Somalia’s hardline al Shabaab insurgents have agreed to join forces with a smaller southern militia and both groups professed their loyalty to al Qaeda.
The failed Horn of Africa state has not had an effective central government for nearly two decades, leading to the rise of warlords, heavily armed criminal gangs and pirates who have been terrorising shipping off its long coastline.
Western security agencies say the country has also become a safe haven for Islamist militants, including foreign jihadists, who are using it to plot attacks across the region and beyond.
In a statement dated last Friday but seen by Reuters on Monday, al Shabaab and the smaller Kismayu-based Kamboni rebel group said they had put their differences behind them.
“We have agreed to join the international jihad of al Qaeda … We have also agreed to unite al Shabaab and Kamboni mujahideen to liberate the Eastern and Horn of Africa community who are under the feet of minority Christians,” the statement said.
“We have united to revive the military strength, economy and politics of our mujahideen to stop the war created by the colonisers, and to prevent the attacks of the Christians who invaded our country.”
In this context, “Christians” is believed to refer to Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in late 2006 and then withdrew, and to Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers serving with the African Union’s AMISOM force in Mogadishu.
The statement appeared to have been signed by senior rebels including Sheikh Hassan Turki, commander of the Kamboni militia, and the reclusive al Shabaab leader, Ahmed Abdi Godane.
Security experts believe Shabaab’s total manpower is no more 5,000, while there are a few hundred Kamboni militiamen.
In the capital Mogadishu, insurgents fired mortar bombs at the presidential palace overnight, prompting return fire by troops there that killed at least 16 people, medical officials and residents said.
Artillery battles in Mogadishu
Violence has killed at least 21,000 people in the failed Horn of Africa nation since the start of 2007 and driven another 1.5 million from their homes, helping trigger one of the world’s worst humanitarian emergencies.
Al Shabaab rebels routinely fire at the white-washed hilltop Villa Somalia palace compound from other parts of Mogadishu. Troops at the palace often launch shells back.
Residents and medical officials said several bombs struck around the city’s northern Suqa Holaha, or livestock market.
“At least 16 people died and 71 others were wounded in four districts of Mogadishu,” Ali Yasin Gedi, vice chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, told Reuters.
At an African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital on Friday, Somalia’s Foreign Minister Ali Jama’ Jangeli called for more AU troops to help about 5,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi who are based in the Somali capital.
His Kenyan and Sudanese counterparts backed the call. Djibouti has said it would send 450 soldiers soon.
On Sunday, al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage called on Djibouti to reconsider its decision.
“We warn the Djibouti government and strongly recommend that it not send its troops here, otherwise there will be bad consequences for it,” Rage told reporters in Mogadishu.
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The World Bank and Microsoft have announced a new partnership that will seek to reinforce social and economic development in Africa by leveraging information and communication technology (ICT). The two institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on the sidelines of the summit meeting of African heads of State on the theme “ICTs in Africa: Challenges and Prospects for Development”.
Under the agreement, the World Bank and Microsoft will develop programs to support several of the World Bank’s core development priorities across Sub-Saharan Africa including: science and technology, increasing ICT access for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), developing the local software economy and local ICT skills, enhancing remittances technology, and building Sub-Saharan Africa’s disaster response capabilities.
“Our goal is to help bring the region into today’s knowledge society and build its own internal resources to support the creation of competitive local economies,” said Obiageli Ezekwesili, World Bank Vice President for Africa. “We greatly value the expertise that our private sector partners like Microsoft bring, in this case a deep understanding of technology as an enabler. Through this partnership we will explore the transformational power of ICT to create new economic opportunities in the region. We look forward to forging similar partnerships with other ICT industry players.”
A select number of programs will be implemented under the partnership and will include feedback, monitoring and evaluation to drive accountability for results. Proposed initiatives include adapting the Microsoft Innovation Center model to offer software development courses in education, business skills and market development training, and youth empowerment programs, serving as the basis for local job creation.
In the education sector, the partners will organize a workshop to share proven practices with other developing countries on supporting African university diaspora research in collaboration with African universities. And in the area of remittances, the partnership will explore developing mobile telephony to ensure quick and smooth remittance services to remote or rural areas, as well as broadening network coverage of telephone services across the region.
Supporting disaster relief solutions through technology will also be an important part of the collaboration. Using Microsoft’s disaster relief solutions, the World Bank and Microsoft will explore developing a Disaster Management Information System for Africa with applications for risk assessment/mitigation, disaster preparedness and sustainable technologies for Early Warning Systems.
“As partners in Africa’s development, we believe that technology can have a long-lasting and meaningful role in addressing many current challenges. Our partnership with the World Bank, and those with other development organizations in the region, including the African Union, African Development Bank, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), is part of our commitment to help unlock Africa’s potential through ICT,” said Frank McCosker, managing director, Microsoft Global Strategic Accounts.
The World Bank and Microsoft have previously worked together around the world on several initiatives. Also in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Bank and Microsoft have collaborated in an advisory role to support the development of the Rwandan government’s ICT policy which has already constructed a Knowledge Management solution for the country’s cabinet.
The partnership further reinforces Microsoft’s support to drive internally generated and sustainable growth in Africa. The company first began operations in Sub-Saharan African in 1992 and has expanded to 13 offices in 9 countries, with more than 600 employees and over 17,000 commercial partners across the continent.
By Amelia Lawrence ADDIS ABABA , Feb 01 (IPS) Peace in Sudan remains an uncertainty ahead of the country’s first general elections in 24 years, according to the African Union Commission chief.
With two months to go before the decisive presidential and parliamentary elections, the United Nations (U.N.) and the AU want to ensure that elections take place without an eruption of violence between the north and the south, which can also risk instability in the region.
Addressing media before the start of the 14th annual AU Summit in Ethiopia on Jan. 31, AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, said the prospects for peace appeared unpredictable ahead of the crucial elections.
"We do not pretend that in 2010 there would be no crisis, but Africa hopes to find African solutions to these crises," Ping said. The AU has also declared 2010 as being the year of peace and security for Africa, in addition to focusing on information, technology and communication.
Ping added that the body remained committed to ensuring Sudan’s April elections were peaceful.
"(The) AU will remain active to assist the Sudanese to ensure they have lasting peace."
A recent report from the Enough Project, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity, warned that there was a risk of a new civil war and that both the nationwide elections and the 2011 referendum (on whether the oil-rich and semi-autonomous south should secede from the Khartoum-led north) would not be free and fair.
The Sudanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Akuei Bona Malwal, said: "Preparations (for the) elections are ongoing, but the (possibility) of insecurity is an issue."
He said he hoped the international community and the Sudanese authorities will ensure proper coordination so that the ‘election will take place in a peaceful manner’.
Malwal warned that ‘the question of security is essential to ensure a peaceful election’.
It has been reported from Khartoum that ‘three presidential candidates, including the only woman, have been rejected’.
This ruling has raised further doubts about the presidential and legislative elections after opposition accusations of fraud during registration and of intimidation and vote-buying by the ruling National Congress Party.
The AU High-Level Panel on Darfur, later known as the AU High Level Implementation Panel for Sudan (AUHIP), noted in Oct. 2009 that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Darfur needed to be achieved before the April elections.
Headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AUHIP found that the people of both north and south Sudan are keen to live in peace.
"It is therefore self-evident that the resolution of the conflict in Darfur, like those in south and eastern Sudan, cannot but necessitate the restructuring of Sudan as a whole…" Mbeki said in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in Dec. 2009.
Malwal said that his country has accepted the AUHIP report and the re-appointment of the Mbeki team ‘to ensure the implementation of the plan’.
He said the Mbeki’s team was engaging with all the different role-players like non-governmental organisations, civil society, traditional leaders and government. "Mbeki’s team has a big role to play this year," Malwal added.
United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, attended a sideline discussion on the future of Sudan held alongside the main AU agenda.
Ban said that ‘the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is also in the best interest of the Sudanese people’. Sudan’s first multi-party election in over two decades was agreed to in the 2005 CPA that ended the 21-year north-south civil war.
"They have taken a long time to agree on the agreement and the U.N. has been working very closely with the AU to implement the CPA." (The U.N. partnered with the AU two years ago to establish the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur.)
Ban said the U.N. will ‘seek to forge consensus among member states on the way forward’. He said the body will ‘stand ready to respect the outcome of the 2011 referendum whatever the outcome’ but added that the most ideal outcome would be one of national unity.
Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir, who is awaiting an International Criminal Court decision on whether he will be tried for war crimes in his country, was recently quoted as saying that Khartoum would cooperate with south Sudan.
Some analysts point out that the comments implied a wish to accept the independence of the south.
Khartoum has been working on ‘making unity attractive’ for the south Sudanese who fought the civil war with the north over access to political power and sharing the massive oil revenue.
Both north and south Sudan’s governments have negotiation an agreement on the conditions of the 2011 referendum, in which the country will vote on whether the south will secede from the north.
"They have the right to choose their own future. We are going through a very crucial time to prepare for election and the referendum next year," Ban said.
Ban said that a strong U.N. presence on the ground in Sudan would remain in place.
Mbeki acknowledged the importance of peace in Sudan in his speech to the U.N.
"As we carry out this work, we will be very mindful of the critical importance of Sudan to its neighbours and the rest of our continent. If is self-evident that Sudan, which shares borders with nine other countries in a volatile part of Africa, should serve as a force for peace, stability and development both in this region and in Africa as a whole," Mbeki said.
By Amelia Lawrence ADDIS ABABA , Feb 01 (IPS) Peace in Sudan remains an uncertainty ahead of the country’s first general elections in 24 years, according to the African Union Commission chief.
With two months to go before the decisive presidential and parliamentary elections, the United Nations (U.N.) and the AU want to ensure that elections take place without an eruption of violence between the north and the south, which can also risk instability in the region.
Addressing media before the start of the 14th annual AU Summit in Ethiopia on Jan. 31, AU Commission chairman, Jean Ping, said the prospects for peace appeared unpredictable ahead of the crucial elections.
"We do not pretend that in 2010 there would be no crisis, but Africa hopes to find African solutions to these crises," Ping said. The AU has also declared 2010 as being the year of peace and security for Africa, in addition to focusing on information, technology and communication.
Ping added that the body remained committed to ensuring Sudan’s April elections were peaceful.
"(The) AU will remain active to assist the Sudanese to ensure they have lasting peace."
A recent report from the Enough Project, a project of the Center for American Progress to end genocide and crimes against humanity, warned that there was a risk of a new civil war and that both the nationwide elections and the 2011 referendum (on whether the oil-rich and semi-autonomous south should secede from the Khartoum-led north) would not be free and fair.
The Sudanese Ambassador to Ethiopia, Akuei Bona Malwal, said: "Preparations (for the) elections are ongoing, but the (possibility) of insecurity is an issue."
He said he hoped the international community and the Sudanese authorities will ensure proper coordination so that the ‘election will take place in a peaceful manner’.
Malwal warned that ‘the question of security is essential to ensure a peaceful election’.
It has been reported from Khartoum that ‘three presidential candidates, including the only woman, have been rejected’.
This ruling has raised further doubts about the presidential and legislative elections after opposition accusations of fraud during registration and of intimidation and vote-buying by the ruling National Congress Party.
The AU High-Level Panel on Darfur, later known as the AU High Level Implementation Panel for Sudan (AUHIP), noted in Oct. 2009 that a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Darfur needed to be achieved before the April elections.
Headed by former South African President Thabo Mbeki, the AUHIP found that the people of both north and south Sudan are keen to live in peace.
"It is therefore self-evident that the resolution of the conflict in Darfur, like those in south and eastern Sudan, cannot but necessitate the restructuring of Sudan as a whole…" Mbeki said in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in Dec. 2009.
Malwal said that his country has accepted the AUHIP report and the re-appointment of the Mbeki team ‘to ensure the implementation of the plan’.
He said the Mbeki’s team was engaging with all the different role-players like non-governmental organisations, civil society, traditional leaders and government. "Mbeki’s team has a big role to play this year," Malwal added.
United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, attended a sideline discussion on the future of Sudan held alongside the main AU agenda.
Ban said that ‘the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) is also in the best interest of the Sudanese people’. Sudan’s first multi-party election in over two decades was agreed to in the 2005 CPA that ended the 21-year north-south civil war.
"They have taken a long time to agree on the agreement and the U.N. has been working very closely with the AU to implement the CPA." (The U.N. partnered with the AU two years ago to establish the African Union/United Nations Hybrid operation in Darfur.)
Ban said the U.N. will ‘seek to forge consensus among member states on the way forward’. He said the body will ‘stand ready to respect the outcome of the 2011 referendum whatever the outcome’ but added that the most ideal outcome would be one of national unity.
Sudanese President Omar El-Bashir, who is awaiting an International Criminal Court decision on whether he will be tried for war crimes in his country, was recently quoted as saying that Khartoum would cooperate with south Sudan.
Some analysts point out that the comments implied a wish to accept the independence of the south.
Khartoum has been working on ‘making unity attractive’ for the south Sudanese who fought the civil war with the north over access to political power and sharing the massive oil revenue.
Both north and south Sudan’s governments have negotiation an agreement on the conditions of the 2011 referendum, in which the country will vote on whether the south will secede from the north.
"They have the right to choose their own future. We are going through a very crucial time to prepare for election and the referendum next year," Ban said.
Ban said that a strong U.N. presence on the ground in Sudan would remain in place.
Mbeki acknowledged the importance of peace in Sudan in his speech to the U.N.
"As we carry out this work, we will be very mindful of the critical importance of Sudan to its neighbours and the rest of our continent. If is self-evident that Sudan, which shares borders with nine other countries in a volatile part of Africa, should serve as a force for peace, stability and development both in this region and in Africa as a whole," Mbeki said.
NAIROBI (IPS) The droughts in the Turkana region were less severe when she was growing up, says Laura Letapalel, and pastoralists could still find some grass and water for their animals. Now, she laments, the droughts are longer and there is nothing to eat.
Andrew Mude, an economist with the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), says drought is the greatest hazard encountered by herders.
“This is particularly true for northern Kenya, where more than three million pastoralist households are regularly hit by increasingly severe droughts. In the past 100 years, northern Kenya has recorded 28 major droughts, four of which occurred in the last 10 years,” Mude explains.
“In our community the size of one's herd is what signifies his status economically. However, of late we have noticed drastic weather patterns that have left our herds dead, turning once rich men into paupers,” says Letapalel a pastoralist in the Turkana area of Kenya.
Esekon Longuramoe, another pastoralist from Turkana, says erratic climatic conditions have changed his fortunes.
“When we first came here, I saw two beautiful things: there was so much grass and a lot of wild animals. It was a nice grazing place. But now there is no rain, and I have lost 100 sheep and 50 cattle.
“After losing almost all my livestock, I have become so poor that I cannot compare myself to the way I used to be. Even if I wanted to move, I do not have a donkey to carry my possessions, I would have to borrow one,” he says.
The question of how to cushion pastoralist communities against the devastating effects of drought has been a headache for the government of Kenya.
A new project launched by ILRI and its partners promises to help pastoralists.
“Thousands of herders in Marsabit District, a remote, arid area in northern Kenya, will be able to purchase insurance policies for their livestock, based on a first-of-its-kind programme in Africa that uses satellite images of grass and other vegetation to indicate whether drought will put their camels, cows, goats and sheep at risk of starvation,” Mude says.
The programme will use satellite images to assess the state of grazing land. This information will be matched against records of livestock deaths collected over the past decade to calculate stock losses for insurance purposes. This index-based insurance system eliminates the need to verify the individual deaths of animals.
The Marsabit district – adjacent to Turkana – has been divided into two clusters based on risk. It will cost 5.5 percent of the value of livestock to insure animals in Maikona and North Horr divisions; in Laisamis, Loyangalani, Central and Gadamoji, it will cost 3.25 percent.
“We believe this programme has potential because it has the elements insurers need to operate: a well-known risk (drought) and an external indicator that is verifiable and cannot be manipulated, in this case satellite images of the vegetation,” says James Wambugu, managing director of UAP Insurance, which is providing the risk cover.
Sales of the insurance scheme began across the district in January. The premiums can be paid at branches of Equity Bank in Marsabit, or to Point of Sale agents under the Hunger Safety Net Programmes – a scheme that provides regular cash grants to 300,000 vulnerable households in arid districts of northern Kenya and has a presence in most of the major communities in Marsabit.
According to Mude, Marsabit district currently supports about 86,000 head of cattle and some two million sheep and goats which depend on naturally growing vegetation for survival. The livestock in Marsabit alone is estimated to be worth 67 million dollars, though animals are rarely sold or slaughtered.
Given the complexity of the insurance project, a simulation game was developed to help the local communities understand the key features of the insurance policy. Mude says many of the herders who played the game became intensely involved in the simulation.
“The simulation helps them understand how insurance can protect them against losses. They also appear to simply enjoy playing the game itself, which generates a lot of animated discussion,” he explains.
The insurance is valuable even without the deaths of livestock triggering payments.
The policy can be used to obtain credit with which to buy feed or drugs that could help animals survive tough conditions. Expanding herds may also be made easier; private creditors will be more willing to lend if the risk of losing new animals to drought is insured against.
Mude says the pilot project will last three years, during which studies will be carried out to establish the commercial sustainability of the product. If it proves successful, extending it to parts of Uganda, Southern Ethiopia, West Africa and even Asia will also be explored.
Hany Gebre was killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight on January 25
Sunday morning, I went with the photojournalist Matthew Cassel (Just Image) to the Ethiopian Full Gospel Church, in Sebtiyeh, just outside of Beirut, for Sunday services and the funeral of one of the congregants, Hany Gebre, who died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 last Monday.
If you are looking to understand the plight of Ethiopian domestic workers in Lebanon, look no further than the fact that this service — six days after the incident — was the first time the Ethiopian community could reliably get time off from work to gather. About 150 women — and they were ALL women — were there, and many cried for the entire three hour service, which was conducted through song and spoken word, wholly in Amharic. Representatives from the Ethiopian Consulate stopped by to pay their respects and distribute their personal mobile numbers, which everyone in attendance dutifully wrote down. They, too, left in tears.
The ceremony itself was spectacular — haunting in its beauty and sorrow.
Ethiopians mourn in Beirut (Photo: Matthew Cassel)
I went with a friend and journalist today to cover a service at an Ethiopian church outside Beirut to remember one its members, Hany Gebre, along with 89 other people, mostly Lebanese and Ethiopians, killed on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff last Monday. Hany was employed as a domestic worker in Lebanon and was on the way to visit her family for the first time since she came to Lebanon three years ago when the plane went down. The community of Ethiopian women at the church is tightly knit, and most women said they knew Hany well. We entered to a roomful of sobbing women listening to the animated preacher singing prayers in Amharic.
It was an awkward experience for me to again take pictures of a room full of people letting their tears flow, and like I told my friend in the church, I hate taking pictures in these situations but I know that I should so others can see. As he sat there with his notebook I thought of a quote by Lewis Wickes Hine, one of my favorite photographers who once said, “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” Even though my Canon isn’t quite as obtrusive as the cameras were in Hine’s day, the act itself will always be obtrusive in a situation like this and make me wish that I could remain unseen in a corner capturing the scene by jotting down notes in a small notebook.
At one point I had to leave the emotional scene in the church and get some “fresh air” by smoking a cigarette across the street. Outside, I sat staring at the Lebanese passersby. I wondered what a society that many have increasingly called “racist” thinks of the hundreds of black women who gather in their neighborhood each Sunday.
I noticed an older Lebanese woman walk past with her Ethiopian “helper.” In the standard contract that all employers must sign, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are allowed to take at least one day off per week (usually Sunday), but many employers prevent them from doing so. I assume this was an example of that. The Ethiopian worker, arm-in-arm with her employer, glanced inside the church as they walked past and immediately started crying on the street. The Lebanese woman seemed not to notice (or not to care) as she asked the worker for help while she rummaged through her oversized handbag.
Since the death of Theresa Seda across the street from my home, I’ve been increasingly involved in the plight of foreign workers in Lebanon. Previously, I hadn’t focused on this issue because my reason for being in the Middle East is to combat a highly inaccurate image of this region and its people being portrayed in much of the Western media. If I was going to cover the exploitation of workers, I wouldn’t need to travel half the globe to do so. And I distrust many Western journalists who come here critical of everything Arab while ignoring their own government’s role in shaping this war-torn and unstable part of the world. But the abuse of workers in this country is unavoidable. Every time I leave the house I see a foreign woman carrying a bratty child, picking up dog shit or staring out the window of her “madame’s” car in envy at those of us walking around with relatively few cares in the world. There is a common expression shared by oppressed peoples. Its one that screams of a yearning to spend time with family, swim in the sea, relax on a nice chair, meet friends, have money to purchase goods, travel, be free. And as someone concerned with social justice, it’s impossible to turn a blind eye to the abuse in Lebanon that is happening all around me.
Now, the big question: are Lebanese racists? Some Western journalists feel they’re in a position to say yes, but not this one. Surely there are many racist Lebanese, and it is a serious problem affecting the whole of society — nearly everyone refers to migrant domestic workers as “Sirlankiin” (Sri Lankans) regardless of what country they actually come from. But, for example, is the Ethiopian worker and her Lebanese employer an example of this racism? It’s hard to say. Before making generalizations and pointing the finger solely at Lebanese, I would take a step back and look at the question on a global scale — how many societies existing today don’t contain elements of racism? If these Ethiopian and other workers were to travel elsewhere (or stay in Ethiopia), would that solve the problem?
I thought about all of this before I heard the music sounding (seen in the video below) through the church doors and out into the street. I quickly put out my cigarette and ran back inside lugging my camera along to help me tell a story we don’t often hear.
