April 13, 2012 | Daily Monitoring Report.
AMISOM apologizes for road accident
13 Apr – Source: AMISOM Force HQ – 208words
The AMISOM Deputy Force Commander issued an apology today for an incident that happened near Kilometre 2 at approximately 5.30pm yesterday (4th April). An armoured vehicle that AMISOM uses routinely for carrying out its duties hit a civilian commuter vehicle.
Five of the people who were in the vehicle at the time were injured. Three are being cared for at Medina Hospital. The other two are being treated by expert AMISOM medical personnel at their facilities.The Deputy Force Commander o f AMISOM, Brigadier General Audace Nduwumunsi, said,
“I apologise for the actions of one of AMISOM’s soldiers who, by mistake, hit a car while driving through Mogadishu yesterday and injured five occupants. AMISOM is helping to treat the injured and are investigating exactly what happened. “We are the friends and brothers of the Somali people and always seek to work in harmony with the population as they seek to revive their country. We take every measure to avoid causing harm or injury.
Key Headlines
- AMISOM apologizes for road accident (AMISOM Force HQ)
- Somalia Constitution Committee meets refugee elders of Kakuma camp (Raxanreeb Hiiraan Online)
- IGAD Member States in Kampala for Regional Trade Training (Ugpulse)
- Defense Minister asserts additional AMISOM troops to fight al Shabaab ( Radio Mogadishu Somalia Report)
- 850 Kenyan troops to return from Somalia (Daily Nation)
- Somali regional sport development courses end in Galmudug State ( Somaliweyn)
- Ethiopia charges four nationals Kenyan with terrorism (Ethiopian TV)
- Former soldier accused of trying to provide support to terrorists to appear in Md. Court (Washington Post/AP)
- G8 Foreign Ministers Meeting Chair’s Statement (State News)
PRESS RELEASE
AMISOM apologizes for road accident
13 Apr – Source: AMISOM Force HQ – 208words
The AMISOM Deputy Force Commander issued an apology today for an incident that happened near Kilometre 2 at approximately 5.30pm yesterday (4th April). An armoured vehicle that AMISOM uses routinely for carrying out its duties hit a civilian commuter vehicle.
Five of the people who were in the vehicle at the time were injured. Three are being cared for at Medina Hospital. The other two are being treated by expert AMISOM medical personnel at their facilities. The Deputy Force Commander of AMISOM, Brigadier General Audace Nduwumunsi, said,
“I apologise for the actions of one of AMISOM’s soldiers who, by mistake, hit a car while driving through Mogadishu yesterday and injured five occupants. AMISOM is helping to treat the injured and are investigating exactly what happened.
“We are the friends and brothers of the Somali people and always seek to work in harmony with the population as they seek to revive their country. We take every measure to avoid causing harm or injury.
“If, following investigation, the soldier is found to have been driving recklessly at the time, he will be subject to a judicial process and disciplined appropriately. In the meantime, I will be taking measures to improve the road driving skills of AMISOM personnel to avoid this from happening again.”
SOMALI MEDIA
Somalia Constitution Committee meets refugee elders of Kakuma camp
13 Apr – Source: Raxanreeb, Hiiraan Online – 206 words
The committee preparing Somalia’s National constitution has on Thursday met Somali refugee elders of Kakuma refugee camp in a conference held in Nairobi. The conference was organized by International Development Law Organization, as part of a wider consultations and gathering of suggestions that may be used as amendments to the proposed law.
Dignitaries who attended the meeting included TFG minister of Reconciliation and Constitutional Affairs, Abdurahman Hosh Jibril , Somali ambassador to Kenya, Mohamed Ali Nur, officials from the International Development Law Organization and elders from Kakuma refugee camp.
The minister for Reconciliation and Constitutional Affairs stated firmly that the 800+ members who supposed to pass on the draft constitution will be selected from all Somali clans. The minister stressed that no one will be accepted without the complete nomination of the accredited traditional elders.
Defense Minister asserts additional AMISOM troops to fight al Shabaab
12 Apr – Source: Radio Mogadishu, Somalia Report – 92 words
Somali Defense Minister Hussein Arab Isse returned from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, after attending a security meeting with participation by the African nations contributing troops to AMISOM peacekeepers in Somalia. Speaking to Radio Mogadishu, the defense minister stated the security meeting focused on the deployment of more African troops, and the expansion of AMISOM security operations throughout southern Somalia to totally eliminate the al Qaeda linked militants from the Somali nation. It is also decided in the meeting that all Somali troops will be trained in Somalia and not in neighboring African nations.
Somali regional sport development courses end in Galmudug State
13 Apr – Source: Somaliweyn – 219 words
Despite shock over the sudden death of the late president of the Somali Football Federation Said Mahmoud Nur, the SFF successfully concluded different football-related courses as part of its regional development program in the Galmudug state over the weekend.
The development courses assembled 80 persons who were 40 future referees, 20 coaches and 20 football administrators with the assistance from the Galmudug semiautonomous regional state which hosted the courses. Female trainees were among those who were taught sports administration-related lessons during the week-long courses which took place at different venues at the same time.
SFF secretary General Abdi Qani Said Arab who first addressed at the conclusion ceremony said that the courses ended in success, praising the regional state for the good hosting and the media outlets for the professional coverage.
Puntland farmers show off their harvests
12 Apr – Source: Garowe Online – 220 words
After Vice President Gen. Abdisamad Ali Shire attended an event to honour Puntland farmers in Garowe he requested to officially mark today as Puntland Farmer’s day, Garowe reports. The event which was attended by top Puntland officials was held at Puntland Development and Research Center (PDRC) and was hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture working alongside FAO and Cefa. Among the officials who attended the event were Puntland Minister of Agriculture Mohamud Haji Salah, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Mohamud Mohamed Ibrahim and Puntland spokesman Ahmed Omar Hersi among other officials.
Farmers and their crops from all the regions of Puntland were invited to the event each farmer bringing some of the crops harvested for that year. Everything from watermelons, lemons, onions, corn, mangoes and guavas were assorted on a table showing the variety in crops from the Puntland farmers. The event had music as well the music group Horseed, debuted their song which they sing about agriculture and the benefits of planting.
REGIONAL MEDIA
850 Kenyan troops to return from Somalia
12 Apr – Source: Daily Nation – 285 words
About 850 Kenyan troops are set to return home from Somalia where they have been fighting terrorist group al Shabaab. The move is designed to achieve the quota allocated to the Kenya Defence Forces since it was incorporated into AMISOM.
An estimated 4,600 Kenyan troops have been fighting in Somalia after the KDF crossed the border October last year in an operation dubbed “Linda Nchi”. The 850 soldiers are expected home once additional troops from Sierra Leone, the latest entrant in the AMISOM force, arrive. The remaining Kenyan forces will fight alongside Sierra Leone troops, concentrating in Somalia’s Southern sector 2 under the command of a KDF brigadier.
President Kibaki this week appointed Major General SN Karanja AMISOM’s deputy force commander in charge of operations. Colonel Cyrus Oguna, who was KDF’s public face in Operation Linda Nchi and based in Nairobi, will also move to Mogadishu as AMISOM’s military spokesperson. The head of military intelligence at AMISOM will also be Kenyan. Besides the southern sector, AMISOM troops are fighting in three other areas allocated to Uganda, Burundi and Djibouti.
Ethiopia charges four nationals, Kenyan with terrorism
12 Apr – Source: Ethiopian TV – 160 words
The federal prosecutor in Ethiopia has charged four Ethiopians and a Kenyan national with terrorism. The suspects, accused of having links with al Qaeda and Somalia’s al Shabaab Islamist outfit, are said to have been arrested while plotting to carry out terrorist attacks in various Ethiopian towns.
The suspects are Hasan Jarso, Muhammad Qasim, Umar Shafu, Abdi Shukr and Bashir Haji Isma’il. The Kenyan suspect is said to be a member of al Qaeda in east Africa. Six other suspects have also been charged in absentia.
The charges include that the suspects were trained in Somalia and had been carrying out terrorist attacks against forces of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia and the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) before illegally crossing the border into Ethiopia in three groups with weapons and terror training manuals to carry out similar attacks in the country. The charges also include that the suspects received financial assistance from (unnamed) neighbouring countries and al Qaeda cells in South Africa.
IGAD Member States in Kampala for Regional Trade Training
13 Apr – Source: Ugpulse – 183 words
Delegates from Inter-Governmental Authority on Development,IGAD,member states are in Kampala for five-days training on regional trade and integration issues as support to capacity building in trade negotiation skills.
The delegates are from Ministries of Trade, Commerce, Industry and Foreign Affairs of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Spokesperson, Amb. Elly Kamahungye and the Program Manager Trade, industry and tourism at the IGAD Secretariat in Djibouti Joseph Rwanshote spoke at the opening ceremony today.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Former soldier accused of trying to provide support to terrorists to appear in Md. Court
13 Apr – Source: Washington Post/AP – 127 words
A former U.S. Army soldier accused of trying to provide support to a terrorist organization in Somalia after he left the military is scheduled to appear in court and is expected to enter a plea in his case. Maryland resident Craig Baxam is scheduled to appear in federal court in Greenbelt, Md. on Friday.
He is accused of leaving the United States for Somalia in December with the intention of joining the terrorist group al-Shabaab there. He was stopped in Kenya before reaching Somalia and questioned by the FBI. He has been charged with attempting to provide material support and resources to al Shabaab and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
G8 Foreign Ministers Meeting Chair’s Statement
12 Apr – Source: State News – 334 words
G8 Foreign Ministers met in Washington, D.C., on April 11-12, 2012, to exchange views and coordinate actions on a range of country-specific, regional, and transnational issues that impact global peace and security.
The Ministers stressed the primary responsibility of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government to end the transition by August 2012 as agreed in the Roadmap in the Garowe Process. They encouraged all Roadmap signatories to redouble their efforts, with the support of the UN Political Office for Somalia and the international community, to implement the key benchmarks agreed to during the two Garowe Conferences in December 2011 and February 2012, and to ensure that the political process is inclusive and representative.
They welcomed the communiqué agreed to at the 23 February London Conference on Somalia, which urged the TFG and Somali regional entities to end the transition. The next international meetings, among them the Istanbul Conference and the Rome International Contact Group, will be important occasions to maintain the momentum to end the transition and move on to a new phase of governance in Somalia. They called upon the international community to act as needed against spoilers to the peace process as appropriate.
The Ministers commended the efforts of the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), acknowledged the sacrifice made by soldiers who died for the sake of a peaceful Somalia, and welcomed UN Security Council Resolution 2036 which increases AMISOM’s troop ceiling, enables AMISOM to expand operations beyond Mogadishu, and requires states to enact bans on the import and export of Somali charcoal.
Coca-Cola delivers water security to drought-hit Somalia
13 Apr – Source: Environmental Data Interactive Exchange – 139 words
The Coca-Cola Africa Foundation has launched an initiative to increase the water security of thousands of people in Somalia. The foundation has teamed up with International Relief & Development (IRD), an implementer of US foreign assistance and a leader in the international stabilisation, to deliver the project.
Somalia and neighbouring countries are still recovering from the most severe drought the Horn of Africa has experienced in 60 years with warnings that drought conditions could resume in the next 90 days.
The project will centre around constructing community water storage tanks in Somalia’s Gedo region. The foundation will also provide aid to enable IRD to offer hygiene and sanitation training to vulnerable people in the region.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“Federalism empowers regions. The Anti-federalism camp forgets that the road to reconstituting the Somali state passes through successful administrations such as Puntland and Somaliland. Politicians and traditional leaders from clans with armed clan militias, which did not use their political clout to form successful regional administrations, will have difficult time convincing their compatriots on the merits of a centralised or decentralised system of governance.”
Does the Roadmap has a chance of success?
12 Apr – Source: Raxanreeb, Horseed Media – 1092 Words
The roadmap to end the Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government ( TFG) is facing criticism from many quarters. The roadmap was endorsed through the Garowe conference out of which the seminal Garowe Principles emerged last year. Puntland leaders view federalism as the best road to forming a government beyond the transitional period which ends in August 2012. “Political groups in Mogadishu daydream of a return to centralised rule so everything will again be controlled from Mogadishu, under the watchful eye of Ugandan generals. Others in northwestern Somalia, namely “Somaliland”, daydream of international recognition as an independent country. In this political spectrum – stuck between separatism and centralised rule – federalism is the only option that safeguards each group’s interests, whilst protecting Somali national unity” editorialised Garowe Online.
“It is the high time we acknowledged that in Somalia, as elsewhere in Africa, terrorism is intimately linked to poor governance or the lack of governance. Without a sustainable governance structure, including law enforcement agencies, such as police and intelligence services, terrorism cannot be prevented.”
World must do more to help Somalia
12 Apr – Source: Business Daily – 531 Words
Al -Shabaab’s suicide bomb attack in Mogadishu last week killed several innocent civilians, signalled the terrorist group’s continued presence in the Somali capital, and indirectly issued a challenge to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) as well as the Kenyan forces that have been chasing it in the past few months.
Several commentators around the world have described last week’s attack in Mogadishu, in addition to recent sporadic incidents in various parts of Kenya, as the desperate efforts of a group that is split and is facing pressure from different angles.
It is true that al Shabaab, which does not have deep roots in the Somali society, has faced great pressure from Kenyan and Amisom forces in the past few months, but any attempt to write off a group like this could be premature.
“The adoption of a new logic does little to hide the fact that nothing much else has changed: the same international actors with the same interests in the region and the same policy priorities continue to design externally-imposed systems without adequate consultation of Somali society and with a continued refusal to engage with key political forces in the country that are not to their liking.”
Same Old Solutions for Somalia?
12 Apr – Source: Think Africa Press – 1457 Words
Change is on the horizon in Somalia, or so the international community would have us think. In recent years we have seen a shift in Western policy away from prioritising the imposition of a centralised governing structure – in the form of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) – towards focusing on local power bases.
With Western governments admitting at the London conference in February that the TFG is discredited beyond repair, a new caretaker government will be set up until representatives from local power bases can join together to create a constituent assembly. In effect, this ad hoc and as yet undefined vision amounts to a quasi-federalisation of Somalia.
How to Pirate Proof Your Tanker
12 Apr – Source: Foreign Policy Blog – 268 Words
A shocking rise in pirate attacks over the last decade has left many in the shipping industry scrambling for protection, leading to a new market for security forces trained to fight off the swashbuckling foes. Photographer Amnon Gutman witnessed this scramble for security first-hand as he sailed one of the most dangerous waterways in the world with a crew, their cargo — and a private security detail trained in pirate-deflecting techniques.
The fear of attack, especially near Somalia, is a well-founded one. As Gutman notes, of the 439 attacks reported to the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) in 2011, 275 attacks took place off Somalia’s east coast and in the Gulf of Guinea on the west coast of Africa. However, while Somali pirates continue to account for the majority of attacks — approximately 54% and while the overall number of Somali incidents increased from 219 in 2010 to 237 in 2011, the number of successful hijackings decreased from 49 to 28. The 802 crew members taken hostage in 2011 also marks a decrease from the four-year high of 1,181 in 2010.
This may be because of more aggressive policing — the European Union recently authorized its most expansive mission against pirates in Africa — but many ships aren’t taking any chances. On this journey through the Indian Ocean on a shipping vessel that wishes to remain anonymous, SeaGull security walked through the methods still being developed to combat modern piracy.
Top tweets
@Hamza_Africa In war its ALL about timing.Make a move too soon & u will be baked! #Somalia switched sides from the communist 2 the capitalist camp too soon.
@CeynteJr @HOA_News that’s recklessly unfair. #US should respond the wrath in #Somalia with constructivism, but not an open-ended emergency-declaring.
@neptune_ms Hostage of Somali Pirates – Sailor’s Nightmare http://bit.ly/IsLMAw
@SomaliaReport is investigating unconfirmed reports of American Abu Mansoor Al-Amriki’s execution by #alshabaab.
@OmarKerubo @Flippintheraya #
@marktran Audio slideshow on Ethiopia’s Dolo Ado refugee camp with great pics from Jiro Ose http://gu.com/p/36jm7/tw
@Davidlloydradio This day 2010. Stations in #Somalia stopped playing music after insurgents suggest songs un-Islamic. guns/birds used as idents #radiomoment.
Image of the day
Libya has Thursday released hundreds of Somalis who have been languishing in Libyan prisons for a while. They were arrested as they prepared to illegally cross over to Europe from Libya. Photo: Calanka.com