African Union's war with Al Shabaab intensifies

Somali Islamist group Al Shabaab has returned to Mogadishu where it has displayed the bodies of dozens of African Union and government soldiers in a show of strength. On Thursday they laid out bodies in military uniforms they said were Burundian soldiers with the AU force whom they had killed in an area they hold outside the capital. At least 70 bodies were laid out, though the Burundian army will admit to only 6 dead and 18 injured. (Photo: Feisal Omar / Reuters)

The attack on Burundian soldiers was not unexpected. Along with Kenyans and Ugandans, they make up the bulk of the AU force in Somalia. In July, al-Shabaab bombed bars and a stadium in Kampala, the Ugandan capital as thousands were watching the World Cup final. Over 70 people were killed in the attacks which came after repeated warnings to Uganda and Burundi for providing troops to the AU force in Somalia. The suitably named Al Shabaab spokesman Ali Mohamoud Rage said they were sending a message to every country that is willing to send troops to Somalia they will face attacks on their territory. “Burundi will face similar attacks soon, if they don’t withdraw,” Rage said.

Burundi itself has not yet been hit but Mogadishu continues to bear the brunt of the struggle. On Tuesday a suicide bomber blew up a car full of explosives near the foreign ministry. Four people were killed, including the bomber in an attack deliberately aimed to coincide with a visit from the Kenyan foreign and defence ministers.

Al Shabaab is particularly hostile to Kenya. Kenyan jets struck Al Shabaab positions in the border region a day after the suicide attack. They are targeting rebels they blame for abductions, including that of a French woman Marie Dedieu, 66, who was captured from her wheelchair at a beach resort in Kenya and who in captivity in Somalia. The air attacks are intended to soften the area up for an attack by Kenyan ground troops guided by pro-government Somali forces.

Meanwhile a new battlefield is emerging 70kms south of the capital with Kenyan forces. The fighting is at the coastal town of Kismayo, an Islamist stronghold. Kenyan military planners have targeted Kismayo and two nearby secondary ports to cut off the export earnings and taxes al Shabaab use to finance their war. Kenyan ground forces are attacking from the north and their navy from the south, leaving thousands of Somali refugees fleeing the area due to aerial bombardment. Somali traders prefer to use Kismayo because of its import duties –$1000 cheaper than Mogadishu – making it still profitable to enter goods at Kismayo and drive to Mogadishu.

Al Shabaab is Arabic for “the boys” but there is nothing lad-like about these Islamist hardliners who continue to make life a misery for the citizens of Somalia. Less than 40 percent of Somalis are literate, more than one in ten children dies before turning five, and a person born in Somalia today cannot assume with any confidence they will live to 50.

Al Shabaab emerged from the break-up of the Islamic Courts Union who were de facto rulers of Somalia from the mid 1990s to 2006 when Ethiopia-led forces invaded from the west. Ethiopia toppled the ICU but hardliners formed Al Shabaab which proved more difficult to dislodge. In 2009, By February 2009, they controlled most of southern Somalia where they imposed sharia law. They contributed to the famine in the region by banning international aid agencies, including the UN World Food Program. Despite only having a few thousand fighters they have been able to expand due to the lack of a central government and co-operation from clan warlords.

Al Shabaab’s continued support relies on hatred of invaders. A March 2010 report said US support of the transitional government was “proving ineffective and costly”. The Government was is unable to improve security, deliver basic services, or move toward an agreement with Somalia's clans and opposition groups to provide a stronger basis for governance. The report recommends a strategy of "constructive disengagement." This calls for the US to accept an Islamist authority in Somalia—including al-Shabaab - as long as it does not impede international humanitarian activities and refrains from both regional aggression and support for international jihad. While the report has merit, it seems naive to think Al-Shabaab will abandon its most fundamental philosophy.

The Horn of scarcity: Anatomy of an official famine

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has a very dry definition of a famine. More than a third of children must be suffering from acute malnutrition. Two adults or four children must be dying of hunger each day for every group of 10,000 people and the population must have access to well below 2,100 kilocalories of food per day. On 20 July, the UN decided two regions of southern Somalia met those criteria, the lower Shabelle and Bakool regions. A prolonged La Nina has led to one of the driest October-December rainy seasons ever, the second consecutive such poor season and very poor livestock production has also contributed to the crop failure which led to the drought which has led to the famine.

A new UN regional overview said the famine is likely to spread to the rest of the region. The region is suffering severe food insecurity due to drought and high food prices and there are significant refugees on the move from Somalia. The trigger for the move of tens of thousands is directly attributable to the drought but also the 20 year conflict in southern Somalia which has hindered access for humanitarian agencies.

Now those agencies are struggling to cope with the influx of Somali refugees in Ethiopia and Kenya. Malnutrition and mortality rates are alarmingly high in many parts of the region. The OCHA estimates 12.4 million people are in need of help in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. One quarter of Somalia’s 7.5 million are displaced with 3.7 million needing assistance. A further 4.8 million in Ethiopia and 3.7 million in Kenya also need help.

Feeding over 12 million people is not easy in war torn Horn of Africa but that is the task UN food agency WFP has set itself. Large parts of Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda are suffering in a drought that is likely to continue to next year and with several conflicts in the region, the WFP they barely reached 40 per cent, leaving six million malnourished people who are slowly starving to death. Airlifts have started to Mogadishu and the south at the heart of the famine, with support also arriving in the camps in the border towns of Kenya and Ethiopia.

Dadaab in Kenya is getting 1,300 new arrivals every day while Dollo Ado in Ethiopia has taken in 54,000 this year with half the children malnourished. CARE operates three refugee camps in Dadaab which are home to almost 400,000 refugees, mostly from Somalia. Thos arriving suffering from malnutrition and medical problems are referred to supplementary and therapeutic feeding programs and stabilisation units in camp hospitals. Families are provided with two weeks' worth of food rations and other essentials including tents, kitchen sets, firewood and fuel-efficient stoves while awaiting registration and access to general food distributions.

The situation will worse before it gets better. The current food security emergency across the region is expected to persist at least for the coming three to four months with the number of people in need of urgent aid increasing by as much as a quarter. The crisis in southern Somalia is expected to continue to worsen through 2011, with the entire south slipping into famine. This deterioration is likely given the very high levels of both severe acute malnutrition and under-five mortality in combination with expected worsening pastoral conditions, a continued increase in local cereal prices, and a below-average crop harvest.

Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd has just returned from the region and he said the international community has a double challenge. Firstly to ensure UN agencies have enough funding to deal with the crisis before it becomes a catastrophe; and secondly to give UN humanitarian agencies enough flexibility to make sure people get to the aid despite the war zone.

In the medium term, OCHA says interventions to rebuild and support livelihoods will be critical. “Securing long-term food and nutrition security in the Horn of Africa requires focussing on a range of issues affecting the region, including conflict, preservation of humanitarian space, nutrition, disaster risk reduction, health and education services, and climate change adaptation,” the OCHA said. “Building resilience in the agricultural sector will be essential to avoid recurrent food security crises in this region.”

Negotiator paid $500,000 to release Nigel Brennan and Amanda Lindhout

John Chase, the hostage negotiator in the Somali kidnap of Nigel Brennan and Amanda Lindhout has admitted they paid a half a million US dollars to secure their release. The Australian Brennan and Canadian Lindhout were released from Mogadishu last month after being held for 15 months and Chase was instrumental in getting the initial $2.5 million ransom demand per head down to the $250,000 a head that was paid in the end. Chase said the kidnappers had no political motives and were not related to the Islamic Courts Union that rules much of Mogadishu. (photo credit: Reuters)

A blog called Free Amanda Lindhout said last week the Canadian Government would send a plane to take Lindhout and her family back to Canada. However the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs would not confirm this saying the family deserved privacy. Whenever she returns, it brings an end to a long ordeal she suffered in the name of getting the story of Somali refugees out to the wider world. Lindhout had worked in Iraq where she wrote stories about honour killings. She went to Mogadishu in August 2008 with Nigel Brennan. Brennan is a Brisbane-based photojournalist, who studied photography at Griffith University and a former photographer for the Bundaberg NewsMail newspaper.

On 23 August 2008 the pair were kidnapped in Mogadishu. Lindhout told Canadian TV they were researching a story about internally displaced people in Somalia. Many IDPs preferred the certainty of the camps to life in the war-torn capital. The journalists had been to a refugee camp the day before to interview IDPs and were going back to film for a second day. Their vehicle was ambushed and pulled to the side of the road. According to the pair’s local fixer and journalist Abdifatah Elmi the kidnappers opened the door of the car and brandished guns. They forced all three to get into their car and drove away from the scene very fast.

Within twenty-fours, Brennan’s parents in Australia got a call from the hostage takers. As Brennan’s sister Nicky Bonney described it, a voice identified himself as Aden, ringing from Mogadishu. Aden said he had Nigel and this was a ransom call for $1.5 million. A few hours later, Australian federal police turned up and directed the family to ask the hostage-takers a “proof of life” question. Bonney asked them, what was the name of their dog and the correct answer came back two hours later.

The Somali journalists union claimed they were being held in the north-eastern Mogadishu neighbourhood of Suqa Holaha by militias. After a month, Al Jazeera television showed footage of Brennan and Lindhout. They were accompanied by armed men, who identified themselves as the Mujahideen of Somalia. They accused Australia and Canada of helping to destroy Somalia, and demanded they end this policy.

In January, the hostage takers released the Somali journalist Abdifatah Elmi after 150 days in captivity. Elmi said his clan elders negotiated his release and that no ransom was paid. He said he was kept separately from the others and didn’t know their whereabouts. There was no further contact until May when Brennan and Lindhout made a five-minute phone call to an AFP journalist in Mogadishu saying they were in poor health and requested help from their governments. A day later Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith asked for a media black-out saying public discussion could endanger Brennan's life.

The problem for Brennan and Lindhout is that they were freelance journalists. If they had been employed by a news agency, the employer would likely have had kidnap insurance and the situation would have been resolved quickly. But being freelance, they had no choice but to ask their governments to pay. Both the Australian and Canadian Governments refused citing their long-standing policy not to pay ransoms.

However this is not a hard and fast rule. What the Australian Government would agree was $250,000 which it was prepared to facilitate as payment to secure a release. This had to be described as an incidental cost and not as a ransom. The Australian and Canadian Governments set up a Nairobi task force but the kidnappers were not prepared to accept $250,000 a head. It was up to the hostages’ families to raise the rest of the money. The families got together and hired a hostage release and ransom negotiator with a proven track record of dealing with Somali kidnap situations. The contractor was John Chase, the managing director of crisis response with the AKE group. He said the kidnappers were criminal gangs who could be placated with extra money. Chase was not cheap at $3,000 a day. But the families raised funds with the help of Dick Smith and other businesspeople. Finally after 462 days of captivity, the hostages were released for half a million dollars each.

Writing in Online Opinion today, African scholar David Robinson went behind the trite "lawless since 1991" common media headline to show why Somalia is such a complicated place. There has been a long-standing post-colonial conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia for control of the Ogaden. During the Cold War both countries were courted in turn by the US and the USSR but the Somali regime found itself bereft of friends after the Soviet collapse. In 1991 Siad Barre’s rebel movement displaced the Government which led to the disastrous 1993 UN peacekeeping mission. The US lost 30 soldiers and more important lost its will to engage in Africa. The intervening years have seen an ongoing power struggle between the UN-backed Transitional Government and the fundamentalist but popular Islamic Courts. As Robinson says “Nigel Brennan travelled to Somalia to reveal its story; it is a story worth telling.”

ICG issues warning on Puntland

(Photo of Puntland's Bosaaso Airport by Sand Paper)

Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland has become the new flashpoint for the failed Horn of African state. Al Jazeera noted today that five visiting Muslim leaders from Pakistan were shot dead in execution-style yesterday as they prayed in a mosque in Somalia’s north-eastern most province. According to police, masked men dragged the Pakistanis out of the mosque after dawn prayers and opened fire on them. Puntland’s new president Abdurahman Mohamed Farole condemned the attack as a "terrible incident". The suspect and motive for the killing is unclear but Al Jazeera quoted an International Crisis Group (ICG) report that said Puntland could face a violent break-up if it does not deal with all of the semi-autonomous clans in the region.

Puntland declared its semi-autonomous status in 1998 but does not desire full independence from Somalia. The state arose out of the locally-based Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF) which was one of the opposition groups fighting the central state which collapsed in 1991. The SDDF warded off attacks from the war-scarred south and created Puntland with the support of community elders. At present Puntland acts as a wholly autonomous state, but its transitional constitution says it is a part of an anticipated Federal State of Somalia. It is viewed as one of Somalia’s most prosperous areas and was initially seen as a successful model of the “building blocks” federalist approach to re-establishing national stability.

However a new report by the ICG the called The Trouble with Puntland says the province is experiencing a three-year rise in insecurity and political tension. Problems date back to faction fighting after Puntland’s first president was deposed in 2001. The state is also the centre of most Somali pirate activity. The report blames poor governance and a collapse of the intra-clan cohesion and pan-Darood (northern Somali clan) solidarity that was responsible for the state’s initial creation. Criminal gangs not only run piracy but are also involved in arms trafficking, kidnapping, and the smuggling of people and contraband. The ICG says there is evidence of state complicity in these activities and doubts if Farole’s government has the political will to move against the gangs.

The ICG says the Puntland government must take advantage of the international attention about piracy to attract funds and expertise. These are needed to carry out comprehensive political, economic and institutional reforms to address fundamental problems of poor governance, corruption, unemployment and grinding poverty, especially in coastal villages. It also called on the international community to support Puntland by equipping and training a small coast guard and improve the general welfare and help poverty-stricken fishing communities.

However some of Somalia’s neighbours need to help out too. Ethiopia and Egypt have diametrically opposed positions on Puntland (and neighbouring Somaliland which wants full independence from Somalia). Whereas Ethiopia saw Puntland as a strategic ally, Egypt feared it would lead to Ethiopian domination of the area with consequential diminished access to Nile waters. Local warlords became adept at playing the two foreign powers off each other and switched sides with ease. As the ICG says, such floating alliances added unpredictability and fluidity to already complex and dangerous politics, and made the search for peace much harder.

The government stacked the judiciary, the civil service and the security apparatus and by 2005 corruption was endemic. This had devastating impact on business as traders needed to pay large bribes to import food, fuel and consumer goods. Similar problems plagued the livestock and fishing industries. Transport and food items became more expensive as a result which increased poverty and malnutrition. Hyperinflation aggravated by severe drought, pushed Puntland into a lengthy humanitarian emergency. As well as governance issues, Puntland also has problems with a secret new constitution that puts the province on a plot to secession, territorial disputes with Somaliland, relations with Mogadishu, threat from Islamist dissidents, and piracy that has attracted global interest.

The ICG has suggested a number of key reforms particularly in governance, security and border demarcation. In the area of governance it suggests a more transparent constitution, an independent electoral commission, a committee to demark boundaries, and an electoral court to adjudicate on disputes. In security reform, the government needs to balance its budget to pay soldiers and police fairly and introduce professionalism, transparency, and civilian oversight into the security agencies. And as for borders, the ICG warns that the international community needs to move quickly to defuse a growing crisis in the disputed regions of Sool/Sanaag.

Failure, say the ICG, may result in the violent break-up of Puntland, as rival clans seeking autonomy the centre to carve out their own enclaves. It says this process is already underway in areas such as Sool and Sanaag. “Unless the government enacts meaningful reforms and again reaches out to all clans, it may become unstoppable”, warn the ICG.

Andrew Mwenda and Impunity: The hazards of East African journalism

Renowned economist William Easterly has spoken out this week in support of independent Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda. In his excellent new blog Aid Watch, Easterly called Mwenda courageous and said he (Mwenda) was finally getting well-deserved recognition. Easterly said the editor of Uganda’s The Independent was a frequent critic of the corruption and poor results of African aid agencies. He also made a broader point about the quality of African media. “A free press is an important way in which we hold our governments accountable in rich democratic countries,” said Easterly. “Why shouldn’t Africans have the right to freedom of the press as well?”

Easterly’s call is valid, though there is a strong and robust press in East Africa. Paris-based Reporters Without Borders (known by their French initials RSF) has called Uganda’s press “pluralist and serious.” Certainly, Mwenda has proven a serious thorn in the side of his own government. The Independent focuses on uncovering official corruption and human rights abuses in Uganda. Since he established the bi-monthly magazine in December 2007, he has faced 20 criminal charges, including sedition, libel, and annoying the person of the president.

He and his staff have been arrested or detained more than a dozen times. In the most extreme event in March 2008, Ugandan military intelligence service raided his offices and threatened to shoot him. Mwenda braved out that threat and later told Parade, “The government can jail me or even kill me, but it cannot jail or kill the values and ideas for which we stand.”

But other journalists in the region have paid the highest price for those values and ideas. Last week police found the body of Kenyan journalist Francis Kainda Nyaruri in woods near Lake Victoria. He was tortured and then decapitated. Police say they are still looking for a motive but perhaps they know more than they are letting on. RSF said Nyaruri was recently threatened by police officers. Nyaruri had written a series of articles for a local weekly newspaper that exposed financial scams and other malpractice by the local police department.

The manner of his death bore similarities to that of New Zealand photographer Trent Keegan. Keegan was found dead in a trench in Nairobi with injuries to the back of the head. Police initially claimed he was killed in a robbery. However suspicions were raised when it was revealed that his laptop was stolen but his wallet containing US$60 was not. Keegan was investigating a land dispute in northern Tanzania between local Masai and a US based safari company at the time of his death. He had told colleagues he was concerned for his safety after the safari company had questioned him about his investigation.

Despite these incidents, Kenya is haven of safety compared to Somalia. Somalia is the deadliest country in Africa for journalists (only Iraq is more dangerous worldwide). This morning Roy Greenslade reported that Said Tahliil Ahmed was the latest Somali journalist to be shot dead. Ahmed was the director of HornAfrik, a radio and television station in Mogadishu, and his Islamist attackers killed him for reporting on the Somali presidential election (which is being held in neighbouring Djibouti for security reasons.) Ahmed is the second Somali journalist to die this year after Hassan Mayow Hassan was gunned down on New Year’s Day. Hassan was covering the conflict between the transitional federal government policy and insurgents in the region.

RSF have charted the grim death toll of Somali journalists. In 2008, eight were killed, four injured, some 50 journalists in exile, 53 arrested and others were force to hide at home after abandoning their work in fear. The press freedom body says the journalists were not only victims of political violence, but also “favourite targets for the transitional authorities, who see them as inconvenient witnesses of the chaos which they are unable to control.” Unfortunately, very little is done to protect them. As RSF said in their continental review in 2006: “In Africa, impunity is not a matter of bad luck, it is the general rule.”

Ogaden: the world’s most forgotten conflict

A rare incursion by outside journalists has lifted the lid on Ethiopia’s secret war against its remote Somali Ogaden province. Photojournalists from Al Jazeera showed the devastating effect of the decade-long war on its civilian population. While war rages between the central government and local rebels, locals endure a living hell with shortages of drinking water and food while their homes are destroyed in “security operations”.

At a simplistic level, they are the silent victims of a war between a federal government dominated by Orthodox Christian Tigrayans and Amharans and a Somali Sunni Islam minority based in the far west of the country. The Somali separatists in the Ogaden have been battling Addis Ababa for over 13 years. However news has been slow in getting out to the wider world due to the onerous travel restrictions the government has placed on the region. There are very few journalists in the vast and sparsely populated region that borders Somalia, and therefore there is no accurate picture of the frequency of the fighting and its death toll. According to Al Jazeera, simmering resentment among young locals is driving them into the arms of the separatists.

The low-level war took a significant turn for the worse last year when it claimed foreign casualties. Ethiopia launched an assault on the Ogaden National Liberation Army (ONLF) after they attacked a Chinese oil exploration project in the Ogaden in April 2007. 65 Ethiopians and nine Chinese workers were killed in the attack. 200 rebel fighters launched the attack which lasted more than an hour and destroyed the exploration facility and kidnapped another seven Chinese workers. Human Rights Watch say that civilians bore the brunt of Ethiopian retaliation with villages destroyed, public executions and many instances of torture.

The separatists’ ultimate aim is not exactly clear. For some the desire is simple autonomy from the central government. Meanwhile others want independence and there are those who hold the historic dream of a "greater Somalia". The prize is a thousand kilometres of sparse scrub and desert wastes where the UN says up to 4.5 million people could soon face famine-like conditions. These claims are denied by Ethiopia who blames Islamists in neighbouring Somalia for spreading the war.

The seeds of the conflict date back to 1896 when Britain, the imperial power in Somaliland, signed an agreement with the Somali Ogaden chiefs to preserve British external control of the area while allowing internal sovereignty to the chiefs. However barely a year later, Britain signed a contrary agreement with the Abyssinian Empire which recognised the Abyssinian claims on Harar on the edge of the Ogaden. According to Ahmed Ali of the pro-Somali site Ogaden Online, the next hundred years would see the Ogaden become a “no-man’s land where Abyssinian successive regimes practice their military power and slaughter innocent civilians.”

In the mid 1970s Somali leader Mohamed Siad Barre used the recent overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie to launch an assault on Ethiopia. Somalia gave support to Ogaden separatists and the Somali army invaded in July 1977. The Ogaden War proved to be a dilemma to the Soviet Union which initially armed both sides in the conflict. After several months of fighting, the assault finally collapsed when the Soviets threw their undivided support behind the Ethiopians. By March 1978, the last Somali soldiers left the country. But the new Mengistu regime in Addis Ababa did not trust its westernmost province. The region remained farflung, ignored and suspiciously Somali.

The Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) was founded in 1984 with the goal fighting against Mengistu’s Derg (junta) of creating a separatist state. Matters changed again in the early 1990s with the fall of both Mengistu’s and Barre’s reign as old Cold War alliances collapsed. The ONLF looked towards a political solution to their problems. It now claims it uses only “defensive combat” to defend itself against Ethiopian militias. Ethiopia sees the ONLF as a “behind the lines” enemy as it launched its own adventurism with its invasion of Somalia last year to oust the Islamic Courts government in Mogadishu.

The atmosphere remains tense in the Ethiopian capital and matters were not helped yesterday by two explosions which killed three and injured 15 others. The attacks occurred just a day after local elections where 26 million people went to the polls. Both attacks occurred at petrol stations where locals were queued up to buy kerosene. While no one claimed responsibility for the bombs, and the Government has not explicitly blamed the ONLF, the Sudan Tribune reports the administration saying the attacks were “the act of the desperate who are dying to obstruct the efforts of the nation to build up democracy.” However there is very little evidence that Ethiopia is keen to let much democracy build up in the Ogaden.

Mayhem in Mogadishu

The Somali capital Mogadishu remains chaotic after the latest round of fighting between Ethiopian troops and Somali rebels went into a second day. The violence began on Friday when a large Ethiopian convoy of reinforcements struck a landmine as it entered the city late on Friday. The violence escalated in Saturday when rebel Islamist fighters exchanged machine-gun and mortar fire with Somali Government and Ethiopian troops. At least 15 people have been killed so far.

Yesterday, hundreds of Mogadishu protesters demonstrated against the presence of Ethiopian troops in the city supporting the interim government. The crowd chanted “Down with Ethiopia! Down with the Somali government!" One protestor, Abdi Adan Somane told AFP "We don't need them on our soil. Ethiopia must leave otherwise its presence will lead to more bloodshed." His call went unheeded by the Ethiopians who opened fire on demonstrators killing three people in the crowd.

Elsewhere in the city, residents either cowered behind closed doors or fled Mogadishu as the mostly Ethiopian forces sought to crush the rebels. The UN says some 400,000 people have fled the violence in Mogadishu in the past four months. Civilians fleeing the latest spate of attacks loaded pick-up trucks and donkey carts with household items. Mogadishu resident Abdurahman Nure spoke to AFP from the back of a Land Cruiser as he left the city with his children. "No one can endure what is happening in Mogadishu,” he said “It's non-stop violence and it's taking hundreds of lives every week."

The UN- and Ethiopian-backed government ousted the Union of Islamic Courts from government in December 2006. The group of 11 autonomous courts had ruled the city since 2004. Despite the defeat, they remained popular with the mainly Muslim population for their successful campaign to impose Islamic law and rid Mogadishu of the warlords who ruthlessly controlled the city for the previous 15 years. Now the Islamists have slowly regrouped and have regained control of the western part of Mogadishu where they launch guerrilla operations.

Mogadishu’s mayor warned residents in some neighbourhoods to leave their homes because the government has "run out of patience" with insurgent groups. Mayor Mohamed "Dheere" Omar told a media conference that the community should avoid the market precinct of Bakara market where anti-government forces were massing. Dheere said Somali federal troops and Mogadishu police supported by the Ethiopian army were about to launch a military operation in the market area.

But there is trouble within the government ranks. President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi have feuded ever since they came to power in late 2004. The two men represent the two largest clans in Somalia, the Darod and the Hawiye, respectively. Yusuf’s powerbase is Puntland, while Gedi’s clan rule Mogadishu. Yusuf blames Gedi for the continued unrest in the capital and their rift widened after they backed rival bids looking to exploit the Somalia’s potential oil resources. Last week Saudi King Abdullah invited both men for a reconciliation visit though there is no word if either the president or the prime minister has accepted his offer.

Somalia has been without an effective national government since 1991 when rival warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. In 2004, Yusuf and Gedi established a weak transitional government operating mainly out of the southern city of Baidoa and neighbouring Kenya. After the rise of the Islamic Courts in 2006, Ethiopia launched a 15,000 strong invasion of Somalia with the full backing of the Bush administration, which worried by supposed and unproven links between the Islamists and terrorism. While the invasion was successful, terror remains part of the everyday experience of Mogadishu’s beleaguered citizens.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: apostasy on tour in Australia

Somali born writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali told a packed Sydney Recital Hall last night that Muslim schools in Australia should be abolished. Speaking at the Sydney Writers festival amid high security, Hirsi Ali said Australians should ask why there is need for Saudi Arabian financed Muslim schools. “Young people should be groomed to be Australians first, to see their nationality first not religion," she said.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in 1969. Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was one of the leading figures of the Somali Revolution which finally led to the overthrow of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Ayaan is Magan Isse’s fourth daughter and her name Ayaan is the Somali word for “lucky”. Magan Isse was imprisoned by Siad Barre shortly after Ayaan was born. But he escaped six years later. The family fled Somalia and after short stints in Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia they settled in Kenya.

Hirsi Ali was educated in Nairobi where she fell under the influence of an Islamic religious teacher. Ayaan wore the hijab with her school uniform and was in favour of the fatwa against Salman Rushdie. In 1992, Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in circumstances that remain shrouded in mystery. She claims she was given in arranged marriage to a distant cousin in Canada. In preparation, she went to join family members in Dusseldorf, Germany. There she claims she worked out a plan to escape the marriage plans and fled to the Netherlands where she claimed asylum.

On her Dutch asylum application, Hirsi Ali gave a false name and told authorities she was a refugee from camps on the Somali-Kenyan border. Hirsi Ali was that false name as her birth name was Ayaan Hirsi Magan. Because Somalia was in the grip of a civil war and famine at the time, the Dutch accepted her application. Hirsi Ali took courses in Dutch and took various short term clerical jobs. After learning the language, she worked as a Dutch-Somali interpreter for refugees and studied political science at the University of Leiden. She gained her master’s degree in 2000.

In her time at university, Hirsi Ali was exposed to new ideas that sorely tested her devotion to Islam. Then after 9/11 she suffered revulsion when she saw Dutch Muslims celebrate the attacks. She wrote a book called De Zoontjesfabriek (The Son Factory) which outlined her views on women, Islam and integration, and she quickly became a public figure with appearances on TV debates and news programs.

In 2002 she was introduced to Gerrit Zalm. Zalm was then Dutch finance minister and a member of of the market liberal party VVD. The VVD is a centre-right libertarian party. Zalm urged Hirsi Ali to join the party and stand for election. She was elected in 2003 and continued to attract controversy over her new views about Islam. Among her suggestion was that Muslims be screened for terrorism before being accepted into a job. She was also critical of the position of women in patriarchal Muslim societies.

In 2004, she wrote the script for a ten minute film called Submission (a direct translation of the word “Islam”). The short film was directed by Theo van Gogh. In it a Muslim women is beaten by her husband and another is raped by an uncle while verses from the Koran unfavourable to women are projected onto their bodies in Arabic. Two months after Dutch TV aired the film, van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam by a Moroccan immigrant Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri implanted a knife in his body with a five page note attached which threatened Western governments, Jews and Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Hirsi Ali went into hiding for three months. She emerged in 2005 and demanded to live a normal life despite ongoing death threats. Readers Digest nominated her European of the Year in 2006. In her acceptance speech she urged action against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. In the wake of the Mohammed cartoons controversy, Hirsi Ali joined a group of 12 writers including Salman Rushdie who signed a manifesto which warned against Islamic "totalitarianism".

But her life began to unravel in May 2006 when a Dutch TV program Zembla exposed the fiction of her asylum application. Hirsi Ali was forced to admit she had lied about her full name, her date of birth and the manner in which she had come to the Netherlands. The Dutch media she could lose her Dutch citizenship thereby rendering her ineligible for parliament. An official investigation corroborated the TV report and Hirsi Ali resigned from parliament.

Although the Government eventually ruled she could keep her citizenship, Hirsi Ali moved to the US to take up a position with the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-thank based in Washington with close ties to the Republican Party. Here she remained under the watchful eye of security guards after threats from US based Muslim organisations. Her protection is carried out by American security personnel commissioned by the Dutch Justice department.

In April she incurred the wrath of Pittsburgh imam Fouad ElBayly who demanded the death sentence for her when she arrived for a lecture at the University of Pittsburgh. "She has been identified as one who has defamed the faith. If you come into the faith, you must abide by the laws, and when you decide to defame it deliberately, the sentence is death," said ElBayly, who came to the US from Egypt in 1976.

Her current visit to Australia has also attracted controversy and attracted angry remarks from local Muslims. Islamic law lecturer at Sydney's University of Technology, Jamila Hussain says Hirsi Ali’s ideas are extreme. “She's obviously had some dreadful experiences, but they're not typical, “ she said. Nada Roude, of the New South Wales Islamic Council also claims her visit has the potential to incite hatred. “Anyone who causes harm to our society because they have the right to express their opinion is not welcome,” she said.

Somaliland requests international recognition

Somaliland has sent a formal request to the African Union asking to be recognised as an independent state. Somaliland is a former British colony with a population of 3.5 million which broke away from Somalia in 1991. No country yet formally recognises the de facto nation although several keep an unofficial diplomatic presence in Somaliland's capital Hargeisa.

Somaliland unilaterally declared independence four months after the overthrow of former Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Since then Somaliland has enjoyed relative security and prosperity compared to the anarchy that has descended on the rest of Somalia. There are no gunmen, roadblocks and bombed-out buildings on the streets of Hargeisa. The breakaway republic also has its own constitution and has held successful democratic elections. The state is mostly peaceful, though there were border clashes last month with troops from neighbouring Puntland, another semi-autonomous Somali region.

Earlier this month Somaliland President Dahir Rayale Kahin ruled out reuniting with Somalia and also cast doubt over the interim government's claim of victory in Mogadishu. He also warned Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf against any belligerent moves against Somaliland. "Abdullahi Yusuf cannot come here. It is a day dream that Abdullahi Yusuf is coming and that he will govern Hargeisa." He said.

Kahin has been pressing other African leaders to recognise his country. Kahin is also encouraged by Sweden’s move in March to treat Somaliland as a self-governing area. The Swedish government stated that "Somaliland which takes politically a unique position shall be treated for the first time as a self-governing area”. While the statement stops short of formal recognition, it is a huge step forward with Sweden’s plan likely to have the backing of the EU.

Somaliland has a long and distinct history apart from Somalia. It was dominated by Egypt in the 19th century until British soldiers came across the Gulf from Aden to establish their rule. They founded the protectorate of British Somaliland in 1887. Britain showed little interest in its new African possession. They called its then-capital Berbera "Aden's butcher's shop". It supplied the meat to the strategic British garrison across the gulf.

Britain granted independence to the colony on 26 June 1960 and Somaliland was immediately recognised by 35 countries. Its independence lasted five days. At the same time, Italy granted independence to Italian Somaliland. Under the guidance of the exiting colonisers, the two governments in Hargeisa and Mogadishu agreed on a plan of unity on the basis that Somalis are the same people, speak the same language and have a common religion. They came together as the Republic of Somalia effective 1 July 1960 with a referendum in both parts to ratify the new Republic’s constitution within a year. But most people in the north boycotted the referendum. The seeds for an independent Somaliland were sown.

Mohammed Siad Barre swept to power in a 1969 coup. His rule rekindled discontent in Somaliland which formed a resistance movement against him. By 1988 the two sides of Somalia were locked in civil war which resulted in more than 20,000 killed and the eventually overthrow of Barre. The Somali National Movement (SNM) met to declare independence for Somaliland and named Abdirahman Ahmed Ali "Tur" as interim president for two years. Mohammed Ibrahim Egal was elected President of the Republic of Somaliland in 1993 a position he held until 2001. A referendum in that year saw 97 per cent vote in favour of full independence.

On 18 May 2007 Somaliland will mark 16 years since it proclaimed independence from Somalia. Although no country recognises its sovereignty, its long-term ability to function as a constitutional democracy distinguishes it from the majority of entities with secessionist claims, and a small but growing number of governments in Africa and the West have shown sympathy for its cause. It satisfies all the criteria for independence. But they remain stymied by an African domino theory. The African Union holds the principle: "respect of borders existing on achievement of independence." The AU is reluctant to recognise independence, no matter how justified, for fear that it would increase pressure by other groups in Africa to support changes in their inherited borders. Somaliland remains trapped in Africa's colonial history.

IGAD's demise spells trouble for Somalia

Eritrea has pulled out of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) after a row with Ethiopia about Somalia. IGAD is the regional development organisation for east Africa which is now down to six member countries. The decision is a blow to co-ordinated efforts to pacify Somalia. The Eritrean government of Eritrea released a statement saying it was “compelled to take the move due to the fact that a number of repeated and irresponsible resolutions that undermine regional peace and security have been adopted in the guise of IGAD”.

Ostensibly allies, Ethiopia and Eritrea are locked in a proxy war in Somalia. Ethiopia backs the weak interim government; Eritrea sponsors the Islamic militants fighting to overthrow it. UN Security Council Resolution 1725 was raised to reaffirm “its respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, political independence, and unity of Somalia”. The resolution commended the crucial efforts of IGAD to promote and encourage political dialogue between the Ethiopian backed government in Baidoa and the Union of Islamic Courts who ruled in Somalia’s rambunctious capital, Mogadishu.

IGAD was created in 1996 to supersede the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD) which was founded ten years earlier. IGADD was a response to the droughts that crippled the Horn of Africa in the seventies and early eighties. The then six countries of the Horn (Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Sudan) decided to take a regional approach to the problem with the help of the UN. IGADD was officially launched in 1986 with its headquarters in Djibouti.

After achieving some success in drought reduction and famine relief, IGADD’s mandate widened to cover other areas of regional development. Eritrea joined the organisation shortly after gaining its independence in 1993. The organisation received a new charter and a name change to in 1996 with the focus moving away from drought to development. IGAD had three focus areas: Conflict Prevention and Humanitarian Affairs; Infrastructure Development; and Food Security and Environment Protection.

But process in IGAD is now stalled. The lack of a functioning central government has kept Somalia out of any meaningful action. Sudan is preoccupied by its civil wars in the South and West (Darfur). Kenya and Uganda, meanwhile prefer to concentrate their energies on the East African Community EAC) which it shares with Tanzania with Burundi and Rwanda joining later this year. The EAC is a more stable bloc of countries and has an eventual goal of economic and political union between its members.

But the major impediment to any progress within IGAD is the ongoing dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Although the two countries are officially at peace since the Algiers Agreement of 2000, the UN was forced to demand Eritrea to remove its forces from a disputed buffer zone on its border with Ethiopia last October. Two months later, Eritrea protested when Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia to end the regime of the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu. Eritrea had supported the Islamic Courts as a buffer against Ethiopia.

While the fighting still rages, the US accused Eritrea this week of providing funding, arms and training to insurgents battling Somali forces and allied Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu. Assistant US Secretary of State Jendaye Frazer called for renewed ceasefire talks to end the fighting but said "Eritrea has not been playing a constructive role in Somalia because they continue to fund, arm, train and advise the insurgents" she told reporters.

The fighting not only damages IGAD. It is also destroying Somalia. In the past month alone, nearly 1,300 people have died in fighting between government troops and their Ethiopian allies on the one side, and Islamists on the other. There have been over 300,000 refugees from the capital. But the world is not interested. A Somali intellectual said, "There is a massive tragedy unfolding in Mogadishu, but from the world's silence, you would think it's Christmas.”

Somalia about to explode

Somalia stands at the brink of all-out war after pro-government and Islamist forces shelled each other yesterday near the government headquarters in Baidoa. The war is made more complicated by the involvement of Ethiopian forces on the side of the government. A local resident told Reuters government forces and Ethiopian troops were pushed back by Islamist fighters on Friday but returned to the area early on Saturday with 20 pickup trucks mounted with heavy weapons.

The incident comes a week after Ethiopia and Islamic forces exchanged mortar shells in Galkayo where the two forces came within five kilometres of each other. Then two days later, Islamic fighters ambushed an Ethiopian military convoy 35km south of Baidoa. The forces exchanged fire and the Somalis destroyed one truck killing 20 Ethiopian soldiers. The incident led Ethiopia's parliament to vote approval for the government to take "all necessary" steps to rebuff any invasion.

With the situation threatening to escalate into an international war, the UN Security Council stepped in on 6 December. They unanimously authorised a new force with a mandate of six months to be set up by the African Union (AU) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD). The mission has been charged with protecting the interim government and re-establishing a national security force as well as reinforcing Baidoa and seeking further dialogue between the parties.

Islamic militants have condemned the UN intervention. They suspect American interference in the decision to authorise an African force to protect Somalia’s weak Transitional Federal Government (TFG) government from the superior armed SICC. The SICC has warned war will erupt as a result. Within two days, thousands of Somali protesters poured into Mogadishu’s Konis stadium following Friday prayers to stage a large rally of opposition.

The official government control very little of the country. The seat of government is Baidoa in south-central Somalia approximately 250km northwest of the capital Mogadishu. They control only a small strip of land around Baidoa. Approximately 8,000 Ethiopian troops are now deployed in Somalia to lend support to the government's shallow authority. The largely Christian Ethiopia fears an Islamic state on its borders and has vowed to "crush" the Islamists if they attack Baidoa. However their action has been viewed as an invasion by the radical Islamic militia known as the Somali Islamic Courts Council (SICC) that control the capital Mogadishu under sharia law. “We see the approval of the resolution as nothing but an evil intention," said Abdirahin Ali Mudey, speaking for the Islamic Courts. For its part, Ethiopia says Courts have hosted Ethiopian rebel groups - the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) since at least March 2005.

The U.S. resolution was co-sponsored by the council's African members who were afraid of the Somalia’s instability spreading throughout the region. The resolution partially lifts an arms embargo on weapons and military equipment and allows for training of security forces. The resolution bans Somalia's neighbours from sending soldiers, which prohibits participation by troops from Ethiopia as well as Eritrea, Djibouti and Kenya. The Islamic courts are backed by Ethiopia’s neighbours Eritrea which has prompted fears that Ethiopia and Eritrea would continue their animosity against either other by engaging in a proxy war in Somalia.

Both sides in the looming conflict paint their confrontation in clichéd ideological terms. The TFG and their Ethiopian allies are calling Somalia the next front in the Global War on Terror in order to gain support from Washington. Members of the Courts have been linked to the murders of Western aid workers, journalists and Somali civil society leaders in Somaliland and Mogadishu. Meanwhile the Courts are seeking sympathy from the Muslim world by portraying themselves as victims of Ethiopian aggression and Western Islamophobia.

The arms embargo was imposed in 1992; a year after warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and turned on each another. The interim government was formed two years ago with UN help but has struggled to assert authority. The Islamic Courts consolidated power in Mogadishu this year. The Ethiopians made the decision to support warlords exiled by the rise of the Islamists in order to oppose an Islamist threat posed to their administration of the Ogaden region.

War is not the only worry for the region. Somalia’s problems are complicated by prolonged flooding which has plagued the Horn of Africa since October. The World Health Organisation’s Dr David Okello said “The floods are expected to continue until at least the end of December if not into early next year." Almost 1.8 million people are at risk of infectious diseases such as cholera, measles, malaria as well as nutritional deficiencies. Dozens have died in flooding in Somalia itself, most drowned, some were eaten by crocodiles. Meanwhile infections are spreading due to a combination of crowding living conditions, lack of clean water, the destruction of sanitation systems, and refugees fleeing the war. The

a solution for Somalia?

Somalia is a basket case in the Horn of Africa. On Thursday June 22, Somalia's president and the Islamist leaders who have taken control of the capital Mogadishu agreed to recognise each other after a meeting in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. That possibly means they'll just shake hands next time they meet.

Somalia is a de jure state. De jure is Latin for in principle. It means Somalia has no recognized central authority or government nor any other feature associated with an established independent state. De facto authority is spread across various warlords as well as at least two unrecognised countries in Somaliland and Puntland.

Over a thousand years ago, Muslim Arabs and Persians established trading posts along Somalia's coast. Mogadishu was established as a trading station. It was a significant spot on the gap between the Red and the Arabian seas. Egypt dominated the area until the 1870s until the British based in Aden parted the Red Sea and turned Somalia into a colonial protectorate. The Italians held their bit of Somalia called unimaginative Italian Somaliland. They also held Ethiopia in a dress rehearsal for the Second World War. In 1940 Mussolini’s troops invaded British Somaliland across the border from Ethiopia. The invasion force was 175,000 strong and easily overwhelmed the defence force. Churchill, worried that the territory had been abandoned without a fight, criticized General Wavell head of Middle East Command, for the rapid defeat of the Commonwealth forces. Wavell countered that this was a textbook withdrawal in the face of superior numbers and said to Churchill, “A bloody butcher’s bill is not the sign of a good tactician.” It was the only campaign the Italians won unaided in World War II.

Their glory didn’t last long. Barely a year later, a South African led amphibious invasion took next door Italian Somaliland. They took Eritrea a month later before British Somaliland fell after a seaborne assault staged from Aden. The force moved on to take Ethiopia. Under pressure from the US, the British signed an agreement with Haile Selassie acknowledging Ethiopian sovereignty in January 1942.

Somaliland remained British territory. It finally gained independence as the State of Somaliland on 26 June 1960. Within a few days it united with Italian Somaliland to form a new Somali Republic on 1 July 1960. The new united nation was renamed Somalia.

On the same day representatives of the two territories elected Dr Aden Abdullah Osman, ex Italian Somali president), to be the first President of the new combined Republic. In the 1960s the government was confronted with a poorly developed economy and a nationalist movement that wanted to see a “Greater Somalia” of Issa people encompassing the Somali-dominated areas of Kenya, French Somaliland (now Djibouti), and Ethiopia. The nomadic existence of many Somali herders and the ill-defined frontiers worsened the problem. Somalia and Ethiopia went to war in 1964, and Kenya became involved as conflict dragged on to 1967. French Somaliland voted to continue their association with France. In 1969, President Abd-i-rashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated. The new ruler was Major General Mohammed Siad Barre. The major general set up a one party state with strong ties to the Arab League and the Soviet bloc.

The Soviets, however backed the other horse Ethiopia in a border squabble with Somalia. The war was fought in a desert called Ogaden. Although Ethiopia repulsed a Somalian invasion, the war dragged on until a peace accord in 1988. Ogaden remains a Somali populated area of Ethiopia. The effects of the war combined with drought has caused massive famine.

Warfare among rival factions within Somalia intensified. The regime of Siad Barre was ousted in January 1991; turmoil, factional fighting, and anarchy have followed in the years after the major general. That same year northern clans declared an independent Republic of Somaliland (believing themselves the inheritors of British Somaliland). Although not recognized by any government, it has maintained a stable existence, aided by a secure ruling clan and economic infrastructure left behind by overseas military assistance. The British are unsurprisingly favourable to this entity as an ex-colony. In 2004, the British Minister for African Affairs, Chris Mullin, on a visit there, told BBC Somali Service that "the Republic of Somaliland fulfils all the criteria for recognising states".

In Mogadishu, Mohammed Ali Mahdi was proclaimed president by one group and Mohammed Farah Aidid by another, as fighting between rival factions continued. Civil war and the worst African drought of the century created a devastating famine in 1992, resulting in a loss of some 300,000 lives. The UN brokered a ceasefire. In 1992, a mostly American military force attempted to restore political stability and establish free and open food-aid routes by protecting ports, airports, and roads in a high media profile action. A Somali ambush killed 23 Pakistani peacekeepers. In retaliation, US forces tried and failure to capture Aidid and 18 US troops and several thousand Somalies were killed in what became known as the Battle of Mogadishu.

As a result, the UN withdrew its forces in 1995. Matters were complicated further in 1998 when a north eastern region declared itself an autonomous state under the name of Puntland. Unlike Somaliland, it does not seek outright independence from Somalia.
Southwestern Somalia has also broken away in a similar fashion but again has not asked for complete independence.

Back in what was left of Somalia, clan elders and other senior figures appointed Abdulkassim Salat Hassan president at a 2000 conference in Djibouti. A transitional government was set up but could not unite the country. In 2004 after the mandate of the previous government expired, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a former leader of Puntland, was chosen by Somalia's interim parliament as the country's new president. The new government is the 14th attempt since 1991 but has no civil service or government buildings. Their task is made harder now that Islamists control much of the south including Mogadishu after their militias kicked out warlords who had ruled for 15 years.

Arab League diplomats are now trying to reconcile Somalia's transitional government with the Islamicists in Mogadishu. They met representatives from both sides this week. However, discussions between the two parties were yet to take place. The world waits for Somalia to get its collective act together. However suspicion of Somali links with global terrorism further complicates the picture.

If a new national government takes power in Somalia, it would be much easier to arrest and deport terror suspects. The current situation hasn't stopped Mogadishu from getting first class telecommunicates systems. Somalia is unique in that it constitutes the sole existing case in which a country has continued to exist in spite of 15 years of continuous statelessness. Another major issue is the status of Somaliland. Puntland and the others in the Somali split don't want full statehood; Somaliland is the only one who does. The issue of their recognition is crucial to stability in the tinderbox region. British support may be a crucial factor.

But in the meantime until the world decides the country is ready, clan rules apply in a billion dollar economy.