October 13, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Somalia’s Defense Minister, Army Chief Resign: Official
12 October – Source: ABC News – 131 Words
Somali officials say the country’s defense minister and army chief have resigned as the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabab group steps up attacks on army bases across south and central Somalia. An official in the prime minister’s office says Defense Minister Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed has resigned, citing lack of consultations on issues related to his ministry. The official says army chief Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Jimale has also submitted his resignation to the president.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. There have been reports of a rivalry between the two outgoing military leaders. Somalia in recent weeks has seen an increase in attacks by Al-Shabab extremists, who have overrun several army positions. Al-Shabab is the focus of stepped-up U.S. military efforts, including drone strikes.
Key Headlines
- Somalia’s Defense Minister Army Chief Resign: Official (ABC News)
- Government To Invest In Telco Infrastructure To Entice Investors – Telecom Minister (Goobjoog News)
- Puntland Hands Over Bosaso Port To P&O Ports (Garowe Online)
- Prime Minister Kheyre “We Will Not Accept Anyone To Destroy The Country” (Hiiraan Online)
- Somaliland Journalist’s 18-month Sentence Is Protested (The Washington Post)
- Kenyan Soldiers Hunt For Al-Shabaab Militants In Coastal Region (Xinhuanet)
- Back To The Land: Friction As Somali Exiles Return Home (Reuters)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Government To Invest In Telco Infrastructure To Entice Investors – Telecom Minister
12 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 241 Words
The government will invest in infrastructure development in the telecommunication sector to create a favourable environment for investors and boost domestic revenue, Posts and Telecommunications Minister Eng. Abdi Ashur Hassan has said. Addressing participants in the ongoing World Telecommunication Conference under the auspices of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), Eng. Hassan said the government was now better placed to put resources into the telecommunication sector, thanks to the passage of the Telecommunication Law last month. Eng. Hassan noted the sector is currently largely supported by the private sector.
“Somalia’s telecom industry is currently driven by the business sector with no tangible contribution by the government in terms of building infrastructure that would add value to their operations and increase government revenues,” the minister said. “We want to fill that gap and help investors to move to the next level so that government can generate more taxes from the sector.”
Following the passage of the Telecommunication Law, Somalia aims to generate up to $100 million annually in the form of taxes from the telecommunications industry, a much needed income to boost the country’s domestic revenue. This year’s conference is historic for Somalia as it regained full voting rights after the Ministry started paying its dues which have accrued since the last amount was submitted in 1983. The step, the minister said was significant as it also paves the way for full partnership with ITU in the development of Somalia’s ICT sector.
Puntland Hands Over Bosaso Port To P&O Ports
12 October – Source: Garowe Online – 218 Words
A handover ceremony for the port of Bossaso was held in the commercial city of Somalia’s northeastern region of Puntland on Thursday. Reports indicate that senior Puntland government officials have attended the event to transfer the management of the seaport on the Gulf of Aden to Dubai-based P&O Ports. The city’s overall security has been extremely tightened by the state forces who were deployed on the main streets during the handover event in the port, as its operations were up and running. Elders, intellectuals and people from civil society groups were in attendance.
P&O Ports has won a 30-year concession for the management and development of the port after signing a deal worth $336 million with Puntland President, Abdiweli Mohamed Ali in Dubai in April 2017. The handover comes as the local traders are complaining about sand filling up the shoreline, which is blocking the big container ships access to the narrow lanes of the port.
President Ali said early that Infrastructure development is a golden opportunity for the government of Puntland and its people, as it underpins the efforts of taking Puntland’s development. The concession agreement of expanding the Bosaso port involves building a 450m quay and a 5 hectare back up area, dredging to a depth of 12m with reclamation work using dredge spoil.
Prime Minister Kheyre, “We Will Not Accept Anyone To Destroy The Country”
12 October – Source: Hiiraan Online – 194 Words
Prime Minister Hassan Ali Kheyre’s speech at the National Flag Day event last night spoke critically of the political crisis in the country. The Prime Minister said: “Somali people are hopeful and can finally see the light after so many years, therefore we will not accept anyone to destroy the hopes of the people.” He added, “It is important not to accept anyone to destroy the country for their own interest and end the hopes of many people.”
Without specifically pointing out anyone, he further added that the days to disappoint political leaders through political crises were over. “The days to humiliate and disappoint political leaders through other political agendas are over, and we promise that we will follow through this time around”, said the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister reiterated that “Somalia is moving forward and will never go back. “Somalia will prosper and our overall objectives is to ensure that”. The current government of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo has lately seen some political upheavals from the regional leaders. The recent meeting concluded in Kismayo the regional leaders met to discuss the current political impasses between their administrations and the federal government.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somaliland Journalist’s 18-month Sentence Is Protested
12 October – Source: The Washington Post – 130 Words
A court in Somalia’s breakaway northern territory of Somaliland has sentenced a journalist to 18 months in prison on charges of criminal defamation and publishing false news. Mohamed Aden Dirir was arrested last month following an article for a local news website in which he alleged exam fraud by teachers at private schools in the capital, Hargeisa.
Local journalists say the one-day trial was held without his lawyer. He was sentenced on Sunday. Dirir’s family told reporters they would appeal. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists says Dirir “should never have been prosecuted in the first place” and the trial was carried out in an unjust way. Local media organizations have long said Somalia’s penal code, written in 1960, is designed to silence journalists and curtail freedom of expression.
Kenyan Soldiers Hunt For Al-Shabaab Militants In Coastal Region
12 October – Source: Xinhuanet – 312 Words
Kenya’s military said on Thursday that it has intensified manhunt for a group of Al-Shabaab militants dispatched from Somalia to wage more attacks targeting civilian and security agents in the coast’s Lamu County. Kenya Defence Force (KDF) spokesman David Obonyo said the group crossed over to the country through the vast Boni forest to stage more attacks in the counties of Lamu and Garissa near the Kenya Somalia border.
Obonyo said they are trailing militant group that is heavily armed and split in at least three groups to carry out attacks in several parts of Lamu. “Our troops are trailing the suspects as part of operation Linda Boni, intelligence reports indicate that militants have split in at least three groups to carry out attacks,” said Obonyo.
KDF, which is part of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM), is leading the latest onslaught against the group blamed for a series of sporadic attacks in Coast and northeastern Kenya. He said the group has no central operation center, making it difficult for security agents to flush them out from the forest. Obonyo said more military personnel with armored personnel carrier (APC) have launched both aerial and ground operation targeting the militants.
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“Resolving tens of thousands of land disputes, some of which date back to the 1970s, is a complex task as the process is unclear, said Kenneth Menkhaus, a political science professor at Davidson College in the United States. “It’s a mess,” he said, adding that side with the most firepower, money or influential clan connections usually wins. “Armed settlers claims on land are illegitimate – they are just a form of land grabbing.”
Back To The Land: Friction As Somali Exiles Return Home
12 October – Source: Reuters – 800 Words
In Somalia’s Raqayle village, life under al Shabaab Islamists can be brutal, with public beheadings, and bizarre – with edicts about wearing socks – but locals feel safer than when the government controlled the area and violently ousted them. More than 70 villagers fled to nearby Afgoye town in 2014 when a dozen government soldiers and policemen forced them off a 128-acre farm, which was claimed by an exile returning from Britain.
“They were just terrorizing us,” said one villager, Hodan, describing how the man from the diaspora sped in with cars full of armed men who smashed in doors with their rifles, looted water pumps and filled a well with sand and debris. “My sister, who was five months pregnant, was so upset she miscarried,” another villager, Warsame, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in an interview in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which is about an hour’s drive southeast of Raqayle. Both women declined to give their real names.
Similar stories can be heard across south-central Somalia, where better security is encouraging wealthy exiles who fled in the 1990s to return home – often igniting fresh land conflicts. Since 2011, United Nations-backed government forces and African Union troops have pushed the militant group al Shabaab out of major towns and cities. “The federal government is encouraging diaspora to come back,” Somalia’s information minister Abdirahman Omar Osman told the Thomson Reuters Foundation via email. “The country needs their skills, knowledge, and expertise.”
Osman said conflict can arise when returnees start rebuilding on land which others have lived on for decades. “There are special committees dealing with all disputes, and if there are serious cases then courts settle them,” he said.
Rights by blood: Resolving tens of thousands of land disputes, some of which date back to the 1970s, is a complex task as the process is unclear, said Kenneth Menkhaus, a political science professor at Davidson College in the United States. “It’s a mess,” he said, adding that side with the most firepower, money or influential clan connections usually wins. “Armed settlers claims on land are illegitimate – they are just a form of land grabbing.”
Clans form the bedrock of Somali society and identity, and decisions about most aspects of life are made collectively within them. “One’s claim to land is anchored pretty strongly to one’s clan,” Menkhaus said by phone. “This is rights by blood.” In Raqayle, the returning exile belongs to a more powerful clan than the villagers, said Ubdi Omar Wallin, founder of the charity Women in Action Against Malnutrition (WAAMO), which took the land dispute to court.