October 12, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somalia To Mark 61st Anniversary Of The National Flag Day
12 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 217 Words
On October 12, 1954, the Somali flag was hoisted for the very first time, marking the end of colonisation and the reunification of regions that were separately being ruled by Italy and Britain. The five points on the ‘Star of Unity’, the flag’s main feature, represent the five Somali ethnic groups found in Djibouti, the Ogaden region in Ethiopia, the North Eastern Province in Kenya, and the former British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland territories in present-day Somalia.
Six years after the adoption of the flag, 1st July 1960, Somalia gained independence from Italian Somaliland and united with British Somaliland. Mohammed Awale Liban designed Somali flag, during the preparation of Somalia’s independence. The Patriot passed away on 5th June 2001 in Toronto Canada. In a bid to foster national unity and pride, the Somali government holds elaborate celebrations in the capital Mogadishu on every 12th October to mark the anniversary of their flag’s creation.
Security of Somalia’s city Mogadishu’s has been tightened and hundreds of security were deployed in every corner of the city. The government and its citizens are expected to celebrate for the 61st anniversary of the national Flag Day. Somalia is recovering from over two decades of lawlessness and civil wars, having since the collapse of the central government 1991.
Key Headlines
- Somalia To Mark 61st Anniversary Of The National Flag Day (Goobjoog News)
- Riot At Northern Somalia Football Stadium Leaves One Dead (Horseed Media)
- Ethiopian Troops Suffer Landmine Attack In Buurdhuubo (Wacaal Media)
- Jubbaland Vice President Reaches Garbaharey To Defuse Political Tension (Goobjoog News)
- Interim South West Administration To Integrate Militias Into National Army (Mareeg Media)
- A Fond Farewell To Outgoing African Union Special Representative For Somalia And Head Of AMISOM Maman Sidikou (AMISOM/UNSOA)
- Somali Child-Care Providers Get Help To Boost Learning (Star Tribune)
- UK Under Pressure Over Kenya Kidnapping (Al Jazeera)
- Nuruddin Farah: ‘I Write About Somalia To keep It Alive’ (FT/Mareeg Media)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Riot At Northern Somalia Football Stadium Leaves One Dead
12 October – Source: Horseed Media – 115 Words
A football fan died after being shot by Police and several others were injured in clashes that erupted during a regional tournament in the Northern part of Somalia, Horseed Media reports. The incident started on Sundayevening in the town of Borame after supporters of one of the teams playing stormed onto the pitch protesting against a decision by match officials. “One of the spectators was struck by a bullet when police fired at the attackers. They wanted to control the situation,” said one of the witnesses. Officials in the breakaway region of Somaliland have said that investigations are going on. Every year, regional football tournaments are held across Somalia bringing together football fans.
Ethiopian Troops Suffer Landmine Attack In Buurdhuubo
12 October – Source: Wacaal Media – 74 Words
A huge blast rocked Buurdhubo town of Gedo region on Sunday afternoon targeting Ethiopian forces in the area. Local residents confirmed to Wacaal media that the landmine exploded at a local bridge as the Ethiopian convoy passed the area on their way from Qansaxdhere town. They could not however confirm the extent of damage suffered by the Ethiopians and the latter did not comment on the issues by the time of going to press.
Jubbaland Vice President Reaches Garbaharey To Defuse Political Tension
12 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 164 Words
The Vice President of Interim Jubba Administration, Abdullahi Sheikh Osman (Fartaag) has met with the traditional elders of Garbaharay town to ease the political tension in the town. Abdullahi Sheikh Ismail and his delegation arrived in Garbaaharey town on Sunday. Accompanied by several Jubbaland MPs from Gedo region, Fartaag arrived in the town yesterday at a time the local administrators and the former governor of Gedo Mohamed Abdi Kaliil have rifts.
Tension in the town has risen up last month after the newly appointed Gedo Governor Noor Mohamed Buraale barred the former Governor Mohamed Abdi Kaliil from setting foot into the town which led to a standoff that culminated in the latter camping outside the town with forces allied to him. Efforts to find a lasting solution is currently underway in the town as elders and the vice president try to convince the two sides to bury the hatchet. This is the second trip IJA vice president took to diffuse the rifts between the two sides.
Interim South West Administration To Integrate Militias Into National Army
11 October – Source: Mareeg Media – 113 Words
Disarmament, Rehabilitation and Training of Militias Minister of Interim South West Administration Hassan Hussein Mohamed said they are currently training cadets to join into Somali National Army (SNA). Speaking over the phone from Baidoa, Mr Mohamed said south-west State is committed to contribute soldiers into SNA, to help the country get a strong and united armed forces boost security . “We are at the moment training hundreds of newly recruited cadets outside Baidoa city who will join in SNA and will be deployed to the conflict zones and fighting against Al-Shabaab,” said Mohamed. Somalia’s regional administrations have agreed with Somali Federal Government in its mission to build a strong and effective national army in order to be able to restore law and order in the country after more than two decades of conflict.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
A Fond Farewell To Outgoing African Union Special Representative For Somalia And Head Of AMISOM, Maman Sidikou
12 October – Source: AMISOM/UNSOA – Video: 4:57 Minutes
Somali Child-Care Providers Get Help To Boost Learning
12 October – Source: Star Tribune – 1,313 Words
Farhia Egal ventured into the business of child care tentatively. In the basement of her Richfield home, she cycled through a meager arsenal of toys with her two children and another Somali-American family’s kids. The prospect of navigating Minnesota’s day-care licensing process intimidated her. But several years ago, Egal set out to do more — an effort that yielded a two-year college degree, a complete makeover of her basement and her first non-Somali-American clients.
A major push is underway to boost quality at Somali-American day cares and child-care centers, which have mushroomed across the metro area and the state. Its focus: pack more learning into the day and prepare youngsters for kindergarten. Powered by funding from the state and higher expectations of Somali-American parents, these efforts place child-care providers like Egal on the front lines of combating education gaps affecting East African students. “Providers are starting to understand what an important role they play in the community,” said Barb Yates, president of the nonprofit Think Small.
Recent high-profile state investigations into almost a dozen Somali-American providers — and the resulting criminal charges of swindling the public Child Care Assistance Program — have roiled that community of caregivers. Some worry that the bad players threaten to overshadow positive strides made during the past few years. Somali-American providers take part in Minnesota’s child-care quality ratings system at higher rates than other businesses, and some even have earned national accreditation. The push to shore up quality is needed, says Mohamud Noor, head of the nonprofit Confederation of Somali Community.
UK Under Pressure Over Kenya Kidnapping
11 October – Source: Al Jazeera – 1,295 Words
A secret MI6 document obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit raises serious questions about the British government’s actions before and after the kidnapping of Judith Tebbutt and the killing of her husband, David. The couple was seized on September 11, 2011, during a brazen assault on a Kenyan luxury resort in Lamu, near the Somali border. The intelligence briefing suggests British spies had specific information about a threat to British travellers, something the Foreign Office failed to communicate to the public. It also indicates that the only man tried in connection with the kidnapping may be innocent, adding to a growing body of information that suggests the conviction is wrong.
The MI6 document shows British spies pointed to al-Shabab fighters as the likely hostage-takers, stating: “Shabab commander Kahale Famau Kahale is believed to have been involved in the murder of David Tebbutt and kidnap of Judith Tebbutt.” “Khale has previously expressed a desire to kidnap Westerners from Lamu”, the document also stated, adding that he “was reportedly located in Ras Kamboni near the Kenyan-Somali border” in the days leading up to the attack. No one from the Somali armed group was ever arrested or charged in the case. The British government imposed a travel ban on tourists in the aftermath, which has caused severe economic damages for East African resort owners. The UK also pressed Kenyan authorities to bring the attackers to justice.
In 2013, the Kenyan government convicted and sentenced a solitary figure in the case, Ali Babitu Kololo. The 35-year-old Kenyan villager and father of two was sentenced to death by hanging for his alleged role. The trial was widely criticised as a sham, including by UK-based rights organisation Reprieve. The case relied on a single piece of circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime – along with a confession obtained under torture. Kenyan police detained Kololo a day after the attack while he was walking in the area. The evidence against him was the alleged existence of a shoe print, said to be Kololo’s, in the sand near the crime scene.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Instead Farah yearns for his country’s “cosmopolitan” past, when a multitude of ethnic and cultural influences flourished. My theory is, the greatest casualty of the civil war is that the idea of cosmopolitanism is the one that has died,” he says, adding that most people today belong to the 13th-century mentality. What destroyed Somalia is this clan business.”
Nuruddin Farah: ‘I Write About Somalia To keep It Alive’
11 October – Source: Mareeg Media – 1,136 Words
The first time someone attempted to ban Nuruddin Farah from writing he was nine years old. It happened again, twice, when he was 18 and 28. Then at 31, he was threatened with 30 years in jail over his written words, and later with death. But the epic chronicler of Somalia, now 69 and working on his 13th novel, has never allowed himself to be cowed. “I believe in the rightness of what I’m doing, and in the wrongness of being stopped,” says Farah, who was kidnapped on his first visit to Somalia in 1996, after more than three decades abroad. He believes hit squads were sent to kill him on two separate occasions when he was living in exile. “There must be a reason why my life has been spared: it is to write.”
Farah has devoted that life of writing to capturing Somalia, by turn his beloved homeland and a place that appals him. “I write about it to keep it alive,” he explains, in a long conversation down the line from his home in Cape Town. Although he has not lived in Somalia for decades, he returns regularly. “I live Somalia, I eat it, smell the death of it, the dust, daily,” he says. It is a tortured relationship. In his works, Farah repeatedly takes up the fate and feelings of the vulnerable. A sometime enemy of the state — with which he is obsessed — he reserves special opprobrium not only for Somalia’s politics but also for elements of its culture, especially how it treats women. “Somali society is dictatorial,” he says of the country he has described as “the neurosis from which I write”.
Born in the western Somali town of Baidoa in 1945, the country then combined traditional nomadic living with the modern influence of glamorous Italian colonialists based in the capital, Mogadishu. His father worked as a translator, and was transferred to Ethiopia’s Somali-speaking Ogaden region, where the literate young Farah experienced preferential treatment first-hand. He was sent to school; his immediate younger sister was not: “She became a servant.” “We had the delicacies of life on a plate,” says Farah of the unearned privileges that were meted out to Somali men. “My mother was a minor poet. If she had not delivered 10 children and raised them, she might have become a great poet. Our clothes would be washed and ironed by women; we were given the best parts of the food, the meat; women ate the leftovers; the list is endless. And yet in a country like Somalia the ruin is caused by men. As a generic male I am part of the problem. I’ve written about it so very often.”
TOP TWEETS
@amisomsomalia: 12th October marks a symbolic day as Somalia celebrates its 61st national Flag Day. Happy National Flag Day #Somalia
@FarsightAfrica: A new dawn indeed for #Somalia an anonymous toll free number for victims of violence and abuse with #CeeblaCrisisLine5555 @SWDC_ORG
@OCHASom: #Somalia has 1.1m #IDPs who are vulnerable to shocks like the looming impact of El Niño. Spur early action.#Earlyaction4ElNino
@AbdulBillowAli: #Somaliland Forces open fire at a soccer stadium in #Borama after fans began singing Somali national anthem.#Somalia.https://www.
@amisomsomalia: A Fond Farewell to out-going SRCC, Maman Sidikou. https://youtu.be/lqqS1GoEOJI #Somalia
@daudedosman: #payoursoldiers feed their children & care their long-term & short-term medical needs so we can be safe.#Somalia
@omabha: somalia:Meeting to discuss motion against president postponed for the 2nd time – Mareeg Mediahttp://dlvr.it/CQ8bkl #Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
12th October marks a symbolic day as Somalia celebrates its 61st National Flag Day. Happy National Flag Day Somalia.
Photo: AMISOM