September 7, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Tense Of Fighting Prevails In Garbaharey
07 September – Source: Goobjoog news – 222 Words
Military movement and tense of fighting between the forces of Jubbaland Administration and local fighters who are loyal to the former Governor of Gedo rose in the outskirt of Garbaharey town. Former Gedo Governor Mohamed Abdi Kalil and his fighters have amassed outside the town which created tense situation in the areas. Eyewitnesses told Goobjoog News on Monday that military exercises and reinforcements rose in the town. “We fear fighting could erupt at anytime because Pro-Kalil fighters are heading to the town as the forces inside it are in high alert” said resident.
It was 28th of July when Kalil appointed Bardhere district commissioner and several other positions for the newly captured town. On 8th August this year, Jubbaland President, Ahmed Mohamed Islam fired Mohamed Abdi Kalil as the governor of Gedo region, one day after the politician reconciled with the Jubbaland Administration. But Kalil has denounced the move and labelled it as immature, with no basis as he was appointed by the Federal Government.
On the 15th of August Jubbaland forcefully deported several Gedo politicians and elders to Mogadishu. Including the people deported was the former Governor of Gedo, Mohamed Abdi Kalil and his deputy Abdi Barre Abdi and several other politicians who were all accused of opposing President Ahmed Mohamed Islam administration.
Key Headlines
- Tense Of Fighting Prevails In Garbaharey (Goobjoog News)
- Number Of Women Joining Somali Armed Forces On The Rise (Wacaal Media)
- Galmudug State Starts To Form Local Administration For Elbur District (Goobjoog News)
- Plans Under Way For Talks Between Galmudug And Puntland (Wacaal Media)
- President Hassan Opens Training For New Police Officers (Radio Dalsan)
- Fears Of Refugee Influx As Famine Strikes Somalia (The Star)
- Arab League Condemns Terrorist Attack Against African Union Commission In Somalia (Emirates News Agency)
- Security Talks Note AMISOM Progress In Degrading ‘Al-Shabaab’ (Xinhua)
- What Does It Mean To Be Somali? (Sahan Journal)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Number Of Women Joining Somali Armed Forces On The Rise
07 September – Source: Wacaal Media – 105 Words
The number of Women joining Somalia’s armed forces has been on the rise of late as evident in the huge presence in most of the forces training centers in the country. At Mogadishu’s Gen. Kaahiye training college, women outnumber their male colleagues in the recently recruited contingent with many showing increased determination to ensure their country is back on its feet. Many of the women recruits are fresh high school graduates while several others were confirmed to be university graduates seeking military training. In Kismayo, the situation is the same as there is commendable number of women among the recruits undergoing training in the area.
Galmudug State Starts To Form Local Administration For Elbur District
07 September – Source: Goobjoog News – 114 Words
Somalia’s youngest regional state, Galmudug is carrying out initiatives to extend its administration throughout its region. MP Abdullahi Abdi Abdulle told Goobjoog News that Galmudug State forms is forming local administration for Elbur district and all other districts in the state. He pointed out that the formation process of the local administration is in its final stages. “We are mapping out plans to form local administration for Elbur district and its divisions. Galmudug administration will deploy soldiers including security forces and police who will maintained law and order and create safe and secure environment for the public” he said.This comes a day after delegation led by Galmudug State Abdikarim Hussein Guled has reached El-bur town.
Plans Under Way For Talks Between Galmudug And Puntland
07 September – Source: Wacaal Media – 120 Words
Plans are underway to constitute talks between Puntland State and its newly created neighbor Galmudug State. Speaking in an interview with the VOA’s Somali service, Galmudug Head of State Abdikarim Hussein Guled said preparations for the dialogue between the two states were at an advanced stage. Friction started between the two states after Galmudug’s constitution indicated that the State’s border with its neighbor Puntland was in Burtinle, in the middle of Nugaal and Mudug regions. This angered Puntland which accused its neighbor of expansionism and grabbing its territories. Guled disclosed a two-member committee which was tasked with coming up with modalities to resolve the standoff between the two sides. Puntland has yet to comment on President Guled’s sentiments.
President Hassan Opens Training For New Police Officers
06 September – Source: Radio Dalsan – 195 Words
The President of the Federal Government of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has on Sunday opened a training for more than 300 police officers at General Kahiye police training academy. “You should understand why you are being trained as police officers, and if I you allow me to shed light on it, it is because you are responsible to serve the entire community equally and you should strictly observe the law and there is nobody who is above the law, you should not be petrified by those who break the law whoever they are” said the President
Similarly, the Commander of the Somali Police, Chief Mohamed Sheikh Hassan Hamud has also addressed the new police officers. “This training will be going on for nine months, and here we have students who have recently accomplished their “O” level studies and the main purpose as to why we have enrolled them is that we need to train them different sectors such as traffic policemen, as municipals and as detectives” said Hamud the commander in chief of the Somali police. The Police commander added that there are several police cadets who will be sent to overseas training.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Fears Of Refugee Influx As Famine Strikes Somalia
07 September – Source: The Star – 230 Words
The widely publicised repatriation of thousands of Somali refugees from Kenya is in jeopardy after the United Nations announced a devastating four-year famine in Somalia. Stakeholders now say this is likely to cause an influx of even more refugees until the humanitarian situation in that country improves. The UN on Mondayannounced an extreme scarcity of food in many regions of Somalia, some of which the Kenyan government and aid agencies expect refugees to return. At least a million Somalis face starvation, according to the UN’s Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
Some refugees now expected to return fled into Kenya following a similar drought in 2010. “The levels of food insecurity and malnutrition (in Somalia) are critical. Humanitarian actors and donors have prevented the situation being a lot worse than it is, but we all need to do more,” UN aid chief for Somalia Peter de Clercq said in a statement. “The situation among internally displaced people is particularly worrying.” In an agreement signed in November 2013 among Kenya, Somalia and the UNHCR, the slightly less than half a million Somali refugees were expected to go home over a five year period. The three parties have initially earmarked nine districts in Somalia’s South Central regions including Kismayo and Mogadishu for refugees returns, regions that are now said in the grip of famine.
Arab League Condemns Terrorist Attack Against African Union Commission In Somalia
07 September – Source: Emirates News Agency – 108 Words
The Arab League has condemned what it called the contemptible attack that was carried out in Janaale in southern Somalia by Al-Shabaab against the African Union Commission, which resulted in deaths and injuries in African Union forces who were attempting to fight off the terrorist attack, while taking part in the efforts to make Somalia a stable and terror-free country. Dr. Nabil El-Araby, Secretary-General of the Arab League, expressed his support for the efforts and offered his sincere condolences to the Government, people of Somalia and to the families of the victims of the African Union Commission along with his wishes for a speedy recovery for the injured.
Security Talks Note AMISOM Progress In Degrading ‘Al-Shabaab’
06 September – Source: Xinhua – 382 Words
The joint Military Operations Coordination Committee (MOCC) and the African Union Police Strategic Support Group (PSSG) for AU peace support operations has convened its most recent 16th meeting in Addis Ababa. The meeting, chaired by the AU Commissioner for Peace Security, Ambassador Smail Chergui, was attended by Chiefs of Defense Staff (CDS) and Chiefs of Police of Troop and Police Contributing Countries (Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda, Sierra Leone) and the Federal Government of Somalia. Representatives of partner countries and institutions (European Union, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, United Kingdom, United States of America, United Nations) also participated in the meeting.
The MOCC/ PSSG considered the Report of the Ad-hoc Committee of Experts which had undertaken an assessment from 10 to 18 August 2015 on the enhancement of AMISOM operations. The key recommendations of the committee of experts included the need for adherence to the AMISOM chain of command, increased mobility, force protection as well as an increased UNSOA support package compatible to AMISOM operational requirements. The meeting provided an opportunity to exchange views on the situation in Somalia, as well as make decisions on the findings and recommendations of the Ad-hoc Committee of Experts.
The meeting further presented an opportunity to deliberate on progress in the development of the revised AMISOM Concept of Operations (CONOPs). The participants noted the tremendous progress made by AMISOM in degrading Al Shabaab capabilities. The MOCC/PSSG appreciated the role played by Troop and Police Contributing Countries in support of the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS) towards the achievement of the political process in Somalia, as well as the support provided to AMISOM by the UN through UNSOA.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“For a long time Somalia was something from my past. It both haunted me and inspired me. I could not go forward without acknowledging its profound physical and emotional impact on my cosmology. All things the same, it would have been far easier if I could forget Somalia. It would have been easier to become American. After reading Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye in a Women’s History class in High School I posed a question to my classmates: “is the illusion of happiness the same thing as true happiness?” No one gave an answer. Such is life.”
What Does It Mean To Be Somali?
04 September – Source: Sahan Journal – 2,348 Words
I came of age in a little town in a little state. I am, for all intent and purpose, blessed. And I know this. I left a country of poverty and war and came to a country of plenty. I came to America. There is a certain privilege that comes with this experience. For me however, there is far more guilt. Guilt that I survived, while so many others starved, or were left behind in the war. Guilt that leads me to ask “what makes you so worthy.” For a while it was God, my survival was ordained, it was reasoned. But I left that teaching behind. If God had anything to do with this then he should have chosen a more worthy subject to save. Or maybe it was just my own failings. I think, I should have been a little stronger, a little braver, a little smarter. But that’s not how life happens. So here I am in the little state, in Vermont.
For all accounts I had a pleasant childhood. I did not learn to fear the world like Jame Baldwin’s father did. I was not educated into the world by the logic of the streets like Ta-Neshi Coates was. I did not feel I was of the old black immigrants, who came to America in chains or the new Somali immigrants who came to America to leave their chains behind. When I came to Vermont there was only one Somali family in the whole state (as far as I know), now there are dozens. I was one of four black students in my six hundred student elementary school and the only black person in my sixty student high school. And I did, for the most part, just fine. But there was always something within me that stopped me from being a true middle class American.
I wanted the world to stop making me cry. Even at seven years of age, I knew the world outside the Vermont curtains were stained red in the blood of other less fortunate children. I think this knowledge produced an anxiety that has lasted my entire life. I ask myself “who am I to enjoy this life”. I think it displays a certain truth of the world, its callousness and disregard for life, and yet I ask myself “who are you to know things”. Who am I to know truth. But it’s more than the emptiness of truth in a world of untruth and propaganda, what I really know is fear. Fear that I am alive.
TOP TWEETS
@HarrietLMathews: Discussed the huge and pressing#Somalia parliamentary agenda, including vital legislation, with Speaker Jawari.
@MogadishuNews: #BREAKING Forces loyal to former governor of #Gedo region Mohamed Abdi Kaliil and #Ethiopiantroops have clashed in #Garbahaarey. #Somalia
@Eye_on_Somalia: #goobjoog Somalia’s First Insurance Company Thrives as Economy Reinvigorates: Somalia’s first insuran… http://bit.ly/1K0Dcnc #somalia
@oilnewskenya:Spectrum ASA Secures Contract for 2D Seismic Offshore #Somalia http://ow.ly/RS2LC #oilandgas#EastAfrica
@omabha: Arab League condemns terrorist attack in Somalia – Gulf Today http://dlvr.it/C4mXV2 #Somalia
@Eye_on_Somalia: #allAfrica Ethiopian Troops Free 12 Traditional Elders: [Dalsan Radio] The Ethiopian troops who are p… http://bit.ly/1K0y3vr #somalia
@Goobjoognews: #Somalia Galmudug State forms local administration for Elbur district, the town was once the main bastion for Alshabab
IMAGE OF THE DAY
The AMISOM Force Commander Lt. Gen. Jonathan Rono visit to Janaale, in the Lower Shabelle region. General Rono describes the troops’ response to the attack by the militants as impressive and their resilience in the fight for peace in Somalia commendable.
Photo: AMISOM