Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor) – Issue No. 186
Ecoterra Intl. – SMCM (Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor) – 2009-06-06 THU 11H04:15 UTC
Issue No. 186
Ecoterra International – Updates & Statements, Review & Clearing-house
A Voice from the Truth- & Justice-Seekers, who sit between all chairs, because they are not part of organized white-collar or no-collar-crime in Somalia or overseas, and who neither benefit from global naval militarization, from the illegal fishing and dumping in Somali waters or the piracy of merchant vessels, nor from the booming insurance business or the exorbitant ransom-, risk-management- or security industry, while neither the protection of the sea, the development of fishing communities nor the humanitarian assistance to abducted seafarers and their families is receiving the required adequate attention, care and funding.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act". George Orwell
EA Illegal Fishing and Dumping Hotline: +254-714-747090 (confidentiality guaranteed) - email: Somalia@ecoterra.net
EA Seafarers Assistance Programme Emergency Helpline: SMS to +254-738-497979 or call +254-733-633-733
"The pirates must not be allowed to destroy our dream!"
Capt. Florent Lemaçon - F/Y TANIT - killed by attack of French commandos - 10. April 2009
Non A La Guerre - Yes To Peace
(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT shot down on day one of the French assault)
Clearing-house
Breaking:
Rumours and so far unconfirmed reports say that Hassan Dahir Aweys, the leader of the Somali insurgents, has been wounded, while Hassan Turki, a leader of the al-Shabaab would have been killed in intense fighting near Wabho in central Somalia, which saw 120 fighters dead. Other sources speak of false propaganda, while a spokesman of Hizbul Islam from Addis Ababa confirmed that Hassan Dahir Aweys had been slightly wounded. Sources from the TFG speak of a serious wounding of Hassan Dahir Aweys at his back, while he himself talks only of a few scratches. Hassan Turki, however, who had escaped even air-strikes by the US earlier, is reported to not even have been in the area where the fighting erupted yesterday, while Shabaab leader Gudanne was reportedly killed.
T/B YENEGOA OCEAN (registered as YENEGOA, but also called YENAGOA) with 11 Nigerian sailors has finally been freed after an ordeal of over 10 month. The Panama -flagged vessel with some clandestine cargo and two Mercedes-Benz as well as one BMW luxury vehicles on board was kept at the very tip of the Horn of Africa while negotiations with the Nigerian owner regularly broke down. The off-shore tug - owned by Nigerian ESL Integrated Services, and her crew were captured in the Gulf of Aden on 4th August 2008. After initial attempts by the owner to achieve the release through Yemen, he walked away for long stretches of time and claimed to not have the money for the release. After the intervention of an international humanitarian organization, which over the months several times helped with supplies, the Nigerian government stepped in and achieved that the owner at least sent $80.000.- for supplies to the crew's upkeep.
The case was overshadowed also by typical "Nigerian-scams" of people soliciting funds for the release of individual crew members, whereby moneys reached in only one case the captors, but was then embezzled by the commander of the pirates and never achieved any release of any sailor. Finally the families, the brother of the captain, an US based Somali Organization - Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul, Minnesota - and friends helped in the last stages. Only the final straight dealings with the sea-shifta and a money transfer through the Islamic Hawala system achieved the freedom of crew and vessel against a comparatively very small ransom. The vessel had run also out of fuel, which made it necessary to get assistance for her sailing to freedom. The Netherlands and France are said to have helped. According to a Dutch navy statement, the tugboat is being escorted by a Dutch frigate to safe waters, reported AFP. This ends one of the longest pending sea-jacking cases in Somalia. "My brother is now on the sea close to Yemen," Egbide, the captain's brother, said. "He called my older sister in Chicago so we know he’s been released." The pirates holding the Yenagoa were members of the Siwaqron clan of Puntland, who kept the ship in Habo (Xabo) one of the most inaccessible places at the Horn of Africa.
News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships and vessels in distress
Negotiations for MV POMPEI, a Belgium flagged stone carrier and her crew of 10 sailors (two Belgians, a Dutch, three Filipinos and four Croatians onboard) have been concluded and the release of the dredger with her unharmed crew is expected soon.
With the latest captures and releases now still at least 14 foreign vessels (15 with an unnamed sole Barge which drifted ashore) with a total of not less than 206 crew members accounted for (of which 44 are confirmed to be Filipinos) are held in Somali waters and are monitored on our actual case-list, while several other cases of ships, which were observed off the coast of Somalia and have been reported or had reportedly disappeared without trace or information, are still being followed. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) have been recorded for 2008 with 49 fully documented, factual sea-jacking cases (for Somalia, incl. presently held ones) and the mistaken sinking of one vessel by a naval force. For 2009 the account stands at 126 attacks (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 44 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least three wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces.
Mystery pirate mother-vessels Athena/Arena and Burum Ocean as well as not fully documented cases of absconded vessels are not listed in the sea-jack count until clarification. Several other vessels with unclear fate (also not in the actual count), who were reported missing over the last ten years in this area, are still kept on our watch-list, though in some cases it is presumed that they sunk due to bad weather or being unfit to sail. In the last four years, 22 missing ships have been traced back with different names, flags and superstructures. Piracy incidents usually degrade during the monsoon season in winter and rise gradually by the end of the monsoon season starting from mid February and early April every year. Present multi-factorial risk assessment code: Yellow (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely). Allegedly still/again three groups from Puntland alone are out hunting on the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, and also groups from Harardheere have set out again, despite the heavy seas.
Directly piracy related reports
Where the Shipping News Is All Bad
By Alan Feuer
"Pirates"? the old salt snorted. "Pirates won’t kill the shipping business. Pirates are a joke".
He sipped his coffee bitterly and glanced without compassion at his fellow ancient mariners.
"You want to know what killed the shipping business, I’ll tell you what killed the shipping business. Capitalists", he said.
The buccaneers of the Somali coast were making headlines from Mogadishu to the Mosholu Parkway, but at the Seafarers’ Club, a haunt for aging sailors near the South Street Seaport, it was understood that the demise of merchant shipping had little to do with African gangs in speedboats.
"It was Reagan", the old salt, Eric Traverse, finally sputtered. "Ronald Reagan did it. He put the death blow to this industry. He’s the culprit here".
Ever since the Great Depression, the United States government has exercised control of the nation’s commercial shippers in exchange for what are known as Title XI loan guarantees. These billion-dollar subsidies helped the fleet survive competition from interstate trucking and civilian aviation. But when President Reagan took office, they were cut severely, dwindling down to almost nothing by 1983.
Though restored in later budgets, the cuts still sting at the Seafarers’ Club, an otherwise friendly hangout at the Seamen’s Church Institute where, on alternating Tuesdays, men like Mr. Traverse gather to discuss the death of shipping and their port calls of the past. Mr. Traverse, who has been to 50 countries, mostly shipped on break-bulk (noncontainer) vessels as an able-bodied seaman in his day. But American shippers slowly moved abroad where things were cheaper, and every line he worked on went bankrupt in the end.
You hear the names repeated like a death list: The Farrell Lines. The United States Lines. Prudential-Grace. There is a billiards table in the corner, but no one seems to have the shoulder strength to use it. The old copies of Professional Mariner stacked up near the corkboard apparently go unread.
A recent copy of the Ambrose Light newsletter brought unwelcome notice of the death of George Searle, former president of a merchant marine association, who, in the autumn of his life, one learns, purchased the Mary Murray, a decommissioned Staten Island ferry he kept on the banks of the Raritan River for more than 20 years. In a photograph accompanying his obituary, Mr. Searle looks gopher-cheeked and pallid, not unlike the other old men who are scattered about the room.
One of them is Gabriel Frank, a tattooed seaman in a cowboy shirt, who, at 80 years old, will demand that you feel his muscles, then rattle off, in a single breath, every port in Africa from Abidjan to Walvis Bay. Had he actually been to Tripoli, Lobito, Lagos, Beira and Port Sudan, as he had boasted? "Sailors only lie to pretty women", he said.
But piracy, of course, was the dominant topic, with Mr. Traverse quietly suggesting that the brigands in Nigeria were actually much worse than in Somalia, as they were in cahoots with the police. Despite accepted wisdom, there has always been a secret connection between the pirate and the sailor: One attacked the system from the outside; the other suffered it from within. In fact, it is said that the term "labor strike" derives from the practice of striking (lowering) a ship’s sails as a symbol of refusal to go to sea.
As for the recent surge in worry over pirates, it was patently ridiculous, since global capital had already robbed what little was left to steal.
"Look around this room", he said. "There’s nothing left. Seamen are passé. It’s the end of an era. The industry is dead".
Marine ecosystem, IUU fishing and dumping, ecology
8th of June is World Ocean Day!
2009 Theme: "one ocean, one climate, one future"
About the theme: We live on a blue planet, dominated by the ocean which covers 70% of its surface. The world’s ocean and climate are inextricably linked: the ocean plays a crucial role in maintaining the Earth's climate, and ocean life is vulnerable to climate change. Likewise, in our interconnected world, the ocean affects us and we affect the ocean. A healthy ocean helps to absorb excess carbon dioxide, provides jobs and food to people the world over, and regulates climate and temperature.
Meanwhile Japan has caught $6 billion worth of illegal Southern Bluefin tuna over the past 20 years, reports the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Over-fishing in 2009, by Charles Clover
Over-fishing was recognized as one of the world's greatest and most immediate environmental problems in 2002, when it was first demonstrated that global catches of wild fish had peaked around 1989 and have since been in decline.
Globally, some 75 per cent of wild marine fish are now said to be either fully-exploited or over-fished, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (UN FAO). That means these species require conservation and management in order to survive in their present numbers - which they rarely receive.
The number of fish stocks recorded as fully or over-fished worldwide is expected to increase significantly this year when the latest figures are published by the UN FAO.
The fish species in the worst shape are highly migratory oceanic sharks; fish that are exploited fully or partially on the high seas, such as the larger tunas; and shared stocks, such as the Patagonian toothfish or Chilean sea bass.
Aquaculture, or fish farming, now provides almost half of all the fish consumed by humans. In the West – but not in Asia - it is mostly carnivorous fish that are farmed. The growth of aquaculture has slowed as stocks of small fish used to feed larger fish are themselves over-fished.
The North East Atlantic, which includes EU waters, is one of the worst areas in the world for over-fishing – along with the western Indian Ocean and the North West Pacific, according to the UN FAO.
In European waters, some 80 per cent of stocks are recorded as over-fished, according to the European Commission.
In UK waters, stocks of palatable fish, such as cod, have been reduced to less than 10 per cent of what they were 100 years ago. This compares with a global average of 25 per cent of stocks actively over-fished.
The nation with the least over-fishing problem is New Zealand [interestingly also the most free country in the world], where only 15 percent of stocks are recorded as over-fished. The problem is that in Europe some 50 per cent of the quotas set by politicians are higher than scientists say are sustainable.
The EU was instrumental in arguing for a quota of 22,000 tons of valuable bluefin tuna for next year at a meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas in Marrakech in November, even though scientists recommended a quota of only 15,000 tons to avert stock collapse.
The United States had called for a total ban on catching bluefin in the Mediterranean to allow stocks to recover from rampant over-fishing, both illegal and legal.
The bleak future predicted for the sea by some scientists already exists in British waters, where in places over-fishing has resulted in a simplified ecosystem vulnerable to total collapse.
In the Firth of Clyde, near Glasgow, the cod, haddock, saithe, brill and whiting have all been over-fished. All there remains for fishermen to catch is Norway lobster, also known as langoustine or scampi. In the absence of cod, which eat diseased Norway lobsters, some 70 per cent of Norway lobsters are now afflicted by the parasite-borne ailment known as smoking crab disease and the prospects for the Clyde fishermen are not good.
Seven tenths of Earth is covered by water and the oceans belong to all of us.
Every individual on Earth has a right to assume that the oceans are managed for the benefit of all those alive, their children and grandchildren - not on behalf of vested interests. If the biological diversity of the oceans is to be maintained or restored, large areas must be protected altogether from the commercial fishing industry and responsible fishing must prevail outside those areas.
Every person on the planet can claim 2 hectares of ocean - that's what you get if you divide the surface area of ocean by the number of people on Earth. If the biological diversity of the oceans is to be maintained or restored, large areas must be protected altogether from the commercial fishing industry and responsible fishing must prevail outside those areas.
Sound the global fisheries alarm.
Scientists predict that if we continue fishing at the current rate, the planet will run out of seafood by 2048 with catastrophic consequences. Based on the book by Charles Clover, The End of the Line explores the devastating effect that over-fishing is having on fish stocks and the health of our oceans. With Clover as his guide, Sundance veteran Rupert Murray (Unknown White Male) crisscrosses the globe, examining what is causing the dilemma and what can be done to solve it.
Industrial fishing began in the 1950s. High-tech fisheries now trawl the oceans with nets the size of football fields. Species cannot survive at the rate they are being removed from the sea. Add in cofactors of decades of bad science, corporate greed, small-minded governments, and escalating consumer demand, and we’re left with a crisis of epic proportions. Ninety percent of the big fish in our oceans are now gone. Murray interweaves glorious footage from both underwater and above with shocking scientific testimony to paint a vivid and alarming profile of the state of the sea. The ultimate power of The End of the Line is that it moves beyond doomsday rhetoric to proffer real solutions. Chillingly topical, The End of the Line drives home the message: the clock is ticking, and the time to act is now.
Charles Clover, the book's author, said: "We must stop thinking of our oceans as a food factory and realize that they thrive as a huge and complex marine environment. We must act now to protect the sea from rampant over-fishing so that there will be fish in the sea for our grandchildren and great-grandchildren".
"Over-fishing is the great environmental disaster that people haven't heard about", said producer George Duffield.
"A recent global conference about bluefin tuna stocks saw almost no media coverage in the U.S. We hope this film really sounds the alarm. We can fix this problem starting right now".
"Reading the book The End of the Line changed my life and what I eat. I hope the film will do the same for others", said producer Claire Lewis.
Film warns of 'world without fish'
By Jeremy Cooke
They are dramatic images to make a dramatic point. The End of the Line is a film packed with footage of big-scale fishing in oceans around the world, and the work of the fishing industry is efficient, modern, industrial and, according to the film makers, unsustainable.
Amid doom laden music, the narrator tells us: "Our view of the sea has always been that it is huge, beautiful and inexhaustible. The oceans are the common heritage of all mankind and for billions of years they have been full of life".
But that, according to the film-maker and journalist Charles Clover, is changing. The world's ocean environment - and the fish in it - is facing catastrophe.
"These huge resources which we once believed to be renewable, that our whole human history has led us up until now to believe are renewable, are not renewable any more because of what we are doing to them. And so our entire philosophical approach has to change. It is not going to be the same in the future as it was in the past".
The documentary claims to be to the marine environment what An Inconvenient Truth was to global warming.
The basic problem, says the film, is the huge over-capacity of the modern fishing industry.
There are too many boats chasing too few fish: "The global fishing capacity could catch the world catch four times over. The world's long-lining industry sets 1.4 billion hooks every year. These are estimated to be set on enough line to encircle the entire globe more than 550 times".
If we are in any doubt about the sheer power of the modern fish industry, we are told: "The mouth of the largest trawling net is big enough to accommodate 13 747 jets".
So amid claims of insufficient, poorly enforced regulation it is hard to find any good news when it comes to the world's fisheries. But if the global picture is bleak there are some areas of good practice.
We went to Iceland to see what is regarded by many conservationists as the gold standard of modern fishing practice.
Two hours off the coast of western Iceland the crew of a small, clean, fishing vessel were using the light of the 0300 dawn to bait some 14,000 hooks on eight miles of line.
The skipper is after haddock which he targets very carefully. Two hours later, when the lines are winched aboard, it is clear it has been a good day.
The fishermen here say they are making a good living, despite strict rules and regulations governing their work. The authorities can close the fishing grounds if there are any indications of the stocks failing.
Iceland also has quotas limiting the amount of each species a vessel can land. But, crucially, there are no discards - the practice of throwing tonnes of dead fish back into the water, which has so blighted the EU version of the same measures.
Back in port, fish exporter Jan Tomensen told me there is general agreement in Iceland among policy makers about the conservation measures.
"It is very important, especially for Iceland, not to over-fish and to keep the stocks sustainable… It is very important to the country and everyone understands that - the fishermen, the fisheries' owners and the government, of course. We hear that 90% of the fish in the EC is over-fished and 30% is in very bad shape, so I am sure they can learn something from Iceland".
Iceland's record explains why some of our leading retailers go there to buy their fish. Waitrose, for example, relies heavily on Icelandic supplies because it can be sure that the produce is caught sustainably.
But the mainstream industry knows that illegal, or black fish (caught outside the rules of the EU or other authorities) can be a big problem.
Waitrose chief buyer of fish, Quentin Clark, says: "There are some shocking, absolutely shocking, statistics out about how much fish is caught illegally around the world - it is a global problem.
"And that is why it is so important that people have full confidence in their retailer - or wherever else they buy their fish - that they know where that fish is coming from".
Watching The End of the Line, it is clear that consumer power may be central to hopes of stopping the decline in global fish stocks. We are all being encouraged to ask: "Where is this fish from, and is that source sustainable"?
The film has three messages for consumers, citizens and companies:
Ask before you buy: only eat sustainable seafood.
We hope that when people buy fish in a shop or in restaurant, they will ask where it comes from; whether it is from a sustainable source, whether it is an endangered or over-exploited species.
There are useful guides to what fish you can buy with a (fairly) clear conscience. In the UK one is produced by the Marine Conservation Society. You can find the guide on their website.
In the USA, the Monterey Bay Aquarium issues one. You can click through from here. www.SeafoodWatch.org
Tell politicians: respect the science, cut the fishing fleet
Join the campaign for marine protected areas and responsible fishing also in Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen, UAE, Oman, Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique and link up with us: office[at]ecoterra.net www.ecop.info
"The annual consequential costs due to over-fishing of the oceans have reached 50 Billion US-Dollar, as calculated by the World Bank and FAO. While losses at Wall Street due to the present credit crunch have so far been calculated to stand at 1,5 Billion Dollars, allowing financial institutions and bankers to be "rescued" by a 700 Billion Dollar rescue plan - using taxpayer's money -, not much is done to rescue the oceans! - soon it will be too late to finance the nature-crunch bailout!" -pjb-
Anti-piracy measures
The Market Has Spoken
by Peter Leeson
Despite the surge in Somali piracy and encouragement from some employees of the U.S. government, commercial ships aren’t choosing to put armed guards on their vessels. And with good reason: given present conditions, anyway, it’s a bad idea.
As I discuss in The Invisible Hook, like their Caribbean forefathers, Somali pirates are in the business of making money, not harming hostages. Of the 815 hostages Somali pirates took last year, only four died and two were injured under pirate care.
Pirates aren’t treating hostages well because they’re nice guys. They’re treating hostages well because it pays to do so. A dead hostage fetches no ransom and pirates’ business model would collapse if they injured prisoners or allowed them to die. The economics of piracy has a simple bottom line: for all the problems piracy may pose, the threat of dead and injured innocents isn’t one of them.
That could change, however, if commercial ships starting carrying armed guards on their ships. Armed guards will of course defend against pirate attacks, potentially leading to fire fights that could jeopardize innocent sailors’ lives. The prospect of having to battle for their prizes will deter some pirates. But others will remain undeterred. And for the remaining industry, armed guards’ effect may very well be to increase the dangers that piracy poses rather than reducing them.
The profit-driven behavior of commercial shippers corroborates this possibility. Like pirates, commercial shippers also have strong incentives to keep merchant sailors alive and well: insurance costs. If armed guards reduced the dangers of piracy instead of increasing them, commercial shippers’ insurance costs would fall by employing guards instead of rising. But in this case commercial shippers would have hired armed guards already, which they haven’t.
Commercial shippers don’t need government to encourage them to undertake the most profitable course of action.
The market has spoken: Even in today’s pirate-infested waters off Somalia, the low probability of being captured by pirates, together with the fact that pirates release their hostages unscathed, means it’s cheaper--and safer--to go without armed guards.
Private Law and Order: Somali Pirate Edition
Those pop-culture phenomena, the pirates of old, had a well-developed system of private law and order. Early 18th-century pirates created rules that prohibited violence and theft; regulated gambling, smoking, and drinking; and established procedures for selecting officers of these laws’ enforcement. The result was surprisingly orderly and cooperative early 18th-century pirate societies.
However, until recently, these sea dogs’ Somali successors showed little discernable social organization. In large part this is because they didn’t form societies. There weren’t enough Somali pirates, nor did they spend enough time together plying their illicit trade, to constitute a group (or groups) requiring law and order.
But times for the Somali pirates, they are a changing. Over the last year or so Somali piracy has flourished into a full-blown economic activity in some of Somalia’s coastal communities. Somalia’s modern sea bandits pirate full time; and while they spend little time together on their ships, they spend significant time together in their pirate communities on land. A new, albeit different, pirate society is being born.
Pirates thus face a governance problem they haven’t faced since, well, the 18th century. And they’re rising to the occasion. Somali sea dogs have a code of conduct that includes rules for dealing with inter-pirate theft, conflict, and theft from their victims.
According to one Somali pirate, for example, "If any one of us shoots and kills another, he will automatically be executed and his body thrown to the sharks". Further, this pirate added, "If a pirate injures another, he is immediately discharged and the network is instructed to isolate him. If one aims a gun at another, he loses five percent of his share of the ransom".
According to another Somali sea dog, "Anybody who is caught engaging in robbery on the ship [the pirates overtake] will be punished and banished for weeks. Anyone shooting a hostage will immediately be shot. I was once caught taking a wallet from a hostage. I had to give it back and then 25,000 dollars were removed from my share of the ransom".
The Somali pirates’ "laws" are enforced by a "mobile tribunal", a kind of traveling pirate court, that oversees relations between the significant number of Somali "pirate cells"— separate but coordinated bands of sea scoundrels that dot Somalia’s coastline.
There remain important differences between 18th century- and modern Somali-pirate governance. These differences reflect the different, specific governance needs of each kind of pirate’s community. For example, it was important for early 18th-century pirates to regulate smoking because of the significant negative externality one pirate’s unrestricted tobacco use could impose on his partners in crime. Early 18th-century pirate ships were made of wood and cloth and carried large quantities of gunpowder. A careless pirate smoker was thus liable to destroy the ship or, worse yet, blow the crew to smithereens.
Modern pirating vessels, in contrast, are metal, and aren’t carrying gunpowder. One pirate’s smoking behavior poses a much smaller risk to the rest of the crew. And on land, where modern pirates spend the majority of their time together, smoking presents no such risk to others. Somali pirates, then, don’t need to create rules governing tobacco use in their society; so they don’t.
Similarly, given their unique governance needs, Somali pirates have private institutions of law and order that 18th-century pirates didn’t have, such as their traveling court. Since Somali pirate organization involves the cooperation of numerous and geographically separated groups, Somali pirates require a mobile judiciary that can oversee conflicts and enforces pirate law "industry wide".
In contrast, early 18th-century pirate societies were floating ones--those aboard their ships. They operated as independent units rather than as part of a coordinated whole together with all of the other pirates in the Caribbean. Eighteenth-century pirates therefore had no need for a traveling court. Each crew resolved its disputes on board via an officer called the quartermaster whose judicial authority extended only over the members of his crew.
Private pirate law and order is alive and well in allegedly "lawless" Somalia, and highlights two important lessons. First, even outlaws require social order and private governance institutions emerge to create this order when government does not. Second, when they emerge endogenously, as in do pirate societies, these governance institutions develop to reflect the particular needs of the individuals they govern. The resulting effectiveness of such institutions is certainly part of the reason for 18th-century pirates’ success. I suspect the private governance institutions that support the Somali pirates’ criminal economy deserve considerable credit for these sea dogs’ success so far too.
To Live Outside the Law You Must Be Honest concludes Jesse Walker.
No real peace in sight yet
Reports from Wabho town in Galgudud region say that the death toll of yesterday’s fighting increased as the both of the warring sides claiming victories over the conflict; officials said on Saturday. Reports say that at least 40 people including the warring sides and civilians were killed and more than 60 others were injured in the fighting between forces loyal to the allied Harakat Al-shabab Mujahideen, Hisbul Islam and Ahlu Sunna Waljama’a organization. Most of the injured people were taken to hospitals in Da’da, Elbur and Guri’el town in Galgudud region in central Somalia. Many of residents had fled from their houses during the fighting and reached faraway into the jungle to be saved from the gun battle. It yet unclear the real group who is controlling Wabho town due to lack of telecommunications in the town as the Spokesmen from both rival fighters claimed victory about the fighting saying that each side has the upper hand of war. Reports from Galgudud region say that the situation of the town is calm now.
Mohamed Qanyare Afrah an MP in the Somali national assembly has condemned the anti-government rivals for deploying private armies to the country who are fighting alongside of them. "I have been among the worlds in the capital Mogadishu, and I have given up now and I am ready to work with the Somali government of national unity. I am already an MP in the government and I approve as accurately reported that there are foreign mercenaries in the whole country who are fighting alongside the radical Islamists Al-Shabab. All these foreigners in Somalia were jail birds in their own country and have fled to Somalia’" said Mohammed Qanyare an MP in the Somali parliament.
The Somali Anomaly: Bringing Order to the Epicenter of Chaos
by John Prandato
In the wake of the recent surge in piracy, it would be hard to argue that there is not a silver lining fastened to this unique international crisis – the tragedy of Somalia has finally been pushed onto the world stage. Somalia has long been a political catastrophe, having hit rock bottom after claiming the #1 ranking in The Fund for Peace’s most recent Failed States Index. In the last 18 years, Mogadishu has watched 14 failed attempts at establishing a functioning central government, and the current transitional government’s sphere of control has been reduced to just a few city blocks of the war-torn capital. The rest of the country is governed by unbridled anarchy in a violent free-for-all between rival clans, powerful warlords, and radical Islamists. To call Somalia a classic embodiment of Hobbesian state of nature would be a monumental understatement because Thomas Hobbes never fashioned his model of anarchy to include a seemingly infinite supply of automatic weapons.
The timeline of the past two decades is dotted with covert military forays and half-hearted state-building efforts, but only as the crisis begins to spill over into the Gulf of Aden and aboard the decks of merchant vessels has the world finally truly taken notice. At a recent conference in Brussels attended by leadership from the UN, the EU, the African Union (AU), the Arab League, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), the international community pledged $213 million (far exceeding the requested aid) toward strengthening Somali security forces. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN special envoy for Somalia, said recently that "the problem of piracy has opened the eyes of those who have forgotten Somalia".
However, many have been quick to note that international intrigue and foreign aid do not necessarily equate to results especially since, at first glance, stability in Somalia appears all but hopeless. After all, 2 million displaced refugees and a $600 per capita GDP in a country defined by drought, famine, and incessant war does not paint a promising picture. But Somalia is an anomaly among the rest of the world’s failed states, which are almost invariably defined by deep-seated religious or ethnic sectarian conflict. Somalia, on the other hand, is strikingly homogeneous. Nearly the entire population of almost 10 million shares the same ethnicity, religion, language, and culture. But the prolonged absence of the rule of law has given rise to violent clan loyalties that have shattered the Somali nation into countless unidentifiable pieces. Nevertheless, the pieces of unity exist.
They just need a foundation on which to take shape.
In the past, failed attempts to stabilize Somalia by means of foreign intervention have only encouraged stronger Islamist extremism and deeper anti-American sentiment. But in a recent letter to President Obama, Senator Russ Feingold, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs, articulated a strategy of engagement to unite Somalia from within. Senator Feingold pointed to the dramatic decline in violence and piracy that occurred under the brief rule of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in 2006. Despite the repressive shari’a law imposed by its hard-line al-Shabaab branch of Sunni Islam, the ICU brought Somalia the central authority that it desperately needed to establish order and security.
Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman wrote that when he visited Mogadishu in September 2006, he "saw work crews picking up trash and kids swimming at the beach. For the first time in years, no gunshots rang out at night. Under the banner of Islam, the Islamists had united rival clans and disarmed much of the populace … They even cracked down on piracy by using their clan connections to dissuade coastal towns from supporting the pirates". The brief reign of the ICU prior to its ousting by a U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion is widely considered the most peaceful six months in Somalia since 1991. The ICU’s radical Islamic law presented its own set of intolerable human rights violations, but the lesson to be learned from the six-month interlude from chaos is the ability of Islam to unite Somalia’s rival clans and thwart the cycle of violence that they perpetuate. Moderate Islam can, and must, serve as the foundation on which the new Somali nation-state will be pieced together.
Recognizing the common underlying identity of the Somali people and the ability to unite the country as a moderate Islamic Republic is the first step, but implementing such a daunting strategy presents a long and uncertain challenge. However, the Somali anomaly is two-fold. Not only does Somalia’s ethnic and religious solidarity make it unique among failed states, but it also stands alone in enjoying the benefit of a precise model to guide its construction. The northernmost region of the country, Somaliland, declared independence from Mogadishu after the fall of Siad Barre’s violent 20-year dictatorship in 1991. Since then, while Somalia has torn itself apart, Somaliland’s 3.5 million inhabitants – despite failing to gain international recognition – have established a fully-functioning central government predicated on moderate Islam, complete with a President, a bicameral legislature, an independent judiciary, a police force, a coast guard, and multi-party elections. In the words of its Foreign Minister Abdillahi Duale, Somaliland is "Africa’s best kept secret".
The existence of Somaliland presents a bizarre scenario, as if serving as a window into a parallel universe in which the course of Somalia’s history veered off on a starkly different trajectory in 1991, resulting in a stable, moderate Islamic Somali nation-state. By mimicking the structure of Somaliland, the international development effort can blend the principles of moderate Islam, Somali nationalism, and representative democracy into a cohesive and stable Somalia.
The Western world understandably balks at the notion of an Islamic republic, but Islam’s unifying capacity in Somalia is undeniable. By reaching for the calm core beneath the disorder that plagues Somalia’s surface, a country that barely understands the concepts of law and order can finally find peace. Piracy’s knack for grabbing headlines has led the African Union special envoy for Somalia, Nicholas Bwakira, to call the current level of global interest in ending the ongoing crisis on land "unprecedented". Stability will not come quickly or easily, but for the first time the international community is creating genuine hope that there will someday be a peaceful nation nestled on the tip of the Horn of Africa.
In the presence of an icon: Iman exclusive
Written by Irenosen Iseghohi-Okojie
Icon, supermodel, entrepreneur, mother, actress, humanitarian. These are just a few of the roles that Iman has played during her magnificent life. Seven caught up with the ultimate supermodel to discuss what it's like to be a phenomenon.
Seven: When you first burst onto the international stage, the media were beside themselves pretending you were a goat herder who had been plucked out of obscurity by photographer Peter Beard. When really, you were an intelligent young woman studying political science and your father had once been the Somali ambassador to Saudi Arabia. How frustrating was it at the start to bite your tongue when you had to be exotified and painted as the other to translate into the mainstream?
Iman: First I felt insulted as Peter Beard planted this story before my arrival, but I have to take some responsibility here and say I was an accomplice. Although I told the press the true story, they still published the fabricated one.
Seven: Do you get a chance to go back to Somalia and are you involved in any projects there?
Iman: Unfortunately, I haven't been to Somalia since 1994. I did a BBC documentary on the famine there in 1992. The situation is not safe – no government and complete utter chaos.
Seven: Do you keep an eye on the political process there?
Iman: I do, but every time I think that finally something is going to be permanent and safe, something happens to bring the chaos back.
Seven: Tell us a book, film, person or single momentous occasion that changed your life and why.
Iman: 1972, when my family and I fled Somalia and entered the Kenyan border on foot with just the clothes on our back. I instantly went from a diplomat's daughter to a refugee.
I am the face of a refugee.
Seven: What's the best piece of advice you've been given?
Iman: Always know your worth – [from] my mom.
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Martin Bell, former BBC war correspondent and current UNICEF UK Ambassador for Humanitarian Emergencies, recently concluded a three-day trip to the north-east zone of Somalia to report on the situation of children and women affected by conflict, drought, displacement and other hardships – and to shed light on UNICEF's efforts to provide them with crucial services.
In Bossaasso, one of the country's busiest ports, Mr. Bell visited settlements for displaced people and saw firsthand the dire conditions in which they live. Displaced populations form a group of chronically vulnerable people here, lacking even the most basic social services and livelihood opportunities.
Bossaasso hosts 27 camps where 40,000 people have sought refuge from other parts of the country. Over 1 million people in Somalia are internally displaced, mainly due to the conflict and insecurities in the central and southern regions.
Nutrition and health services
"This is my eighteenth war zone, and I think this is the most difficult situation I ever encountered – also the one in which children are suffering to an extraordinary extent", said Mr. Bell.
Almost half of the total population in Somalia, or about 3.2 million people, are in need of emergency assistance. Mr. Bell visited projects implemented by UNICEF and its partners to aid those at risk, including feeding programmes at health facilities to provide severely malnourished children with nutritional and medical services.
Malnutrition rates among displaced children in Bossaasso are alarmingly high, exceeding 27 per cent, according to an assessment by the Food Security and Nutrition Analysis Unit in Somalia. Global acute malnutrition level in Somalia as a whole stands at 18 per cent, well above the emergency threshold of 15 per cent.
’The answer is education’
During Mr. Bell's visit, community residents in Bossaso stressed the importance of education, identifying it as a priority area in need of immediate attention and support.
While UNICEF continues to be the sole provider of virtually all supplies and textbooks for primary schools throughout Somalia, a combination of conflict, poverty and lack of appropriate facilities – as well as authorities' inability to sustain teacher salaries – have had a serious impact on children's enrolment and school attendance.
"You have a country where barely 30 per cent of the children go to school", said Mr. Bell. "Of course, there has to be peace, but the answer is education, education, education. If we put money, a fraction of the money, into education, then Somalia can be saved".
Need for awareness and support
Despite visible deterioration of the security situation in the country over the past year, which continues to erode the humanitarian space, UNICEF and its partners are striving to implement crucial projects on the ground.
"The world should know that there are a lot of heroes and heroines in Somalia – UNICEF and other aid agencies' workers doing a fantastic job in the most difficult situation imaginable", said Mr. Bell. "Because it is so unsafe, there are no international journalists, and Somalia has dropped out of the news, which is very unfortunate and makes it difficult to raise money for these people who need it so desperately".
Mr. Bell will be campaigning in the United Kingdom to raise awareness about the humanitarian situation in Somalia and support fundraising efforts for UNICEF's programmes for Somali children and women.
Are Deaths From Terrorism Qualitatively/Morally Different?
by Peter Daou
The establishment approach to counter-terrorism is based on an implicit assumption that there is a fundamental difference between the death and destruction caused by terrorist attacks and that caused by crime, hunger, disease and other such threats.
This unspoken assumption is used to justify the suspension of rules and standards that are employed when dealing with other causes of death and injury. And it explains a disproportionate urgency in contending with a single existential threat over others (global warming, environmental degradation, poverty, gun violence, etc.).
UNICEF's State of the World's Children 2008 says that "every day, on average, more than 26,000 children under the age of five die around the world, mostly from preventable causes". Would we -- should we -- suspend basic ethical principles and sidestep the rule of law to address this catastrophe? Do we hear major speeches and breathless news reports about this ongoing tragedy?
MADD tells us that "on average someone is killed by a drunk driver every 40 minutes. In 2007, an estimated 12,998 people died in drunk driving related crashes..." Would we -- should we -- utilize indefinite detention, torture, and other violations of constitutional principles to solve the problem?
The same holds true for dozens of other threats. For example: "A woman is battered every 8 to 10 seconds in the United States (3-4 million times per year). As many as 17% of adult pregnant women are battered. The number of teenagers that battered during pregnancy may be as high as 21%". Do we create secret prisons and 'enhanced' interrogation tactics to deal with the perpetrators? Should we? Do we obsess about it the way we do about a flu epidemic or a nationally televised song contest?
My point is not that we shouldn't do everything possible to prevent terrorism and to punish terrorists -- it's that we should do so with no greater urgency and no less adherence to the law than we do other forms of deadly violence and preventable death. And if anything, I'm arguing that we should do more about the problems listed above, not less about terrorism.
I'm sympathetic to the assertion that preventing death from violence should be a top priority, reasoning that "the decision by an individual or group of individuals to destroy or inflict damage on others, to rob them of their freedom, to strip them of their dignity, to dehumanize them, is fundamentally worse than any other mortal threat we face. Violence is an affront to our souls, a stain on our humanity". Still, I don't understand why we should have laxer laws and ethics for dealing with one kind of murder over another, simply because the murderer had a different reason to carry out his/her crime. Nor do I comprehend why the terrible things done to people in America and across the globe should elicit less of a focus than terrorism.
Every new day on this lonely planet brings a fresh litany of horrors: children raped and beaten and hacked to death, women abused, people dying of starvation and preventable diseases, innocent people thrown in prison and forgotten, the earth poisoned and polluted.
Over a million people lose their lives to violence and millions more are injured and maimed every year. Death and injury by terrorist attack is no more horrific than a young girl being stoned to death in Somalia (for being raped) or a baby being thrown out of a car window in Florida. We need to handle both issues with the appropriate alarm and with the same sense of justice and fealty to the rule of law. We must do away with the flawed notion that combating terrorism requires a unique set of guidelines -- that somehow deaths from terrorism are qualitatively/morally different.
Violence and preventable death in all forms should be our utmost priority and we should do everything we can, within the law and within the parameters of basic decency and morality, to bring an end to them.
Shackled By Distorted Mental Imagery
by Adan Makina
Nowadays, a look at how some of the Somali youth living in the western hemisphere prepare for their future upon graduating from High School is cause for alarm. By developing distorted mental imagery, these youth who hail from disadvantaged backgrounds and broken families, find it difficult to heed the advises given by their school counselors because of preconceived established ideas ingrained in their minds that are hard to alter. Ironically, with falling school performances reported among school-going Somali children in Europe and North America, choosing the wrong careers after the gates of the schools are kept under lock and key create unease for any watchful educator and parent who wishes to see all kids remain in school until they are capable of handling their affairs. Even with plenty of financial aid and other grants available and reserved for those willing to partake in the furtherance of their education, the prospects of remaining in school diminishes for reasons best known to them.
Because of their obsessions with immediate jobs and some cash to propel them in to the murky waters of the underworld, these kids end up taking up menial jobs and often find themselves shoved in to contemptible and unprofessional fields like cab driving, janitorial, doormen, cooks, and the manufacturing industry considered to be the lowest paying in terms of job classifications. However, because of overabundance of narcotics and other mind altering drugs readily available in the streets, tardiness and ill-fated temptations usher them in to the corridors of social rejection and disobedience that ultimately lead them to rub shoulders with the law.
Thus, the youth who was touted to be a shinning star unto himself, his family, and his nation, becomes a subject of condemnation when an unpardonable and strange act leads him to the gallows of a dreaded prison. Though many divinely fortunate convicts who serve their sentences cautiously emerge out of the gates of dungeons with rosaries in hand as signs of repentance, the hard core ones who remain behind could find themselves rewarded with extended jail terms due to other horrible felonies committed while behind bars. Such sarcastic miscalculations in life may be attributed to poor parental and societal upbringing, lack of role models and mentors, resettling with careless and unfamiliar faces and families, failure to grasp the exhortations of the elderly, and taking the wrong path in life.
Also, the effects of the horrendous civil wars that separated family and friends, child abuse and neglect, familial indiscipline, parental drug addiction and illiteracy, abject poverty, and hordes of imperfections content in the social fabric they live in become the driving levers for their self-immolation or self-destruction. In addition, the social depravity of the host environment and the guest youth's competition for space and recognition coupled with the desire to assimilate opens a path for unintended social interactions and exposure to malignant, apathetic, and alien cultures that easily consume the diminutive empathy exported from country of origin.
Furthermore, the harboring of a sense of inferiority by the novel guest and the ardent desire to participate in the affairs of the newly exposed locale tremendously alters, defaces or may even erase whatever little was left of his brain chemistry. The once exotic youth finds himself immersed in an unfathomable bottomless pit commandeered by criminals of the most awful category. Societal fragmentation in the Diaspora, lack of extra-curricular activities, exposure to pornography, cinematographic obscenities, and lack of parental involvement in Parent Teacher Associations, are the deriding factors behind the collapse of the once youthful Somali Empire.
The stubborn outgrowth of filaments of animosity and the division of society along clan lines has never been so profound in Somali society before. While it is true that poor governance, foreign interference in Somali affairs, and lack of reconciliation between warring factions added to Somali calamity, what we should note with dismay is how the Diaspora's disregard for unity and coherence culminated in the break up of many who cherished trust, love, and unanimity in matters exclusive to the Somali people and nation.
The handouts and welfare benefits provided by the host nations to Somali societies and individual families are the main arteries that finance malevolent designs and the major propulsion engine of hatred in the Diaspora and in beleaguered Somalia. Wired via electronic remittances to Somali antagonistic forces on a monthly basis, these monies could be used to rejuvenate the education of Somali youth in the Diaspora and also those in impoverished Somalia.
While the number of Somali youth lagging behind bars in the western hemisphere could run in to the thousands, still there are an equal number of law abiding, sagacious, and hard working youth struggling to go beyond permanent barriers, traveling the hard road to prosperity, and effecting change by transforming the impossible in to the possible.
Simba of Puntland Best Choice for Somalia opinions Kanini Evans Kariuki
Internationally renown Somalia politician Awad Ahamed Ashareh seems to be the best choice for Somalia in the face of the current war that has culminated in the deaths of hundreds of civilians, destabilized the region, created hundreds of thousands of refugees, drawn in foreign armies and militants, besides spawning an unprecedented wave of piracy offshore.
He is charismatic and highly known internationally vis-a-vis the rest of the Somalia public figures and apart from commanding huge respect and confidence of his countrymen, he has the answer to the giant puzzle bedeviling Somalia.
Ashareh-the Simba (lion) of Puntland, is a great patriot with a full grasp of all the nooks and crannies of Somalia, which occupies a special place in his heart. He has the genius, zeal and zest of resolving his country's problems.....
I was studying the Somali's leading public figures and I feel that he is the right choice for Somalia in this crucial era.
Just who is this man Awad Ahamed Ashareh? What makes him tick?
Here we go.
In Eldoret town, Rift Valley, Kenya, he was conspicuous, known and recognized by the locals for his well-maintained flowing white beards and hair, which gave him a striking resemblance to the biblical Moses.
In several other quarters of his public life, 64 – year -old Awad Ahmed Ashareh was, and is still famously referred to as, the "Simba of Puntland".
Puntland is an expansive region in Somalia where he, and the immediate former president, Abdulahi Yusuf come from. The two were close political buddies for long.
Ashareh was nicknamed "Simba of Puntland" owing to his vibrancy and ingenuity in tackling the problems afflicting the war-battered Horn of Africa nation head on, and foraging for a lasting solution to the crisis.
He is a former minister for Information and Justice and currently chairman of Information, Culture, Heritage, and Public awareness in Somalia's Transitional Federal Parliament, and an active member of the inter-parliamentary union.
Ashareh was Chairman of Puntland Constitutional Arrangement Conference which culminated in the establishment of Puntland State in August 1998. He is also a spokesperson for 12 Somali factions.
Abdulahi Yusuf resigned recently as the Somali president, paving the way for new elections in Somalia, whereupon the country's moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed clinched the presidency in Djibouti last Saturday.
Somalia has been steeped in chaos and bloodshed ever since ex-president Siad Barre was deposed in a bloody coup d’ état, way back in 1991.
Instability in chaotic Somalia culminated in the convention of a Peace and Reconciliation conference which was first held in Eldoret town for several months, chaired by the late Elijah Mwangale, a veteran politician and former cabinet minister.
The symposium which was being held at the prestigious Sirikwa hotel in Eldoret town, brought together leaders of various factions in Somalia who included Ahmed Ashareh and Abdulahi Yusuf, the former president.
The conference later relocated to Nairobi where it was chaired by career diplomat Bethwel Kiplagat, after Mwangale - a known Kanu stalwart, was phased out when the former ruling party lost power to the Narc government in 2003.
While in Eldoret during the Somali Peace and Reconciliation conference, Ashareh made impressive and prolific contributions that left him showered in praises for patriotism.
In the evenings amid a cool breeze in Eldoret town at the end of the usually lengthy conferences, Ashareh would take leisurely strolls and patronize some local hotels ,where he was at peace with everybody.
He caught the attention of people in Eldoret town who threw curious glances at him, in the face of the fact that he was held in high esteem owing to his position in the society.
A widely traveled man and well-read, Ashareh, who is credited with propelling Abdullahi Yusuf to power by marshaling various Somali factions behind the ex-president, is by and large, a down-to-earth personality.
He is an eminent scholar and high-profile public official in Somalia, noted for his ebullience and charisma, particularly as a legislator in Somalia´s National Assembly.
Having fought endlessly for the restoration of peace in his home country, making him one of the most visible and notable peace crusaders, Ashareh believes that "enough is enough" in Somalia.
He greatly detests unfairness, inhumanity, malice, dishonesty and corruption, worrying vices that make him feel squeamish.
And what does he own from his long involvement in public service of Somalia?
"I do not own anything. I neither own a house nor land. I am not a grabber and I do not engage in corrupt deals", Ashareh stated in a matter-of-fact tone during an interview with this writer.
A moment of silence followed, then the focused politician added:
"This is why my countrymen and women, who occupy a special place in my heart, respect me. They know I am not a grabber, but I mean to serve them".
The articulate intellectual strongly condemned the appropriation of private property from public resources.
Ashareh has emerged as a patriot who has the interest of his people at heart.
Once during an interview with an international newspaper, he was overcome by emotion during which time he sobbed owing to the sorry state of affairs in Somalia.
And in the midst of the sobs, Ashareh quipped:
"I tell you it is a horrible situation!" The journalist interviewing him was left flabbergasted.
The no-nonsense politician has also been vigorous in championing for the restoration of law and order in Somalia as well as disarmament, besides advocating for reconciliation and dialogue.
Ashareh has also been visible in fighting against the detestable and thorny issue of sea piracy, extremism and illegal fishing in his native country.
The intellectual-cum-politician has also prioritized health care issues, education, employment, good governance, accountability, transparency, development, rehabilitation and reconstruction of Somalia.
Ashareh has also been in the forefront of a crusade for cordial relations in Somalia with neighboring states, and the development of economic trade and movements of peoples goods.
He admires a situation whereby state assets and accounts are safeguarded in accordance with state financial procedures and regulations.
Ashareh has also had a considerable stint as a General manager with a fish factory in Somalia and as a senior foreign trade officer.
"I am both a man and servant of the people. I will serve my citizens with commitment and dedication until they enjoy a peaceful atmosphere in Somalia. Genuine peace should exist permanently for the good of the current generation and posterity", Ashareh emphasized with finality during the interview.
Impacting reports from the global village
Yemen unity remains a mirage
By Fred Halliday, ICREA Research Professor at the Barcelona Institute for International Affairs
From a land that is often the source of exotic or disconcerting news, the reports of recent weeks coming out of Yemen have been especially worrying. The news is bad for the stability and security of the region in which Yemen is located, for the broader regional conflict between radical, terrorist, Islamism and its opponents, and, most of all, for the 20 or more million long-suffering people of that country itself.
At a time when Yemen’s oil revenues, never large (output hit, at the most, 400,000 barrels a day), have started to decline, when tourism has all but come to a halt, and when a zone of insecurity reigns in the waters of Aden and in neighbouring Somalia, mass protests have broken out in the southern part of the country.
In the port of Aden demonstrators have been killed, newspaper offices occupied by the army and closed. In the far north of the country, around Sada, a tribal insurrection, led by elements of the Al Houthi family, continues. In a country where political statements are usually chloroformed in formal terminology, a tone of palpable alarm can be heard.
In what must count as a serious warning to the political leaders of the Yemen, and their opponents, the presidential adviser and former leader of FLOSY, the pro-Egyptian nationalist movement against the British in Aden, Mohammad Basendwah, has declared that the country is now in the most serious crisis he has ever seen – and he is a man who has seen a protracted war in the north in the 1960s, years of guerrilla war against the British in the south, two wars between independent Yemeni states and the inter-Yemeni civil war of 1994.
Meanwhile Sheikh Hamad Al Ahmar, son of the once powerful tribal leader Abdullah Al Ahmar, who, as I learnt when I visited him in 1992, had a house in Sanaa that included a private jail in the basement, has called on behalf of the united opposition forces for a change of policy and recognition of the seriousness of the situation.
Among his associates are the Yemeni Socialist Party, former rulers of the pro-Soviet south: Al Ahmar and others are now called for the return from exile of YSP leaders who fled the country after the north-south civil war of 1994, in which the north vanquished the south. Chief among these is Ali Al Bid, former secretary-general of the YSP, who has lived, almost incommunicado, in Muscat since that time.
The roots of this crisis lie in the flawed unification of two separate Yemeni states in May 1990, of what were formerly the Yemeni Arabic Republic in the north, and the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, in the south. No unification is easy – as the histories of Germany, Italy and the USA remind us – but this one was exceptionally badly planned and executed.
No-one who knew Yemen in the 1970s and 1980s, as I did, could doubt the deep commitment to unity which nearly all Yemenis, ordinary people and intellectuals alike, felt. The sense of historic and cultural unity, fragmented in the early eighteenth century, was compounded by a belief that, once united, the Yemenis would be able to face up to their greatest enemies, the Saudis, and reclaim their rightful place as, with Egypt, the most ancient of Arab lands.
After two decades of rivalry between the two Yemeni regimes, with their capitals in Sanaa and Aden respectively, and two wars in which the two states tried by force to impose their own conception of ‘unity’ on the other ( the north invading the south in 1972, with support from Libya and Saudi Arabia, the south invading the north in 1979), a gradual rapprochement took place in the late 1980s: the lessening of Soviet support to the south under Gorbachev, the exhaustion of the PDRY’s experiment in Soviet-style socialism, and the prospect of oil revenues that would boost the economy of both, led Presidents Ali Abdullah Saleh and Ali al Bidh to commit to unity in May 1990.
The unification process was, however, flawed from the start. The decision to go for unity, and within a matter of months, was taken spontaneously by the two leaders, so, it is, said, while driving in a car through a tunnel in Aden, and without the consent of many of their advisers or any serious thought to implementation.
External factors may also have played a part: apart from receiving a green light from, respectively Riyadh and Washington (for Sanaa) and Moscow (for Aden), the two leaders were greatly encouraged by Iraq: Saddam, at that time recovering from the war with Iran which ended in August 1988, and looking to build a broad anti-Saudi and anti-Egyptian alliance provided political and, it is said, some financial support to the two leaderships.
The full import of the Iraqi support for a united, and, implicitly, anti-Saudi Yemen only became clear some months later, with the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. This provoked a major crisis for Yemen: hundreds of thousands of Yemenis were summarily expelled by Saudi Arabia, which, as did Washington, cut off all aid to Saleh.
Yemen was also, to its misfortune, in the international limelight holding at that time a seat on the UN Security Council: represented by its long-standing representative, Abdullah Al Ashtal, it abstained in the crucial vote on armed action against Iraq, and, in so doing, incurred the wrath of the USA.
The years that followed only served further to sour the initial and genuine popular enthusiasm of May 1990. The northern elite around Saleh saw unification as an opportunity to take hold of the resources of the south – oil revenues, British colonial villas in Aden, local trade.
The negotiated merger of 1990 soon gave way to conflict and in May 1994 the President launched a war to destroy the military and political presence of the YSP in the south: in ‘The Seventy Day War’, which ended with the occupation and pillage of Aden in July 1994, the northern army, with superior weapons and numbers, the benefit of surprise and, not least, the support of Islamist militia forces linked to Al Qaida, prevailed.
The story since then has been one of increased tension, and resentment, between the two former states. Some measures have been taken to disguise this process: some of the southern political and military leadership were incorporate into the northern state; periodic, but in effect meaningless, elections were held for parliament and the presidency; gestures of reconciliation and political reform were made to assuage credulous western governments and NGOs.
In the south, however, these meant little and southerners came increasingly to resent northern intrusion, referring to northerners as atrak, ‘Turks’, a reference back to the Ottoman occupation of the nineteenth century, and dahbashah, the name of a criminal family in a TV series.
Regime spokesmen are these days blaming foreigners and enemies of Yemen for the crisis: however, the main responsibility for this conflict, and for the squandering of what was, in its inception, an important and positive unificatory imitative, must lie with Saleh, his close associates and his relatives: ‘Abu Ahmad’, as he is known, the architect of Yemeni unity, has also been the person who has done more than anyone else to destroy it.
Showing His True Colors: A Despot Speaks
by Scott A Morgan
Although not widely seen on the Internet a TV Channel in Sweden had an interview that was both Interesting and Revealing. The Network TV4 conducted an Interview with Eritrean President Afeworki and some of the statements were revealing.
Eritrean Relations with the Rest of the World can best be described as tenuous. It fought a War of Liberation with Ethiopia. After Gaining its Independence a Line of Demarcation was drawn up that left neither party satisfied. To this date Tensions are still simmering along that border. Tensions with Djibouti are strained as well as Eritrean Troops have occupied a small area of that country.
Another Area of Contention is the Status of Press Freedom in the Country. Since Private Media was banned in 2001 several Journalists were thrown into Secret Prisons without being charged or Tried. There have been High Profile cases of Journalists such as the late Fesshay Yohannes who Died in Custody. In 2004 President Afeworki gave an Interview where he stated that He did not know Mr. Yohannes.
When Pressed for Information about the status of Dawit Issac a Eritrean Journalist with Swedish Citizenship the President stated that He didn't know what Crime if any was committed. He also said that "He did something bad". In the Lexicon of Eritrean Politics that can be seen as saying anything that goes against the Current President.
Another Statement President Afeworki Made was Interesting. President Afeworki claimed that there was no actual Private Media outlets in the Country. The Media Outlets were financed by the CIA. This is not the First Time that President Afeworki has claimed that the US Government has worked to Undermine His Government.
More often than not this Claim has centered around Somalia. It seems that every so often that either the UN or the US claims to have Evidence that Eritrea has been supporting the Insurgency in Somalia. The UN often rescinds the claim but rarely will the US do so. Another Area of Concern that the US has with Eritrea is over Freedom of Religion.
It seems that whenever any Leader has issues with Human Rights or Democracy in General they blame the United States. That always seem to be the rule to hiding whatever abuses are being committed. Blaming the US will also have the criticism be placed on the US for Intervening in Internal Affairs. Relations with Iran will also place Eritrea on the Radar in Washington as well.
There is a saying that Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely. Having People put in Prison because they did not write anything about you is a sign of Absolute Power. Being a hero who Liberated a country would lead one to think that such tactics would not be used while in power. Sadly in this case once again when achieving Power one has become a despot again.
Troubled waters: China’s blue water PLA-N
by Jonathan J. Ariel
On April 23, China threw one helluva party. And guess what? Everybody came.
Well nearly everyone.
While the Defence Minister, Joel Fitzgibbon, couldn’t make it to the festivities, he sent the Chief of the Navy, Vice Admiral Russ Crane in his stead. Wise call indeed. After all the revelations of his hobnobbing with one Ms Helen Liu, attending the party would be most ill judged, wouldn’t it?
On a crisp spring morning, in the cool waters off Qingdao, in northeast China, military observers from around the world stood cheek by jowl in their Sunday best, marking the 60th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA-N). In an exercise considered "transparent" by the Chinese, the Motherland put on a jaw dropping display, showcasing 25 warships - ranging from nuclear submarines to modern amphibious assault crafts to a monstrous sized hospital ship. Twenty-one ships from 14 foreign navies joined the spectacle. It was a humbling experience for all 14 navies.
Australia was represented by HMAS Success (a replenishment oiler) and HMAS Port Pirie (a patrol boat). Even the Kiwis were there, looking sharp were the lads of HMNZS Te Mana (an ANZAC-class frigate whose Maori name approximates to "Invincible").
China’s President and Commander-in-Chief Hu Jintao supervised the review from atop the Chinese destroyer Shijiazhuang (a Luzhou class air-defense missile destroyer).
The ceremony marked the first public display of some of the Motherland’s most advanced naval assets and was organized around the theme of promoting "harmony". President Hu constantly reassured foreign visitors that the Motherland was not seeking naval domination, nor was it interested in arms races with other nations. You can be sure the Taiwanese - those considered denizens of the "renegade province" - on hearing that, almost choked on their pig’s feet soup.
On cue, foreign dignitaries smiled politely and nodded obediently, sipping their oolong teas and deigning not to unwrap their fortune cookies, lest the truth (of China’s naval prowess) scare them half to death. The truth being that what was on show was merely the first episode in the greatest mini series yet to be screened this decade: the impending handover of global maritime supremacy from the United States of America to the People's Republic of China.
Xinhua, the larynx of the Chinese Communist Party, shrieked that day that the Navy's 60th anniversary amid a recession can restore national pride in the waters where the Qing Empire left a legacy of humiliation for bending to British interests aboard gunboats. This was a reference to the Anglo-Chinese Wars, where China’s fleet was crushed in the early 1840s by Her Majesty’s Navy, which in turn forced the Chinese to accept opium imports, to grant Britain unencumbered access to four Chinese gateways and to cede Hong Kong to Queen Victoria.
Not unlike politicians in the West, Beijing will doubtlessly milk the glut of festivities planned this year - marking 60 years since the founding of the People's Republic - to divert attention from the economic woes facing Chinese working families. It will do so by manufacturing nationalism, and then stoking it.
The recent east African deployment of PLA-N ships (off Somalia) joining the global effort against maritime terrorism (wrongly called "piracy" by most of the West’s media) must be seen in this light. Two Chinese destroyers, the Haikou and Wuhan, along with the supply ship Weishanhu, in late December left the Yalong Bay Naval Station on Hainan Island (just south of Macau’s casinos) bound for east Africa. After escorting more than 100 vessels off the Somali coast in the first 100 days of 2009, the destroyers returned safely to the Motherland and were relieved by the Shenzhen (a destroyer) and the Huangshan (a frigate). The supply ship, Weishanhu remained in place off east Africa, proudly flying the PLA flag of a shiny gold star on a red background.
That deployment highlights China's growing maritime prowess and explains the PRC’s defense spending, officially stated as US$70 billion (A$100 billion) in 2008, but estimated by western agencies at anywhere from US$110-150 billion (A$160-$215 billion).
The Motherland is moving quickly to raise its fighting ability in regional conflicts by employing the latest in information technology. And according to the Commander of the PLA-N, Adm. Wu Shengli, in a mid April interview said: "it is also researching and building new-generation weapons". Among the inventory promised, will be huge combat ships, extremely accurate long-range missiles, stealth submarines, supersonic aircraft, very high-speed smart torpedoes and improved mid-ocean and mid-air logistics.
It is reasonable to expect that China will employ these new military enhancements and increase her long distance naval maneuvers in coming years, following the success of its Somali experience. Chinese ships popping up near the Straits of Malacca (within cooee of Club Med’s resort at Ria Bintan), in the Arabian Sea (off Mumbai) or even skirting Pearl Harbour, hopefully won’t catch Canberra, Jakarta, New Delhi and Washington napping.
But caught napping the United States Navy was in November 2007.
During a secret battle fleet exercise in the Pacific, the US Navy tasked over a dozen ships to provide the maneuvers with a physical guard, while the technical brilliance of the world's sole military superpower supplied an invisible screen to detect and deter any intruders. Or so the Americans thought.
American military chiefs were left speechless as an undetected Chinese submarine bobbed up at the heart of the exercise and near to the giant USS Kitty Hawk - a 320m aircraft carrier with nearly 4,500 personnel on board.
By the time it surfaced, a mere 9km away, the 50m long Song Class diesel electric attack submarine was well within range to launch torpedoes (whose range is 15km) and send 4,500 Americans to their watery mass graves.
Clearly, the Americans had no idea just how hard to detect and how silent China’s submarines were.
Reflecting on this incident, Commodore Stephen Saunders, editor of Jane's Fighting Ships, and a former Royal Navy anti-submarine specialist, said the US had paid relatively little attention to this form of warfare since the end of the Cold War.
Hopefully not any more.
And maritime incidents between China and the West will grow even more complex in the next few years.
Putting to one side China’s ongoing disputes with its eastern and southern neighbours over contested regions of the East China Sea and the South China Sea, home to vast undersea deposits of fossil fuels, a more sinister development could involve China sending its armed forces to physically secure natural resources in third countries - such as oil in Sudan or natural gas in Iran - when it deems them to be under threat from "Western imperialists".
The new Yuzhao-class amphibious assault ship, which was on show at the naval parade on April 23 and whose job is to convey troops and helicopters abroad, would certainly play a key role in such an operation. While China was selling the building of such vessels for their defensive potential, it’s pretty clear few foreigners in attendance were buying.
Among other naval assets flaunted by the Motherland for the first time that day were nuclear-powered submarines. Alas, on show were the two ageing war-horses: the Long March 6 and the Long March 3 submarines. The more modern Jin-class (nuclear powered and nuclear armed) submarines were conspicuously absent.
China’s military build up, like most other activities the communist state engages in, is very, very difficult to gauge, given an absence of transparency. Many foreign intelligence agencies and private institutions do their best to estimate China’s military might, from which the following table - comparing present and forecasted fleet sizes for the RAN and the PLA-N - is an estimation.
……… Table with numbers of Australian and Chinese warships
When, not whether, the United States and her allies will comprehensively lose maritime dominance to China is the question.
While the Chinese and the Americans shift from 20th century technology (for example, diesel powered non stealth fighting vessels), the Australian Labor Party - if the Collins class fiasco and the White Paper’s focus on submarines that are neither nuclear powered nor nuclear armed are any guide - is looking to build overpriced, underperforming, non-lethal, antiquated, shiny big black, most likely unseaworthy dinosaurs. Not that the RAN could do much against the might of the PLA-N, even if the dinosaurs proved to be ocean going.
China’s rapid development of guided missile destroyers, state of the art submarines, as well as over-the-horizon radars, not to mention next-generation anti-ship cruise missiles, should take the breath away of every single Australian. But doesn’t.
The Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (pointedly excluded from the list of 14 nations whose ships were invited to Qingdao) is convinced that the PLA-N will complete construction on two conventional aircraft carriers by 2015, and will begin construction on a further two nuclear carriers soon thereafter. This makes the Filipinos and the kimche eaters to their north very, very uneasy.
That said, China’s effort to develop a modern and deployable fleet is not unreasonable. And Australia surely welcomes that. So long as the world’s fastest growing economy relies heavily on seaborne trade, she has every right to secure her sea-lanes.
But it’s when her behaviour is no longer benign and starts to conflict with Australia’s interests, that’s the fear.
When it comes to safeguarding Australia’s interests, the two keys are to prevent regional conflict and to enhance our security. These twin challenges are most efficiently realized by maximizing our "deterrence capacity".
This means having the wherewithal to influence the political and military choices of an adversary and dissuading her from taking a course of action, by making her leaders understand that either the cost of that course is too great or is of no use.
Deterrence is based upon credibility: the ability to prevent an attack on us, and our capacity to respond decisively to any attack. Ideally, our reputation to respond must precede us and our capacity to respond must be understood to be so powerful as to discourage an enemy even contemplating an attack on us.
While the White Paper is long on canvassing potential sources of future concern to Australia’s peaceful enjoyment of life and liberty, the Paper is very short on detailing a credible deterrence capacity.
And that’s a pity.
China Has Conquered Its Own People, Now What About Rest of the World?
by Simon Winchester
Jiuquan, a small town in the gritty deserts of northwestern China, was a place once moderately celebrated around the world as the birthplace of that most singular vegetable, rhubarb. But, along with the profound changes that have engulfed modern China, this remote and half-forgotten town has lately taken a very different direction from its botanical beginnings. It has become instead — and largely because of its splendid isolation — the main launch center for China’s ever-swelling armada of space rockets.
And at the entrance to its interplanetary complex there is currently a billboard, half in English, that bristles with pride at the community’s makeover. In very large letters at its base there is written a slogan that Western visitors may find more than a little chilling. It proclaims, and without apparent fear of contradiction or challenge: "Without Haste. Without Fear. We Will Conquer the World".
It is a sentiment well worth bearing in mind the next time you go — as all visitors to Beijing should — to see China’s daily national flag-raising ceremony in Tiananmen Square. This event takes place in precisely the location where the tragedy of two decades ago happened. And it is everything that what these days is referred to as merely "the incident" was not. It is precise, disciplined, impeccably choreographed and hugely impressive.
The reverent crowds that show up in the chill before sunrise to watch do not seem to be aware at all that 20 years ago the pavement on which they stand was soaked in blood, that crushed bicycles and injured demonstrators lay all about, that trucks filled with soldiers careered wildly along the grand avenues, rifles blazing in all directions, and that the square was ringed with tanks and armored cars — all directed at a few thousand defenseless young campaigners for freedom and democracy.
Today’s only connection with that gruesome past — personified by the soldiers of the goose-stepping honor guard who strut out from beneath the portrait of Mao Zedong toward the flag podium like giant automatons — is that, on one level, the ceremony is a reminder of the raw and ever-present power of the Chinese state. The very power — patient, measured and implacable — that is suggested by the proclamation on the faraway space center billboard.
A question that troubles so many of the world’s China-watchers, and quite reasonably, is this: Will that raw power ever be directed again toward the very people it is supposed to protect? Could there be another Tiananmen massacre? Would the government ever again risk bringing a firestorm of critical wrath down on the country that, in the last 20 years, has vaulted into the front row of the world’s nations.
It is a difficult subject to discuss in China itself. It is said still to cause grave dissent among the ruling elite, and former dissidents are still subject to arrest — a student leader, who had lived in the United States since 1993 and was trying to visit his ailing parents in China, was picked up in Hong Kong late last year and remains behind bars. But, generally, it is a non-topic in the media and has been essentially written out of the country’s history.
Bringing it up among young Chinese, many of whom weren’t born when the killings occurred, one becomes aware of what it must be like to live in a society in which information is so rigidly controlled. Most have only the vaguest idea that the tragedy ever occurred. It took several minutes of tactful prompting to remind Daisy, a 21-year-old Beijing sophomore, of what had happened — and when the penny dropped, she blushed to the roots of her hair, began to stammer and gestured at the back of the taxi driver’s head. "We would be in great trouble if he knew what we were talking about. I know now — the ‘incident’ in the square. It is something that we know of, but we don’t talk about it. Never".
I had much the same reaction from a student at Shanghai’s Fudan University named Frederick. "This is a subject that we are afraid to talk about. When we try to do so, China suddenly feels like North Korea, a place that is terribly secretive and paranoid. Normally China … isn’t paranoid. It is a very free country, though I know Americans cannot imagine it being so. It is free, as long as you don’t discuss certain things. And ‘the incident’ is one of them. The people who got into trouble, what happened to them? We don’t know. We will never know. We are told not to care. There is no information".
And of those who died? "Some died, I know. Not many, probably. But we just don’t know".
They are free as long as they don’t discuss certain things. That is the key, the cleverly engineered way in which the Chinese government manages its population and that ensures, in my view, that, no, Tiananmen will never happen again.
Because to people like Daisy and Frederick, and even to those generations that have a more vivid recollection of the events of 1989, today’s China offers up sufficient freedom for most to live a remarkably content life. Materially, most urban and educated Chinese are in clover; and most Chinese I know seem perfectly willing to accept some curbs on their liberty — not even setting a particularly high value on those liberties, as once they did. They read of what they believe are the consequences of unfettered freedoms in the West — violence, corruption, drugs, anomie — and count themselves lucky that their society suffers so few of them.
Cynics will say that they have sold their liberties for a mess of pottage. But others will say — and Daisy and Frederick did say — that the corollary to China’s growing economic well-being and contentment is the soaring condition of the country when compared with the rest of the world. A keen sense of national pride — something the 2008 Beijing Olympics did much to nurture — has the Chinese people in its unyielding grip.
And that, students of Realpolitik argue, could lead to what truly matters: that although China’s power will not again need to be directed at its own people, might it instead — for the first time in China’s history — be directed beyond its borders?
For what did the signboard in Jiuquan mean? Precisely what ambition did the slogan "We Will Conquer the World" truly signify?
Local officials explained to me that it did not mean military conquest; China wasn’t about to invade a neighbor, wasn’t going to make threats or commence a program of assertion, expansion or hegemonic swagger. The slogan merely suggested, and mildly, that China might offer the world another way — an alternative to the cultural influence of McDonald’s, Exxon Mobil and General Foods — a reminder that Confucian ideals, for instance, matter too.
Others are less sure the intent is so innocent. There is talk of China acquiring an aircraft carrier. American sailors have recently felt the lash of Chinese anger after straying into contested waters north of the Philippines. Chinese anti-piracy patrols off Somalia have been a great success. There is a growing impression that the Chinese government is beginning to turn its face to the world beyond and look the rest of us in the eye.
As it may need to. China’s immense and ever-growing economy demands raw materials from abroad, secure trade routes, alliances, partnerships and treaties.
Now, with an almost cast-iron guarantee of domestic tranquility at home, how best can China, in a fickle and dangerous world, guarantee a lasting peace abroad? I suspect that China will work that out, without haste. And I imagine China will accomplish it, without fear. Just as it has so adroitly managed to achieve what will most probably be a lasting peace at home.
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Note
Picture: Chinese warships off the East African Horn
From: http://chinadigitaltimes.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/ships.jpg
 | By Prof. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis Published: 6/11/2009 |
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