Key to Pacification of Somalia: Dissolution of the ‘Ethiopian’ Tyranny

In seven previous articles, entitled "Terrorist State ‘Ethiopia’ to Be Punished for Evil Role in Somalia – HRW Report Summary", "So Much to Fear - War Crimes and the Devastation of Somalia, HRW Report Recommendations", "Amhara and Tigray ‘Ethiopianist’ Regime: Osama Bin Laden’s Foremost Ally", "Incommensurable Monstrosity of Amhara – Tigray Death Squads at Mogadishu, Revealed by HRW Report", "The Destruction of Mogadishu: Genocidal Plans and Practices of the Evil Amhara - Tigray Regime", "Pathetic Spokesman McCormack Dares Question the Veracity of the HRW Report on Somalia", and ‘‘HRW Report on Somalia: Unfair for the Shebab and the ARS Liberation Forces’’, I re-published the chapters ‘Summary’, ‘Recommendations’, ‘Methodology’, ‘Background’, ‘International Humanitarian Law and the Conflict in Somalia’, ‘Civilian Deaths and the Destruction of Mogadishu‘, ‘Human Rights Abuses by Transitional Federal Government Forces’, ‘Laws of War and Human Rights Violations by Ethiopian Military Forces’ and ‘Abuses by Insurgent Forces’ from the HRW Report on Somalia.

On the latter, I commented extensively in a separate article entitled ‘HRW Report Weak Point - Somalis’ Religion Cannot Be an Alibi for Anti-Somalism’ (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/hrw-report-weak-point-somalis-religion-cannot-be-an-alibi-for-anti-somalism.html).

In the present article, I republish the another chapter, namely "Attacks on Humanitarian Workers and Civil Society Activists". In forthcoming articles, I will complete the re-publication of the enlightening Report that should become the basic set of guidelines of a total reconsideration of the American policy for East Africa.

Attacks on Humanitarian Workers and Civil Society Activists
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76418/section/13

Attacks on Humanitarian Workers and Civil Society Activists

In 2008 an unprecedented wave of attacks against humanitarian workers and civil society activists has had a devastating impact in Somalia. Between January and the middle of November, 29 humanitarian workers were reportedly killed in Somalia and another 12 were injured in attacks.[192] At least 19 more were kidnapped during the same period.[193] In addition, more than a dozen Somali human rights activists, community leaders, and other members of civil society were murdered during the same period. And the example of those attacks has driven many others to flee the country after they received death threats themselves.

The Somalis who have been murdered in these attacks came from different walks of life. Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of UNDP's Somalia office, was gunned down outside of a mosque in Mogadishu on July 6. Abdikadir Yusuf Kariye, the director of an orphanage serving displaced people in Afgooye, was killed in his home by unidentified gunmen on August 6. Mohammed Hassan Kulmiye, a peace activist with the Centre for Research and Development, was shot dead in his office in Beletweyne on June 22. A recent report by Amnesty International on these killings contains a full description of how each of the 40 Somali activists, humanitarian workers, and other people connected to civil society were killed in the first 10 months of 2008.[194]

These killings are not simply a byproduct of the broader chaos that has engulfed Somalia. The study carried out by Amnesty International examined 46 separate cases in which humanitarian workers and members of Somali civil society were reported to have been killed in 2008. It concluded that the majority of these deaths were targeted killings.[195] Human Rights Watch's own research reaches the same conclusion.

Threats on All Sides

Many of the attacks against civil society activists and humanitarian workers have been carried out by Al-Shabaab and other insurgent groups. In the view of the groups that have carried out those killings, the common thread that binds Somali civil society and international humanitarian relief agencies is a suspicion that all of them are somehow in league with Western government efforts backing the TFG or supporting US government counter-terrorism efforts.

These insinuations have been clearly articulated by some insurgents themselves. After the July murder of local UNDP head Osman Ali Ahmed, a group called Jabhad Islaamiya claimed responsibility for the attack. In a radio interview shortly afterwards, a spokesman for the group stated that the killing was justified because of the financial and material support that UNDP provides to bolster the TFG police force. "The army of Abdullahi Yusuf is helped financially by the UNDP," the spokesman said. "First order of business is to expel from the country the UNDP." He went on to claim that many nongovernmental organizations are "spies" who are "behind the problems in the country."[196]

The same suspicion has affected international humanitarian organizations, with some insurgent groups believing them to be engaged in espionage on behalf of the United States.[197] In October armed men raided, searched, and shut down several offices of CARE and the International Medical Corps that had been operating in Bay and Bakool regions, the stronghold of Al-Shabaab leader Muktar Robow.[198]

Even where this perception does not lead directly to violence, it often imposes severe restrictions on the ability of humanitarian organizations to operate. The perception that humanitarian aid workers are committed to neutrality is critical to the ability of independent humanitarian organizations to operate in the midst of armed conflict.[199] Civil society members have also been subject to attack, like others, for expressing support for the Djibouti peace process.

The suspicion and hostility of some insurgent groups is possibly the single greatest threat facing activists and humanitarian workers in their day-to-day work. But many Somali activists say that the danger from multiple directions is what has pushed their situation from difficult to untenable. And those targeted often have no way of knowing exactly where the threats against them originate.

Civil society activists in Somalia have long had to find ways to survive and work in a violent and lawless environment. But even the coping strategies that allowed activists to carry on during more than a decade and a half without a central government provide no security in the current context. In this, the plight of activists who have fled Somalia mirrors that of the more than one million Somalis displaced by the ongoing conflict, who are being hammered from all sides at once with nowhere to turn for protection.

All of the Somali civil society activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch said they felt that the dangers facing them had a variety of sources. And many said that they had no real way of knowing precisely whom they had to placate or avoid to protect their lives. Some worried that individuals would use the wave of threats and killings as cover to settle old scores. Others expressed concern that TFG officials who have regularly harassed and arbitrarily detained journalists and other critics might do the same.[200]

It is this uncertainty that has driven many activists to flee the country-including people who had found a way to live and work in Somalia throughout the turbulent period since 1991. One activist who fled Somalia in July 2008 told Human Rights Watch:

I have been in Mogadishu since 1987. Maybe sometimes I would move from the country for other business but mostly I have been there and I have been a witness to all of what has happened since then. What is happening right now is the worst since the collapse of the former regime. Before, people at least knew where danger was coming from.[201]

As another human rights activist, who fled Somalia in mid-2008 after receiving several death threats, put it, "We are in the middle of nowhere-you don't know who will attack you, who will kill you. If I knew the government would not kill me I could stay safe in government-controlled areas-but the government can also kill you."[202]

On July 2, 2008, a prominent businessman from Bakara market, Abdikarim Sheikh Ibrahim, was shot and killed in the streets of Mogadishu. He had been the chairman of a committee set up to financially support several orphanages. Hours before he was killed, armed men reportedly broke into his office and stole his computer. Some of his friends and colleagues told Human Rights Watch that despite their best efforts they had been unable to determine who was responsible for the killing. Said one Bakara market businessman who knew Ibrahim well, "The three sides to the conflict are all threats."[203]

Impact of the Attacks

Attacks, kidnappings, and threats targeting civil society and humanitarian workers have severely restricted the ability of humanitarian organizations to deliver assistance to populations in need. Somalia is now the most dangerous place in the world for humanitarian workers.[204]

The impact of these attacks goes far beyond the affected workers or their organizations. Somalia is facing a deepening humanitarian crisis that is exacerbated by violence targeted at humanitarian workers who are trying to help populations in need.

By October 2008 more than 3.25 million Somalis were in need of emergency assistance-roughly 40 percent of the population of south-central Somalia-and many were not receiving it.[205] The humanitarian situation has been exacerbated by conflict, hyperinflation, drought, and other factors-and now by direct attacks on humanitarian workers. These attacks provide a stark illustration of both the brutality of the conflict in Somalia and the extent to which impunity for rampant human rights abuses has come to make progress almost impossible on any front-even in providing basic assistance to the most vulnerable members of Somali society.

In November 2008 the ICRC warned of a "major deterioration of the humanitarian situation," which was dire to begin with.[206] As of October 2008 one in six children in south-central Somalia was acutely malnourished and this figure continued to steadily increase. By October 2008 overall rates of acute malnutrition in rural areas had passed the emergency threshold of 15 percent.[207] Conditions in the sprawling IDP camps around Afgooye have been appalling for the poorest of the displaced people there; one journalist who visited the area in October 2008 reported that over 400 women with malnourished babies lined up outside just one local clinic every day.[208]

Attacks and threats against civil society activists have also deprived Somalia of an untold number of people whose talents should have been an essential part of any eventual effort to rebuild the country. Beyond those killed are many others who have fled the country, uncertain as to how and when they will be able to return.

Notes

[192] Report by the Secretary General on the Situation in Somalia, November 17, 2008, United Nations S/2008/709, par. 71;Statement by 52 NGOs on the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian crisis in Somalia, October 6, 2008, http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900sid/EDIS-7K6LBP?OpenDocument (accessed October 23, 2008).Some reports put the number of humanitarian workers killed as high as 33. Report on file with Human Rights Watch.

[193] Report on file with Human Rights Watch.

[194]Amnesty International, "Fatal Insecurity: Attacks on aid workers and rights defenders in Somalia," AI Index: AFR 52/016/2008, November 6, 2008, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/millions-risk-somalia-attacks-aid-workers-escalate-20081106 (accessed November 10, 2008).

[195] Ibid., p. 1.

[196] Transcript on file with Human Rights Watch.

[197] In 2008 the US launched two air strikes against Al-Shabaab.

[198] Sheikh Robow confirmed responsibility for the closure of the CARE and IMC offices in a media interview. See "Somali insurgents jeopardize aid operations," Associated Press, October 5, 2008.

[199] Neutrality is one of the seven fundamental principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The other principles are humanity, impartiality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and universality. Many international humanitarian non-governmental organizations have voluntarily ascribed to these principles under a Code of Conduct. See Denise Plattner, "ICRC neutrality and neutrality in humanitarian assistance," International Review of the Red Cross, no.311, pp. 161-179; and Jean Pictet, "The Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross: Commentary" (Geneva: Henry Dunant Institute, 1979).

[200] Human Rights Watch interviews with Somali civil society activists, Nairobi, Hargeisa, and Djibouti, July and September 2008.

[201] Human Rights Watch interview with S.B., Hargeisa, July 10, 2008.

[202] Human Rights Watch interview, Nairobi, June 19, 2008.

[203] Human Rights Watch interview, Nairobi, July 6, 2008.

[204] Menkhaus, Somalia: A Country in Peril, a Policy Nightmare, p.5.

[205] UN News Center, "Ongoing Violence uproots another 5,500 people in Somali capital, says UN," October 17, 2008. There are no accurate census figures for the total population of Somalia and all estimates are a subject of intense debate. Most commonly cited estimates, however, put the population of south-central Somalia (excluding Somaliland and Puntland) at just over 6 million.

[206] ICRC, "Somalia: ICRC provides relief for half a million people faced by life-threatening food shortages," November 11, 2008.

[207] See Cindy Holleman, "Conflict, Economic Crisis and Drought: a Humanitarian Emergency Out of Control," Humanitarian Exchange Magazine, Issue 40, October 2008, http://www.odihpn.org/report.asp?id=2944 (accessed October 20, 2008).

[208]Jeffrey Gettleman, "With Focus on Pirates, Somalis on Land Waste Away in the Shadows," New York Times, October 10, 2008.

Note
Picture: The disaster caused in Somalia by Amhara and Tigray death squads, shamefully coined by Jendayi Frazer and her pathetic and treacherous staff as ‘national army’ of ‘Ethiopia’ demonstrates the barbarism, the cannibalism and the inhumanity of the villainous Amhara and Tigray Monophysitic (Tewahedo) Abyssinians who have been responsible for dozens of African genocides.