May 25, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Fighting Breaks Out In Marka Town
24 May – Source: Radio Danaan- 131 Words
Heavy fighting broke out Sunday in the southern Somali town of Marka, pitting rival regional troops against each clan militias, witnesses said.The latest clashes in the coastal town pitted troops loyal to the South-western state against clan militias following a dispute after the clan militias were denied of passing a street in the town. In Marka, powerful explosions could be heard before the evening as the two sides fought for the control of the town which has seen previous deadly clashes in the town. No comments could be reached from southwestern state officials on the latest clashes which is reported to be risking a new influx of displacement by the town’s residents.
Key Headlines
- Fighting Breaks Out In Marka Town (Radio Danaan)
- Yemen Launches Consulate In Puntland (Garowe Online)
- Expert Says Somali President Has No Control Over Security (Radio Dalsan)
- Products In Somalia To Be Inspected As Govt Contracts Turkish Firm (Somali Current)
- UN Official Condemns Killing Of Parliamentarian Reiterates Support For Political Process (UN News Centre)
- KDF ‘Aiding’ Sh22b Illegal Charcoal Trade (Standard Digital)
- The Surgeons Of Mogadishu (Al Jazeera English)
- The Legal And Constitutional Context Of The Garowe Agreement (RBC Radio)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Yemen Launches Consulate In Puntland
24 May – Source: Garowe Online – 188 Words
Yemen for the first time launched a consulate office in Somalia’s northeastern state of Puntland with high ranking officials from both sides present on Sunday, Garowe Online reports. Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, Yemeni ambassador to Somalia Mansur Ali Rayash Al-imrani, cabinet ministers, parliamentarians and Yemeni refugees representatives attended a launching ceremony held at Ga’ayte hotel in the Gulf of Aden port city of Bossaso. Ambassador Al-imrani thanked Puntland government and people for their warm welcome for Yemenis fleeing from the conflict.
On his side, speaking at the launch of first consular services by Yemen, Puntland President stressed that they stand by Yemenis, saying Puntland is the second home of distraught people from the war-torn Arab country. Ali added that Yemen hosted Somalis at the peak of the civil war, and asked Somali people to do the same, and more wholeheartedly receive Yemenis. Continuing, Puntland leader appealed for immediate international assistance for arriving refugee influx, calling on warring sides in Yemen to halt the ongoing conflict. Puntland officials put the number of refugees at over 5000, with largest Somalia-bound boat being docked at Bosaaso seaport two weeks ago.
Expert Says Somali President Has No Control Over Security
24 May – Source: Radio Dalsan – 246 Words
Senior security expert has said that Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud has no control over the security forces but rather remains beholden to clan-based politics. Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a Brookings Institute senior fellow, said she discovered during a trip to Somalia in March, that President does not have control over the security forces. She said AMISOM troop-contributing countries also operate independent of, and often at odds with, each other — and without accountability to their joint command.
Dr. Brown was presenting her grim assessment on May 21, during a talk at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, on: Counterterrorism and state-building in Somalia: Progress or more of the same? According to Dr Felbab-Brown, the rush for “quick money” has fanned rivalry and hostility among local businesses, which she said Al-Shabaab exploits. And decentralization is replicating the central government’s problems of favouritism and corruption that it was designed to cure.
She acknowledged that the security situation in Somalia is better today than four years ago, but suicide attacks continue while AMISOM remains “stuck” with troops reluctant to go after Al-Shabaab fighters. She said the national army is poorly paid and the presence of AMISOM troops are not welcomed by some Somali citizens who believe they are ineffective. Her charge comes a week after the African Union, overseeing the foreign funded military operation, put out a statement on May 15 announcing that AMISOM troops had thwarted an Al-Shabaab incursion to overrun two government bases in the Lower Shabelle region.
Products In Somalia To Be Inspected As Govt Contracts Turkish Firm
24 May – Source: Somali Current – 236 Words
Somali government has introduced a system of quality assurance on imported and exported products for the first time in 25 years. The ministry of commerce and industrialization signed an agreement with a Turkish based quality assurance firm PMG. Speaking to the media, Abdiraxmaan Osman Abdi, the minister in charge of commerce and industrialization, said the initiative is important as it would improve the quality of products imported and exported out of the country. Mr Abdirahman exuded confidence on the firm that the government contracted to do the job on its behalf.
“We believe PMG will be up to its standard. We expect it to ensure that the products consumed by the Somalis are in good shape,” Mr Abdirahman said, adding that it was the government’s role to secure its citizens from danger and counterfeit goods. He continued: “initially, we used to consider the security of the Somalis only. Now, we are concerned about the products they consume.”
The lawlessness in the country since 1991 created a vacuum on governance that gave shoddy businessmen the leeway to flood the market with counterfeit goods, particularly substandard drugs and untested food products that the government is now keen to address. PMG is an international firm that operates in many countries. The firm has a track record of quality assurance and it will be the first of its kind to operate in Somalia since the fall of the central government.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN Official Condemns Killing Of Parliamentarian, Reiterates Support For Political Process
24 May – Source: UN News Centre – 293 Words
The top United Nations official in Somalia has condemned a deadly attack against two Somali Members of Parliament (MP) and reiterated the Organization’s support for the country’s democratic process. Yusuf Muhammad Dirir, a Member of the Federal Parliament, was shot and killed on 23 May along with his driver while another MP, Abdullahi Boss Ahmed, was wounded in the same attack, according to a press release issued by the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia earlier today.
“The assassination of Mr Yusuf Muhammad Dirir is an abhorrent act of terrorism,” declared Nicholas Kay, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Somalia and head of UNSOM. “I wish Abdullahi Boss Ahmed a speedy recovery and I commend all Somalia’s MPs for their courage and dedication in the face of continued attacks against them. The UN is committed to supporting the important work of the Federal Parliament.”
KDF ‘Aiding’ Sh22b Illegal Charcoal Trade
25 May – Source: Standard Digital – 522 Words
A new United Nations report claims Kenyan companies and the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) are leading participants in the illegal charcoal export through Somalia’s Kismayo port worth Sh22 billion annually. The UN Monitoring Group for Somalia and Eritrea report repeats claims of KDF involvement in the illegal charcoal trade through Kismayo which it captured from Al-Shabaab in 2012. But the report states that besides sharing a third of profits with other warlords and militia group, Al-Shabaab’s share of revenue from charcoal has thrived under KDF’s control. “Al-Shabaab continues to benefit from the revenue generated, on a scale greater than when it controlled Kismayo…” says the report compiled for the UN Security Council in October last year.
The report seeks to demonstrate that illegal charcoal trade is still thriving in Kismayo port and other areas controlled by the KDF and its allies, the Ras Kamboni brigade, the Interim Juba Administration. It says the money ends up in the coffers of the Al-Shabaab, which is documented in the same report to have increased operations in Kenya after the late 2013 Westgate Mall terrorist attack. And the report further alleges that early last year most of the charcoal exports from Somalia were diverted to Kismayo port “which is controlled by the Ras Kamboni Brigade and Kenya Defence Forces” in order to disguise links of Al-Shabaab allied traders. The illegal traders are allegedly using the port to export the commodity to Oman, United Arab Emirates and other Middle East nations. To further disguise the Al-Shabaab link, the report claims bills of lading and certificates of origin are altered in the Middle East to suggest the charcoal originated from Kenya and Djibouti.
OPINION, ANALYSIS & CULTURE
“In 2012, organisations including UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Health Organization stepped in to support Somali government efforts to improve maternal and child health. That support has allowed the maternity ward to serve more women, and Mohamed says the hospital now delivers more than 21 babies a day and up to 750 a month. From mid-June to November 2014, doctors at Banadir performed more than 560 emergency caesarians, he explains.”
The Surgeons Of Mogadishu
23 May – Source: Al Jazeera English – 2540 Words
Half way down the dimly lit main hallway of Mogadishu’s Banadir Hospital, a sign indicates the entrance to the delivery ward. It reads: “Women are not dying of diseases we can’t treat. They are dying because societies have yet to make the decision that their lives are worth saving.” Outside, family members of the women within crouch beside the wall, avoiding the slanted columns of harsh Somali sunlight that line the floor. They are waiting, and sometimes praying, for healthy sons, daughters, grandchildren, nieces and nephews or, at least, for the lives of their wives, daughters or sisters.
Inside the delivery ward it is dark, and mostly still but for an occasional flurry of activity as nurses armed with cooler boxes full of vaccines sprint from one room to another and orderlies push women on stretchers down to the surgical theatre. According to Somali custom, women giving birth should remain quiet, but every now and again a shout shatters the silence and reverberates through the halls. At the centre of all of this is Dr Marian Omar Salad. Around her there are midwives and nurses, the clutter of surgical steel, the flutter of white coats and the muted groans of women in labour behind baby-blue curtains. Salad surveys it all intently with warm brown eyes that go soft at the edges.
“It is lamentable that Somalia fell from a regional power with a military might and became a country with no weight or influence. The price for this self-inflicted damage was the fragmentation of the one of the few countries in the world that is truly homogenous and the creation of deep mistrust that made the recreation of the unitary system of governance not only impossible but even undesirable . The federal system that has been adopted to weld together these fragments, and it is now irreversible, despite the continuous effort of some vested interests to unravel it.”
The Legal And Constitutional Context Of The Garowe Agreement
25 May – Source: RBC Radio – 1,315 Words
The agreement between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the Presidents of Puntland, Southwest and Jubaland States of Somalia, which was signed in Garowe on 2 May 2015, has attracted a scathing criticism from various quarters. The two issues in this agreement that caused reactions were the stationing of 3000 troops of the Somali National Army (SNA) in Puntland, and the exclusion of delegates from the Mudug region of Puntland from the conference for the formation of a Central State which is still ongoing in Cadado. Somaliland cried foul over the 3000 troops of the SNA in Puntland; it considered the positioning of such a large force on its border with Puntland an act of aggression. It is worth noting that Somaliland and Puntland have “territorial dispute”. Somaliland’s claim that the SNA poses a threat to its territory cannot be taken seriously given that it is engaged in serious dialogue with the Federal Government since May 2013. It is also clear that the resolution of the Somaliland case is not high on the agenda of the Federal Government.
However, the issue that caused serious reaction was the agreement that delegates from north Mudug region of Puntland would not be allowed excluded from participating in the conference for the establishment of the Central Federal State of Somalia, which is held in Cadado, south Mudug. Most of the negative reaction came from individuals who hail from the central regions and who would like the whole Mudug region to come under their control.
One such criticism came from Abdirahman Hosh Jibril, the former Minister of Constitutional Affairs in the last transitional government and a member of Somali Parliament. In a recent article, the former Minister attacked the agreement as both “illegal and unconstitutional” and called for it “the ill thought out agreement, and not only be damned but also ignored”. His argument was that preventing the citizens of north Mudug from travelling violated their right of movement and of association, both guaranteed by the constitution. The Minister, while technically correct, was misrepresenting the facts; he knew well (or ought to have known) that the issue was not on the rights of movement or association of individuals, which is never in doubt, but rather on the political representation of the people of north Mudug by self-appointed individuals.
TOP TWEETS
@MattBryden: Al-Shabaab is no longer a solely Somali organisation: it now has regional membership and ambitions#Somalia
@SalahOsman0: Do you know #Somalia is one of the first few African countries to have trains. #Mogadishu Railway Station 1914-1927
@Hamza_Africa : #AlShabaab capture Janaale, Lower Shabelle, after government troops withdrew this evening.#Somalia
@SkyNewsBreak: Scotland Yard says a 20-year-old man from south London has been charged with preparing to go to#Somalia to join militant group al Shabaab
@SomaliaDirect:Ethiopian Foreign Minister Meets With UN Envoy to #Somalia http://goo.gl/ZqLmf2
IMAGE OF THE DAY
UPDF Chief of Defence Forces Gen. Katumba Wamala visits Uganda contingent in Barawe, Somalia
Photo: AMISOM