October 9, 2017 | Morning Headlines
Prime Minister Kheyre Meets Oversight Committee Following Constitutional Review Dispute
08 October – Source: Goobjoog News – 174 Words
Prime Minister Hassan Kheyre held talks with the parliamentary constitutional Oversight Committee Sunday following the fall out over the cancelled Constitutional Convention. The Oversight Committee chairperson Mr. Abdi Qebydiid said the two parties agreed to deal with the disputes with the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs and develop a common framework on the review process. A constitutional conference convened by the Ministry of Constitutional Affairs failed to take place today after both the Oversight Committee and the Review and Implementation Commission dismissed it as a violation of the law. The two bodies accused the ministry of unilateral decisions in dealing with the review process.
Regional states also kept away from the conference forcing the ministry to cancel it. The meeting is the second following the September 23 one, bringing together President Mohamed Farmaajo, Federal Parliament leaders and leaders of the two review bodies. However it emerged yesterday there was no agreement on the way forward. The Prime Minister called for cooperation and inclusion towards the finalization of the review process which is scheduled for 2018.
Key Headlines
- Prime Minister Kheyre Meets Oversight Committee Following Constitutional Review Dispute (Goobjoog News)
- 2 Killed In Kismayo Land Clash Shooting As Regional Leaders Arrived For A Meeting (Radio Dalsan)
- Somalia Postpones Constitution Review Meeting After Boycott (Garowe Online)
- Somalia Launches Strategy To Curb Violent Extremism (Xinhuanet)
- Somali Forces Shoot Dead Iranian Sailor In Indian Ocean (Voice of America)
- Not All Amnesty Deals Are Made The Same (Foreign Policy)
NATIONAL MEDIA
2 Killed In Kismayo Land Clash Shooting As Regional Leaders Arrived For A Meeting
08 October – Source: Radio Dalsan – 87 Words
At least two people were killed and another one injured when two groups fought over land in the Jubbaland capital Kismayo. The shooting occurred in Dalhiiska area in Kismayo. This Sunday, incident occurred as regional states’ leaders arrived at the port city for the scheduled Kismayo meeting, aimed at resolving a growing crisis and split between the federal government and the regional administrations. Kismayo’s security agents are on high alert ahead of the conference. The regional presidents of Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Puntland arrived in Kismayo on Sunday.
Somalia Postpones Constitution Review Meeting After Boycott
08 October – Source: Garowe Online – 232 Words
The Somali government has announced that it has postponed a constitutional review conference, called by the minister of Constitution Affairs, Abdirahman Hosh, after a boycott from Independent constitutional commission, the Joint Parliamentary oversight committee and Federal Member States. The Minister of Information, Abdirahman Omar Osman (Yarisow), confirmed the postponement of the much-anticipated forum expected to open in Mogadishu on Sunday, October 8, citing technical problems.
The decision comes after Somalia’s regional administrations, Independent Constitutional commission and the Joint Parliamentary oversight committee rejected to partake the meeting, accusing the Constitutional Affairs Minister of hijacking the entire national constitutional review process. The constitutional review bodies issued on Saturday a joint statement, in boycotting the meeting, calling it as illegitimate and aiming at disturbing the review process of the country’s constitution.
Speaking at a press conference in Mogadishu, Mr. Abdi Hassan Awale “Qeybdiid”, chairman of the joint Parliamentary Constitutional Oversight body called on donors not to fund the constitutional review plan. Since taking office in March, 2017 the Constitution Minister, Abdi Hosh Jibril, has been making efforts to hijack the review process of the Constitution and, he was blamed for misleading the public, derailing the constitution making process and corruption. Puntland government and other Somali regional states have already boycotted the controversial meeting organized by the ministry and called off their delegations’ participation in the proposed forum in Mogadishu.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia Launches Strategy To Curb Violent Extremism
08 October – Source: Xinhuanet – 397 Words
Somalia on Sunday launched a strategy to help prevent and counter violent extremism which is a serious threat to stability in the Horn of Africa nation. A joint statement issued after a meeting that brought together Somali federal and state authorities together with the international community said participants on a support and coordination mechanism put in operation the national strategy to prevent and counter violent extremism.
The strategy was launched in Mogadishu by the Somali Deputy Prime Minister, Mahdi Mohamed Guled, who hailed the launch as a milestone in the country’s efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism in order to help attain a sustainable peace for the country. He said the strategy, also referred to as ‘Strand 4’, is part of the National Security Architecture (NSA), which was endorsed by Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and the presidents of the federal member states in April. The NSA aims to tackle violent extremism and address wide ranging issues causing conflict and insecurity in Somalia. The objectives of the Strand 4 which is co-chaired by the Office of the Prime Minister and the Swedish Embassy is for conflicts to be addressed politically, as opposed to through violence.
Somali Forces Shoot Dead Iranian Sailor In Indian Ocean
08 October – Source: VOA – 600 Words
Somali regional officials say the Iranian captain of a fishing boat was killed and another sailor was injured after security forces opened fire during an operation in the Indian Ocean. Officials said the shooting occurred after Puntland Maritime Police Forces spotted two boats suspected to be fishing illegally Friday in Somali waters. Colonel Mohamed Abdi Hashi of Puntland police told VOA Somali the two boats ignored orders to stop and attempted to escape. “Our security forces were conducting an operation on October 6, they encountered two illegal fishing boats off Ras Hafun coast. When they tried to stop them in order to check their permits they escaped,” he said. “They managed to seize one of the boats, the other one escaped.”
Colonel Hashi said during the shooting captain Haydar Abdalla Sabiil of the vessel Al-Sa’idi was killed and a second sailor was injured, 16 others are unharmed and were apprehended, he said. The boat carrying the sailors have arrived at Bosaso port for questioning. The boat is carrying two tons of fish illegally caught in Somali waters, officials said. “The boat is now docked at Bosaso port, the body of the captain is in the freezer of the boat, and according to the law we transferred the case to the courts.” Officials did not release the name of the dead sailor. Colonel Hashi says he wasn’t sure if Somali political leaders have made any contact with Iran about the incident. “We are just soldiers, it’s possible that Puntland leadership have contacted Iran but I’m not aware of contact.”
OPINION, ANALYSIS AND CULTURE
“The Somali amnesty proposal is part of a long-standing approach that the country’s governments have taken to quell hostilities. This deal, like others that preceded it, was announced alongside a promise by the government to use force with those who rejected the offer. If the shortcomings and the dynamic it creates are not addressed, however, the quest for peace in Somalia and the surrounding region is unlikely to succeed.”
Not All Amnesty Deals Are Made The Same
06 October – Source: Foreign Policy – 751 Words
In early April, Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed issued a 60-day amnesty for Al-Shabaab fighters willing to lay down their arms. To help complete the deal, the U.S. government even removed a bounty of $5 million on one of the group’s founding members, Mukhtar Robow, who is also known as Abu Mansoor. The agreement had mixed results. Some 50 fighters, including high-level individuals, surrendered to the Somali government. But the Al-Shabaab leadership retaliated by organizing assassination attempts of nominated political delegates and conducting sustained attacks on soldiers and civilians in Somalia’s Puntland and Kenya’s Boni Forest regions.
The Somali government may have been surprised at this outcome, but the problems were entirely predictable. The history and legal applicability of amnesty proposals reveals the conditions under which they are most likely to succeed or to fail. For better or for worse, amnesty laws have long been considered an integral part of transitional justice processes in post-conflict states. They were popularized in political transitions in Latin America in the 1980s, and they have been implemented around the world, including in South Africa, Peru, El Salvador, and, most recently, Colombia. The essential idea in all these instances was that participants in armed conflict would be shielded from criminal liability if they participated in truth and reconciliation commissions.
In the 1990s, however, the “peace over justice” rationale began to be challenged as victims chose to bypass national processes in favor of seeking redress through international justice mechanisms, including criminal tribunals and human rights bodies. Many states, perceiving challenges to their territorial sovereignty, resisted the trend toward pursuing justice through international bodies. An uneasy compromise was reached: qualified amnesty. Such amnesties were considered valid under international law if they did not attempt to make people or organizations immune to prosecution for war crimes, crimes under enumerated treaties, and crimes against humanity.
These norms were developed against a backdrop of armed conflicts that involved nation-states and an organized armed group within the state’s territory. In such instances, it is easy to grant amnesty (qualified or otherwise) as there is a specific recipient (such as the FARC rebels in Colombia) and a specific scope of application (such as the territory of Colombia). The lines are less clear in more recent wars, in which armed conflict spills into the territory of another state, as has happened with the fighting in Somalia. Although al-Shabab’s origins are rooted in the civil war that followed the fall of longtime military leader-turned-president Siad Barre, the group went on to conduct attacks in neighboring Uganda and Kenya. This development effectively expanded Somalia’s conflict to the region, and Al-Shabaab became a transnational group.