Ecoterra Press Release 257 — The Somalia Chronicle June — December 2009, no 70

Following the Somalia Spring 2009 Chronicles, I herewith republish the Ecoterra press releases issued in the second half of 2009. I reproduce the integral version of all Ecoterra press releases in a recapitulative effort to provide the global readership with the most comprehensive collection of texts published worldwide about the most abominable Western postcolonial involvement in Africa, namely the systematic effort of extermination of the Somali Nation. The vast documentation provided serves as basic point of reference to students, researchers, analysts and intellectuals.

ECOTERRA Intl.

SMCM

Somali Marine & Coastal Monitor

ECOTERRA INTERNATIONAL – UPDATES & STATEMENTS, REVIEW & CLEARING-HOUSE

2009-09-28 * MON * 23h31:44 UTC

Issue No. 257

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 elsewhere, 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 or 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[at]ecoterra.net

EA Seafarers Assistance Programme EMERGENCY HELPLINE : SMS to +254-738-497979 or sms/call +254-733-633-733

“The pirates must not be allowed to destroy our dream !”

Cpt. Florent Lema’on – F/Y Tanit – killed by French commandos – 10. April 2009 / Ras Hafun

NON A LA GUERRE – YES FOR PEACE

(Inscription on the sail of F/Y TANIT – shot down on day one of the French assault)

We have the obligation to fight oppression and cruelty wherever it appears, and believe that anybody who is degrading other people and peoples has to be fought against with whatever appropriate tools people have available.

Clearing-House: Cut out the clutter – focus on facts !

(If you find this compilation too large or if you can’t grasp the multitude and magnitude of important, inter-related and complex issues influencing the Horn of Africa – you better do not deal with Somalia or other man-made “conflict zones”. We try to make it as easy and condensed as necessary.)

Breaking:

MV ARIANA and the 24 Ukrainian crew on board are obviously in serious problems. While today Ukrainian media quoting officials stated that “everything was fine”, we have received contradicting reports from the ground and a longer article explaining the trouble. While Ukraine officials and media stated that the crew had received food, water, medicine and fuel, these claims were refuted by local observers as well as Somali elders. We first will seek clarification from the Ukrainian officials entrusted with solving the case, before we release the article, but it seems that serious shortcomings on the Ukrainian side – like in the MV Faina case -as well as from the Greek ship-owners hinder the medical evacuation of a seriously ill crew-member as well as the release of vessel and crew.

News from sea-jackings, abductions, newly attacked ships as well as seafarers and vessels in distress

Fishing Vessel’s Crew in Despair

The crew of FV WIN FAR 161, the Taiwanese fishing vessel is desperate and in a horrible condition, local observers reported.

Since the sea-shifta, which hold the ship near Garacad on the Indian Ocean coast of Puntland in north-east Somalia, have a connection with the attack on US container carrier MV MAERSK ALABAMA – a case which made world headlines – the 30 crew members believe that not only the attack by an US helicopter recently but also the fact that no negotiation is coming forward has its root-cause in a decision somewhere to let this case stay unresolved.

That it is actually the crew which suffers most and is slowly rotting away seems top play no role in the present handling of the case.

Philippine officials, which are worried about the fate of 17 Pinoy seafarers among the crew of the fishing vessel captured near the Seychelles, do not even get clear information as to who the real owner of the vessel is – neither from their own government nor from the Taiwanese or the Chinese diplomatic channels – and like so often the families back home are completely left in the dark.

While the WINFAR crew shared for a certain time the fate and meals with 3 hostages from the Seychelles, whose possibly drugs-carrying catamaran then was destroyed, and had renewed hope when these three sailors were flown out – in a deal where 23 detained alleged pirates from the Seychelles were brought to Garacad and set free with some extra cash exchanging hands, thought the ill-designed plan saw them briefly rearrested by Puntland authorities on their way out – nothing came forward so far for the 17 Filipinos, six Indonesians, five Chinese and two Taiwanese of the WIN FAR 161

Nearly half a year since the abduction of the vessel has passed and it is at present the longest pending sea-jacking case of Somalia. The pleads by the crew and their families for a solution must be heard.

‘An increase of sub-standard ships’

By Craig McKune

It has been “one of the worst winters ever” for shipping casualties on the SA coast, and maritime authorities have blamed the economic downturn, and pirates.

Seven ships – most in bad condition and with questionable insurance cover – have been wrecked, sunk, grounded or rescued at the 11th hour. A government tug had been dispatched on average thrice a week from the beginning of winter to stop vessels running aground in Table Bay, Samsa’s Sobantu Tilayi said on Monday.

Samsa chief executive Tsietsi Mokhele said that struggling shipping companies were cancelling orders for new ships and were trading with ships that should have been scrapped. And because ships were avoiding pirates off the Somali coast, more were rounding the Cape than usual.

“There is generally an increasing trend of the sub-standard ships that we have seen throughout the period since the economic downturn,” said Tilayi.

With the latest captures and releases now still at least 4 foreign vessels with a total of not less than 98 crew members are accounted for (of which 20 are confirmed to be Filipinos – Win Far 161 – Seized April 6 with 17 Filipinos and MV Charelle- Hijacked June 13 with 3 Filipinos) and are held in Somali waters. The cases 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 too. Over 134 incidences (including attempted attacks, averted attacks and successful sea-jackings) had 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 168 attacks (incl. averted or abandoned attacks) with 48 sea-jackings on the Somali/Yemeni pirate side as well as at least nine wrongful attacks (incl. one friendly fire incident) on the side of the naval forces. More than 125 Somalis are held in foreign prisons (Kenya, Yemen, France, Netherlands) under charges of piracy. 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: GoA: YELLOW / IO: YELLOW (Red = Very much likely, high season; Orange = Reduced risk, but very likely, Yellow = significantly reduced risk, but still likely, Blue = possible, Green = unlikely).

Directly piracy or naval upsurge related reports

Modern piracy rooted in poverty and war (RT)

Pirates off the coast of Somalia are still a major threat to commercial shipping despite a large-scale international military effort to net them. Thirty-one international warships are now patrolling the Gulf of Aden.

In the last month, the number of attacks has decreased compared to the same time last year, but some military officials say that may be due simply to bad weather. The crews of four vessels are reportedly being held by pirates in Somalia at the moment.

Yemen is among the few countries that have decided to put Somalis on trial for piracy. The international naval forces are stepping up patrols in the pirate-infested Gulf of Aden. More hijackers are being caught in these waters, but it hasn’t got rid of the problem. Pirate attacks on merchant vessels have doubled since 2008.

The solution to the problem should be political, believes Yemeni Foreign Minister Dr. Abu-Bakr al-Qerbi:

“Our concern is that we don’t feel the presence of all these ships will resolve the problem of piracy unless there’s a real endeavor and commitment to stabilize the situation in Somalia, because there’s no government that can control the very long coast line of Somalia, which is over 3,000 kilometers.”

Civil War and famine have been fueling lawlessness and anarchy in Somalia since 1991, when the government there collapsed. It has made the area off the Somali coast a perfect place for pirates.

But for the rest of the nation it’s been a disaster. Almost one million people fled Somalia in 2008 alone. And most of the refugees come to Yemen.Nearly 5,000 refugees are being kept in the Basateen camp near Aden. They have no jobs, no prospects for the future, and yet none of them want to get back to their war-torn country.

Eighteen-year-old Osman Bukhari came to Basateen by boat from Boosaaso in Somalia’s Puntland state, where he used to live under one roof with the pirates. He was running small errands for the hijackers and they even played soccer together.

In April of 2009, they hijacked yet another ship.

“The ship was called Maersk Alabama from America. It was delivering food to Kenya. They kidnapped the captain of the ship,” Bukhari recalls.

He has his explanation for flourishing piracy:

“Why do the pirates do that? There’s no government, there’s a civil war going on, there’s nothing to do, no job, so they found themselves a job — kidnapping people,” he says.

The Yemeni Coast Guard has 25 patrol vessels, but only one of them is equipped with a mounted machine gun. The territory they patrol stretches about 500 kilometers along the coastline, a huge area for a small, under-equipped coast guard fleet. Although they try to respond to all distress calls, they have to rely heavily on help from international naval forces.

Mauritius Coerced into Western Vortex?

Mauritius asked to help in holding Somali prisoners(APA)

Western powers ask Mauritius to host detention center for Somali pirates

Britain, France and the United States has requested Mauritius to help in the detention and trial of Somali pirates APA learned in the Mauritian capital Port Louis on Monday.

Sources at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the pirates to be detained will be those captured operating on the high seas.

The sources say the requesting countries are prepared to build a special prison to hold the prisoners.

The countries have also asked the government to host a special tribunal made up of Mauritian and foreign judges well versed in international maritime laws, to try the pirates.

The sources said the government has not replied to the requests, but that there is strong opposition from some influential members of the government who argue that Mauritius will compromise its security and expose itself to terrorist attacks if it agrees to these proposals.

Littoral Ships, Other Weapons Cut In New U.S. Navy 5-Year Plan

By Tony Capaccio (Bloomberg)

Under a new 5-year plan, the Navy would purchase only 15 of the Littoral ships from Lockheed Martin, down from the 2008 plan to purchase 29.

Monday, September 28, 2009.

The U.S. Navy has proposed a new five-year budget that cuts by almost half its purchases of a new warship that operates close to shore, a potential blow to Lockheed Martin Corp. and General Dynamics Corp.

The Navy would buy 15 of these ships through 2015, down from 29 in its plan of a year ago, and trim spending overall by 4.5 percent, according to an unreleased budget document. That’s the goal set by top Defense Department officials.

Lockheed and General Dynamics are the prime contractors for the new Littoral Combat Ship. Each has a contract to build two and would have to compete for contracts for the next 15.

The Navy’s proposal is being reviewed, along with those of the other services, in keeping with the Pentagon’s intent to submit in January its long-range budget to the White House in conjunction with its detailed fiscal 2011 budget.

The Navy’s proposed cuts reflect the pressure on the military services to meet spending targets that allow little growth beyond inflation. Top Navy officials say they still plan ultimately to increase the fleet to 313 ships, up from 286 now, and to buy the initially planned total of 55 littoral ships.

The ships are designed for mine clearance, submarine hunting, humanitarian relief, and other missions in shallow coastal waters called littorals. They have a draft of no more than 20 feet, enabling them to operate close to coasts in the Persian Gulf, Korean peninsula and elsewhere.

The service’s proposal to trim planned spending from 2011 through 2015 to $666.3 billion from $698 billion reflects Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s guidance calling for modest growth with emphasis on improving the security of nuclear weapons and upgrading the capabilities to conduct irregular warfare and cyber defense.

The Air Force’s new five-year plan proposes cuts totaling $24.2 billion, or 3.8 percent, according to its unreleased budget.

President Barack Obama assigned Gates to rein in defense spending, which now consumes about 19 cents of every dollar of the federal budget. Adjusted for inflation, defense spending has grown about 43 percent since fiscal 2000. When war costs are included, the number increases to 72 percent.

Gates, in an Aug. 31 interview with Bloomberg Television, said the long-range budget being crafted calls for growth that is “modest” when adjusted for inflation and “that allows us to sustain the programs that we have.”

“It’s the stability we need, and I don’t think the rates of growth need to be significantly” higher, Gates said.

Navy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition Sean Stackley told reporters last week the service remains committed to buying 55 littoral ships. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Gary Roughead told reporters Sept. 15 the service remains committed to a fleet that totals 313 vessels.

The Navy, in its new plan, proposes “significant reductions” in planned purchases of Raytheon Co. missiles and other weapons.

Purchases of Waltham, Massachusetts-based Raytheon air-to-air missiles, Jsow-C cruise missiles, the latest version of the Standard Missile-6 and lightweight MK-54 torpedoes all are cut in the five-year plan.

The purchase of air-to-air missiles is cut to 849 from 1,033; the Jsow-C is reduced to 1,879 from 2,663; the Standard Missile-6 is cut to 637 from 688 and torpedo quantities drop to 770 from a planned 1,336.

On the other hand, purchases of Raytheon’s advanced Sea Sparrow weapon for intercepting anti-ship missiles, an international program involving nations including Australia, Denmark and Germany, will be boosted to 236 from 62.

Purchases of Alliant Techsystems Inc.’s air-launched advanced anti-radar missile scheduled to enter service in 2010 will be cut to 719 from a planned 954.

Like the Air Force, the Navy would cancel the Joint Tactical radio communications program for ships and planes that is managed by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin.

The Navy also proposes to delay purchase of the EP-X replacement for its Lockheed Martin EP-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, according to the document. The program is in a stage of early development, and no contractor has been chosen.

Altogether, $3.4 billion would be cut from research and development, including $1.6 billion for the EP-X program.

The Navy would trim about $25 billion through 2015 by deferring or canceling weapons programs, including a total of about $18 billion in its shipbuilding account, which includes the littoral ship.

The Navy also would cut to 132 from 150 its purchases of the V-22 tilt-rotor plane built by Textron Inc. and Boeing Co. and would buy 15 of 28 planned Lockheed KC-130J refueling tankers, according to the Aug. 19 budget document made available to Bloomberg News.

Navy spokesman Commander Cappy Surette said the service declined to discuss its budget request.

In addition, the Navy would save as much as $825 million by retiring 20 ships one year ahead of schedule, including the USS Halyburton that in April helped free the American captain of a container ship hijacked by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The Halyburton would be decommissioned in 2013 instead of 2014.

UNHCR and the BBC team up to warn people about Gulf of Aden risks (by UNHCR)

UNHCR and its partners have taken to the air waves to warn thousands of people about the dangers they face by crossing the perilous sea waves that separate the Horn of Africa from Yemen.Every year tens of thousands of people, mainly Ethiopians and Somalis fleeing poverty or conflict and persecution, pay smugglers to ferry them across the Gulf of Aden to the Yemeni coast.

Many never make it, drowning or dying from beatings, shark attacks and other dangers. So far this year, around 300 people have drowned or are missing at sea and presumed dead.

The UN refugee agency has long been trying to spread awareness about the dangers, but people still keep making the perilous crossing. In a bid to reach a wide audience, UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) have teamed up with the BBC World Service Trust to air a weekly radio broadcast about the risks.The first 30-minute “Lifeline” programme was broadcast last Saturday on the BBC’s Somali service. It will become a weekly feature over the next six months, when the Gulf of Aden sailing season is at its height. Aside from awareness material, the Saturday afternoon programme will also carry general information of interest to migrants and asylum-seekers.

Put together by the BBC World Service Trust with the help of migration experts from UNHCR, IOM and other agencies, the programme will help people make an informed decision about whether or not to cross the Gulf or to seek asylum in neighbouring countries.

It will feature Somali refugees in Kenya, Ethiopia and Yemen talking about the opportunities and challenges of life in exile, and also from internally displaced people in Somalia. Interviews with migrants and asylum-seekers show that many would not have undertaken the journey had they known about the risks involved. In a country where literacy is low and national TV and newspapers non-existent, radio is one of the best ways to reach out to the population as many people have access to a radio set.

“The programme has come [just] in time. It will help people understand the dangers that they are likely to face,” said Hodan Hassan, a UNHCR community services officer in the northern Somalia port of Bossaso.

The smugglers stop sailing in July and August when the seas are too stormy. Since the beginning of this month, more than 190 boats have arrived at the Yemen coast carrying almost 10,200 people, bringing the total number of arrivals since January to more than 50,000.UNHCR also hopes the BBC programme will sensitize host communities in Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Yemen about the plight of migrants and asylum-seekers and the reasons that lead to their flight. “It will help in reducing xenophobic feelings directed at Ethiopian migrants and asylum-seekers by the host communities,” said Hassan.

Puntland cracks down as potential migrants gather in Bosasso

The authorities of Somalia’s self-declared autonomous region of Puntland have begun cracking down on would-be migrants and people smugglers, who have been using its ports to reach the Gulf States, a senior police officer told IRIN.

He said thousands of Somalis and Ethiopians had gathered in Bosasso, the commercial capital, with the aim of attempting to cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen.

“We estimate there are between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants currently in and around Bosasso,” said Col Osman Hassan Awke, the Bari regional police chief.

He said security units had taken over some of the beach ports used by smugglers to pick up migrants.

“Marere beach [10km south of Bosasso], which was one of the main ports used by smugglers, is now a police post,” Awke said, adding that despite the police effort in Puntland to stem the flow of migrants, “they still continue. We shut down one or two known ports and then they find another one.”

He said the police would continue to set up posts on “most of the important beaches”. However, he said the police did not have the means to stop the smuggling completely, without help from the international community.

According to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, a total of 924 boats and more than 46,700 people have made the journey to Yemen from the Horn of Africa since January.

“So far this year, 322 are known to have drowned or went missing at sea and are presumed dead,” Roberta Russo, spokeswoman for UNHCR Somalia, told IRIN on 28 September.

A local journalist, who requested anonymity, told IRIN the region’s authorities had in the past tried to stem the migrant flow without success.

“They even tried to repatriate them to their homes in Ethiopia or southern Somalia but it did not work,” the journalist said.

He said many migrants simply returned: “These are desperate people and no matter what, they will get on the boats if they want to.”

Awke said the police had stopped repatriating migrants because “as soon as we send them they are back, and we don’t have the resources to keep sending them back”.

He claimed aid agencies were not doing enough to help with the situation, adding that there was not even an official camp to host the migrants. “They are all over the place, which makes policing them that much more difficult.”

However, Russo said: “In 2006 there was an attempt to create a camp for the migrants, but the initiative failed as, instead of protecting its inhabitants, the camp became a breeding ground for all kinds of violations.”

In 2009, the agencies and authorities reconsidered the option of opening a camp but abandoned the idea.

Russo added that UNHCR and its partners were distributing information on the dangers of crossing the Gulf of Aden and the options for migrants and asylum seekers.

The journalist said Puntland had a long coastline and would be hard-pressed to police it. “They [the authorities] don’t have the resources to effectively patrol it.”

Smugglers were reportedly charging each migrant US$150 to $200 for the trip to Yemen, said the journalist. “Many migrants will have to work for over a year to make that kind of money.”

“Pirate Chasing” – the Turkish way!

It is Gokova’s Turn in Pirate-chasing, headlines the TURKIYE newspaper.

The Turkish Frigate Gaziantep, successfully combating against pirates off Somalia, will hand over the mission to the Frigate Gokova on October 5, Turkish media reported.

TCG Gokova set sail with 267 Turkish soldiers to the Gulf of Aden on Sunday. Gokova will stay in the Aden Gulf till February 10, 2010. The frigate is equipped with the latest technology and weapons. The frigate had already undertaken a mission last year under NATO command in Somalia.

The selection of the term “pirate chasing”, however, shows clearly the mentality of the Turkish navy and the public.

The Turkish military is Europe-wide the one with the worst track-record concerning human rights atrocities and violations and a similar situation concerning the other governmental institution is a main stumbling block to Turkey’s envisaged full membership in the European Union.

Ecosystems, marine environment, IUU fishing and dumping, UNCLOS, ecology

Most Censored Stories of the Year

Huge donations by Wall Street to Congress, the reemergence of segregated education in America, and the pirating of Somalia’s territorial waters by foreign businesses are just some of the top stories that have gone underreported by the media, according to Project Censored. A journalism program out of Sonoma State University in California, Project Censored releases each year a top 25 list of important stories largely ignored by newspapers and other media sources. Its current list includes:

US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street: Washington’s decision last year to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out Wall Street wasn’t just about saving the U.S. economy. Eight of the largest recipients of the federal rescue donated more than $64 million to congressional candidates, presidential candidates and the Republican and Democratic parties since 2001. Barack Obama and John McCain received a combined total of $3.1 million from Wall Street while serving in the U.S. Senate.

US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s: Millions of minority students are stuck in so-called “dropout factory” high schools that few white students attend. According to a UCLA study, American student bodies are 44% non-white, and Latinos and blacks attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights movement.

Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates: With all the attention on what Somali pirates have done to international shipping, the media has completely disregarded the “pirating” that has gone on in Somalia’s territorial waters. Ever since the country’s central government collapsed in1991, foreign fisherman have been raiding Somalia’s coastal waters. Even worse is the illegal dumping of toxic and radioactive waste off the coast of Somalia by foreign companies.

Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates

In Top 25 Censored Stories for 2010

The international community has come out in force to condemn and declare war on the Somali fishermen pirates, while discreetly protecting the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fleets from around the world that have been poaching and dumping toxic waste in Somali waters since the fall of the Somali government eighteen years ago.

In 1991, when the government of Somalia collapsed, foreign interests seized the opportunity to begin looting the country’s food supply and using the country’s unguarded waters as a dumping ground for nuclear and other toxic waste.

According to the High Seas Task Force (HSTF), there were over 800 IUU fishing vessels in Somali waters at one time in 2005, taking advantage of Somalia’s inability to police and control its own waters and fishing grounds. The IUUs poach an estimated $450 million in seafood from Somali waters annually. In so doing, they steal an invaluable protein source from some of the world’s poorest people and ruin the livelihoods of legitimate fishermen.

Allegations of the dumping of toxic waste, as well as illegal fishing, have circulated since the early 1990s, but hard evidence emerged when the tsunami of 2004 hit the country. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) reported that the tsunami washed rusting containers of toxic waste onto the shores of Puntland, northern Somalia.

Nick Nuttall, a UNEP spokesman, told Al Jazeera that when the barrels were smashed open by the force of the waves, the containers exposed a “frightening activity” that had been going on for more than a decade. “Somalia has been used as a dumping ground for hazardous waste starting in the early 1990s, and continuing through the civil war there,” he said. “The waste is many different kinds. There is uranium radioactive waste. There is lead, and heavy metals like cadmium and mercury. There is also industrial waste, and there are hospital wastes, chemical wastes’you name it.”

Nuttall also said that since the containers came ashore, hundreds of residents have fallen ill, suffering from mouth and abdominal bleeding, skin infections and other ailments. “What is most alarming here is that nuclear waste is being dumped. Radioactive uranium waste that is potentially killing Somalis and completely destroying the ocean,” he said.

Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy for Somalia, says the practice helps fuel the eighteen-year-old civil war in Somalia, as companies pay Somali government ministers and/or militia leaders to dump their waste. “There is no government control . . . and there are few people with high moral ground . . . yes, people in high positions are being paid off, but because of the fragility of the Transitional Federal Government, some of these companies now no longer ask the authorities’they simply dump their waste and leave.”

In 1992 the countries of the European Union and 168 other countries signed the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and Their Disposal. The convention prohibits waste trade between countries that have signed, as well as countries that have not signed the accord, unless a bilateral agreement had been negotiated. It also prohibits the shipping of hazardous waste to a war zone.

Surprisingly, the UN has disregarded its own findings, and has ignored Somali and international appeals to act on the continued ravaging of the Somali marine resources and dumping of toxic wastes. Violations have also been largely ignored by the region’s maritime authorities.

This is the context from which the men we are calling “pirates” have emerged.

Everyone agrees they were ordinary Somali fishermen who, at first, took speedboats to try to dissuade the dumpers and trawlers, or at least wage a “tax” on them. They call themselves the Volunteer Coast Guard of Somalia.

One of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, explains that their motive is “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters. . . . We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish, and dump waste, and carry weapons in our seas.”

Author Johann Hari notes that, while none of this makes hostage-taking justifiable, the “pirates” have the overwhelming support of the local population for a reason. The independent Somalia news site WardherNews conducted the best research we have on what ordinary Somalis are thinking. It found that 70 percent “strongly support the piracy as a form of national defense of the country’s territorial waters.”

Instead of taking action to protect the people and waters of Somalia from international transgressions, the UN has responded to the situation by passing aggressive resolutions that entitle and encourage transgressors to wage war on the Somali pirates.

A chorus of calls for tougher international action has resulted in multi-national and unilateral Naval stampede to invade and take control of the Somali waters. The UN Security Council (a number of whose members may have ulterior motives to indirectly protect their illegal fishing fleets in the Somali Seas) passed Resolutions 1816 in June 2008, and 1838 in October 2008, which “call upon States interested in the security of maritime activities to take part actively in the fight against piracy on the high seas off the coast of Somalia, in particular by deploying naval vessels and military aircraft . . .”

Both NATO and the EU have issued orders to the same effect. Russia, Japan, India, Malaysia, Egypt, and Yemen, along with an increasing number of countries have joined the fray.

For years, attempts made to address piracy in the world’s seas through UN resolutions have failed to pass, largely because member nations felt such resolutions would infringe on their sovereignty and security. Countries are unwilling to give up control and patrol of their own waters.

UN Resolutions 1816 and 1838, to which a number of West African, Caribbean and South American nations objected, were accordingly tailored to apply to Somalia only. Somalia has no representation at the United Nations strong enough to demand amendments to protect its sovereignty, and Somali civil society objections to the Draft Resolutions’which makes no mention of illegal fishing or hazard waste dumping’were ignored.

Hari asks, “Do we expect starving Somalians to stand passively on their beaches, paddling in our nuclear waste, and watch us snatch their fish to eat in restaurants in London and Paris and Rome? We didn’t act on those crimes—but when some of the fishermen responded by disrupting the transit-corridor for 20 percent of the world’s oil supply, we begin to shriek about “evil.” If we really want to deal with piracy, we need to stop its root cause’our crimes “before we send in the gun-boats to root out Somalia’s criminals.”

Update by Mohamed Abshir Waldo

The crises of the multiple piracies in Somalia have not diminished since my previous article, “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the Word Ignores the Other,” was written in December 2008. All the illegal fishing piracy, the waste dumping piracy and the shipping piracy continue with new zeal. Somali fishermen, turned pirates in reaction to armed foreign marine poachers, have intensified their war against all kinds of ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.

On international response, foreign governments, international organizations and mainstream media have been united in demonizing Somalia and described its fishermen as evil men pillaging ships and terrorizing sailors (even though no sailors were harmed). This presentation is lopsided. The media said relatively little on the other piracies of illegal fishing and waste dumping.

The allied navies of the world’fleets of over forty warships from over ten Asian, Arab, and African countries as well as from many NATO and EU member countries’stepped up their hunt for the Somali fishermen pirates, regardless of whether they are actually engaged in piracy or in normal fishing in the Somali waters. Various meetings of the International Contact Group for Somalia (ICGS) in New York, London, Cairo, and Rome continue to underline the demonization of the Somali fishermen and urge further punitive actions without a single mention of the violation of illegal fishing and toxic dumping by vessels from the countries of those sitting in the ICGS and UN forums in judgment of the piracy issue.

At the ICGS Anti-Piracy meeting in Cairo on May 30 2009, Egypt and Italy were two of the loudest countries calling for severe punishment of the Somali fishermen pirates. As the ICGS are meeting in Rome today (June 10, 2009), two Egyptian trawlers full of fish illegally caught in Somali waters and an Italian barge that had been towing two huge tanks suspected of containing toxic or nuclear waste are being held in the Somali coastal town of Las Khorey by the local community, who invited the international experts to come and investigate these cases. So far, the international community has not responded to the Las Khorey community’s invitation.

It should be pointed out that both the IUUs and waste dumping are happening in other African countries. Ivory Coast is a victim of major international toxic dumping.

It is said that acts of piracy are actually acts of desperation, and, as in the case of Somalia, what is one man’s pirate is another man’s Coast Guard.

Sources:

Al Jazeera English, October 11, 2008

Title: “Toxic waste behind Somali piracy”

Author: Najad Abdullahi

Huffington Post, January 4, 2009

Title: “You are being lied to about pirates”

Author: Johann Hari

WardheerNews, January 8, 2009

Title: “The Two Piracies in Somalia: Why the World Ignores the Other”

Author: Mohamed Abshir Waldo

Student Researcher: Christine Wilson

Faculty Evaluator: Andre Bailey, EOP Advisor

Sonoma State University

East African crisis: Cold feet from the West and an unrelenting weather

By Denis Carlier

Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti … East Africa is currently experiencing a severe drought that is threatening, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), nearly 20 million people. And although Western countries have pledged emergency relief to the affected populations, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) has still not received the necessary funds to address the situation. Meanwhile, another El Niño that looms in the horizon could turn this damaging drought situation into equally ruinous floods.

The famine that is currently affecting the continent has raised serious concerns among NGOs, international bodies and governments. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said last week that a total of 20 million people dependent on international aid in the region was likely to increase. Compared to an estimated 11 million people who fell victim to a similar food crisis in 2006, the number of affected persons has almost doubled. The worst, it seems, is yet to come as the total number of persons affected, according to figures gathered by NGO’s per country, snowballs.

Low harvest

Somalia has been particularly affected by the worst food crisis since 1991. According to F.A.O., some 3.6 million Somalis, i.e., half of the population, are suffering from famine, while Oxfam has also reported that more than one in six Somali children suffer from malnutrition. Families are sometimes forced to journey on foot for days on end to the northern parts of the country in search of water. This situation could raise the risk of conflict in an already war torn country. The country’s 1.3 million internally displaced persons, according to F.A.O. figures, are particularly affected by the food crisis.

About a quarter of the Kenyan population, i.e., 10 million people, are also close to starvation. The 2008 post-election violence forced a number of peasants to flee their farms, CARE has indicated, adversely impacting the agricultural sector. The price of corn has doubled since 2007, in both Kenya and Uganda, despite lower prices in other parts of the continent in recent months.

In Uganda, 2 million people depend on international aid (7% of the population). For the fourth time in a row, the last harvest was inferior to the national average. In the northern parts of the country, half of the crop production has been lost. After intense appeals for donations by the government to address the crisis, only half of the expected sum has so far been received. Oxfam has also estimated the number of people affected by famine in Ethiopia at about 13.7 million (about 16% of the population) and up to 75% of livestock has been decimated in certain regions.

The NGO has also reported that 160 000 people in north-eastern Tanzania and 88 000 in southern Sudan are affected. Djibouti and Eritrea are believed to have been affected by the drought and famine, unfortunately there are no figures to back this fact.

Cold feet

Although Canada and Norway have released emergency aid amounting to 30 and 50 million dollars, respectively, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) announced September 16 that they lacked some $ 3 billion in their budget, out of which 977 million would be directed towards the crisis in East Africa. Western countries have indeed developed a case of cold feet, despite the relative urgency.

The wave of drought that has hit the eastern African countries comes at a time when the western parts of the continent are still recovering from a series of devastating floods. For the east though, the harsh climatic conditions are not yet over as rains forecasted towards the end of the year is, ironically, expected bring more bad news due to the El Niño phenomenon, which could again wreck significant damage to crops, livestock and humans.

Anti-piracy measures

Swedish EU Presidency – “Civilian and military actors must cooperate more”

Better cooperation between civilian and military actors will contribute to improved maritime surveillance and more effective peace support operations. The EU defence ministers agreed on this at their informal meeting in G’teborg on Monday.

In addition to the defence ministers, others attending the meeting included Javier Solana, High Representative for the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy, and representatives of the European Commission and NATO. Crown Princess Victoria also appeared.

Information derived from maritime surveillance may be used to ensure more secure sea transport, monitor fishing activities, uncover environmental problems and prevent human trafficking. One problem is that the information exchange between countries or between civilian and military actors does not always work as it should. The meeting on Monday addressed, among other things, how this cooperation can be improved. To inspire them, ministers were shown a demonstration of maritime surveillance cooperation in the Baltic Sea region.

“Today’s discussions show that there is broad consensus on the importance of effective cooperation between countries and civilian and military actors when it comes to maritime surveillance. Experience from the system used by the Baltic Sea countries, which we have studied here today, can be used in the EU’s operations in Somalia, for example”, said Javier Solana in connection with the press conference after the meeting.

“I am pleased that the Swedish Presidency has received strong support to proceed with conclusions to the Council in November. It is also very pleasing that Spain today showed already that they are ready to move the issue forward during their Presidency”, said Minister for Defence Sten Tolgfors at the press conference.

Civilian and military cooperation is also necessary to strengthen the EU’s “capability development”. Capabilities are different forms of support used to contribute to peace and security in conjunction with military operations or as preventive measures within the context of the EU’s crisis management. They may involve transportation, health care or IT systems. At the meeting on Monday, the defence ministers discussed how to coordination between civilian and military actors can be improved in this area.

“Civilian and military operations often have similar resource requirements. If we coordinate the operations better, we can avoid duplications and create synergy effects. Today’s discussions show that there is strong support among the EU countries for continuing efforts in this area”, said Sten Tolgfors at the press conference.

Stopping The Pirates Off Somalia

By and for Keith Blount

As the Chief of Staff (COS) to Rear Admiral Scott E Sanders, he controls a team of experienced British and American mariners combating the scourge of piracy that has plagued the region for the last three years.

I’m based onboard the Flagship USS Anzio, a 165 metre long guided missile cruiser, working for Rear Admiral Scott E Sanders, who is in overall command of the Combined Task Force (CTF) 151.

It’s a multinational fleet including ships from the UK, US, Turkey, South Korea and Australia. My role is to turn the admirals requirements into directions for the ships and aircraft of CTF 151 in their counter-piracy operations.

On a daily basis I’m dealing with the immediate responses to pirate attacks; coordinating the movements of the multinational ships and helicopters in order to stop pirates from succeeding in capturing any ships.

There are up to 30 warships in the region at anyone time, not all are under CTF command, the other naval ships belong to either one of the other 2 tasks groups in the area, namely the EU and Nato, or to individual nations who has sent ships to protect their ships passing through the area.

It’s the coordination of all these units that is proving invaluable in the fight against these criminals: with 1.1 million square miles to cover its only by working together that we can help keep attacks down, and they are down on the number that they experienced at the same time last year.

CTF 151 patrols the seas around Somalia on a daily basis, checking vessels for what is known legally as “pirate paraphernalia”, items such as ladders, weapons and grappling hooks. Items that no legal mariner would need on board to conduct their work.

We are being proactive in our patrols and as a result we are increasingly stopping suspected vessels before they have a chance to attack merchant vessels.

Some 33,000 merchant ships pass through the specially monitored sea lanes called the International Recommended Traffic Corridor (IRTC) in the middle of the Gulf of Aden, a corridor that is equivalent to the distance between Portsmouth and Glasgow.

It has allowed the naval units to focus their efforts. Most merchant ships are now taking their own steps to avoid being pirated by rigging up high-pressure hoses for example.

We are proud that since CTF151 was setup in January 2009 no merchant vessel has been successfully pirated in the IRTC if it followed the merchant marine guidelines.

(*) Captain Keith Blount Royal Navy is currently serving in the waters surrounding Somalia.

PN playing important role against piracy, says Pakistan.

CNS Pakistan Navy is playing an important role in the global anti-piracy campaign in Somalia. This was stated by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Noman Bashir. He was talking to reporters after the inaugural session of an international conference on “Piracy on the high seas”. The day-long moot was organized by the Master Mariners Society of Pakistan at a local hotel on Monday.

Admiral Noman Bashir said that 90 percent of the world trade is through sea while in the case of Pakistan this percentage comes to 97.

He pointed out that global efforts have been undertaken to tackle the problem of piracy in Somalia.

The Naval Chief said that it is our moral obligation to ensure security and safety in its territorial waters and adjoining sea areas so that not only the Pakistani trade but also the international trade remains safe.

He further pointed out that the Pakistan Navy is also an important part of the anti-piracy operation in Somalia.

This, Admiral Noman Bashir added has been very much appreciated by the other countries.

He also asked the sea faring community to raise and highlight the significance of the sea as the trade carried out through it is the backbone of the economy of any country.

The Naval Chief said that making the sea safe and secure is the collective duty of all.

Earlier, in his welcome address the president of the Master Mariners Society of Pakistan (MMSP), Captain Haleem Ahmed Siddiqui, pointed out that piracy has intensified in recent years and has affected almost all mariners and coastal states.

He said that in the first six months of 2009 there have been 140 pirate attacks, 33 hijackings and 106 failed attacks.

Haleem Siddiqui called for the efforts for the eradication of piracy at the earliest.

He said that although Pakistani Mariners and merchant navy ships have remained largely unaffected so far but many of our seamen serving on foreign-flag vessels are vulnerable to pirate attacks.

Captain Raffat Zaheer, chairman of the conference organizing committee, also spoke at the inaugural session.

Naval Forces and Journalist in Joint Spin

Battle on piracy won but not war

By Paul Owere

He was speaking to a group of reporters aboard HNLMS Evertsen ship over the weekend in the Indian Ocean.

“As success is registered at sea, the real solution to this crisis lies on the land and unless something drastic is done by the international community to find a permanent political solution to the problem in Somalia, the situation is likely to remain the same,” he said.

The commander’s fears were equally echoed by the Somali President, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed in his address to the UN general assembly on Thursday. He said, it was difficult to eradicate Piracy offshore without dealing with the security situation in the country.

The massive state-of-the-art HNLMS Evertsen, is part of the 9 ship-fleet that is currently patrolling the sea under the Operation ATALANTA.

This is the first maritime mission of the EU charged with the war against piracy in the pirate infested waters of the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin.

The ship is fully armed with medium range artillery and machine guns, one Helicopter gunship and 220 crew members, most of them in their early 20s.

The operation has led to complete elimination of attacks on ships in the last 8 months as the volume of naval activity continue to shoot up tremendously.

“In 2008 the pirate success rate was at 43 percent which was reduced to 34 percent and by July this year the rate had gone to Zero, and the Somali Basin is once again becoming safe,” commander Bindt said.

He attributed this achievement to increased activity of the EU NAVFOR in the region alongside other countries like China, India Japan and Indonesia.

During this period, not only did they manage to deter and disrupt pirate activities in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin but also arrested a sizeable number of pirates.

“In the last one year we have managed to apprehend and disarm 148 pirates and 68 of them handed over to Kenya for trial,” he said.

Together with the arrests, during the same period the mission has ensured a safe delivery of food to 2million people in Somalia per month and above all no WFP ship has ever been hijacked.

[N.B.: WFP ships do not get attacked, because of the huge bonds paid as securities by Somali WFP-food-“traders”, which is why the “escort need” is just a legend and cover up for the naval armada. Even if a vessel linked to WFP food deliveries gets attacked – and also here the author was misinformed -, like in the case of the MV SEAHORSE which was attacked on 14. April 2009, the Somalis quickly achieved her release without any condition.]

But there are still plenty of challenges of getting meaningful eradication of piracy in the region with very limited resources.

“The size of the area as large as the whole of Western Europe only being manned by only nine service ships, three aircrafts, and 11 helicopters makes it such an uphill assignment,” he said, adding that ” In the beginning building intelligence on how pirates work was another but in recent months the picture is a bit clearer.”

The operation in its third rotation was launched on December 13, 2008 and its mandate ends in December 2010.

The rotation is changed after every four months, the recent rotation headed by the Netherlands started on August 13, when they took over from the Spanish and is expected to end in December.

“Initially as supported by the UN resolutions adopted in 2008, the mandate of the operation was to last until the end of this year but given the gravity of the problem the mandate was extended,” says Force commander, Pieter Bindt. [N.B.: But NOT by the UN or Somalia]

The initial objectives of the European Union Naval Force (EU NAVFOR) were to protect the World food Programme shipping which was delivering relief aid to the horn of Africa and other vulnerable shipping from pirates that had become a real threat to international trade. [N.B.: Nonsense – as explained above]

“It was important to secure a safe and prompt delivery of humanitarian aid to Somalia where 3.7million people then depended on food aid by the WFP and also the fact that almost 80 per cent of world trade and 95 per cent of European Union trade is transported over sea,” said the commanding officer. [N.B.: WFP, which had to face a more informed and critical local population, which is angry about the misappropriation and corrupt deals involving WFP-food, has closed down all centres in Central Somalia and therefore is even not delivering.]

The problem according to Bindt, was further being compounded by the fact that Somalia is a failed state which was greatly contributing to the distablisation of the region.

“We all know that piracy is a serious crime that puts many lives at risk and retarding the reconstruction and political development of a Somalia which is already a failed state,” he said.

-No real peace in sight yet

Heavy shelling in Mogadishu market kills 11

Heavy shelling in the Somali capital’s main market on Monday left 11 people dead and 31 others wounded, a medical official said.

Somali government forces backed by African Union (AU) peacekeepers retaliated with heavy artillery as Islamist rebels based in the south of Mogadishu launched a mortar attacks.

Shells landed in a packed section of the Bakara market which Somali government officials say is used as an insurgent hideout.

The market was hit as people in it were preparing to leave for home in the afternoon.

“We have 11 dead and 31 others wounded in and around Bakara market,” Ali Muse, an official with a local Mogadishu ambulance service, told Xinhua, while AP reported 13 civilians killed.

Islamist rebels opposed to the Somali government and the presence of AU peacekeeping forces launch attacks nearly every day, triggering heavy artillery barrage from the peacekeepers and government forces.

People at the market panicked and fled as shells landed in several packed areas in the market.

“We suddenly heard loud noises of shelling falling from the sky and people began screaming and running to every direction, many were dead and wounded,” said Farah Ali, a shopper who escaped the shelling.

Neither the Somali government nor Islamist insurgents have so far commented on the latest deadly shelling on the Mogadishu market, the scene of several such attacks in the past months.

Earlier in the day, the Somali government which controls parts of Mogadishu managed to recapture a strategic central town of Beledweyn, the provincial capital of Hiran, 300 km north of Mogadishu.

Beledweyn, which is an agricultural and trading hub close to the border between Somalia and Ethiopia, has changed hands several times between the government forces and Islamist rebels, and become the only area under the government’s control outside Mogadishu.

Insurgent forces control much of southern and central part of the war-ravaged Horn of African country.

Insurgents attack AU base in Mogadishu

The Islamist rebels fighting to topple the transitional federal government of Somalia have launched Monday another attack on the Burundian troops of the AU protection force mission in Somalia.

Locals say the rebels attacked Jalle Siad Academy, a base of the Burundian troops in south Mogadishu, which is very close to the stronghold of insurgent areas in Mogadishu.

The two sides have exchanged heavy gunfire and mortars and the fighting sparked into neighborhoods near Bakaro market in Mogadishu.

The exact casualties of the fighting are still unknown. Sporadic gunfire can be still heard from areas near the base of the Burundian troops.

Al Shabaab had recently killed the commander of the Burundian troops and other 16 Ugandan and Burundian peacekeepers in a twin suicide attack on their headquarters near the airport of the capital.

Fighting rocks central and southern Somalia

Residents say Islamist fighters and Somali government forces are fighting over the control of a strategically important town in central Somalia close to the disputed border with Ethiopia.

Resident Osman Ahmed told AP the fighting early on Monday began when forces loyal to the Somali government took the control of Beletweyne from Islamist fighters.

The clashes come amid mounting concerns over increasing al-Qaeda influence among the Islamist insurgents fighting for control of the failed state on the Horn of Africa.

Beledweyne is about 40 kilometres (25 miles) south-east of the Ethiopian border. Ethiopia invaded Somalia in December 2006 to oust the Islamist government that had governed southern Somalia peacefully.

But the Islamic groups among themselves are not united. Residents in another Somali town reported on Monday that fighters from two Islamist factions were massing against each other on the outskirts of the southern port city of Kismayo.

Taxes from Kismayo port are a key revenue stream for Islamist militias.

Somali government forces recapture key border town (AFP)

Somali government forces recaptured a key western town on the border with Ethiopia during a brief battle Monday with Islamist insurgents that left one dead, officials and witnesses said.

Government forces fought with hardline militias from the Hezb al-Islam group and Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab for no more than 15 minutes in the town of Beledweyn, residents said.

“We have seized control of the town and ousted those people who were oppressing the population,” the local government spokesman, Mohamoud Nur, told AFP by phone.

Several witnesses said at least one person was killed and five others wounded in the morning clash. It was not immediately clear if the victims were civilians or combatants.

“This morning the government forces entered the town from the west and repelled the Islamists. They quickly took control of the police station and the region’s headquarters,” said Osman Mohamed, a local trader.

“They look in full control of the town and are patrolling the streets.”

There were no reports of any military involvement by neighbouring Ethiopia, which has been accused of carrying out incursions into Somalia to support government forces against hardline Islamists.

A month earlier, a powerful local commander and clan leader who had been supporting the government in the region withdrew his support in protest at Ethiopia’s alleged interference.

Sheikh Abdirahman Ibrahim Ma’ow since threw his weight behind Hezb al-Islam, fighting against government forces.

On May 7, Hezb al-Islam and the Shebab launched a broad military operation in Mogadishu and areas of southern and western Somalia aimed at toppling internationally backed Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The insurgents have accused Sharif — an Islamic cleric — of selling out to the West.

Islamist groups face off in Kismayo

By Mohamed Abdi (Horseed Media)

Residents in the southern town of Kismayo, fear renewed violence in the region, rival islamist groups in Kismayo are in a tense standoff, after disagreement over the rule of the strategic town.

Last week, the islamist administration in the town has declared their allegiance to the Al Shabaab movement, this move angered other fighters in the town, who are loyal to the Hizbul Islam group, led by hardliner Sheikh Hassan Turki.

Yesterday, hundreds of militia loyal to Hizbul Islam entered the town, while Al Shabaab militia in the town were on a high alert, residents in Kismayo say.

According to sources close to the islamist groups in Kismayo, both groups were locked in long standing quarrel over the sharing or revenues collected from the town and sea port of Kismayo.

Kismayo the former third capital of Somalia, have changed hands many times, since the start of the civil in 1991. In 2008 the city was taken by a mix of Islamist groups, who ousted the militia led by warlord Bare Hirale.

Residents of Kismayo protest to rival islamist groups

By Ahmed Musse (Horseed Media)

On Monday, hundreds of Kisamyo residents took to the streets, calling for rival islamist groups in the town not to fight.

Hundreds of women and children marched in the streets, chanting anti war slogans. The residents fear the influx of rival militias into the town, for the last two days.

Militias loyal to Al Shabaab and Hizbul Islam are both gearing up for possible armed conflict, between the two former allies. The two groups are in a bitter conflict over the rule of the strategic town, in southern Somalia.

Government Officials Welcome New Change in Kismayu Town

Abdirashid Hidig, a minister of state of the transitional government said Monday the TFG welcomes the new change at the port town of Kismayu town in southern Somalia.

The minister said that the Islamist forces fighting against the transitional government had left from the town and called for the people in the town to tighten the security and peace of Kismayu town, the regional capital of Lower Juba region.

Asked about the plans of the TFG, Mr. Hiddig declined to say more.

While not long ago the new Islamic administration in the town was announced to be under the management of Harakat Al-Shabaab Mujahideen, the deputy chairman of the Islamist organization of Hizbul Islam Sheik Hassan Turki had called to boycott them.

Sheik Hassan Ya’qun Ali, the spokesman of the Islamic administration of Kismayu town, immediately disproved the statement of the transitional government, saying that there was not any change in the town.

The al-Shabaab spokesman said in an interview with Shabelle radio that reports – claiming that there was change in Kismayu town – were baseless propaganda and he stated that the situation was normal.

Asked about armed forces pouring into the town, Sheik Hassan Ya’qub accused Sheik Ahmed Islam, one of Hizbul Islam officials, to be behind the deployment of troops into the town – adding that Hizbul Islam will have to take the responsibility if any violence happens there.

The statement of the Islamic administration of Kismayu town was made while local sources were indicating that already more troops could be seen entering the town in southern Somalia.

Beletwein traders fight govt troops, accusations of ‘looting’

Somali government forces have seized control of the provincial town of Beletwein after brief skirmishes with Hizbul Islam insurgents, Radio Garowe reports.

The fighting erupted Monday morning after government forces entered Beletwein from two directions and clashed with Hizbul Islam rebels.

Most of the fighting was concentrated at the center of Beletwein, the provincial capital of Hiran region, including the town’s central administration building and the police station.

There were no reliable reports of casualties but at least 1 civilian was wounded during the armed clashes, which stopped after Hizbul Islam rebels withdrew from Beletwein.

Hundreds of people poured onto the streets afterwards to watch Somali government forces take full control of the town’s key areas, including the main bridge that connects Beletwein’s eastern and western neighborhoods.

‘Looting’

A second round of fighting erupted midday Monday after Somali government troops rolled into Beletwein’s western neighorborhoods.

The fighting started after gunmen loyal to businesspeople in west Beletwein began fighting the government troops, whom they accused of “looting” local businesses.

At least 4 Somali soldiers were wounded during Monday’s second battle, including a senior military commander named Salad Hared, according to government sources.

Currently, government troops and the militias are facing off across Beletwein’s main bridge and sporadic gunfire could still be heard inside the town.

Local sources said there were “more casualties” during the second round of fighting, but the reports could be independently verified.

Meanwhile, there is no information as to the whereabouts of Sheikh Abdirahman Ibrahim Ma’ow, the Islamist governor of Hiran region who switched loyalty from the Somali government to Hizbul Islam rebels last week.

Somali government forces were accused of looting businesses in west Beletwein last month when they seized control of the town from insurgents.

Baidoa protestors burn Uganda president’s picture

Protestors in Somalia’s southwestern town of Baidoa burned images of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni during a Sunday demonstration, Radio Garowe reports.

The protestors gathered at Dr. Ayoub Stadium in Baidoa and listened to fiery speeches by Islamist hardliners in the region.

Sheikh Mahad Omar, the leader of Al Shabaab insurgents in Bay and Bakool regions, told the protestors that Ugandan President Museveni is “unhappy” with the peace in regions under the control of Al Shabaab.

“The comments by [Ugandan President] Yoweri Museveni expressed his unhappiness with the peace in the southern regions of Somalia and we will never allow anyone to destroy this peace,” Sheikh Mahad told the protestors in Baidoa.

He vowed that Al Shabaab insurgents “will fight” African Union peacekeepers (AMISOM) if they deploy in Kismayo or Baidoa “like we [Al Shabaab] are fighting Ugandan and Burundian soldiers in Mogadishu.”

Al Shabaab fighters made a public display of shooting at large photographs of Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Ugandan President Museveni.

Last week, Ugandan President Museveni called for AMISOM peacekeepers to be deployed in Kismayo and Baidoa. AMISOM consists of 5,000 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi.

Al Shabaab hardliners, who are leading a violent insurgency to overthrow President Sheikh Sharif’s AMISOM-backed interim government, control many regions in southern Somalia.

On Sep. 17, Al Shabaab suicide car bombers struck the AMISOM force headquarters in Mogadishu, killing at least 21 people including the deputy commander of AMISOM peacekeepers.

The U.S. and Australian governments have blacklisted Al Shabaab as a terrorist organization.

Somalia has lacked an effective national government since 1991. In 2007, Islamist hardliners began a violent campaign to overthrow the Horn of Africa country’s interim government, with upwards of 18,000 people killed in the conflict since.

Somali Islamists execute two for spying (AFP)

Somalia’s hardline Shebab Islamists on Monday publicly executed two people accused of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency and the country’s embattled government.

They were killed by a firing squad in the capital Mogadishu after Shebab militia judge Sheikh Abdullahi Al-Haq pronounced a guilty verdict on them.

“Hassan Moalim Abdullahi is found guilty of spying for the USA. He has been proven beyond any shadow of doubt that he belongs to the CIA,” Al-Haq said of the first individual.

“The defendant said that he served the CIA and admitted his misdeeds,” he said without elaborating.

The second defendant was accused of guiding government troops on targets to hit with artillery shells.

A third individual was flogged 29 times for counterfeiting dollars.

The extremist Shebab has imposed strict Sharia, or Islamic law, in areas of the country under its control.

Earlier this month, the group also publicly chopped off the right hands of two men accused of robbery.

The Al Qaeda-inspired group and the more political Hezb al-Islam have embarked on a bloody offensive against Somalia’s transitional government and African Union troops protecting it in Mogadishu.

Somali group executes 2 men accused of espionage (AP)

An extremist Islamic group has executed two Somali men in the country’s capital, accusing them of being spies for foreign organizations.

A firing squad of 10 al-Shabab men killed the two on Monday in Mogadishu’s main livestock market, says Said Yusuf, who was one of hundreds of witnesses.

Al-Shabab’s Mogadishu chief Ali Mohamed Hussein says the group carried out the executions after determining the men worked for the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

Al-Shabab controls large parts of southern Somalia and its members vow allegiance to al-Qaida. It has carried out several whippings, amputations and executions to enforce its own strict interpretation of Islam.

Bodies of Two Teenagers Found in Galkayo Town

The bodies of two young teenagers who were shot and killed overnight have been found outside Galkayo town in Mudug region, witnesses told Shabelle radio on Sunday.

Reports say that the dead bodies were of two young people and found around Irjife graves outside of Galka’o town in Mudug region.

Residents from the area where the bodies brought to on Sunday morning told Shabelle radio that the teenagers’ bodies showed deadly bullet wounds, adding that they knew nothing about who had killed them or why they had been killed overnight.

All the people in the town expressed concern about the murder but the reason of their murder so far is unclear.

Soldiers from the semi-autonomous region of Puntland reached at the scene where the bodies laid and took them to the police station of Galkayo town. No official comment has been made so far, but persistent revenge-killings in the ongoing clan-clashes between citizens of Puntland and Galmudug regional states are observed.

United States halts food aid for Somali women and children

By Barry Mason (WSWS)

The World Food Programme has closed 12 feeding centres for women and children in Somalia because it has insufficient money to continue. Aid workers have told the BBC that the cuts are the result of US restrictions on aid to areas that are under the control of groups designated as terrorists.

The WFP has less than half the funds it needs for next year. The cuts have been made at the height of one of the worst humanitarian crises in the region in more than a quarter of a century.

Large parts of Somalia fall into the US category of being under “terrorist” control because they are currently run by al Shabab, an Islamic organisation that Washington claims has links to Al Qaeda. According to the United Nations, half of the six million Somali population are in need of food aid. Most of these people live in areas controlled by al Shabaab.

Around 1.5 million people are internally displaced in Somalia as a result of fighting between the Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and various insurgent groups. They are living in refugee camps where conditions are rapidly deteriorating. The UN children’s agency UNICEF says that of 250,000 children living in camps, 70,000 under five are likely to die.

Josette Sheeran, executive director of the WFP, one of the few aid agencies left working in Somalia, said, “Getting help to them inevitably involves dealing with al-Shabab and other hardline groups now in control of the towns and villages across the region.”

The WFP was working with the Obama administration to try to overcome these difficulties, she told the BBC. Her diplomatic words mask a growing humanitarian crisis that can be traced back directly to US foreign policy. During the Cold War, the US poured weapons into the Horn of Africa because it occupies a strategic point on world trade routes.

The breakdown of the Somali state can in large part be attributed to American actions in this region. The Bush administration attempted to foist the Transitional Federal Government on the Somali people by force of arms, using the Ethiopian army as a proxy force. Since he came to office, Obama has continued the policy of arming a government that has no internal support. The result is the mass exodus of the civilian population out of the capital into refugee camps.

The humanitarian crisis in Somalia has been exacerbated by drought, famine and high commodity prices. A coalition of Canadian humanitarian agencies has described the situation in the wider region as “a perfect storm of crop failures, a multi-year lack of rain, conflicts and political turmoil.”

Over 20 million people in the Horn of Africa are facing the threat of severe hunger.

The affected area includes the countries of Somalia, Djibouti, Eritrea, southern Ethiopia, north-eastern Uganda, northern parts of Tanzania and the northern and eastern regions of Kenya. In Ethiopia, one in six of the population is dependent on food aid.

Hundred of thousands of Somalis have fled to camps in Kenya to seek refuge. The international aid agency Oxfam estimates a further 100,000 will flee Somalia this year, heading for Kenya. The Dadaab refugee camp in north-eastern Kenya was built for 90,000 people but is currently holding 300,000. It is described by Oxfam as “barely fit for humans,” with many thousands without access or inadequate access to water and sanitation.

In Kenya around 10 million people already face food insecurity. Marcus Prior of the WFP explained, “This is the worst (drought) in nearly a decade. One in ten Kenyans is in need of food assistance.”

The severe drought is having a huge impact on the livelihoods of pastoralists who make up an important part of the economy in the region. Conflict between different groups of pastoralists has become common as they seek to graze their cattle and encroach on each others” territory.

Bright Rwamirama, a Ugandan government minister, told a news conference recently “We are losing animals due to starvation’in the cattle corridors.” A million Ugandans are receiving food aid distributed by the WFP.

The government of Tanzania has had to dispatch 40,000 tonnes of cereal to the north of the country affected by the drought.

While the Horn of Africa area has been subject to periodic drought for many years, leading to regular food shortages, several factors have combined to exacerbate its current food crisis. High food prices are a major factor. Oxfam reports that in Ethiopia the food staple white maize costs 72 percent more than its five-year average. In some parts of Kenya, maize and beans are nearly twice their usual price with the same for millet in Uganda. According to the New Agriculturalist Web site, “In 27 sub-Saharan African countries 80 to 90 percent of all cereal prices were over 25 percent higher than two years ago.”

Climate change is seriously impacting the area. Beatrice Teya of US aid charity World Vision stated. “The drought is becoming quite common, almost continuous; especially in the Horn of Africa—it is not giving communities time to recover.”

The regular rains that used to fall are more and more likely to fail or deliver less water than in previous years. This continuous pattern of inadequate rainfall undermines the ability of the people to cope. A recent Oxfam statement says Somalia is seeing its fifth year of poor rainfall, Ethiopia its fourth and Kenya its third. It notes that in Kenya, where the rains would fail once a decade, they now do so every second or third year.

George Malakwen of the Eastern Africa Environmental Network has warned that the impact of climate change on this area will lead to “people getting out of eastern Africa”. I don’t know where they are going to go’this thing is so expansive’eastern Africa is not going to be hospitable to human beings.”

Africa has also been hit by the economic crisis. “Oxfam analysis shows that government budgets in Sub-Saharan Africa will be $70bn (£43bn) worse off this year as a result of the crisis,” Phil Bloomer of Oxfam recently wrote in the London Independent.

“The G20 has delivered less than half of the £30bn it promised poor countries at the London summi •. President Obama made a commitment in July that G20 finance ministers would come up with a funding package to help poor countries cope with climate change. Yet when the ministers met in London earlier this month, the subject merited only a single line in the communiqu”.”

Impacting reports from the global village

$350mn aid for Somalia

Qatar Red Crescent (QRC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) will offer $350mn for the displaced people in Somalia.

The two sides launched a humanitarian appeal last month to collect $2mn for the implementation of a two-year programme to support health institutions in Mogadishu and provide medical assistance.

The humanitarian programme, sponsored by the QRC and the IDB, aims to improve the access of Somali citizens to health care services and treating war-wounded civilians, with a focus on the most vulnerable groups, especially women, children and displaced persons.

The programme will focus on the dispatch of medical teams, specialists and surgeons in Somalia, the training of medical and health sector workers, the rehabilitation of sections of a Mogadishu’s hospital “The City” and the establishment of mobile medical centers.

On the occasion, the two sides called on all humanitarian institutions, companies, businessmen and individuals to support the program and provide the remaining amount of $650.000 to cover the urgent humanitarian appeal.

“We urge the international community to assume its responsibilities towards security in Somalia, whose internal problems and fragile government have led to the spread of maritime piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the El Mandeb strait to the detriment of international navigation and trade”.

Bahrain Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed al Khalifa at eh UN

Eritrea says terrorism focus not working in Somalia (Reuters)

Eritrea said on Friday the hunting of al Qaeda suspects in Somalia by U.S. and Ethiopian forces had crippled peace efforts in the Horn of African nation.

Washington and the United Nations accuse the Red Sea state of sending arms and other support to Somali insurgents battling the country’s U.N.-backed government — something Asmara denies.

“We don’t see eye to eye with Washington and some countries in the region, especially Ethiopia, on the solution to the problem (in Somalia),” Yemane Ghebremeskel, director of the Eritrean president’s office, told Reuters in an interview.

“(Their focus on terrorism) is single-minded, it is exaggerated, it is overblown. It overshadows all other aspects and issues,” he said.

Some analysts and security agencies fear Somalia — with its long coastline and lack of effective government — has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign jihadists, who use it to plot attacks in the region and beyond.

U.S. special forces killed one of Africa’s most-wanted al Qaeda suspects in rebel-held southern Somalia last week, risking further inflaming anti-Western sentiment in the nation.

Somalia has been mired in civil strife since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Fighting has killed at least 18,000 civilians since the start of 2007.

Yemane urged Washington and its allies to push for a more inclusive peace process, including talks with al Shabaab rebels who the United States says are al Qaeda’s proxies in Somalia.

“Why should others categorise the political groups in Somalia, ostracise some and legitimise others? Why not facilitate a process of reconciliation?” he said.

A U.N. monitoring body has accused Asmara, Addis Ababa, Washington and some Gulf Arab states of violating a 1992 arms embargo on Somalia. The African Union has called on the United Nations to slap sanctions on Eritrea for its role in Somalia.

Yemane accused the body of singling out Eritrea.

“All those accusations (against other countries) have been shelved with no reason, and they’re focusing on Eritrea.”

The top U.S. diplomat for Africa, Johnnie Carson, fingered Eritrea in June for stoking hostilities in Somalia.

The tranquil Eritrean capital has been home to many Somali dissidents since Asmara’s arch-foe Ethiopia sent war planes and thousands of soldiers to crush a Islamic Courts group that controlled the capital Mogadishu and much of the south in 2006.

Some analysts accuse Eritrea and Ethiopia of using Somalia as a proxy war to fight out their dispute over a shared frontier. Asmara and Addis Ababa fought a 1998-2000 border war that killed more than 70,000 people.

Martin Bell hits out at UK MPs

By Jonathan Schofield

One of Britain’s most recognised war correspondents and former MPs has given a damning verdict on the nation’s political elite who he claimed lined their own pockets while sending young men and women to unjustified wars.

Martin Bell, who has covered 11 wars, including Vietnam and The Gulf, and reported from more than 80 countries for the BBC, did not pull his punches during his Reflections on War speech in Bury St Edmunds on Saturday.

To a packed audience at the Unitarian Meeting House he explained how grave decisions on entering conflicts were now being made by politicians who had no experience of conflict and in many cases had no experience of life outside politics.

He said: “We have a different political class now. They are young people from Oxbridge who have moved from one set of cloisters to another and are out of touch, and that, as we are finding out, is very dangerous.”

The anger that caused him to stand for parliament on an anti-sleaze campaign in 1997 was still evident during his hour long speech.

Quoting from his latest book, due to be published next week, called A Very British Revolution – the title chosen after his publishers stopped him from naming it Swindlers List – Mr Bell is openly critical of the political classes set against the intensifying war in Afghanistan.

He said the question of integrity had to be raised when rising British casualties coincided with widespread misconduct from MPs whose responsibility and duty of care was, in some cases, principally to their bank accounts.

He included a quote from the sailors’ website, Rum Ration: “While you all were fiddling your expenses, our men were dying from want of helicopters.”

After describing his own military service while stationed in Bury St Edmunds he said: “We can’t win the war in Afghanistan. I have spoken to military officers who all say there is no military solution in that country. This is the most extreme combat since the Korean War and we need to understand the extent of the sacrifice our men and women are making. We only need to look to the past and realise that wars in Afghanistan result in disaster and defeat whether it was the might of Alexander the Great, Russia or Great Britain.”

Contemplating the future he repeated his belief that we are living in dangerous times – more so than at any time in the past 60 years.

“As a people led by our government we have taken some wrong turns. Until 2003 there was not a single suicide bomber in Afghanistan and now we have child suicide bombers. While we were fighting in the Middle East, Mogadishu was attacked by Jihadist Holy Warriors from across the Middle East and the Western World and they were soon setting up terrorist training camps and turning young Somali’s into Holy Warriors. We must deal with this with intelligence, by being clever. Death and glory is not the answer.”

He concluded by warning that conflicts would only intensify – from religious wars, wars for natural resources, control of nuclear weapons, piracy and the pressures of global warming – all set against a rising tide of refugees on an increasingly populated planet.

EU ministers discuss use of rapid response forces

By Mike Corder (AP)

EU defense ministers hunted Monday for ways of ensuring their rapid response forces are just that _ ready to rush to conflicts at a moment’s notice _ while Denmark called for more European involvement in the Afghanistan war.

As the United States considers sending thousands more troops to Afghanistan, Danish Defense Minister Soeren Gade told reporters at a meeting in this Swedish port city he would like to see European governments boost their troop levels.

Because it’s not only a U.S. mission,” he said. “It’s also a mission for European countries.”

Many European Union member states already have forces in Afghanistan fighting in the NATO-led operation to pacify and rebuild the war-ravaged nation. The EU has only sent a mission to help train the country’s security forces.

The ministers meeting here will discuss on Tuesday whether to strengthen that commitment, although they will make no decisions at their informal meeting.

“There’s a lot of stake in Afghanistan, it’s one of those missions we cannot afford to lose,” said Gade, whose country has 850 soldiers there.

“Compared to our size, with 5 million people, it’s a lot,” he said.

Dutch Defense Minister Eimert van Middelkoop, whose country has some 1,600 troops in the volatile southern province of Uruzgan repeated his commitment to pull out mid-2010, although the Dutch government says it will consider requests to keep some troops in Afghanistan.

The EU’s battlegroups were set up five years ago with the intention of making them available anywhere in the world within 10 days but have never been used. Two battalion-sized forces have been on standby since 2007.

Sweden, which hosted Monday’s meeting of defense ministers and officials from the 27 EU members, is keen to overcome political hurdles such as debates over cost and logistics that could hold up deploying them.

As an example of how slow the process can be, Swedish Defense Minister Sten Tolgfors said the EU needed five separate meetings to agree to send a military mission to Chad in 2007.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said the rapid reaction troops are ready and ministers need “to get the political will to use them.”

Tolgfors wants to see a system where one set of rapid response troops could be sent quickly to a hot spot while the bloc keeps the other battalion on standby in case of another crisis.

He said Sweden invested about ⁈llion in readying its troops for the rapid response duties.

“In the long run, tax payers might want to see more concrete results from them,” he said.

On Tuesday, ministers also will discuss EU involvement in Somalia _ both its mission protecting shipping from pirates off the country’s coast and the possibility of training Somali security forces outside the country _ something France already is doing.

Denmark’s Gade said that while he wanted more European involvement in Afghanistan, the training mission there must continue.

“I think that’s one of the key issues in the years to come: to train more Afghan soldiers and let them step up to the plate and take more responsibility, especially in the south,” he said.

Somali Mercenaries in Yemen

7 Somalis arrested as they fought against government army in support for Houthi rebels.

Seven Somali people have been arrested while fighting the army in support for the Houthi rebels in northern Yemen, the Alsahwa website reported on Monday, according to the Yemen Post.

The source close to the army said the Somalis were caught in the Almagza’a area in Harf Sufyan, Amran, among 20 Houthi followers.

In this regard, a news paper cited military sources as saying there were Somalis fighting the troops in support for the insurgents in the provinces of Saada and Amran along with experts teaching the insurgents guerrilla wars.

The Akhbar Al-Youm newspaper said the arrested were handed to the Intelligence Service which started investigating them.

The sources expected the arrested had links to the Jihad groups in Somalia supported by Iran and Eritrea, adding the arrests may reveal more facts about the flow of Somali refugees to Yemen.

Somali mercenaries have a long history of having fought in most armies or among most rebel groups in the Middle East and Africa. Likewise the colonial armies of the British and Italians had hired paid-for soldiers from Somalia for all their warfare in East Africa and the Horn.

Nigeria has a wise president

President Yar’Adua was attacked by local news-channel – Newswatch Nigeria – to have (we believe for good reason) missed besides the UN General Assembly also another meeting, which was called by the US President only for UN member-states like Nigeria, which contribute troops to the UN international peace-keeping missions. Apart from being the fourth ranking UN nation in troops-contribution, Nigeria is also the leader of the UN Special Committee on Peacekeeping.

Susan Rice, US Ambassador to UN, said in a White House press conference a week before the Conference that President Obama “will host a meeting with countries that contributed the largest numbers of police and troops to the United Nations peacekeeping operations.”

She hinted at the importance of the meeting saying, “this is an opportunity for the president to focus attention on reforming and strengthening UN peacekeeping for the 21st century, and to recognise the largely unheralded contributions of those that are providing the backbone of these critical peacekeeping operations.” Regarding this Obama meeting with states like Nigeria, UN sources explained that Yar’Adua was, in fact, the “beautiful bride to the Americans.” This is because, as diplomatic sources explained, the US government was concerned about the situation in Somalia and desires that a more robust UN peacekeeping force be deployed quickly, and Nigeria was the lively candidate for it.

In that regard, sources said the Americans are hoping that Nigeria’s president, if he had attended the meeting, could have been encouraged during the meeting with Obama to provide substantially more troops for the UN peacekeepers in Somalia.

A Nigerian diplomat working with the UN Secretariat said this would have been an opportunity for President Yar’Adua to negotiate directly with Obama in return for whatever the Americans want from Nigeria.

Before now, Nigeria had been reluctant to commit more troops to the Somalia deployment at the UN. And since the US government is keen on protecting its interests against the activities of terrorists in Somalia, the Americans have been clamouring for a stronger UN peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Until this effort, White House had simply not been very friendly towards the Nigerian presidency. First, Obama opted not to visit Nigeria in his first African trip.

Secondly, when US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, visited Nigeria, her public and indoor comments were considered very critical. However, with the current veiled offer from the White House to Aso Rock, a rapprochement is being built, according to diplomatic thinking.

Since the US also eyes Nigeria’s rich oil market, the president might just have been wise enough to not get coerced into US-American adventures of the other sort in order to remain a true sovereign and not just become a vassal of foreign interests.

U.S. official seeks more civilian effort in developing Africa

By John Vandiver (Stars and Stripes)

In 2008, Vicki Huddleston, a former career diplomat with many years of experience in Africa, was out of government service and an in-demand guest speaker on issues related to the African continent.

During a wide ranging talk given at the Chautauqua Institution, a nonprofit arts and education center in southwestern New York, Huddleston’s comments turned to Somalia and the scars that remain from the tragic 1993 operation dramatized in the book and movie “Black Hawk Down.”

“It seems as if the lesson we learned in Somalia is that we never put boots on the ground in Africa. Combat boots,” said Huddleston, who was critical of U.S. failures in subsequent years to stop genocides on the continent. “What we learned was to never intervene in Africa. Yet sometimes we must intervene in Africa.”

Huddleston is no longer a freewheeling analyst. In June, she became the Department of Defense’s deputy assistant secretary for Africa, helping to oversee Africa policy.

During her first visit to U.S. Africa Command’s Stuttgart headquarters last week, Huddleston didn’t backtrack from her stance that certain circumstances require intervention. But as she reflected on AFRICOM’s role, her language became more circumspect; no calls for hard power. At this time, there is no foreseeable combat role for the military on the continent, she said.

“In general, I hope that the boots that we put on the ground in Africa are only those for training and for civil affairs,” she said. “And we will hope that that’s the case, and if we do a good job of building African capacity, in fact that will be the case.”

AFRICOM commander Gen. William “Kip” Ward has reiterated that message repeatedly during his trips to the continent.

At a meeting in May in Mozambique, participants openly questioned Ward about AFRICOM’s intentions, saying the U.S. command was more interested in achieving “global domination” than about building partnerships.

Ward kept on message, saying: “Our goal is to contribute to the peace and stability in the region and do our best to help deter and prevent conflict. Anything we do has the support and acceptance of that nation. In other words, we provide security assistance that you ask of us.”

Huddleston comes to her new post with a background heavy in diplomacy. She has served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Africa and was the U.S. ambassador to Madagascar and Mali. She served as acting ambassador in Ethiopia.

Huddleston said AFRICOM has been effective at building military-to-military partnerships around the continent. But going forward, it will be important for more development efforts in Africa to be civilian led.

“Does (AFRICOM’s work) meet an objective of the United States government? Very definitely: stability, building up local capacity. So all that’s good. Would I think that USAID and the Department of State and NGOs should be involved more heavily in this type of activity? Yes,” Huddleston said.

As AFRICOM looks at future projects, Huddleston said it is her preference that the command concentrate on places such as northern Mali and other isolated areas where there are security issues. However, the use of U.S. combat troops in Africa should only be considered in extraordinary circumstances.

“I think it would have to be a very, very difficult situation in which, first of all, the country involved — the government — would have to ask, in which the international community, the African Union, the United Nations would have to want the United States to become involved. Those are the criteria I think that you would look for if you were going to think of combat boots,” Huddleston said.

African-South American Summit: Call For Bloc To Counter NATO

Chavez, Qaddafi Call for African-South American NATO at Summit

By Matthew Walter and Daniel Cancel

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi called for the creation of a southern hemisphere alliance mirroring the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, to counteract the influence of the U.S. and Europe.

They spoke yesterday at the second South America-Africa Summit in Venezuela, where Chavez brought together 30 heads of state including Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and Algeria’s long-time leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

“For African countries it’s closer to visit our brothers in South America and we share the same interests of liberation and revolutionary ideals,” Qaddafi said. “Colonialism humiliated us, insulted us and robbed us of our riches.”

Hosting the summit plays into Chavez’s goal of diminishing what he calls “imperial” influences and boosting ties with allies including members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Angola and Nigeria.

The more than 60 delegations planned to sign accords on trade, energy, mining and agriculture, Venezuela’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

“A new world has already emerged, and it’s a new world that’s marching toward multipolarity,” Chavez told reporters at the United Nations on Sept. 23. “We have great expectations.”

Qaddafi, who travels with an extensive delegation, pitched his trademark tent next to the pool at the Hilton Hotel on the Caribbean tourist island of Margarita, where the summit is taking place.

Obama the “Self-Entangling Giant”

By James Warren (*)

No matter how much he might disdain the George W. Bush presidency, especially when it comes to misuse of executive branch power, Barack Obama may be a “self-entangling giant” who is going down the same perilous path argues no less an initial Obama sympathizer than journalist-historian Garry Wills in the Oct. 8 New York Review of Books.

Wills, a Northwestern University historian emeritus, argues in “Entangled Giant” that Bush left office unpopular and disgraced, with Obama set on ending illegal acts like torture and indefinite detentions, denial and legal representation to detainees, and nullification of laws by signing statements, among others. But he then contends that, “The momentum of accumulating powers in the executive is not easily reversed, checked or even slowed.” Our entire post-World War 2 history “caused an inertial transfer of power toward the executive branch,” replete with a de facto monopoly on nuclear power, a vast worldwide network of military bases, the systems of classification and clearance, the “war on terror” and what Wills calls the “cult of the commander in chief.” And while Obama has taken certain steps, like announcing the future closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, there are other actions and statements that give pause: the CIA asserting that it may retain the practice of sending prisoners to foreign nations; the Justice Department decision to abort a trial by invoking “state secrets”; refusing to release photographs of “enhanced interrogation”; the release of gay personnel from the U.S. military at rates equivalent to the Bush years; and what Wills deems Obama’s defiance of the Constitution’s “full faith and credit” clause, mandating states to recognize laws passed by other states, via Obama’s defense of the Defense of Marriage Act, allowing states to refuse to recognize other states’ approval of gay marriages.

Most of his case involves national defense and he concedes, “It should come as no surprise that turning around the huge secret empire built by the National Security State is a hard, perhaps impossible, task.” In sum, he argues that Obama will become a prisoner of the national security prison we’ve built over decades; an empire of military bases and imperial dealings largely unknown to the average citizen.

“He feels he must avoid embarrassing the hordes of agents, military personnel, and diplomatic instruments whose loyalty he must command,” writes Wills. “Keeping up morale in this vast, shady enterprise is something impressed on him by all manner of commitments. He becomes the prisoner of his own power. As President Truman could not not use the bomb, a modern president cannot not use the huge powers at his disposal. It has all been given him as the legacy of Bomb Power, the thing that makes him not only Commander in Chief but Leader of the Free World. He is a self-entangling giant.”

(*) James Warren is former managing editor and Washington bureau chief of the Chicago Tribune

What Have We Done to Democracy?

By Arundhati Roy (*)

Of nearsighted progress, feral howls, consensus, chaos, and a new Cold War in Kashmir.

While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By “democracy” I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are.

So, is there life after democracy?

Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defense of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia… is that what you would prefer?”

Whether democracy should be the utopia that all “developing” societies aspire to is a separate question altogether. (I think it should. The early, idealistic phase can be quite heady.) The question about life after democracy is addressed to those of us who already live in democracies, or in countries that pretend to be democracies. It isn’t meant to suggest that we lapse into older, discredited models of totalitarian or authoritarian governance. It’s meant to suggest that the system of representative democracy — too much representation, too little democracy — needs some structural adjustment.

The question here, really, is what have we done to democracy? What have we turned it into? What happens once democracy has been used up? When it has been hollowed out and emptied of meaning? What happens when each of its institutions has metastasised into something dangerous? What happens now that democracy and the free market have fused into a single predatory organism with a thin, constricted imagination that revolves almost entirely around the idea of maximizing profit?

Is it possible to reverse this process? Can something that has mutated go back to being what it used to be? What we need today, for the sake of the survival of this planet, is long-term vision. Can governments whose very survival depends on immediate, extractive, short-term gain provide this? Could it be that democracy, the sacred answer to our short-term hopes and prayers, the protector of our individual freedoms and nurturer of our avaricious dreams, will turn out to be the endgame for the human race? Could it be that democracy is such a hit with modern humans precisely because it mirrors our greatest folly — our near-sightedness?

Our inability to live entirely in the present (like most animals do), combined with our inability to see very far into the future, makes us strange in-between creatures, neither beast nor prophet. Our amazing intelligence seems to have outstripped our instinct for survival. We plunder the earth hoping that accumulating material surplus will make up for the profound, unfathomable thing that we have lost. It would be conceit to pretend I have the answers to any of these questions. But it does look as if the beacon could be failing and democracy can perhaps no longer be relied upon to deliver the justice and stability we once dreamed it would.

A Clerk of Resistance

As a writer, a fiction writer, I have often wondered whether the attempt to always be precise, to try and get it all factually right somehow reduces the epic scale of what is really going on. Does it eventually mask a larger truth? I worry that I am allowing myself to be railroaded into offering prosaic, factual precision when maybe what we need is a feral howl, or the transformative power and real precision of poetry.

Something about the cunning, Brahmanical, intricate, bureaucratic, file-bound, “apply-through-proper-channels” nature of governance and subjugation in India seems to have made a clerk out of me. My only excuse is to say that it takes odd tools to uncover the maze of subterfuge and hypocrisy that cloaks the callousness and the cold, calculated violence of the world’s favourite new superpower.

Repression “through proper channels” sometimes engenders resistance “through proper channels.” As resistance goes this isn’t enough, I know. But for now, it’s all I have. Perhaps someday it will become the underpinning for poetry and for the feral howl.

Today, words like “progress” and “development” have become interchangeable with economic “reforms,” “deregulation,” and “privatization.” Freedom has come to mean choice. It has less to do with the human spirit than with different brands of deodorant. Market no longer means a place where you buy provisions. The “market” is a de-territorialized space where faceless corporations do business, including buying and selling “futures.” Justice has come to mean human rights (and of those, as they say, “a few will do”).

This theft of language, this technique of usurping words and deploying them like weapons, of using them to mask intent and to mean exactly the opposite of what they have traditionally meant, has been one of the most brilliant strategic victories of the tsars of the new dispensation. It has allowed them to marginalize their detractors, deprive them of a language to voice their critique and dismiss them as being “anti-progress,” “anti-development,” “anti-reform,” and of course “anti-national” — negativists of the worst sort.

Talk about saving a river or protecting a forest and they say, “Don’t you believe in progress?” To people whose land is being submerged by dam reservoirs, and whose homes are being bulldozed, they say, “Do you have an alternative development model?” To those who believe that a government is duty bound to provide people with basic education, health care, and social security, they say, “You’re against the market.” And who except a cretin could be against markets?

To reclaim these stolen words requires explanations that are too tedious for a world with a short attention span, and too expensive in an era when Free Speech has become unaffordable for the poor. This language heist may prove to be the keystone of our undoing.

Two decades of “Progress” in India has created a vast middle class punch-drunk on sudden wealth and the sudden respect that comes with it — and a much, much vaster, desperate underclass. Tens of millions of people have been dispossessed and displaced from their land by floods, droughts, and desertification caused by indiscriminate environmental engineering and massive infrastructural projects, dams, mines, and Special Economic Zones. All developed in the name of the poor, but really meant to service the rising demands of the new aristocracy.

The hoary institutions of Indian democracy — the judiciary, the police, the “free” press, and, of course, elections — far from working as a system of checks and balances, quite often do the opposite. They provide each other cover to promote the larger interests of Union and Progress. In the process, they generate such confusion, such a cacophony, that voices raised in warning just become part of the noise. And that only helps to enhance the image of the tolerant, lumbering, colorful, somewhat chaotic democracy. The chaos is real. But so is the consensus.

A New Cold War in Kashmir

Speaking of consensus, there’s the small and ever-present matter of Kashmir. When it comes to Kashmir the consensus in India is hard core. It cuts across every section of the establishment — including the media, the bureaucracy, the intelligentsia, and even Bollywood.

The war in the Kashmir valley is almost 20 years old now, and has claimed about 70,000 lives. Tens of thousands have been tortured, several thousand have “disappeared,” women have been raped, tens of thousands widowed. Half a million Indian troops patrol the Kashmir valley, making it the most militarized zone in the world. (The United States had about 165,000 active-duty troops in Iraq at the height of its occupation.) The Indian Army now claims that it has, for the most part, crushed militancy in Kashmir. Perhaps that’s true. But does military domination mean victory?

How does a government that claims to be a democracy justify a military occupation? By holding regular elections, of course. Elections in Kashmir have had a long and fascinating past. The blatantly rigged state election of 1987 was the immediate provocation for the armed uprising that began in 1990. Since then elections have become a finely honed instrument of the military occupation, a sinister playground for India’s deep state. Intelligence agencies have created political parties and decoy politicians, they have constructed and destroyed political careers at will.

It is they more than anyone else who decide what the outcome of each election will be. After every election, the Indian establishment declares that India has won a popular mandate from the people of Kashmir.

In the summer of 2008, a dispute over land being allotted to the Amarnath Shrine Board coalesced into a massive, nonviolent uprising. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people defied soldiers and policemen — who fired straight into the crowds, killing scores of people — and thronged the streets. From early morning to late in the night, the city reverberated to chants of “Azadi! Azadi!” (Freedom! Freedom!). Fruit sellers weighed fruit chanting “Azadi! Azadi!” Shopkeepers, doctors, houseboat owners, guides, weavers, carpet sellers — everybody was out with placards, everybody shouted “Azadi! Azadi!” The protests went on for several days.

The protests were massive. They were democratic, and they were nonviolent. For the first time in decades fissures appeared in mainstream public opinion in India. The Indian state panicked.

Unsure of how to deal with this mass civil disobedience, it ordered a crackdown. It enforced the harshest curfew in recent memory with shoot-on-sight orders. In effect, for days on end, it virtually caged millions of people. The major pro-freedom leaders were placed under house arrest, several others were jailed. House-to-house searches culminated in the arrests of hundreds of people.

Once the rebellion was brought under control, the government did something extraordinary — it announced elections in the state. Pro-independence leaders called for a boycott. They were rearrested. Almost everybody believed the elections would become a huge embarrassment for the Indian government. The security establishment was convulsed with paranoia. Its elaborate network of spies, renegades, and embedded journalists began to buzz with renewed energy. No chances were taken. (Even I, who had nothing to do with any of what was going on, was put under house arrest in Srinagar for two days.)

Calling for elections was a huge risk. But the gamble paid off. People turned out to vote in droves. It was the biggest voter turnout since the armed struggle began. It helped that the polls were scheduled so that the first districts to vote were the most militarized districts even within the Kashmir valley.

None of India’s analysts, journalists, and psephologists cared to ask why people who had only weeks ago risked everything, including bullets and shoot-on-sight orders, should have suddenly changed their minds. None of the high-profile scholars of the great festival of democracy — who practically live in TV studios when there are elections in mainland India, picking apart every forecast and exit poll and every minor percentile swing in the vote count — talked about what elections mean in the presence of such a massive, year-round troop deployment (an armed soldier for every 20 civilians).

No one speculated about the mystery of hundreds of unknown candidates who materialized out of nowhere to represent political parties that had no previous presence in the Kashmir valley. Where had they come from? Who was financing them? No one was curious. No one spoke about the curfew, the mass arrests, the lockdown of constituencies that were going to the polls.

Not many talked about the fact that campaigning politicians went out of their way to de-link Azadi and the Kashmir dispute from elections, which they insisted were only about municipal issues — roads, water, electricity. No one talked about why people who have lived under a military occupation for decades — where soldiers could barge into homes and whisk away people at any time of the day or night — might need someone to listen to them, to take up their cases, to represent them.

The minute elections were over, the establishment and the mainstream press declared victory (for India) once again. The most worrying fallout was that in Kashmir, people began to parrot their colonizers’ view of themselves as a somewhat pathetic people who deserved what they got. “Never trust a Kashmiri,” several Kashmiris said to me. “We’re fickle and unreliable.”

Psychological warfare, technically known as psy-ops, has been an instrument of official policy in Kashmir. Its depredations over decades — its attempt to destroy people’s self-esteem — are arguably the worst aspect of the occupation. It’s enough to make you wonder whether there is any connection at all between elections and democracy.

The trouble is that Kashmir sits on the fault lines of a region that is awash in weapons and sliding into chaos. The Kashmiri freedom struggle, with its crystal clear sentiment but fuzzy outlines, is caught in the vortex of several dangerous and conflicting ideologies — Indian nationalism (corporate as well as “Hindu,” shading into imperialism), Pakistani nationalism (breaking down under the burden of its own contradictions), U.S. imperialism (made impatient by a tanking economy), and a resurgent medieval-Islamist Taliban (fast gaining legitimacy, despite its insane brutality, because it is seen to be resisting an occupation). Each of these ideologies is capable of a ruthlessness that can range from genocide to nuclear war. Add Chinese imperial ambitions, an aggressive, reincarnated Russia, and the huge reserves of natural gas in the Caspian region and persistent whispers about natural gas, oil, and uranium reserves in Kashmir and Ladakh, and you have the recipe for a new Cold War (which, like the last one, is cold for some and hot for others).

In the midst of all this, Kashmir is set to become the conduit through which the mayhem unfolding in Afghanistan and Pakistan spills into India, where it will find purchase in the anger of the young among India’s 150 million Muslims who have been brutalized, humiliated, and marginalized.

Notice has been given by the series of terrorist strikes that culminated in the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

There is no doubt that the Kashmir dispute ranks right up there, along with Palestine, as one of the oldest, most intractable disputes in the world. That does not mean that it cannot be resolved. Only that the solution will not be completely to the satisfaction of any one party, one country, or one ideology. Negotiators will have to be prepared to deviate from the “party line.”

Of course, we haven’t yet reached the stage where the government of India is even prepared to admit that there’s a problem, let alone negotiate a solution. Right now it has no reason to.

Internationally, its stocks are soaring. And while its neighbors deal with bloodshed, civil war, concentration camps, refugees, and army mutinies, India has just concluded a beautiful election. However, “demon-crazy” can’t fool all the people all the time. India’s temporary, shotgun solutions to the unrest in Kashmir (pardon the pun), have magnified the problem and driven it deep into a place where it is poisoning the aquifers.

Is Democracy Melting?

Perhaps the story of the Siachen Glacier, the highest battlefield in the world, is the most appropriate metaphor for the insanity of our times. Thousands of Indian and Pakistani soldiers have been deployed there, enduring chill winds and temperatures that dip to minus 40 degrees Celsius. Of the hundreds who have died there, many have died just from the elements.

The glacier has become a garbage dump now, littered with the detritus of war — thousands of empty artillery shells, empty fuel drums, ice axes, old boots, tents, and every other kind of waste that thousands of warring human beings generate. The garbage remains intact, perfectly preserved at those icy temperatures, a pristine monument to human folly.

While the Indian and Pakistani governments spend billions of dollars on weapons and the logistics of high-altitude warfare, the battlefield has begun to melt. Right now, it has shrunk to about half its size. The melting has less to do with the military standoff than with people far away, on the other side of the world, living the good life. They’re good people who believe in peace, free speech, and in human rights. They live in thriving democracies whose governments sit on the U.N. Security Council and whose economies depend heavily on the export of war and the sale of weapons to countries like India and Pakistan. (And Rwanda, Sudan, Somalia, the Republic of Congo, Iraq, Afghanistan” it’s a long list.)

The glacial melt will cause severe floods on the subcontinent, and eventually severe drought that will affect the lives of millions of people. That will give us even more reasons to fight. We’ll need more weapons. Who knows? That sort of consumer confidence may be just what the world needs to get over the current recession. Then everyone in the thriving democracies will have an even better life — and the glaciers will melt even faster.

(*) Arundhati Roy was born in 1959 in Shillong, India. She studied architecture in New Delhi, where she now lives. She has worked as a film designer and screenplay writer in India. Roy is the author of the novel The God of Small Things, for which she received the 1997 Booker Prize. Her new book, just published by Haymarket Books, is Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers.

Moammar Gaddafi And Some Food For Thought

By Edward Manfredonia

President Moammar Al-Gaddafi of Libya is a favorite target of newspapers, radio and of course politicians in the United States.

Yet Gaddafi is taken very seriously by many other countries. President Gaddafi is held in such high regard by African countries that he is President of the African Union and is referred to as “King of Kings,” a title reflecting the belief that he is acting in the best interests of the many Kingdoms of Africa.

The United States is correct in stating that President Gaddafi is a danger to the United States because President Gaddafi recognized many years ago that the United States would no longer reign supreme in the world.

Upon seizing power and deposing the Western-influenced King Idris in 1969 President Gaddafi struck out on a course to diminish the exploitation of the underdeveloped and resource rich countries by the Western powers, which sought to exploit the resources of these countries.

Gaddafi nationalized the oil fields in Libya; determined that the people of Libya must profit from the exploitation of their heritage- the natural resources of Libya.

It’s Gaddafi’s belief that all countries must be treated equally that particularly galls American political leaders- even though this fact is stated in the Preamble to the United Nations Charter, as he pointed out at the U.N. General Assembly last week.

In his address to the United Nations Gaddafi quoted liberally from the Preamble to the United Nations Charter.

He demonstrated that the lofty principles of the Preamble were negated by the United Nations Charter. He said that the United Nations was formed by the conquerors of Germany, which gave themselves veto power over the votes of the General Assembly.

Gaddafi asked how was it possible that India with one billion people is not a member of the Security Council. He made mention that Brazil an emerging power should have representation on the Security Council.

Gaddafi proposed a new method of membership. Instead of having individual countries as members of the Security Council, why could the Security Council not be composed of representatives of blocs of countries? One seat on the Security Council should be given to the European Economic Union; another seat to the African Union.

He has solid points.

How could France and England have seats on the Security Council and Germany not have a seat? It’s Germany, with its powerful economy, which supports the European Economic Union. Why should Germany be deprived of a deserved seat on the Security Council and France have a seat?

What of Japan, whose economy is the second largest in the world? Shouldn’t Japan have a seat on the Security Council?

What of India with one billion people? Surely the modernization of India would be hastened with a place on the Security Council.

What of Saudi Arabia and the other countries of the Middle East, whose oil lubricates the economies of the Western World? These countries hold vast amounts of American debt. If they were to suddenly dump dollars on the financial markets, the dollar would collapse- and the dark ages would be upon us.

Gaddafi rightly describes the United States as a beggar nation, which must beg other countries to accept its dollars in order for the United States to remain solvent.

Gaddafi is excoriated for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Libya has denied criminal liability. It did however pay the Lockerbie bombing victims” families $10 million each for civil liability. Since that tragedy the United States has also moved to normalize relations with Libya and last year during the George W. Bush administration Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Libya.

It should also be noted that the United States in 1986 launched a missile attack on President Qaddafi’s residence, which killed 40 Libyans, including his daughter. The United States has never offered compensation to the families of the victims of its missiles in Libya.

The United States has always supported murderous dictatorships as long as they supported the West and permitted Western powers to exploit their natural resources. For example, the United States supported the murderous Mobutu, of what was then Zaire; he drained his country of billions of dollars and permitted Zaire to descend into a darkness not known since the rule of the Belgians.

In 1965 the United States supported the murder of 500,000 Indonesians of Chinese descent by the supporters of the dictator Suharto of Indonesia. The United States supported this genocide as a counterweight to the influence of the Communist party in Indonesia and China.

Ironically, it is China, once derided as a backward communist regime, which now holds the largest amount of American debt; debt accumulated while Americans were spending their way into oblivion.

And who could forget the support, which the United States gave to the murderous self-proclaimed “Shah of Iran,” who looted the country?

Currently the United States supports Museveni in Uganda- a blood thirsty dictator, who thinks nothing of perpetrating genocide upon other ethnic groups.

To the chagrin of those Americans and other race baiters, President Qaddafi stated that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries when Jews were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church, it was Muslims who took in Jews and offered them protection against the inquisition and death by torture.

Jews were protected when Muslims ruled Andalusia, as Spain was then called. While for many Americans 1492 signifies the discovery of America by Columbus, 1492 also represented the year that Jews were persecuted and expelled from Spain.

It is a well known fact that Jews and Eastern Christians suffered greatly during the wars known in the West as the “Crusades.” These Jews and Eastern Christians were not murdered by Muslims; they were murdered by the Crusaders, Christian pirates who looted Constantinople and raped and murdered its inhabitants.

Qaddafi specifically spoke of pirates- at least those in Somalia, whom the American press calls pirates. Somalis were fisherman until the industrialized nations of the West harvested all the fish from the waters of Somalia and left the Somalis to starve.

It is the rapacious nature of the West that has driven countries into poverty and lawlessness.

Pensioners and Privy

Richard Barrett, a former officer with Britain’s MI6 Secret Intelligence Service is now coordinator of the United Nations’ al Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Team. He will address the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Pirates and traffickers, rebels and insurgents seem to be the most active players to create jobs worldwide for armies, security companies and now even the corps of retired diplomats and politicians as well as expired spooks and spies. Though even counter-terrorism officials agree that Al Qaeda is on the wane the most cunning worms are crawling out of the woodworks and get jobs, while global recession hits workers in productive jobs the world over who even have to pay with their taxes for these retired jobbers.

We do not send pictures with these reports, because of the volume, but picture this emetic scene with your inner eye:

A dying Somali child in the macerated arms of her mother besides their bombed shelter with Islamic graffiti looks at a fat trader, who discusses with a local militia chief and a UN representative at a harbour while USAID provided GM food from subsidised production is off-loaded by WFP into the hands of local “distributors” and dealers – and in the background a western warship and a foreign fishing trawler ply the waters of a once sovereign, prosper and proud nation, which was a role model for honesty and development in the Horn of Africa. (If you feel that this is overdrawn – come with us into Somalia and see the even more cruel reality yourself!) – and if you need lively stills or video material on Somalia, please do contact us.

There is no limit to what a person can do or how far one can go to help

• if one doesn’t mind who gets the credit !

ECOTERRA Intl. maintains a register for persons missing or abducted in the Somali seas (Foreign seafarers as well as Somalis). Inquiries by family member can be sent by e-mail to office[at]ecoterra-international.org

For families of presently captive seafarers – in order to advise and console their worries – ECOTERRA Intl. can establish contacts with professional seafarers, who had been abducted in Somalia, and their wives as well as of a Captain of a sea-jacked and released ship, who agreed to be addressed “with questions, and we will answer truthfully”.

ECOTERRA – ALERTS and pending issues:

PIRATE ATTACK GULF OF ADEN: Advice on Who to Contact and What to Do http://www.noonsite.com/Members/sue/R2008-09-08-2

NATURAL RESOURCES & ARMED FISH POACHERS: Foreign navies entering the 200nm EEZ of Somalia and foreign helicopters and troops must respect the fact that especially all wildlife is protected by Somali national as well as by international laws and that the protection of the marine resources of Somalia from illegally fishing foreign vessels should be an integral part of the anti-piracy operations. Likewise the navies must adhere to international standards and not pollute the coastal waters with oil, ballast water or waste from their own ships but help Somalia to fight against any dumping of any waste (incl. diluted, toxic or nuclear waste). So far and though the AU as well as the UN has called since long on other nations to respect the 200 nm EEZ, only now the two countries (Spain and France) to which the most notorious vessels and fleets are linked have come up with a declaration that they will respect the 200 nm EEZ of Somalia but so far not any of the navies operating in the area pledged to stand against illegal fishing. So far not a single illegal fishing vessel has been detained by the naval forces, though they had been even informed about several actual cases, where an intervention would have been possible. Illegally operating Tuna fishing vessels (many from South Korea, some from Greece and China) carry now armed personnel and force their way into the Somali fishing grounds – uncontrolled or even protected by the naval forces mandated to guard the Somali waters against any criminal activity, which included arms carried by foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters.

LLWs / NLWs: According to recently leaked information the anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden are also used as a cover-up for the live testing of recently developed arsenals of so called non-lethal as well as sub-lethal weapons systems. (Pls request details) Neither the Navies nor the UN has come up with any code of conduct in this respect, while the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Program (JNLWP) is sponsoring several service-led acquisition programs, including the VLAD, Joint Integration Program, and Improved Flash Bang Grenade. Alredy in use in Somalia are so called Non-lethal optical distractors, which are visible laser devices that have reversible optical effects. These types of non-blinding laser devices use highly directional optical energy. Somalia is also a testing ground for the further developments of the Active Denial System (ADS) Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD). If new developments using millimeter wave sources that will help minimize the size, weight, and system cost of an effective Active Denial System which provides “ADS-ACTD-like” repel effects, are used has not yet been revealed. Obviously not only the US is developing and using these kind of weapons as the case of MV MARATHON showed, where a Spanish naval vessel was using optical lasers – the stand-off was then broken by the killing of one of the hostage seafarers. Local observers also claim that HEMI devices, producing Human Electro-Muscular Incapacitation (HEMI) Bioeffects, have been used in the Gulf of Aden against Somalis. Exposure to HEMI devices, which can be understood as a stun-gun shot at an individual over a larger distance, causes muscle contractions that temporarily disable an individual. Research efforts are under way to develop a longer-duration of this effect than is currently available. The live tests are apparently done without that science understands yet the effects of HEMI electrical waveforms on a human body.

WARBOTS, UAVs etc.: Peter Singer says: “By cutting the already tenuous link between the public and its nation’s foreign policy, pain-free war would pervert the whole idea of the democratic process and citizenship as they relate to war. When a citizenry has no sense of sacrifice or even the prospect of sacrifice, the decision to go to war becomes just like any other policy decision, weighed by the same calculus used to determine whether to raise bridge tolls. Instead of widespread engagement and debate over the most important decision a government can make, you get popular indifference. When technology turns war into something merely to be watched, and not weighed with great seriousness, the checks and balances that undergird democracy go by the wayside. This could well mean the end of any idea of democratic peace that supposedly sets our foreign-policy decision making apart. Such wars without costs could even undermine the morality of “good” wars. When a nation decides to go to war, it is not just deciding to break stuff in some foreign land. As one philosopher put it, the very decision is “a reflection of the moral character of the community who decides.” Without public debate and support and without risking troops, the decision to go to war becomes the act of a nation that doesn’t give a damn.”

ECOTERRA Intl., whose work does focus on nature- and human-rights-protection and – as the last international environmental organization still working in Somalia – had alerted ship-owners since 1992, many of whom were fishing illegally in the 200 nm Exclusive Economic Zone, to stay away from Somali waters. The non-governmental organization had requested the international community many times for help to protect the coastal waters of the war-torn state, but now lawlessness has seriously increased and gone out of hand.

ECOTERRA members with marine and maritime expertise, joined by it’s ECOP-marine group, are closely and continuously monitoring and advising on the Somali situation. (for previous information concerning the topics please google keywords ECOTERRA (and) SOMALIA)

The network of the SEAFARERS ASSISTANCE PROGRAMME helped significantly in most sea-jack cases. ECOTERRA Intl. is working in Somalia since 1986 on human-rights and nature protection, while ECOP-marine concentrates on illegal fishing and the protection of the marine ecosystems. Your support counts too.

Please consider to contribute to the work of SAP, ECOP-marine and ECOTERRA Intl. Please donate to the defence fund.

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