February 27, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Somali Pirates Release Hostages
26 Feb – Source: Radio Danan – 101 Words
Somali pirates released 4 Sri Lankan captives whom they were holding for four years, after they captured them off the Somali coast in 2011. The foreign nationals were handed over to the government of Galmudug State in central Somalia after Galmudug officials negotiated for the captives to be released. The pirates were holding them in Mudug Region for the duration of their captivity. It is anticipated that they will be flown to their country soon.
Key Headlines
- Somali Pirates Release Hostages (Radio Danan)
- One Soldier Killed After Gunmen Attack House Of Bari Governor (Radio Goobjoog)
- Three Wounded In Mogadishu Shelling (Radio Dalsan)
- Puntland And Ethiopia Due To Form Bilateral Committee To Brush Up Custom Centre Agreements(Radio Goobjoog)
- Talks Between SFG And Somaliland Delayed (Radio RBC)
- UN Extends Amisom Mandate In Somalia By 12 Months (Daily Nation)
- Braamfisherville Soweto: Burning Man. Burning Somali Man. (Daily Maverick)
- Transfer Denied: The Hidden Costs of Washington’s War Against Al-Shabab (Foreign Policy)
- US Bank Regulators Seek To Destroy Somalia’s Economy (Al Jazeera America)
- We Must Do More To Protect Civilians Worldwide (The Star Kenya)
- Federal Somalia: Not If But How (Heritage Institute)
SOMALI MEDIA
One Soldier Killed After Gunmen Attack House Of Bari Governor
26 Feb – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 105 Words
At least one person has been killed and another injured after unidentified gunmen attacked the house of Bari governor, Abdisamad Mohamed Galad, on Thursday evening. The gunmen engaged in an armed confrontation with the governor’s bodyguards which resulted death of one of the bodyguards while another sustained injuries. Puntland has become a hotbed for coordinated attacks recently as gunmen have been launching continuous night raids. Nobody claimed credit for the attack, but as has been the case Al Shabaab targets Somali government officials, regional officials and foreigners in pre planned attacks and military-style ambushes across Somalia.
Three Wounded In Mogadishu Shelling
26 Feb – Source: Radio Dalsan- 39 Words
Two government soldiers and one civilian were wounded following a mortar shell near the Somali Presidential palace. The Djibouti embassy building and Somali finance ministry building were damaged. Somali special forces have been deployed in the surrounding areas, and are conducting operations.
Puntland And Ethiopia Due To Form Bilateral Committee To Brush Up Custom Centre Agreements
26 Feb – Source: Radio Goobjoog- 252 Words
The semi autonomous regional state of Puntland in North Eastern Somalia has stated that the custom centre on the border between Ethiopia and Somalia, especially Mudug region, will develop regional trade between the sides and create community interactions. The leaders of both sides laid the foundation for the custom centre in the border towns last year which intended to regulate business activities between the sides and allow free movement of goods and business people to and from the border. The governor of Mudug, Ahmed Muse Noor, in an exclusive interview with Goobjoog News said that custom centre will be of importance to both sides and intends to create bilateral trade routes. “Puntland and Ethiopia share strong business relations, therefore the sides are planning to form committee to facilitate the agreements signed earlier as to strengthen the ties and develop the business activities in the region,” Mr. Noor said.
Puntland and Ethiopia earlier signed similar agreements on security and the fight against Al-shabab fighters who are seen as a threat to safety in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia agreed to help Puntland in the fight against Al-shabab fighters through sharing intelligence information so as to enhance security. Puntland has a long border with East Ethiopia; a land-locked country that depends on its neighbouring countries for any of its imported goods outside of the region. Lack of appropriate customs at the border, has for long decreased the business relations between Puntland state and Ethiopia due to closed borders.
Talks Between SFG And Somaliland Delayed
26 Feb – Source: Radio RBC – 118 Words
Talks between Somali Federal government and Somalia’s self declared state of Somaliland have been postponed until next month, prompting one more political crumble. A planned meeting which was supposed to resume in Turkey was delayed on Thursday, officials said.
The motive behind its postponement remains unclear following months of Turkish provoked meetings in Istanbul. Somaliland officials said that talks were set to resume in March. Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Somaliland President Ahmed Silanyo reached a comprehensive concord in Turkey last year, both presidents have accepted to resume talks to find a remedy for the prevailing political confusion. Somaliland has enjoyed relative peace compared to Somalia, which has remained in the grip of violence since 1991
REGIONAL MEDIA
UN Extends Amisom Mandate In Somalia By 12 Months
26 Feb – Source: Daily Nation – 427 Words
Kenya Defence Forces will be in Somalia for longer after the United Nations Security Council extended the mandate of Amison for a further one year.Defence Cabinet Secretary Raychell Omamo on Thursday said Kenya welcomed the extension of the mandate of the African Union Mission in Somalia.
“The presence of KDF men in Somalia has helped not only weaken the Al-Shabaab but the liberation of key towns,” she said.Ms Omamo appealed for more assistance in defeating Al-Shabaab even as it focuses on intelligence gathering rather than military might in crushing the faceless and deadly enemy.This comes even as the militants reportedly issued a new video on their website threatening to carry out attacks on towns and other targets inside Kenya. The Defence CS urged cooperation from other countries in defeating the “fluid enemy”, saying the war on terrorism cannot be won by Kenya alone.She said terrorists across the world were now persuaded by several pseudo-religious and philosophical persuasions and were involved in other international and transnational crimes such as drug and human trafficking, money laundering, kidnapping, illicit trafficking in firearms and mercenarism.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Braamfisherville, Soweto: Burning Man. Burning Somali Man.
27 Feb – Source: Daily Maverick – 1, 351 Words
Speakers at the Orlando meeting had just one thing on their minds and that was how to get rid of foreign shop owners working in Soweto. Over 400 people were there but notably, not one foreign owner was in attendance.“This meeting is about expelling foreign shop owners, so if you have a different agenda you can organise your own meeting in which you would preside,” said one local business owner. It was midway through the highly-charged discussion that one of the business owners, a South African from Snake Park, announced that he had just received a call that Somali business owners had assaulted his sister. The news caused a hot rage. The Somali nationals were reportedly in possession of new machetes, they heard. The event broke up hurriedly as everybody dashed to Snake Park.
On arrival to the grounds of the Snake Park police station, where the foreign business people had sought protection, a stone fight ensued, with about 16 Somali nationals fighting back by throwing stones at the locals from inside the premises. Free flying stones damaged cars belonging to the Somalis and locals. The local business owners who had called the original meeting, together with some community members, moved on to the store belonging to the Somali national accused of the assault. Some of the crowd gathered in front of the store started throwing stones inside. Soon after, a gunshot went off from inside the store. This infuriated the mob who asked police officers at the scene to search the store for the gun. They also demanded to know if the gun was illegal, something the cops could not verify even after finding the gun –a nine-millimetre pistol – and a cartridge.
It took about two hours for the police to arrest the suspected Somali shooter, 23 year-old Habib Mohamed Hassan, and three other Somalis, while they frantically tried to hold back the angry crowd. Police officers were not spared from insults and were accused of showing too much respect for the four arrested men. The crowd in front of the store was baying for the blood of the Somalis. A window at the back of the store was shattered but no looting took place. The area was cordoned off and a police van reversed to the back of the store to take the four suspects away, protecting them from the crowd. A group of local business people and community members then jumped into several cars and drove off. The convoy of cars used a back route into Braamfischerville. It was as if the actions that followed had been planned beforehand; the crowd even had petrol bombs ready.
Transfer Denied: The Hidden Costs of Washington’s War Against Al-Shabab
26 Feb – Source: Foreign Policy – 99 Words
As a child, Noor Dubow fled war in his homeland of Somalia. Growing up, he fought constantly against hunger while living in a refugee camp in neighboring Kenya. Today, he wears a tie to work, goes to school at night, and lives in a tight knit Somali community in America’s heartland. But Dubow, 29, still struggles with fear — not for himself, but for relatives left behind who are about to be cut off from his financial lifeline. Since moving to Columbus five years ago, Dubow regularly has sent money to his family through an ever-dwindling number of banks willing to wire funds to private financial firms in Somalia. The last major bank in the United States to do so abruptly stopped this month, worried about prosecution or other liabilities should the money be seized by militants who are ravaging the East African country.
That means Dubow and the thousands of other refugees in Columbus — home to the second-largest Somali population in the United States — have no way to support relatives who wrestle with starvation, illiteracy, and violence.Some may turn to al-Shabab, the Somali-based militant group, which feeds on desperation as a recruiting tool. That could directly threaten U.S. national security by helping to breed a new generation of terrorists eager to attack American allies across Africa and, potentially, targets within the United States as well. Others, like Dubow’s 90-year-old grandmother, simply may not survive without the funds he and other Somali immigrants dutifully send back each month. “If they don’t get this money, some people will die for sure. For sure,” Dubow said. He says this matter-of-factly, with little emotion. It’s just the latest life-or-death situation he has had to face.
It is a quandary that Washington also is grappling with as U.S. officials weigh the risks of allowing financial streams to remain vulnerable to terrorist groups against policies that, ultimately, could further destabilize Somalia and empower al-Shabab.
Since the 9/11 attacks, U.S. law enforcement has cracked down on the use of bank transfers to fund terrorism abroad. In turn, banks have grown increasingly wary of small and usually local firms that transfer money overseas.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“The hawala system was built around trust and community connectedness. Equating cash transfers to families with funding for terrorist activities negates its effect on assisting with the costs of housing, school, medication, food and other necessities. Negative media coverage has further linked Somalis and remittances with terrorism.”
US Bank Regulators Seek To Destroy Somalia’s Economy
26 Feb – Source: Al Jazeera America – 1149 Words
On Feb. 6, 2015, U.S. banks stopped money transfers to Somalia because of strict regulations set by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency over concerns of money laundering and funding for terrorist organizations. The decision has left Somalis who depend on cash remittances for survival without critical financial support. Remittances bolster the local economy and serve as a major source of income for families and individuals. The Somali diaspora sends home more than $1.2 billion annually — a sum larger than foreign aid and investments combined. Remittances are a crucial component of the Somali economy, making up over half of the nation’s gross national income. An estimated 73 percent of Somali households use the cash transfers to pay for food. Remittances help build schools and hospitals and pay for school fees.
Nearly 80 percent of Somalis receive remittances from a single person, highlighting the dependence on the money transfers from abroad. Somalis have created efficient money wiring agencies, known as hawalas, to get around the lack of a formal banking system in Somalia. It has been the country’s rare lifeline over the last two decades. Major U.S. banks stopped wiring money to Somalia years ago. The final holdout, the Merchants Bank of California, handles roughly 80 percent of the remittances from the U.S. to Somalia. But it had been under pressure from wary regulators to monitor the flow of cash transfers there. The bank decided to shutter the service to avoid potential penalties. But there is no evidence linking hawalas to extremist groups. The pre-emptive measure was made at the expense of millions of people in Somalia.
The end of bank money transfers, the only legal means for Somalis in the U.S. to send money to needy families back home, has rattled the Somali-American community. Community leaders and youth organizers are working with elected officials to exert pressure on U.S. banks and regulators.
“A disruption in remittances could reverse the limited gains that the Somali government and the international community has made to rid Somalia and the greater Horn of Africa of terrorism,” a group of U.S. lawmakers, said in a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew on Feb. 6. Led by Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., whose district includes the largest Somali-American population, the lawmakers are scheduled to meet with Kerry on Feb. 27. But members of the Somali community say the response lacks the urgency that the situation demands. Over the last few weeks, the media have approached Somalis to help explain the effects of halting remittances. But unsurprisingly, U.S. media are primarily interested in an anti-terrorism narrative that characterizes its coverage of Somalia and its diaspora. Years of conflict have left Somalia without a central banking system. Somalia is now asking U.S. banks to reconsider their decision.
“2014 was not a good year for human rights—globally or in the region. But governments can turn the situation around this year. Ordinary people, everywhere, must demand that they do. What we experience in our own countries, our own region is not unique—these are global problems. And the old (environmental) slogan applies: ‘think global, act local.’ To push each of our governments to do what they must. To protect civilians worldwide.”
We Must Do More To Protect Civilians Worldwide
27 Feb – Source: The Star Kenya – 759 Words
On Wednesday, Amnesty International released its annual report for 2014. Covering 160 countries, with regional analysis, the report provides a worrying overview of the state of human rights globally. Four trends are immediately discernible. Firstly, the ever more dire situation of civilians caught up in conflict. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed, injured or subjected to sexual violence in conflicts across the globe. Not only in Iraq, Syria and the Ukraine but also closer to home, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and parts of the Sudan.
State security services continued to violate international humanitarian law, through the indiscriminate aerial bombardments of Sudan’s ‘Decisive Summer’ military operation in the Blue Nile, Darfur and South Kordofan. So too did non-state armed groups, such as al Shabaab in Kenya and Somalia. Globally, more and more civilians fell under the quasi-state control of non-state armed groups, leaving them subject to discrimination on gender, religious and other grounds, abduction, forced recruitment and torture, including by public whipping, amputation and stoning. Non-state armed groups committed human rights abuses in 35 countries in 2014 – more than one in every five countries that Amnesty International investigated.
Civilians are thus increasingly between a rock and a hard place. As one elderly Somali man told Amnesty International; ‘The government is chasing al Shabaab; and al Shabaab is chasing the government; al Shabaab is chasing people with a relationship with the government; and the government [is] chasing people with a relationship with al Shabaab. We people are caught in the middle. Suspicion is everywhere.’
“Of those who favor federalism, one in four respondents (24 percent) said it advances power sharing, which is at the heart of Somalia’s 24- yearconflict. A further 23 percent believe it would create regional autonomy—a key demand for many Somalis. Fifteen percent view federalism as a vital tool for conflict resolution.”
Federal Somalia: Not If But How
27 Feb – Source: Heritage Institute – 4 Pages
Talk of federalism in Somalia dates back to before independence, but the current discussion has its roots in the early 1990s. Federalism was formally enshrined in the Somali constitution in 2004 during the Embagathi Peace Process in Kenya that created the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which paved the way for the current Federal Government of Somalia (FGS). Despite the Provisional Constitution’s aspirations for a federal Somalia, successive governments since 2004 have failed to implement it, mainly because their writ barely extended beyond the capital Mogadishu. Only after the election of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in September 2012 did practical implementation start in earnest. But even then, the process was haphazard and not always consistent with the Provisional Constitution. Among other things, the Provisional Constitution mandates that two or more (pre-1991) regions join voluntarily to form a federal state.
Furthermore, it calls for the formation of a Boundaries and Federation Commission (BFC), an independent body tasked with assessing the legality and viability of new states before certifying them. Both of these constitutionally mandated requirements were ignored in the current processes. The exception is Puntland, which predates the current dispensation. Formed in 1998 in northeastern Somalia, the region is widely considered to be the first federal state. It has been a staunch advocate for a federal system of governance since it’s founding. Puntland played a key role in drafting the current Provisional Constitution during the Garowe I and Garowe II conferences in 2012.
Top tweets
@OCHASom Worrying: 3 fold increase of #measles cases in 2014 compared to 2013. Mass vaccination needed.@unicefsomalia @WHOSom
@Yassinjuma #Somalia pirates release 4 hostages in #Galmudug
@AijaSalo .@Hassan_shire: People have not expected#freedomofexpression in #Somalia. Thus they have not used it. Unfortunately. #KIOSseminar
@anciona Passionate presentation comm. @EUTMSomalia@SomaliaEU Heads of Mission on security developments#Mogadishu #Somalia
@KnowSomalia ·Maryam Mursal’s life and art have intertwined to produce a sound that is both profoundly moving and totally unique. #SheIsSomalia #Somalia
@Zoe_Flood: Community at heart of #Somalia piracy calls for their men to be repatriated from US prisons, as poverty bites again: http://www.aljazeera.com/
@MinorityRights: Join us @SOAS for the UK launch of our report on the situation faced by minority women in #Somalia – Mar 2, 8pm, DLT http://on.fb.me/1vER1Ht
Image of the day
A graduation ceremony in Mogadishu following a 10-day weapons marking training course conducted by the UN for Somali National Army officers. Photo: UN