hope for economic survival rests entirely on free markets and the entrepreneurial free spirit of the Somali business community.

In short, the government must do what it is good at; security, international diplomacy, law and justice!.

Click here to view the full story on the Simon’s World. You may also click here to view the full economic freedom index.

The Yemen Times reports:

President Ali Abdullah Saleh personally and unilaterally decided to appoint Ahmed Hameed Ali Omar as Yemen’s ambassador to Somalia, sources close to the Presidency said today. The move was made to emphasize “Yemen’s concern about the security in Somalia and to show support for the traditional government so it could start rebuilding governmental institutions”, the sources added.

The paper went on by saying:

This was an unusual appointment that ignored the routine procedures, which should be initiative by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who in this case, was bypassed completely. This indicated Saleh’s interest in securing peace in the war-torn country, which had participated in a recent conference held in Aden tackling security and cooperation related issues among the countries of the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

This is a great news for TFG and the Somali people in particular. Most Arab governments seems to have abandoned Somali and its people. However, H.E. Ali Abdallah Salah is pushing for peace and political stability in Somalia. The Somali people are in great debt to President Salah for his tireless support of the Somali people and its government. We salute President Salah!

Click here for more on the Yemen Times.

On today’s editorial, the Arab News online says:

The consequences of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s second, this time major, stroke are enormous. The politics of the entire region, not just of Israel, have been thrown into chaos as a result. Whether he survives or not, he is already past history. It is impossible to imagine that, were he to improve, he could continue in power.

The paper went on by saying:

Whatever we think about the mechanics of the disengagement policy, it had actually started to meet Palestinian aspirations. An end to it at Netanyahu’s hands would reap a whirlwind of Palestinian fury and despair, expressed in renewed violence and suicide attacks. It would mean death and destruction for both Israelis and Palestinians. It would mean greater political instability in Gaza. In the wider region, it would feed hate and boost terrorism.

Putting Sharon’s past actions into historical and political perspective the paper concludes:

It is bizarre that the departure of a man whom most Arabs, even many Israelis, regard as a war criminal could somehow be regarded as opening the path to something far worse. Yet the fact is that the man who was the arch-Zionist, the champion of settlements, who was behind the Sabra and Shatilla massacres, who goaded the Palestinians into suicide attacks, became a pragmatist. At the end of a career based on unremitting hostility to the Palestinians, Sharon realized that Israel could not hold on to Gaza and the West Bank indefinitely, that it cannot remain an armed occupying, armed camp forever. Not that in any way he became any less of an arch-Zionist. There is no paradox in what he did. He simply drew in the boundaries to exclude the Palestinians, rather like South Africa’s apartheid rulers did in the 1960s when they set up the Bantustans and hoped to push out as many blacks as possible from their chosen land.

It is ironic but the hopes and political aspiration of both the Israeli people and Palestinians rests upon Sharon`s survival and his party; Kadima. Hence, for the sake of lasting peace in the Middle East, I was hoping that Mr. Sharon will recover and perhaps stay in the Israeli premiership for few more months. However, it is very unlikely that he will come back to power even if he survives.

For the record, I have never liked Mr. Sharon. This is mainly due to his hard-line and cruel treatment of the Palestinians under Israeli occupation. He was called the “The Bulldozer” for a reason! Having said that, I thought, as Arab News Online has observed also, that Mr. Sharon was becoming a political pragmatist and thus was determine to make serious peace deal with Palestinians. Unfortunately, with Bibi Nathanyahu leading Likud, it is very unlikely things will improve for the Palestinians anytime soon. Sad!

Click here to view the full editorial on the Arab News online. You may also click here to view my short comment on Ha’aretz, the Isreali leading Englsih daily newspaper.

Amos Oz has very good commentary on The Guardian today.

The Yemen Observer has full text of the agreement between President Cabdullahi Yusuf Axmed and Shariif Xasan Sheekh Aadan; the run-away Speaker of the Somali Transitional Federal Parliament.

Click here to view the full text of the agreement on the Yemen Observer.

You may also like to click here for audio dispatch by the VOA africa Corresspondent.

David Bamford; the Africa Correspondent of the BBC News writes:

Rival Somali political leaders have extended their meeting as they try to finalise a deal that could lead to the restoration of central government. Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Parliamentary Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan are reported to have made progress in Yemen talks. It provides the hope that Somalia might start to emerge from its current state of virtual anarchy. The country has been factionalised and basically lawless since 1991. Technically, the president and parliamentary speaker should be colleagues in the same administration elected by parliament in late 2004.

Click here for the full dispatch on the BBC News website.

You may also like to click here to view full index of today’s news on Somalia.