January 22, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.

Main Story

Buulo-Burde commissioner and mayor arrested for allegedly mismanaging food aid

22 Jan – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 178 words

The office of the Attorney General issued a warrant to arrest District Commissioner Abdiaziz Durow and Mayor Osman Gedi Elmi over mismanagement of food aid brought by the Federal Government of Somalia, to be distributed to displaced people living in Buulo-Burde district. The Attorney General of the Somali government, Ahmed Ali Dahir, speaking to media confirmed the arrest of the two officials, and said that they did a thorough probe to confirm the allegations.“It is unfortunate that someone claiming be a government official plundered food aid intended to be given to needy people, and the transportation of which claimed the lives of eight soldiers,” Dahir said.

Mr. Dahir said that they sent police officials to further investigate the case. This is the second arrest of a public official over food aid diversion in a week; the Hamar Weyne district commissioner in Mogadishu was also arrested for allegedly selling food aid, but was later cleared of the charges and released. The government seems to be taking a tough stand against corruption and misappropriation of public funds.

Key Headlines

Buulo-Burde commissioner and mayor arrested for allegedly mismanaging food aid (Radio Goobjoog)
Food aid to be distributed in El-Buur soon (Radio Danan)
Nine children die from measles in Middle Shabelle (Garowe Online)
Somali President calls for an investigation into alleged death threats against Auditor General (Radio Danan)
Puntland government frees detained web editor (Radio Garowe)
Body of Mogadishu businessman found days after disappearance (Radio Bar-Kulan)
Somali children crossing into Kenya to get education (Capital FM)
Xenophobia rears its head again: Looting shooting dying in Soweto (Daily Maverick)
UN Says 826 Somali refugees return home from Kenya (Xinhua News/Hiraan Online)
Somali Islamist militants praise strikes at ‘heart of Crusader’ (Reuters)

PRESS STATEMENT

UN envoy Kay condemns violence and appeals for calm in Defow, Central Somalia

21 Jan – Source: UNSOM – 96 words

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Somalia, Nicholas Kay, condemned recent violence in Defow, central Somalia. There have been reports of dozens of casualties, including women and children. The SRSG appealed for calm, underlining the need to de-escalate the situation through peaceful dialogue and compromise. SRSG Kay said “We call on all parties to exercise restraint and respect the role of elders in finding a peaceful solution to the conflict.”SRSG Kay extended his sincere condolences to the families and friends of those who have suffered as a result of the recent violence

SOMALI MEDIA

Buulo-Burde commissioner and mayor arrested for allegedly mismanaging food aid

22 Jan – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 178 words

Food aid to be distributed in El-Buur soon

22 Jan – Source: Radio Danan – 109 words

The district commissioner of El-buur, Nuur Hassan Guutaale, told Danan that food aid which was recently delivered by the Federal Government of Somalia will be distributed amongst those in need.“There are [ongoing] preparations in the district after which food aid which was delivered here will be distributed soon,” Guutaale said.The DC asserted that the food aid will not be misappropriated as the administration have made efforts to prevent anything of that sort from happening. “The food which we have will not be subjected to any form of corruption, ”he said. People in the district have called for food aid due to a severe food shortage.

Nine children die from measles in Middle Shabelle

21 Jan – Source:Garowe Online – 120 Words

Measles has claimed the lives of at least nine children in Middle Shabelle according to officials. In an interview with Puntland-based independent station, Radio Garowe, Balad Mayor Mohamed Mohamud Saney said that the outbreak killed nine while 20 others are in critical condition. “I request Somalia Federal Government to dispatch health workers to Bal’ad,” said Saney.”Over the last six months, children under the age of five have not been vaccinated against measles infections.” Due to chronic insecurity, many have no access to primary health care in south-central regions, and deadly diseases including measles continue to spread rapidly. In 2013 alone, over dozen people died from a deadly polio outbreak in Hiraan and Sool regions.

Somali President calls for an investigation into alleged death threats against Auditor General

21 Jan – Source: Radio Danan – 86 words

The Somali President has called upon security agencies to immediately investigate alleged death threats to the country’s Auditor General. Auditor General Noor Jumale Farah cited death threats, saying his life is in danger after receiving life-threatening messages from anonymous people. Farah directed the cabinet under former prime minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed. A statement from the office of the President said it is deeply concerned about the allegations and has instructed the relevant authorities to act accordingly.

Puntland government frees detained web editor

21 Jan – Source: Radio Garowe – 125 words

The Puntland Government has freed diaspora returnee and editor of a Somali news site, Hussein Yasin Godo-Godo, on probation on Wednesday, Garowe Online reports. Godo-Godo was arrested by police on Tuesdayover undisclosed reasons according to the Media Association of Puntland (MAP). The release of the detained journalist comes a day after a leaked blacklist revealed a blocking order from the office of the presidency. The government imposed a ban on six Somali websites including Garowe Online on September 20, 2014. Nevertheless, Garowe Online can be accessed by internet café users via normal browsers. MAP previously condemned the move, calling for respect for the right to freedom of expression. Godo-Godo returned from Norway at the beginning of the year, and is known for his critical reporting on Somali politics.

Body of Mogadishu businessman found days after disappearance

21 Jan – Source: Radio Bar-Kulan – 85 words

The body of a renowned Mogadishu businessman was found three days after he vanished. Mogadishu Hamarweyne district official Mohamed Hersi said the body of the businessman was found with an indication that he died of strangulation. He said suspects were apprehended in connection with the murder, and are being interrogated.The authorities said the investigations are ongoing to establish who the perpetrators of the crime were, promising that no stone will be left unturned. Organized crime has become very common in Mogadishu since armed groups were pushed out of the capital few years ago

REGIONAL MEDIA

Somali children crossing into Kenya to get education

21 Jan – Source: Capital FM – 449 Words

Free Primary Education (FPE) could be contributing to the increased number of illegal immigrants crossing into Kenya from Somalia, a Senate Committee has been told. The Senate Committee on National Security which is in Mandera County on a fact-finding tour into the bus and quarry attacks that took place late last year, were told that majority of the students who attend schools near the Kenyan border are Somalis. When the Senators conducted a spot check of the Mandera Border Control Post, they witnessed many students crossing the border – at non designated points – from Somalia and into Kenya to attend classes at Township Primary School.

“Almost 70 percent of students in the schools next to the borders are Somalis. They are more keen on education than the Kenyan Somalis because they know once they are about to sit for their KCPE they will get birth certificates in order to register for the national exams,” said a KDF soldier stationed at the border control point who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity. “With a Kenyan birth certificate and result slip, they go through the system and when they turn 18, there’s nothing to stop them from getting a Kenyan ID. And with such a person you cannot know where his loyalties lie,” he added.

Led by Security Committee Chairman Yusuf Haji (Garissa) the delegation met with non-local teachers, County Teachers Service Commission (TSC) and KNUT representatives just before concluding their week-long tour. Other leaders included Senate Deputy Speaker Kembi Gitura (Murang’a), G.G. Kariuki (Laikipia), James Orengo (Siaya), Billow Kerrow (Mandera), Mike Sonko (Nairobi), and Fatuma Dullo (Nominated). During the meeting, Mandera County Senator Billow Kerrow put them to task to explain why Somali students were being admitted into Kenyan schools without being processed via the Immigration Department. “Many citizens of Somalia are taking advantage of the Free Primary Education Programme. Owing to the failure of the Immigration Department, the students are registered for KCPE as Kenyan citizens and compete with Kenyan students for placement in schools across the country,” said Mandera DEB Headmaster, Mohamed Farah. Farah explained that, ideally, registers of students to be enrolled from Somalia and Ethiopia should be submitted from the schools to the Immigration Department for registration as foreign students. Once processed through immigration the students would then be required to pay requisite fees before attending Kenyan schools. FPE was implemented in January 2003 by the government of then-President Mwai Kibaki with the aim of providing more opportunities to the poor children of school-going age, whose parents or guardians could not afford formal education. Mandera County has 188 primary schools and 41 high schools.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA

Xenophobia rears its head again: Looting, shooting, dying in Soweto

22 Jan – Source: Daily Maverick – 1,241 Words

It started with a nyaope addict at the Waka Waka. “Shit happened here,” repeats Sphamandla Zwane, 21, manning a fruit stall across from the store in Snake Park. On Monday, 17:00, an 18-year-old boy leaned against the store’s outside wall. He’s a nyaope addict, everyone says, and many claim he regularly stole from the store. When one of the Somali nationals who works there spotted him he confronted the boy and told him to leave because he was only there to steal. Zwane points down the road. There he is, the nyaope boy, shovelling debris into a wheelbarrow. “I hate them [foreign shop owners] because they are killing local businesses, they don’t pay taxes and they don’t hire locals,” says the 18-year-old, who wouldn’t give us his name. His eyes are vacant. A layer of saliva has whitened on the edges of his lips and his hands are dusty from the work. He says it was a case of mistaken identity; there must be another lanky, dark thief in the area. Threatened, he refused to leave the store. The shop keeper got a panga. “He went crazy,” Zwane remembers of the boy. He searched for stones to throw. The shop keeper called for a colleague. The colleague brought a gun and threatened to shoot the boy. “Then kill me,” he retorted, still refusing to leave, and began throwing rocks into the store.

Community members gathered to watch. When the second Somali branded a pistol, someone called the police. They wanted them to search the store for weapons. Multiple witnesses told Daily Maverick that while the police were searching, the individual who owns the store, the boss, arrived, entered and left. The police finished searching and didn’t find a gun. That unleashed xenophobic looting. Until then it was just a young man on nyaope, a Somali spaza shop, a panga and a gun. But onlookers had seen a firearm and when the police failed to find it, the community thought the cops were protecting the Somali store owners, maybe letting the boss go with the gun, or taking a bribe to ignore the incident. The gist: The foreigners had weapons. The foreigners made threats. The foreigners can subvert justice. And they have the gall to do business here. The community wouldn’t tolerate it anymore. The outraged onlookers held a meeting. One source said a leader in the area, the identity of whom is known to Daily Maverick but we won’t publish as we have not been able to independently corroborate the claim, announced, “I do not personally condone xenophobia, but this is absolutely ridiculous.” Something had to be done.

UN Says 826 Somali refugees return home from Kenya

21 Jan – Source: Xinhua/Hiraan Online – 318 Words

The UN refugee agency said on Wednesday in Nairobi that more than 826 Somali refugees living in Northern Kenya voluntarily returned home since a pilot project was launched on Dec. 8, 2014.The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that a total of 341 individuals returned to Somalia in January.The Agency described it as a significant step toward pioneering durable solutions to many years of displacement.
“A total of 826 individuals have left Dadaab between the start of voluntary return movements on Dec. 8, 2014 and Jan. 15,” it said.It noted that before their departure, the refugees underwent counseling by UNHCR and partners on conditions in Somalia, especially with regard to security.The agency said that a tripartite agreement signed by Kenya, Somalia government and UNHCR in November 2013, served as guide on the voluntary repatriation of Somali refugees living in Kenya.With hopes of greater stability in Somalia, some internally displaced persons and refugees from neighbouring countries were spontaneously returning to their areas of origin.The agency said the returnees received a return support package comprising of unconditional cash grant, essential travel and hygiene kits for use during the journey home.

Somali Islamist militants praise strikes at ‘heart of Crusader’

21 Jan – Source: Reuters – 247 Words

Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab on Wednesday praised al Qaeda over an attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo and urged further strikes at the “heart of the Crusader enemies”.Al Shabaab, which has itself carried out attacks across east Africa, including a 2013 raid on a Nairobi shopping mall that killed 67, described two brothers who attacked the magazine and a third who targeted a Jewish shop, as “a wonderful example”.

“We encourage all Muslims, specifically the sons of Tawheed living in Europe, to follow in the footsteps of their brothers,” it said in a statement.Two gunmen burst into Charlie Hebdo’s offices in Paris on Jan. 7 and killed 12 people. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility for the attack.”We…thank our brothers, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, who have been – and continue to be – the pioneers of external operations that target the heart of the Crusader enemies,” al Shabaab said. AQAP has recently focused on fighting government forces and Shi’ite rebels in Yemen but says it still aims to carry out attacks abroad. Western officials often cite AQAP as al Qaeda’s most dangerous branch. Al Shabaab said the magazine had insulted Islam by repeatedly publishing cartoon images depicting the Prophet Mohammad. Many Muslims view depictions of Mohammad as blasphemy.The group is fighting African Union peacekeepers and a Western-backed government in Somalia where it wants to impose its own brand of strict sharia law across the country.

SOCIAL MEDIA

CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS

“Whereas some insurgent groups can benefit from the availability of ‘lootable’ and ‘unlootable’ resources such as diamonds, narcotics, oil and gas in territory they control, Al-Shabaab lacks such sources of funding. It has instead developed a highly diversified and innovative funding model, which relies on the ‘financial control and surveillance of cashflows’, and involves both domestic and external sources, much of which is within its control and not heavily reliant on third parties.”

The role of financing in defeating Al-Shabaab

22 Jan – Source: Royal United Services Institute – 39 Pages

The importance of financing to groups such as Al-Shabaab is clear from their actions. As this Whitehall Report will demonstrate, sophisticated financial management lies at the heart of their operations and financing and fundraising capabilities are ‘imported’, with key financial roles often held by group members with international experience. Thus, the focus of this report is twofold. First, it will assess and analyse the means by which Al-Shabaab maintains ‘the enabling environment’ that allows it to continue to control significant areas of south-central Somalia and its population, as well as launch attacks both within Somalia and beyond its borders, despite the military and leadership setbacks experienced over the past eighteen months. Secondly, in the belief that ‘funding is both the lifeblood of a terrorist organisation and one of its most significant vulnerabilities’, it will propose measures which, in supplementing the military efforts of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), will assist in restricting the operations of the group by curtailing access to the wide range of both internal and external funding sources which Al-Shabaab currently enjoys. Whilst Al-Shabaab may have suffered tactical defeats on the ground in Somalia, it is still operating a highly efficient and expansive fundraising operation, particularly when contrasted with the limited and disorganised finances of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia and its successor since August 2012, the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS).

Money talks, and from a purely financial perspective Al-Shabaab has been talking to the local people more forcibly, more convincingly and more effectively for many years despite life in Al-Shabaab-controlled territory being far from democratic, with discipline maintained via an extreme interpretation and violent implementation of Sharia Law. For all the efforts of sympathetic Western governments, aid agencies and regional military powers, until there is a demonstrably better financial alternative, Al-Shabaab is likely to continue to command sufficient support to prosecute its insurgency by recruiting and paying fighters and providing welfare and support to inhabitants within its areas of control. Al-Shabaab has developed highly effective tax, fundraising and payment systems to sustain itself and the welfare it provides based on the ‘financial control and surveillance of cashflows’, involving both domestic and external sources. The result is a model that gives ‘the impression of being financially competent and less corrupt than the central and local authorities it opposes’. If the group is to be defeated these sources must be undermined. In particular, those that facilitate the critical trade-based funding secured by Al-Shabaab via the export of charcoal through trading centres in the UAE and Saudi Arabia – in contravention of UN-sanctioned bans – must be shutdown.

Top tweets

@omabha Somalia: Journalists in Puntland show solidarity with jailed AJ staff – Garowe Online http://dlvr.it/8BLrtG #Somalia

@HarunMaruf #Somalia:Prez Mohamud calls 4 an investigation after Auditor General Nur F Jimale claims his work is being undermined

@Daudoo: #Mogadishu in security lock-down as #TurkeyPresident, #Erdogan, expected to visit the city tomorrow.#Turkish & #Somalia flags everywhere.

@Moalim_hassan: For #Somalia, security has been a multilateral approach but development has been bilateral strictly, with Turkey leading the way. #Davos2015

@Abdihakim_Som #Somalia: On the 43rd anniversary of Somali script, Prez Mohamud urges use of Somali language, spoken and written, in Govt offices.

‏@ColleeninLondon: A safe haven for pregnant women in Somalia http://buff.ly/15tIaMB #Somalia #SRH #maternalhealth #refugees

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Image of the day

Interim Juba Administration (IJA), leader Ahmed Madobe speaking during a meeting to support the launch of the selection process for the new Regional Assembly in Kismayo. Photo: AMISOM