By Sally Healy
The Guardian
As tens of thousands more frightened and exhausted people fled the terrors of Mogadishu last week, a Somali community leader condemned the international community “for watching the cruelty in Somalia like a film and not bothering to help”. He was mistaken. The international community has barely been watching the cruelty in Somalia at all.
Life in Mogadishu has become even more intolerable since Ethiopia Woyanne intervened last Christmas to install the transitional government of President Abdullahi Yusuf. Ethiopia Woyanne had been alarmed by the aggressive rhetoric of the Islamic Courts government that had taken over the Somali capital. It had seen off the warlords and brought unprecedented order to Mogadishu. But threats of jihad against its powerful neighbour provoked a muscular response. The US stood by its regional ally, declaring that Somalia must not become a terrorist haven, and mounting a missile attack on the Islamist forces for good measure.
The Ethiopias Woyanne calculated a lesser risk in having Yusuf in charge. Having installed him, they promised to withdraw quickly, agreeing to remain only while an African peacekeeping force was mounted. Lord Triesman, the minister for Africa, praised Ethiopia for creating conditions for peace and stability. British ministers were pleased to describe the new state of affairs as a window of opportunity for Somalia.
The optimism rested on highly dubious assumptions. It presupposed that the transitional government possessed legitimacy, and had the capacity to govern. It also assumed too easily that an African peacekeeping force would materialise and Ethiopian Woyanne forces would leave. None of this has come to pass.
The core problem was that Somalis everywhere were appalled to see Ethiopian Woyanne troops on the streets of their capital. What kind of government, they asked, needed the protection of a foreign force against its own citizens? Opposition to the Ethiopian Woyanne military presence soon manifested itself and an insurgency was born.
Ethiopian Woyanne forces launched massive military attacks on various quarters of the city in March and April, designed to root out extremists. Their complete disregard, and that of the insurgents, for the population’s safety has been condemned by human rights organisations. But the international community took all too little notice of events in a city that was just too dangerous to visit or report on. Humanitarian organisations quietly started to provide for the 300,000 people who fled Mogadishu and established makeshift settlements under the trees. They are still there.
There were other consequences of Ethiopia’s Woyanne’s rampage through the city. It hardened the insurgents’ resolve, and made new enemies among the clans targeted; it deepened opposition to the transitional government, in whose name the operations were conducted; it prompted the flight of the business people so vital for any normalisation; and it alarmed African nations who might have considered joining the small Ugandan contingent to provide security and enable the Ethiopian forces to leave.
The insurgency has deepened and spread. The tactics are those of Iraq, but with more roadside bombs than suicide bombs, and a growing tally of assassinations – most directed against office holders of the transitional government, but journalists, humanitarian workers and civil society leaders are all at risk. A government-sponsored reconciliation conference came and went, without result. A prime minister has resigned. The transitional government seems not only powerless but irrelevant, and wholly dependent on Ethiopia.
A renewed crackdown in Mogadishu has caused hundreds more deaths and pushed another 200,000 people into destitution on the roadsides. Somalia is now the worst humanitarian situation in the world. The number of internally displaced has reached a million. Insecurity and extortion are putting untold strain on the efforts to provide humanitarian assistance.
We cannot say we were not warned. Six months ago the UN’s head of humanitarian affairs highlighted the deplorable conditions of the displaced. He observed that more people had been displaced from Mogadishu in the previous two months than anywhere else in the world, and that a political solution was the only way to resolve the crisis: “Otherwise I fear the worst.”
The worst has now come. What are we waiting for?
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Sally Healy OBE is an associate fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, the foreign affairs thinktank chathamhouse.org.uk
WASHINGTON (AFP) — A US court sentenced a Somali man to 10 years in jail for conspiring to aid an extremist group planning an attack on US soil, the Department of Justice said on Tuesday.
Nouradin Abdi, 35, pleaded guilty in July this year to plotting attacks, the department said in a statement. He told the Federal of Bureau of Investigation during interrogation that he wanted to plant a bomb in a shopping center.
He lived in the midwestern state of Ohio after gaining asylum in the United States by making false statements and was arrested in 2003 after asking permission to travel to Germany and Saudi Arabia to visit his family and the Muslim holy site at Mecca.
Prosecutors say he was actually heading for Ethiopia to train for “violent jihad” and charged him with “conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists,” the statement said.
“Abdi allegedly sought training in radio usage, guns, guerilla warfare and bombs,” it said.
An accomplice arrested with him is serving a 20-year sentence for aiding the Al-Qaeda extremist network, it added. A third was arrested in April.
By Peter Heinlein, VOA
Short wave radio monitors have confirmed that VOA broadcasts to Ethiopia in the Amharic and Afan Oromo languages have been jammed for the past two weeks. VOA Correspondent in Addis Ababa Peter Heinlein reports Ethiopia’s government denies responsibility for the interference.
Listeners to VOA’s Amharic Service began complaining about November 12 that they could not hear the one-hour nightly broadcast. Amharic is the language of commerce and the main official language in Ethiopia.
In recent days, the reports from listeners and monitors confirmed that all five short-wave frequencies used by VOA are being jammed. Broadcasts by the other major western broadcaster in Amharic, Germany’s Deutsche Welle, have also been blocked.
The BBC monitoring service says its experts have determined that the direction from which the jamming originates indicates the signals are being transmitted from within Ethiopia.
In a telephone interview with VOA, Ethiopia’s Information Ministry spokesman Zemedkun Tekle says he doubts the government is involved in jamming.
“I do not think this one is true. Of course I have seen the media reporting saying that, but we do not need, the government does not need to waste its time on doing so,” he said. “I myself have not come across audiences who are saying so, but the relevant body may speak on the details, but I do not think this story is true.”
The two Amharic Service broadcasts are known to have a substantial audience in the Ethiopian capital, which is a hot bed of anti-government sentiment.
Monitors also report jamming of VOA’s Oromo Service, which broadcasts on the same frequencies. Oromo is the language spoken by Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group.
Ethiopia is known to be blocking broadcasts from its neighbor and rival Eritrea. Monitors report the jamming has intensified in recent weeks, as tensions have risen along their disputed border.
A status report issued by the umbrella organization that oversees Voice of America, the Broadcasting Board of Governors, says VOA broadcasts to Ethiopia have previously been jammed during civil unrest in 2005, but the jamming was stopped in mid-2006.
The Voice of America is a multi-media international broadcasting service funded by the U.S. government. VOA broadcasts more than 1,000 hours of news and other programming every week to an estimated worldwide audience of more than 115 million people.
Tyson Gay and Meseret Defar are World Athletes of the Year – Powell and Vlasic win Performance of the Year Award
World Athletes of the Year Tyson Gay with IAAF President Lamine Diack and Prince Albert II of Monaco (Getty Images)
Monte-Carlo – During the celebrations of the World Athletics Gala hosted by International Athletic Foundation (IAF) Honorary President HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco and IAF & IAAF President Lamine Diack in the Salle des Etoiles of the Sporting Club d’Eté Monte Carlo, 25-year-old American Tyson Gay and Ethiopia’s 23-year-old Meseret Defar were crowned as the male and female World Athletes of the Year.
A three-time World champion Tyson Gay, the 2007 Male World Athlete of the Year commented:
“To follow in Carl Lewis’s footsteps (the first winner of the IAF Athlete of the Year) is just a great honour.
“I think for this year (winning the World Championships) makes me the fastest man in the world, but I honestly think that I need to have the World record like some of the other great sprinters like Carl Lewis, Maurice Greene. I think that sets you apart, having medals and having the world record.”
Winner of all her races this season, including two World records and a World best, Meseret Defar, the 2007 Female World Athlete of the Year commented: “I don’t have words to describe how happy I am.
“This is very special for me. This is very special for Ethiopian women. Those who struggle very hard and who don’t have very many opportunities to achieve the highest levels of athletics. So I dedicate this award to them.”
The 2007 Performances of the Year award was presented to Asafa Powell for his World record breaking performance in Rieti and Blanka Vlasic for her 2.07m third all-time best clearance in Stockholm.
2007 World Athletics Gala Awards
World Athletes of the Year
Male Winner: Tyson Gay USA
Female Winner: Meseret Defar ETH
Performances of the Year
Male Winner Asafa Powell JAM
Female Winner Blanka Vlasic CRO
Hero of Athletics Award
Carl Lewis USA
Inspirational Award
Paula Radcliffe GBR
Haile Gebrselassie ETH
Newcomer of the Year
Donald Thomas BAH
Rising Star Award
Ruth Bisibori Nyangau KEN
Coaches’ Award
Vitaly Petrov UKR
For Meserete Defar and Tayson Gay, near perfection in 2007
By Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
Monte Carlo – With their displays of nearly unrivaled speed and endurance, American sprinter Tyson Gay and Ethiopian Olympic champion Meseret Defar confirmed that their generation remains the sport’s driving force after earning the World Athlete of the Year Awards for 2007.
Gay, who turned 25 in early August, and Defar, barely 24, have each time and again illustrated their ability to perform with the poise and conviction of seasoned veterans. Each ended their respective seasons with virtually untarnished records and left Osaka as dominating World champions.
Defar without peer
For Defar, the reigning Olympic 5000m champion and the World record holder in the event, the challenge for 2007 was to earn her first World crown to add to her Athens victory and back-to-back indoor 3000m titles. She did so with ease in Osaka, gracefully beating back the challenge of a solid field en route to her 14:57.91 victory.
“I don’t have words to describe how happy I am,” said Defar, who dedicated her award to all women in Ethiopia whose daily struggle for survival Defar was able to overcome through her determination on the track. She also shared her reward with her husband, “Who supports me through the good times and the bad. This is our award,” she said.
She began her season with a run at the World record indoors in the 3000, but illness ‘slowed’ her to a 8:30.31 victory at the Boston Indoor Games. She rebounded exactly one week later in Stuttgart where she clocked 8:23.72, demolishing Liliya Shobukhova’s year-old standard record by more than four seconds.
But that sizable improvement would dwarf what was to come at the Bislett Games, the Golden League opener, in Oslo on 15 June. There she produced a jaw-dropping 14:16.63 clocking, an effort which knocked nearly eight seconds from her own World record from 2006.
“No, I had no doubts,” Defar said. “I didn’t think I would break the record by such a big margin, but I was aiming under 14:20. So I think I did a good job.”
Just 12 days later a solid 14:30.18 performance in Ostrava followed, and in mid July she added the All Africa Games 5000 title to her massive collection, her final tune-up before striking Osaka gold. She capped her season with a brisk 8:27.24 3000m victory at the World Athletics Final in Stuttgart.
For good measure, she twice lowered the World best for the rarely-contested 2 mile distance, first in Carson in late May where she clocked 9:10.47, then again at Brussels Van Damme Memorial Golden League meeting where, in a scintillating largely solo performance, dipped under nine minutes with an 8:58.58 performance. En route she clocked a national record 8:24.51 for 3000m, the year’s fastest run outdoors. After her fourth World record or World best of the year, Defar understated in Brussels, “Yes, this year has been great.”
Tyson Gay blasts to the front
In 2006, Tyson Gay emerged from a crowded field as history’s fastest combined 100/200m sprinter, while consistently giving chase to 100m World record holder Asafa Powell. In their eagerly awaited showdown in Osaka this season, Gay finally chased down and decisively beat the Jamaican to win the world 100m title to claim his stake for the title of world’s fastest man.
His 9.85 victory in Japan was but one phenomenal performance by the American who is now firmly targeting Olympic gold in Beijing.
Gay began the season on a rampage of speed, taking wind-aided 9.79 and 9.76 victories at home in Carson and New York. In late June, he underscored his role as the top U.S. sprinter after a sensational double victory in Indianapolis, first taking the 100 in 9.84 to equal his personal best, then following up with a 19.62 victory in the 200, a career best and a performance that would remain the fastest of the year.
After a brief period of rest and recuperation from some minor aches and strains, he returned with a solid 19.78 200m victory in chilly and wet conditions in Lausanne, and finished his Osaka build-up with a pair of 100m victories in Sheffield and London. Then it was onward to Osaka.
In the season’s most eagerly-anticipated battle, Gay powered to 100m gold in 9.85, leaving Powell a well-beaten third. It was his first victory ever over the Jamaican on one of the world’s biggest stages, with Gay declaring, “I think for this year it makes me the fastest man in the world.”
Next up was the 200 where Gay had no peer. He took a decisive 19.76 victory, breaking World record holder Michael Johnson’s championships record. Running the third leg on the U.S 4x100m relay squad, Gay added a third gold after the American quartet sped to a 37.78 win. He became just the fourth man to take triple gold at a single World Championships. In all, he won 11 of his 12 competitions in the 100 and 200, producing one of the finest competitive records in the sport in 2007.
2007 competitions of the male and female World Athletes of the Year (finals only):
Tyson Gay –
100m:
9.79w 1 Carson CA 20 May
9.76w 1 New York NY 2 Jun
9.84 1 Indianapolis IN 22 Jun
10.13 1 Sheffield 15 Jul
10.02 1 London 3 Aug
9.85 1 Osaka 26 Aug
10.02 2 Shanghai 28 Sep
10.23 1 Yokohama 30 Sep
200m:
19.97 1 Kingston 5 May
19.62 1 Indianapolis IN 24 Jun
19.78 1 Lausanne 10 Jul
19.76 1 Osaka 30 Aug
Meseret Defar –
3000m:
8:30.31i 1 Boston 27 Jan
8:23.72i WR 1 Stuttgart 3 Feb
8:24.51* NR Bruxelles 14 Sep
8:27.24 1 Stuttgart 23 Sep
Two Miles:
9:10.47 WB 1 Carson CA 20 May
8:58.58 WB 1 Bruxelles 14 Sep
5000m:
14:16.63 WR 1 Oslo 15 Jun
14:30.18 1 Ostrava 27 Jun
15:02.72 1 Alger 18 Jul
14:57.91 1 Osaka 1 Sep
14:49.06 1 Shanghai 28 Sep
* en route performance
