United States Africa Command

Public Affairs Office

28 June 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

TOP NEWS RELATED TO U.S. AFRICA COMMAND AND AFRICA

Obama to host Africa independence celebration (Reuters)

(Pan Africa) President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, will host a 50th
anniversary celebration of 18 African nations' independence in Washington this
summer, senior U.S. officials said on Friday.

Erlinder released as Kagame cracks down on his own (San Francisco Bay View)
(Rwanda) Peter Erlinder’s Kenyan lawyer Otachi Gershom, who, like Erlinder, is a
defense lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and opposition
politician Victoire Ingabire left a Kigali courtroom relieved after a Rwandan judge
agreed to release Erlinder on medical grounds.

Connecting the Dots from Detroit to Dakar (Inter Press Service News Agency)
(Pan Africa) Africa's continued struggle for political and economic independence in
many ways mirrors the very own struggles of communities in the U.S. that are now
being tabled at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.

U.S. says Guinea vote went "extraordinarily well" (Reuters)

(Guinea) The United States hailed on Sunday the holding of presidential election in
Guinea seen as the first free vote in the junta-ruled West African state's post-colonial
history.

US support for Somali government raises questions over military aid (Deutsche
Welle)
(Somalia) The Western-backed transitional government has been teetering on the edge
of collapse for years under the weight of continued attacks by the al Qaeda-linked Al
Shabab militia and fellow Islamist militant group Hizbul Islam.

Rare Haven of Stability in Somalia Faces a Test (New York Times)

(Somaliland) While so much of Somalia is plagued by relentless violence, this little-
known slice of the Somali puzzle is peaceful and organized enough to hold national
elections this week, with more than one million registered voters.
AU provides financial support to refugees, returnees, IDPs (Xinhua)
(Pan Africa) The African Union (AU) on Friday handed over cheques to countries
affected by forced displacement in a ceremony held at the AU Headquarters in Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia.

UN News Service Africa Briefs

Full Articles on UN Website
Blue helmets with UN-African force in Darfur turn to music, reading as peace
tools
UN opens new courtroom to try pirate suspects in Kenyan port
Guinea: Ban urges all sides to ensure presidential polls are peaceful and credible
Libya allows UN refugee agency to resume operations
UN human rights expert warns of violations ahead of Burundian polls
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UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

WHEN/WHERE: Wednesday, June 30, 4:00 p.m., Center for Global Development
WHAT: Liberia: Life After Debt
WHO: Augustine Ngafuan, Minister of Finance, Liberia; Amara Konneh, Minister of
Planning and Economic Affairs, Liberia; John Lipsky, First Deputy Managing Director,
International Monetary Fund; Ben Leo, Center for Global Development
Info:
http://actevarsvp.com/acteva/jsp/register.jsp?eventID=a0I50000006PQY7EAO&prtptI
D=a0D50000002Wnh9EAC&mailId=a0F50000002GGHMEA4

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, July 1, 10:15 a.m., U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: Preventing Violent Conflict: Principles, Policies, and Practice
WHO: Panel Chairs - AMB Marc Grossman, Vice Chairman, Cohen Group; AMB Nancy
Soderberg, President, U.S. Connect Fund; Tara Sonenshine, Executive Vice President,
USIP; Conclusions – Dr. Abiodun Williams, Vice President, Center for Conflict Analysis
and Prevention, USIP.
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/preventing-violent-conflict-principles-policies-and-
practice

WHEN/WHERE: Friday, July 9, 1:00 p.m., U.S. Institute of Peace

WHAT: Measuring Progress in Stabilizing War-Torn Societies
WHO: Colonel John Agoglia, Discussant, Director, Counterinsurgency Training Center
– Afghanistan; Michael Dziedzic, Moderator, Senior Program Officer, U.S. Institute of
Peace; Barbara Sotirin, Discussant, Deputy Director for Global Security Affairs, The
Joint Staff; John McNamara, Discussant, Director, Office of Planning, Office of the
Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization
Info: http://www.usip.org/events/measuring-progress-in-stabilizing-war-torn-
societies
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FULL ARTICLE TEXT

Obama to host Africa independence celebration (Reuters)

HUNTSVILLE, Ontario – President Barack Obama, whose father was Kenyan, will host
a 50th anniversary celebration of 18 African nations' independence in Washington this
summer, senior U.S. officials said on Friday.

"It will not just mark the 50th anniversary of independence but will really look forward
and invite young leaders from each of those countries to discuss the future as well," one
official said. The event will be held in early August.

Obama's father studied in the United States and returned to work in his post-
independence homeland. But he died disappointed with how little freedom from
colonial rule had delivered, according to the younger Obama's own account.

The son told a G8 summit that "50 years later we want to make sure we get this on
track", and emphasized how development must be based on evidence and data to
determine which methods yielded results and which ones should be dropped, the
officials said.
--------------------
Erlinder released as Kagame cracks down on his own (San Francisco Bay View)

Peter Erlinder’s Kenyan lawyer Otachi Gershom, who, like Erlinder, is a defense lawyer
at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and opposition politician Victoire
Ingabire left a Kigali courtroom relieved after a Rwandan judge agreed to release
Erlinder on medical grounds. U.S. law professor Peter Erlinder returned from three
weeks imprisonment, from May 28 to June 17, in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where he had
traveled to act as defense counsel for embattled presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire
Umuhoza. Ingabire remains under house arrest, unable to leave the country, and faces a
possible 20-year prison sentence. Both she and Erlinder are still accused of violating
Rwanda’s unique ―genocide ideology‖ speech crime, which means disagreeing with the
official history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

A Rwandan judge agreed to release Erlinder but only on medical grounds, not in
response to the argument that his free speech rights and thus, by extension, the free
speech rights of Victoire Ingabire and other Rwandans are guaranteed by the
international human rights covenants that Rwanda has signed or by Rwanda’s
membership in the British Commonwealth.

In his press conference at William and Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis-St. Paul
on Wednesday, June 23, following his return, Professor Erlinder thanked all the people
around the world who had called for his release, and said that he owed his life to them
and to the Internet. He called it a triumph for people power, but he also said that it
would not have occurred if he had not been a white American lawyer with friends,
family and allies capable of organizing and lobbying relentlessly for his release.

In Kigali, Ingabire said that Professor Erlinder’s arrest demonstrated the nature of the
Rwandan regime. She called on all those who supported him to support Rwandans
now.

She said, as Sen. Russ Feingold, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa, has in the
Feingold Statement on the Fragility of Democracy in Africa, that the U.S should insist
on democracy in Rwanda as a condition of its donor nation support.

However, with Rwanda’s 2010 election now only seven weeks away, and neither the
FDU-Inkingi nor the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda allowed to contest the election,
more and more Rwandans are losing hope and some have even concluded that only
military invasion could unseat the Kagame regime, a possibility that President Kagame
has attempted to circumvent by force repatriating refugees who might join a rebel
army.

Assassins go after Rwandan exile Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa

On Saturday, June 25, an unidentified gunman attempted to assassinate Rwandan exile

Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, an outspoken critic of President Kagame and a potential
leader of a rebel army invading to overthrow him. The gunman opened fire on
Kayumba as he returned home from a grocery store in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Rwandan police arrested P.S. Imberakuri presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda in
his home on the morning of Thursday, June 24, to prevent him from leaving for a
protest he had called at the National Electoral Commission. Meanwhile, Rwandan
President Paul Kagame was registering his ―candidacy‖ in the faux election that
Ntaganda and the other viable candidates have been excluded from.
Ingabire condemned the assassination attempt as another example of Kagame’s favored
method of eliminating exiled dissidents and called once again for nonviolent political,
not military, solutions.

Rwandan exile and Ingabire supporter Jean Manirarora, now a microbiological research
scientist in Louisville, Kentucky, also called for political solutions but said that Gen.
Kayumba has become the greatest threat to President Kagame because he is a Tutsi
general popular with both Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis and could thus lead a Hutu and
Tutsi army into Rwanda, with credible claim to being a national liberation army, not an
army of genocidaires.
―There is no sign of an army organizing to invade Rwanda,‖ Manirarora said, but if
there were and if Kayumba were to lead it, no one could say that he had come to finish
off the Tutsi because he himself is a Tutsi.

On Thursday, June 24, hundreds of Rwandan opposition leaders and members,

including P.S. Imberakuri Party leader and presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda,
were assaulted and arrested because of a protest planned at Rwanda’s National
Electoral Commission that morning, as President Paul Kagame registered his candidacy
and all the viable opposition was excluded. On the same day, the deputy editor of
Rwanda’s Umuvugizi newspaper, Jean Leonard Rugambage, was shot dead on the way
into his home in Kigali.

Shocked and grief stricken, Umuvugizi editor Jean Bosco Gasasiras, now in exile in
Uganda, accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of ordering his security operatives
to assassinate Rugambage. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa’s wife Rosette continues to
accuse Kagame of sending operatives to assassinate her husband, and Rwandan
journalist Godwin Agaba, also in exile in Uganda, said that Rugambage had just written
a story revealing a plot to poison Kayumba in his sickbed in South Africa, where he is
recovering from last week’s attempt on his life.
In the shadow of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, Africa’s oil rich Gulf of Guinea
These arrests and intrigue in Rwanda create urgencies that distract from an AFRICOM
(U.S. Africa Command) conference that concluded in Kigali at the same time Professor
Erlinder was being released. The conference was called to plan an August military
―exercise‖ in Accra, Ghana, on the Gulf of Guinea, which is critical to the control of
West African oil and gas and oil and gas transport corridors in the Gulf of Guinea and
the rivers flowing into it.

On May 16, 2001, the Office of Vice President Richard Cheney produced a document
titled ―West African Oil: a Priority for U.S. National Security and African
Development,‖ a ―National Energy Policy Report.‖ For whatever reason, the policy
report’s Web URL is http://www.israeleconomy.org/strategic/africawhitepaper/pdf.

The Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on the conclusion of the AFRICOM
conference in a story with the headline ―U.S. military not intending to control Africa‖ –
says Army chief.‖ The RNA report quoted a senior Rwandan military chief saying, ―A
new U.S. military program training African armies including Rwanda is not a U.S.
move to dominate the African continent.‖

Many Africans, not only Rwandan and Congolese, and Americans, especially African
Americans, seemed to believe that this statement reduced the credibility of the Kagame
government, which also insists that it had nothing to do with the latest round of
assassinations and assassination attempts in Rwanda and surrounding nations.
--------------------
Connecting the Dots from Detroit to Dakar (Inter Press Service News Agency)

DETROIT - Africa's continued struggle for political and economic independence in

many ways mirrors the very own struggles of communities in the U.S. that are now
being tabled at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.

Africa advocates and progressive foreign policy observers were pitching that message
Thursday in introducing the "From Detroit to Dakar 2010" project, even as leaders of the
powerful G8/G20 nations geared up for their meeting this weekend in Toronto, Canada
next door.

The D2D project catalogues a host of issues and organisations working to change U.S.
foreign policy toward Africa for the better.

Ahead of the 2011 World Social Forum to be held in the Senegalese capital of Dakar Feb.
7-11, the project is aimed at not only enhancing participation at the ongoing forum but
also to promote issues related to Africa and the African Diaspora.

"What do we see as our priorities? This is meant to be a people's movement assembly,"

said Emira Woods, a noted foreign policy analyst on Africa with the Institute for Policy
Studies in Washington D.C.

Woods, who is one of the leaders of D2D, challenged activists at the forum to ensure
that coming out of Detroit there are clear-cut goals to spotlight the challenges facing
Africa and even beyond the Dakar summit next year.

"Part of the dynamism of the social forum is coming together as a family reunion,"
Woods said. "Another world is inevitable and the steps that we are taking now will do
that."

Woods reminded her fellow advocates that their children would be impacted by the
decisions being made today by political leaders.

The D2D project issued a report with a list of action- oriented recommendations on
issues that are most germane to present-day Africa, including Economic Justice,
Africom (the U.S. military's Africa Command), HIV/AIDS, Food and Land Security,
Climate Change and Migration.

On economic justice, the report details how Africa's massive external debt continues to
burden the continent's development and hinder the fight for human rights, health and
education.
Under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, the report says the U.S. and other
Western nations continue to pursue policies that are antithetical to Africa's interests and
perpetuate the extraction of resources from the continent without any benefit to its
people.

"The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank persist with neo-liberal
economic policies prioritising profits over people's needs. Such measures continue to
increase poverty and inequality across the African continent. Consequently close to 80
percent of the population on the continent lives on under two dollars a day," the report
stated.

The global financial crisis threatens to wipe away gains made by African nations in
recent decades, and has exposed the myth that deregulation and free market policies
serve the masses of the people, the report said.

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) said while debt cancellation for Africa
should be at the forefront of the foreign policy debate on Africa, advocates should not
forget about communities in the U.S. that have been burdened by debt from huge
financial institutions.

"We also have the similar situations here in the U.S. with mortgage loans that were
forced on people without them understanding what it means," a representative from
BAJI said, adding that communities of colour hit hardest by the mortgage crisis are now
paying a high price.

Concerns about the activities of Africom are also a focus of the Detroit/Dakar project.

"U.S. foreign policy and development aid is increasingly directed by the security
agencies and often conducted by private military contractors that are not accountable to
congressional and public oversight rather than the appropriate agencies (the
Department of State and the Agency for International Development)," the report said.

Briggs Bomba, director of campaigns for Africa Action, said Africans in the diaspora
have a unique opportunity to press Washington for a more just and equitable policy
toward the continent.

"It is very important that we lift Africa as the place in need of our solidarity," Bomba
said. "The corporate-led globalisation project has shifted to the less developed countries.
It is important that those of us who are here play a role in changing the policy."

He called on the forum to be the "platform for the generation of alternatives" so that
activists are not only seen as opposing policies but suggesting real alternatives to
current policies.
What they are fighting for now, Bomba said, will help "that poor woman in the village
to reclaim a life of dignity".

On HIV/AIDS in Africa, the report indicated that the U.S. and other wealthy nations
control the medications that can keep people living with HIV alive and healthy for
decades.

"Yet currently less than one-third of those in need of these drugs in the global south
have access to these drugs with the greatest need in Africa. As the leading killer of
women in Africa, the question of whether the resources exists to provide AIDS
treatment and whether corporations are able to exercise global control over the price of
medicines is a human rights, gender rights and economic justice question," the report
stated.

The report called on the administration of President Barack Obama to make good on his
campaign promises to increase funding for HIV/AIDS and fight corporate control of
over essential medicine to treat the deadly disease. Anything less will allow "global
inequity and medical apartheid" to continue, it said.

Akua Budu-Watkins, a Detroit political activist, said efforts must also be stepped up to
fight HIV/AIDS in the U.S., where African American women some of the primary
victims.

"The Detroit to Dakar effort represents an important opportunity to connect the dots
between a flawed economic model and an ideology that has failed to deliver real
development in the United States and on the African continent. Unsound and short-
sighted trade policies have given rise to distorted patterns of joblessness, migration,
rising inequality and devastation of entire communities all over the world," said Tanya
Dawkins, an independent analyst and director of the Global-Local Links Project.

She added, "The organisers of the Detroit to Dakar initiative have created a much
needed space and an important opportunity to define and articulate a new narrative for
community rights and community reparations on both sides of the Atlantic."
--------------------
U.S. says Guinea vote went "extraordinarily well" (Reuters)

CONAKRY — The United States hailed on Sunday the holding of presidential election
in Guinea seen as the first free vote in the junta-ruled West African state's post-colonial
history.
"Based on the assessment of local and international observers and our own election
monitoring mission, the U.S. Embassy believes voting to have gone extraordinarily
well," the embassy in the capital Conakry said in a statement.

Results are not expected before Wednesday and a second-round run-off between
leading candidates is likely in July.
--------------------
US support for Somali government raises questions over military aid (Deutsche
Welle)

Mogadishu is a city constantly at war with itself. The capital of Somalia is a microcosm
of the countless conflicts that have been plaguing the failed East African state for
decades, leading to hundreds of thousands of Somalis starving to death and countless
others being killed.

The Western-backed transitional government has been teetering on the edge of collapse
for years under the weight of continued attacks by the al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab
militia and fellow Islamist militant group Hizbul Islam. The two groups control much
of central and southern Somalia, leaving only a few small parts of the capital under
government rule, protected by the Somali military, its Ahlu Sunna Waljama militia and
African Union peacekeepers.

The Islamist insurgent groups battle government troops, pro-government militia and
even each other in a never-ending struggle for control of a country which hasn't had an
effective government since 1991.

Even in government-controlled areas, the battles rage. Troops loyal to Somalia's

government fight within their ranks for scraps of power on the capital's scarred streets.
They have even engaged in gun fights with their own police forces as corruption and
organized crime eats away at the fragile state security systems in place, playing into the
hands of the radical Islamist insurgents who aim to take control of the whole country.
Meanwhile, to compound the problems, pirates continue to operate off the Somali coast.

In the midst of all the chaos, the inter-clan fighting and religious battles, the Somali
government is accused of deploying child soldiers, some as young as 12, with assault
rifles to protect its interests in Mogadishu.

Somali use of child soldiers reveals concerns over US aid

A young member of an Islamic militia group leads the way with other fighters as they
patrol in southern Mogadishu Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der
Bildunterschrift: Somalia's use of child soldiers has raised UN concern
A United Nations Security Council report into Somalia's "persistent violations" in the
use of child soldiers has not only heightened the international community's deep
concern at the continuing practice in African wars and the state of near-constant war in
Somalia but has also turned the spotlight on the involvement of the United States in the
fight for control.

Washington has been the main source of Western aid for the transitional government
since it came to power three years ago and has pumped millions of dollars into the
Somali military for weapons and soldiers' salaries. Last year alone, the US government
provided Somalia with some 40 tonnes of arms and ammunition.

Somalia is also expected to benefit from the Obama administration's 2011 budget
request for security assistance programmes in Africa which includes $38 million (30.9
million euros) for arms sales to African states, $21 million for training African officers
and $24 million for anti-terrorism programmes.

There is some concern that by supporting the Somali government, Washington has
violated a number of international human rights laws and laws against the use of child
soldiers.

While it has yet to be proved that the US has actually contravened these laws, they have
been complying with other UN restrictions, albeit with a certain amount of creativity of
interpretation, which allow arms sales to Somalia.

"The arms embargo which was put in place in 1992 was amended by the UN in 2006 to
allow arms to be sold to the transitional government," David Hartwell, an expert at
Jane's Defense, told Deutsche Welle. "The international community has no other choice
but to support the Somali government and the Americans have exploited this to sell
arms via the Ethiopians and the Ugandan peacekeepers, who have bought weapons on
behalf of the US and billed Washington."

Hartwell says that the Americans aren't the only ones providing weapons. "On the other
side we have Eritrea which is arming the militants," he added. "The Eritreans have been
complaining about double standards because they are seen as breaking the embargo
because they're not supplying the Somali government and yet the US and Ethiopia,
which is fighting a proxy war against Eritrea in Somalia, are flooding the country with
weapons."

Memories of damaging US losses in Mogadishu

US Marines search a Somali on a Mogadishu street Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des

Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: US relief forces were drawn into bloody fighting in
Mogadishu
While this information will dismay the American public, the fact that the United States
is again actively involved in Somalia may also come as a shock, especially considering
what happened the last time the US was publicly acknowledged as having a role there.

US involvement in Somalia has a long history going back to August 1992 when its
troops were deployed as part of Operation Restore Hope to prevent mass starvation in
Somalia. However, once the initial crisis seemed to be over, the UN took control of relief
operations leaving a small US logistical, aviation, and quick reaction force behind.

Soon the US forces became involved in Somalia's inter-clan power struggles which
eventually led to American soldiers being killed or wounded in fierce fighting in the
streets of Mogadishu. One of the most psychologically damaging events of the ill-fated
campaign took place in early October 1993 when news reports showed dead US soldiers
being dragged through the streets by cheering Somali mobs.

All UN and US personnel were finally withdrawn almost a year later in March 1995. As
far as the American people were concerned, that was the end of US involvement in
Somalia.

"The US got a bloody nose in the Restore Hope debacle," David Hartwell said. "It was
initially very wary of getting involved in Somalia again. But then 9/11 happened and
the US started to see Somalia through the prism of al Qaeda and Islamic extremism. The
insurgents also began to see themselves through this prism so there was a development
on both sides where they felt they had to confront each other."

Covert operations signal a US return to Somalia

Last year it was reported that a US Special Operations raid in Somalia had killed the
alleged head of al Qaeda in East Africa. There were also reports that the US had backed
Ethiopia with military and logistical aid in its 2006 invasion of Somalia aimed at
eradicating the Islamist threat.

A report in the New York Times earlier this year revealed that the United States -
through its AFRICOM command center in nearby Djibouti - had begun a new operation
in March in support of the transitional government in Somalia, the justification being
the fight against Islamic extremism.

"Over the past year and a half the US has provided some arms, ammunition, and cash to
the transitional Somali government," EJ Hogendoorn, the director of the Horn of Africa
project at the International Crisis Group think tank in Nairobi, told Deutsche Welle. "It
is also providing transport to government units being trained abroad. There are also
allegations that it provides some intelligence support and training."
Al Qaeda suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit
der Bildunterschrift: Al Qaeda suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed by US troops
in Somalia

"The only recent covert operations I am aware of are the well-documented killings of
Saleh Ali Nabhan, a Kenyan sought in the 2002 bombing of an Israeli-owned resort in
Kenya, and al-Shabab military commander Aden Hashi Ayro who reportedly trained
with al Qaeda in Afghanistan before 2001. Both are alleged to have played a role in
terrorist attacks against US targets."

"The US has had a focus on the region for some time in the context of its strategy to stop
the spread of Islamic extremism," said David Hartwell .

"But it knows that the situation in Somalia is very fluid. It may be al Qaeda this month
but it could be a nationalist civil war the next. What it has to do is support the
government as best it can. This is difficult because it controls so little of Mogadishu and
the troops it trains are easily bought and turned. If the US really wants a secure
Somalia, it will have to step up its efforts and change its approach."

Reports suggest that this change in approach is already underway. US military advisors
have allegedly been training Somali forces and intelligence officers in the fight against
the Islamists, and providing logistical, surveillance and material support. One
anonymous US source told the paper that the US was also prepared to launch its own
air strikes and more Special Forces raids on the ground in Somalia in support of the
government.

"The US has been indirectly involved through the Ethiopians and also through - highly
unconfirmed - covert Special Forces operations within Somalia, targeting al Qaeda
operatives," Hartwell added. "Clearly, with the US command center at Djibouti, they
certainly have the assets in place to do this in Somalia and also in Yemen but they'll
never admit to active involvement on the ground."
--------------------
Rare Haven of Stability in Somalia Faces a Test (New York Times)

BURAO, Somalia — The rallies usually start early in the morning, before the sunshine
hurts.

By 8 a.m. on a recent day, thousands of people were packed into Burao’s sandy town
square, with little boys climbing high into the trees to get a peek at the politicians.

―We’re going to end corruption!‖ one of the politicians boomed, holding several
microphones at once. ―We’re going to bring dignity back to the people!‖
The boys cheered wildly. Wispy militiamen punched bony fists in the air. The
politicians’ messages were hardly original. But in this corner of Africa, a free and open
political rally — led, no less, by opposition leaders who could actually win — is an
anomaly apparently worthy of celebration.

The crowd that day helped tell a strange truth: that one of the most democratic
countries in the Horn of Africa is not really a country at all. It is Somaliland, the
northwestern corner of Somalia, which, since the disintegration of the Somali state in
1991, has been on a quixotic mission for recognition as its own separate nation.

While so much of Somalia is plagued by relentless violence, this little-known slice of the
Somali puzzle is peaceful and organized enough to hold national elections this week,
with more than one million registered voters. The campaigns are passionate but fair,
say the few Western observers here. The roads are full of battered old Toyotas blasting
out slogans from staticky megaphones lashed to the roofs.

Somalilanders have pulled off peaceful national elections three times. The last
presidential election in 2003 was decided by a wafer-thin margin, around 80 votes at the
time of counting, yet there was no violence. Each successful election feeds the hope here
that one day the world will reward Somaliland with recognition for carving a
functioning, democratic space out of one of the most chaotic countries in the world.

But this presidential election, scheduled for Saturday, will be one of the biggest tests yet
for Somaliland’s budding democracy.

The government seems unpopular, partly because Somaliland is still desperately poor, a
place where even in the biggest towns, like Burao or the capital, Hargeisa, countless
people dwell in bubble-shaped huts made out of cardboard scraps and flattened oil
drums. Most independent observers predict the leading opposition party, Kulmiye,
which means something akin to ―the one who brings people together,‖ will get the most
votes.

But that does not mean the opposition will necessarily win.

In many cases in Africa — Ethiopia in 2005, Kenya in 2007, Zimbabwe in 2008 — right
when the opposition appeared poised to win elections, the government seemed to
fiddle with the results, forcibly holding on to power and sometimes provoking
widespread unrest in the process.

―There’s probably not going to be many problems with the voting itself, but the day
after,‖ said Roble Mohamed, the former editor in chief of one of Somaliland’s top Web
sites. ―That is the question.‖
Many people here worry that if Somaliland’s governing party, UDUB, tries to hold on
to power illegitimately, the well-armed populace (this is still part of Somalia, after all)
will rise up and Somaliland’s nearly two decades of peace could disappear in a cloud of
gun smoke.

―I know this happens in Africa, but it won’t happen in Somaliland,‖ promised Said
Adani Moge, a spokesman for Somaliland’s government. ―If we lose, we’ll give up
power. The most important thing is peace.‖

Easily said, infrequently done. Peaceful transfers of power are a rarity in this
neighborhood. In April, Sudan held its first national elections in more than 20 years (the
last change of power was a coup), but the voting was widely considered superficial
because of widespread intimidation beforehand and the withdrawal of several leading
opposition parties from the presidential race.

Last month’s vote in Ethiopia, in which the governing party and its allies won more
than 99 percent of the parliamentary seats, was also tainted by what human rights
groups called a campaign of government repression, including the manipulation of
American food aid to starve out the opposition.

Then there is little Eritrea, along the Red Sea, which has not held a presidential election
since the early 1990s, when it won independence. And Djibouti, home to a large
American military base, where the president recently pushed to have the Constitution
changed so he could run again.

South-central Somalia, where a very weak transitional government is struggling to fend

off radical Islamist insurgents, is so dangerous that residents must risk insurgents’
wrath even to watch the World Cup, never mind holding a vote.

So in this volatile region, Somaliland has become a demonstration of the possible,

sustaining a one-person one-vote democracy in a poor, conflict-torn place that gets very
little help. While the government in south-central Somalia, which barely controls any
territory, receives millions of dollars in direct support from the United Nations and the
United States, the Somaliland government ―doesn’t get a penny,‖ Mr. Said said.

Because Somaliland is not recognized as an independent country, it is very difficult for

the government here to secure international loans, even though it has become a regional
model for conflict resolution and democratic-institution building — buzzwords among
Western donors.

In many respects, Somaliland is already its own country, with its own currency, its own
army and navy, its own borders and its own national identity, as evidenced by the
countless Somaliland T-shirts and flags everywhere you look. Part of this stems from its
distinct colonial history, having been ruled, relatively indirectly, by the British, while
the rest of Somalia was colonized by the Italians, who set up a European administration.

Italian colonization supplanted local elders, which might have been one reason that
much of Somalia plunged into clan-driven chaos after 1991, while Somaliland
succeeded in reconciling its clans.

Clan is not the prevailing issue in this election. The three presidential candidates
(Somaliland’s election code says only three political parties can compete, and they take
turns campaigning from day to day) are from different clans or subclans. Yet, many
voters do not seem to care.

In the middle of miles and miles of thorn bush stand two huts about 100 feet apart, one
with a green and yellow Kulmiye flag flapping from a stick flagpole, the other with a
solid green UDUB flag.

Haboon Roble, a shy 20-year-old, explained that she liked UDUB: ―They’re good. They
hold up the house.‖

But about 100 feet away, her uncle, Abdi Rahman Roble, shook his head. ―This
government hasn’t done anything for farmers,‖ he complained. ―We can’t even get
plastic sheets to catch the rain.‖

He said he was voting for Kulmiye. ―But I don’t tell anyone how to vote,‖ Mr. Abdi
Rahman said. ―That’s their choice.‖

And like the other adults in the family, he proudly showed off his new plastic voter
card, which he usually keeps hidden in a special place in his hut, along with other
valuables.
--------------------
AU provides financial support to refugees, returnees, IDPs (Xinhua)

The African Union (AU) on Friday handed over cheques to countries affected by forced
displacement in a ceremony held at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Julia Joiner, AU commissioner for Political Affairs, handed over the checks with a total
value of 500, 000 U.S. dollars to representatives of Angola, Algeria, Egypt, Uganda, Cote
d'Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ethiopia.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International
Federation of Red Cross were also present on the handover ceremony.
It was noted on the occasion that the donation is a contribution of the AU to address the
challenge of refugees, returnees, and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and is part of
AU's activities in the commemoration of the World Refugee Day observed every year in
June.

Commissioner Joiner told Xinhua after the handing over ceremony that the AU for
several times has made financial contribution to member states that are taking care of
IDPs.

Joiner said AU has a Sub-Committee of the Permanent Representative Committee (PRC)

initiated over the past couple of months to see situations of forced displacement on the
continent.

According to the commissioner, the PRC Sub-Committee reports to the AU Commission

Chairperson on the observations made at different countries about refugees and forcibly
displaced persons.

"The PRC Sub-Committee does periodic assessment of refugees and internally displaced
persons; they do visits to refugee camps; they also hold audiences with various
stakeholders that are in charge of forcibly displaced in our member states, and at the
end of the visits, they report to the AU Commission Chairperson," she said.

"These reports comprise not only the recommendations that are made by the PRC Sub-
Committee addressed to the member states that are taking care of these forcibly
displaced persons at a technical level in terms of arrangement that are put in place to
take care of displaced persons in camps most of the time, but also contain
recommendations on financial contribution provided to the member states, and also to
partners that are involved in taking care of refugees on daily basis; and that is why we
have organized this meeting," she added.

Joiner further said the AU has several times issued cheques to contribute financially to
the efforts made in addressing the plight of forcibly displaced persons.

She said today's donation is part of AU's activities carried out in line with the World
Refugee Day.

Joiner also said that the AU has been taking various measures to address the issue of
refugees and IDPs.

She said the adoption of the AU Convention on IDPs is one of the instruments the AU
has prepared to address issues in the area.
"The AU at a policy level has also adopted instruments. Last year in Kampala, Kenya,
there was a special meeting on Refugees, Returnees, and IDPs. One of the highlights of
the Summit was an adoption of a convention for protection and assistance of IDPs," said
Joiner.

She said by adopting the convention Africa has evidenced its efforts and prior attention
given to the problem.

She also said the AU has been encouraging member states to sign and ratify the
document so that it comes to force and implemented in member states.

"This policy as legal instrument as we speak it is open for signature and ratification and
as we speak we have 27 member states that have signed it and we have one ratification
from Uganda," said the Commissioner.

Africa is with the largest refugees in the world.

--------------------
UN News Service Africa Briefs
Full Articles on UN Website

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25 June – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the people and institutions of
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