September 20, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Electoral Security Committee Meets In Mogadishu
20 September – Source: Jowhar.com – 156 Words
The security committee tasked to provide security to ensure peaceful elections during the upcoming electoral process in Somalia on Monday held a meeting in Mogadishu. Chairman of the Federal Indirect Election Implementation Team (FIEIT) Omar Dhagey was among the officials who attended the meeting that focused on security matters in the run up to the elections.
Other officials presented at the venue included the Somali Police Chief Gen. Mohamed Sheikh Hassan Hamud, AMISOM and UN officials. Omar Dhagey said ensuring security was very critical in order to make sure the process runs smoothly. He urged the public to collaborate with the security forces bolstering the security of the elections.
Dhagey also said AMISOM troops will be deployed in areas where the elections will be taking place. Adado is one of them and will see AMISOM troops deployed there soon. The meeting comes as Al-Shabaab yesterday issued issued stern warning regarding the upcoming elections organized by the Federal government of Somalia.
Key Headlines
- Electoral Security Committee Meets In Mogadishu (Jowhar.com)
- ICJ DAY 2: Somalia To Counter Kenya’s Argument On Jurisdiction (Goobjoog News)
- Ministry of Education Signs Working Pact With Three Administrations (Goobjoog News)
- UN Police Train Somali Police Force Officers On Gender-based Violence (UNSOM)
- UN Says More Than Five Million Somalis Face Acute Food Shortages (Bloomberg)
- Kenya: Deputy President Ruto Tells UN 100000 refugees processed for return to Somalia (Capital FM)
- Allegations Of Abuse Corruption Cloud Election In Somalia (Foreign Policy)
NATIONAL MEDIA
ICJ DAY 2: Somalia To Counter Kenya’s Argument On Jurisdiction
20 September – Source: Goobjoog News – 310 Words
Somalia which sued Kenya in 2014 asking for a proper determination of the sea border between the neighbouring countries, will present its round one arguments a day after Kenya argued the International Court of Justice did not have jurisdiction over the case since the two countries had agreed to resolve the dispute through a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
Kenya and Somalia had in 2009 signed an MoU which was then deposited in the UN in 2011. Somalia based its case on failed negotiations saying that Kenya knowingly skipped the third meeting amid Kenyan claims that Somalia mutilated the 2009 agreement on the ocean boundary in order not to go into negotiations.
Somalia is represented by Paul Reichler of Foley Hoag LLP, New York and French lawyer Prof Allain Pellet with the leadership of Somalia’s Attorney General Ahmed Ali Dahir. The ICJ will hold hearings up to Friday to consider submissions on the case that was filed by Somalia in August 2014 requesting the court to delimit the maritime boundary.
Kenya has already licensed several companies to prospect for oil in the disputed patch of the ocean as part of its ambitious plan to search for oil and gas both on and off-shore though some of the foreign oil companies withdrew after Somalia sued at ICJ. The ICJ is a United Nations court tasked with arbitrating disputes between states and has on a number of occasions ruled on boundary issues between many countries including the long time contested Bakassi Peninsula between Nigeria and Cameroon in 1999.
Ministry of Education Signs Working Pact With Three Administrations
20 September – Source: Goobjoog News – 181 Words
The Ministry of Education has signed a working partnership with regional ministries in Jubaland, Galmudug and South West states. The education ministry said the agreement will facilitate smooth management of education and provide a collaboration platform between the federal and state levels of government.
Education Permanent Secretary Ahmed Hassen Yussuf said the agreement will be instrumental in providing a framework for interaction between the two levels of government. “With this signing, we will work closely with the State Ministries of Education, with the main goal of ensuring a strong education sector that will benefit all age-groups in Somalia.”
The European Union which supports the arrangement welcomed the agreement as an important step forward to ensuring Somali children to get quality education. “The EU is committed to increasing participation of children, youth and adults in all levels of public education in Somalia; and with the signing of this cooperation framework, the building blocks for a peaceful and economically viable Somali society have been laid”, said the EU Ambassador to Somalia, Michele Cervone d’Urso. The project is facilitated by the aid agency ADRA.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
UN Police Train Somali Police Force Officers On Gender-based Violence
20 September – Source: UNSOM – 388 Words
Twenty-five officers from the Somali Police Force drawn from various parts of the country began a five-day training course on the prevention of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV). The UN-sponsored training opened today and will acquaint the officers with different ways of handling sexual and gender-based violence.
The Somali Police Force Deputy Commissioner Gen. Bashir Abdi Mohamed officially opened the workshop. “We must not accept for anyone to be physically abused. We have laws and values that we must uphold. The so-called traditional period is over; we have to understand and be pragmatic about it. I want you to be ambassadors in upholding the values of policing,” said Gen. Mohamed.
The UN Development Programme’s Head of Governance and Rule of Law in Somalia, Franco Sanchez, said the UN was committed to working with the Somali police to investigate SGBV cases. The training will focus on the collection of evidence in cases of Sexual and Gender-Based violence and interviewing techniques required to obtain critical information from victims.
UN Says More Than Five Million Somalis Face Acute Food Shortages
20 September – Source: Bloomberg – 171 Words
About five million Somalis, or more than 40 percent of the Horn of Africa country’s population, are facing food shortages, with in excess of 350,000 children severely malnourished, the United Nations said.
The number of Somalis who are food insecure, has risen by 300,000 since February, according to a statement e-mailed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. More than 1.1 million Somalis are struggling to meet daily food requirements and 3.9 million need livelihood support to reduce “risk of sliding into crisis,” it said.
Poor rainfall in southern and central Somalia, where the bulk of the country’s harvest comes from, cut cereal output by half, the UN said. “The situation is of serious concern and comes at a time when we are already facing multiple drivers of needs, including drought and risk of flooding.” Somalia, which has been embroiled in civil war since the ousting of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991, is scheduled to have lawmakers choose a new president on Oct. 30.
Kenya: Deputy President Ruto Tells UN 100,000 refugees Processed For Return To Somalia
19 September – Source: Capital FM – 461 Words
Some 100,000 Somali refugees have been processed and documented ready to go back home in the ongoing voluntary repatriation, according to Deputy President William Ruto. Ruto told a roundtable meeting at the ongoing UN General Assembly in New York that out of this number, 27,000 have returned to Somalia.
“We believe that the opportunity for the reconstruction of Somalia lies in the return of its people. Furthermore, the solution to protracted refugee situations demand that the root causes of violence and conflict are addressed,” he said.
He urged support for reconstruction of Somalia and AMISOM, which he said is playing a critical role in stabilising the war-torn nation and safeguarding the safe return of its people. Ruto said Kenya has deployed $10 million dollars in new money to repatriate the refugees.
He asked the international community to collaborate with the Government of Somalia in the reconstruction and restoration of critical services in order to support repatriation and resettlement.
He spoke as world leaders came together at the United Nations General Assembly to adopt the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, which expresses the political will of world leaders to protect the rights of refugees and migrants, to save lives and share responsibility for large movements on a global scale.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“A year and a half into his second term as prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmake acknowledges that progress on many of the government’s top priorities, including the constitution and the federalization process, has been slow. But he says the election is proof that things are headed in the right direction.”
Allegations Of Abuse, Corruption Cloud Election In Somalia
20 September – Source: Foreign Policy – 1,430 Words
The proliferation of billboards and glossy campaign fliers, plastered across windshields and storefronts here, gives the impression of a hard-fought battle for Somali votes. But the coming parliamentary and presidential elections, scheduled to take place over the next six weeks, won’t be decided by a democratic ballot. They’ll be decided behind closed doors, by coalitions of powerful clan and militia leaders, often greased with illicit funds from abroad.
This year’s election was supposed to mark the culmination of Somalia’s democratic transition after more than a quarter-century of civil war. Instead it will be only slightly more inclusive than the last one, in 2012, when just 135 clan elders selected the Parliament that in turn voted on a president. It also may be tarnished, U.N. officials and opposition candidates say, by a surge in harassment of political activists and journalists by Somali security services.
“I think there are a lot of people who think they are deeply disadvantaged by this election — and they would be right,” said Michael Keating, the special representative of the U.N. secretary-general in Somalia, who maintained that the vote still represents a step forward for the country.
Security has improved in parts of Somalia since the last election, thanks mainly to a 22,000-strong African Union force that has dislodged Al-Shabaab from most urban areas. But the al Qaeda-linked group continues to carry out regular bombings and assassinations, killing a top Somali general and six of his bodyguards in Mogadishu as recently as Sept. 18. But it’s not just Al-Shabaab that stands between Somalia and a return to political normalcy.
The clan violence that fueled the civil war throughout the 1990s and early 2000s has mostly subsided. The underlying clan rivalries, however, are still very much intact. And they have made everything from drafting a new constitution to federating the country to drawing up a plan for the current election — all things the government was supposed to have done by now — excruciatingly difficult.
TOP TWEETS
@Aadandaahir1 : #BREAKING :#security officials in#Mogadishu planing to secure election places in #Somalia
@BarudGSD : Sr. Attorney Reichler: “desperate situations resulting desperate arguments” #QadiyaddaBadda powerful arguments by #Somalia so far #proud
@Kadarnouh : #AlShabaab ambushes #Ethiopian military convoy in Central #Somalia source @radiogarowe
@Abdi_AlSheikh : Five million Somalis now food insecure – Somalia | ReliefWeb – ReliefWeb (www) http://dlvr.it/MJ6zrP #Somalia
@xareed45 : #End polio#In #Somalia it needs More awareness
@SWDC_ORG: When women participate in the political process & decision making of #Somalia everyone will benefit. The society will prosper #VoteForWomen
@AfricanNewsbot: Mall attacker was recent college student, security guard – Fox News: Fox NewsMall attacker w…http://bit.ly/2cMxz6J #africa #somalia
@HornDiplomat2 : The #Somali Legal System for the Maritime Police – EUCAP Nestor Workshop held in #Mogadishuhttp://www.horndiplomat.com/
IMAGE OF THE DAY
Somalia’s world-class international bank. IBS operates to international standards and gives its customers the ability to connect with the outside world.
Photo: AMISOM