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A new report released today by the International Crisis Group (ICG), Somaliland: Democratisation and its Discontents*, says recent developments have made the choice considerably clearer: develop pragmatic responses to Somaliland's demand for self-determination or continue to focus exclusively on the unity of the Somali Republic - a course of action almost certain to open a new chapter in the Somali civil war.

Somaliland declared independence in 1991 and, although not recognised by any country, has followed an internally-driven process of political, economic and social reconstruction that sets it apart from the rest of the country. A plebiscite was held in May 2001 on a new constitution and local elections in December 2002. The closely contested April 2003 Presidential election was a milestone. While the electoral process has not been without problems, Somaliland can claim to be more democratic than any country in the region. ICG Senior Analyst Matt Bryden said: "Somaliland's increasingly credible claims to statehood present a diplomatic dilemma just as southern Somali leaders are meeting to establish a new Somalia government. But its creation would be likely to displace the locus of Somalia?s conflict, not resolve it. And a negotiated settlement is unlikely to bear fruit at this point".

"The solution for the time being may be to grant Somaliland some kind of increased international profile without formal recognition - such as observer status at the UN, African Union and the regional Inter-Governmental Authority in Development (IGAD)", said John Prendergast, ICG's Special Adviser on Africa. "This could help to prepare the ground for eventual negotiations between Somaliland and Somalia".

Meanwhile the Somaliland government should demonstrate a genuine commitment to pluralism by releasing political detainees, withdrawing a restrictive proposed media law, accelerating the timetable for parliamentary elections as a means of widening participation in government and ensuring a full transition to a multiparty system, and investigating human rights abuses.

Donor governments can help by providing training and financial assistance to political parties and exploring options for providing Somaliland with access to direct bilateral and multilateral financial assistance. The UN, African Union and IGAD should also adopt a more open-minded approach to the question of Somaliland?s ultimate status.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Recent developments have made the choice faced by the international community considerably clearer: develop pragmatic responses to Somaliland's demand for self-determination or continue to insist upon the increasingly abstract notion of the unity and territorial integrity of the Somali Republic - a course of action almost certain to open a new chapter in the Somali civil war.

Somaliland's presidential election of 14 April 2003 was a milestone in the self-declared, unrecognised republic's process of democratisation. Nearly half a million voters cast ballots in one of the closest polls ever conducted in the region: when the last votes had been counted and the results announced on 19 April, the incumbent president, Dahir Rayale Kahin, had won by only 80 votes.

A former British protectorate in the Horn of Africa, Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of the Somali Republic in May 1991, following the collapse of the military regime in Mogadishu. Although unrecognised by any country, Somaliland has followed a very different trajectory from the rest of the 'failed state' of Somalia, embarking on a process of internally driven political, economic and social reconstruction. Somaliland?s democratic transition began in May 2001 with a plebiscite on a new constitution that introduced a multiparty electoral system, and continued in December 2002 with local elections that were widely described as open and transparent. The final stage of the process - legislative elections - is scheduled to take place by early 2005.

The electoral process has met with widespread approval from domestic and international observers alike, but has not been without problems. The enlistment of government resources and personnel in support of the ruling party's campaign, the disqualification of numerous ballot boxes due to procedural errors, reports of government harassment and intimidation of opposition supporters in the aftermath of the election, and the opposition?s initial refusal to accept defeat all marred an otherwise promising democratic exercise.

The next phase of the democratic transition will be the most critical: until opposition parties are able to contest parliamentary seats, Somaliland will function as a de facto one party state. Somaliland's international partners can play a key role in assisting the National Electoral Commission to convene legislative elections with the least possible delay, while ensuring a level playing field. Constitutional and judicial reforms may also be required to ensure the integrity of the democratic process over the long-term.

Somaliland's increasingly credible claims to statehood present the international community with a thorny diplomatic dilemma at a time when southern Somali leaders are meeting under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) with the aim of establishing a new Somali government. Recognition of Somaliland, although under consideration by a growing number of African and Western governments, is still vigorously resisted by many members of both the African Union (AU) and the Arab League on the grounds that the unity and territorial integrity of member states is sacrosanct. Furthermore, the creation of a new Somali government emerging from the IGAD process that claims jurisdiction over Somaliland threatens to open a new phase in the Somali conflict.

Diplomatic hopes for a negotiated settlement between Somaliland and a future Somali government, however, are unlikely to bear fruit. A hypothetical dialogue on Somali unity would have to overcome mutually exclusive preconditions for talks, divergent visions of what a reunited Somali state might look like and incompatible institutional arrangements. Failing a negotiated settlement, any attempt to coerce Somaliland back to the Somali fold would entail a bitter and probably futile conflict. The question now confronting the international community is no longer whether Somaliland should be recognised as an independent state, but whether there remain any viable alternatives.

RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Somaliland Government:

1. Demonstrate a genuine commitment to pluralism by releasing remaining political detainees and reinstating any government employees dismissed from their jobs for political reasons.
2. Withdraw the proposed press law and invite the independent media to assist in drafting legislation more conducive to the development of independent yet responsible media.
3. Conclude the formal transition to a multiparty political system with the least possible delay, by setting the date of parliamentary elections within less than twelve months.
4. Introduce legislation providing for reasonable subsidies to all official political parties on an equitable basis.
5. Demonstrate a commitment to human rights by investigating past abuses, taking corrective action against those responsible and introducing new measures to strengthen the protection of human rights.
6. Initiate an independent review of the constitution, with particular attention to the three-party ceiling.
7. Undertake a comprehensive review of the electoral law, based on lessons learned.
8. Introduce legislation to strengthen the electoral process, including penalties for infractions of the electoral law.
9. Commission an independent judicial review, with a view to introducing reforms strengthening both the capacity of the judiciary and its independence from political influence.

   To Donor Governments:

10. Provide party building training and financial assistance to all three official parties in order to prepare them for legislative elections.
11. Offer technical and financial assistance to the National Electoral Commission in order to remedy problems encountered during local and presidential elections, and to assist in the design and implementation of an appropriate voter registration system.
12. Assist the government with other reforms intended to advance the process of democratisation.
13. Increase support for social and economic development in order to enhance the 'peace dividend' and preclude public disillusionment with the democratisation process.
14. Explore options for providing Somaliland with access to direct bilateral and multilateral financial assistance pending a resolution of the territory's legal status.

    To the United Nations, African Union and IGAD:

    Adopt a more open-minded approach to the question of Somaliland's ultimate status, in particular by:

15. dispatching fact-finding missions to assess the current situation and to recommend policy options, with leadership taken by either the AU's Peace and Security Council or the presidential troika (currently South Africa, Mozambique and Zambia) in view of the serious divisions within IGAD;
16. taking Somaliland's demands under formal consideration, including a legal review of the territory's case vis-a-vis the current AU charter; and
17. granting Somaliland observer status pending a final decision on its international status.

Recent developments had made the choice faced by the international community considerably clearer, ICG held in its report. Other countries could now choose between developing "pragmatic responses to Somaliland's demand for self-determination" or continuing to "insist upon the increasingly abstract notion of the unity and territorial integrity of the Somali Republic - a course of action almost certain to open a new chapter in the Somali civil war."

Somaliland's presidential election of 14 April this year had been a "milestone" in the self-declared, unrecognised republic's process of democratisation, the ICG pointed out in its thorough report, released today.

Nearly half a million voters cast ballots in one of the closest polls ever conducted in the region. When the last votes had been counted and the results announced on 19 April, the incumbent president, Dahir Rayale Kahin, had won by only 80 votes.

A former British protectorate in the Horn of Africa, Somaliland declared its independence from the rest of the Somali Republic in May 1991, following the collapse of the military regime in Mogadishu.

Although unrecognised by any country, Somaliland after that has followed a very different trajectory from the rest of the so-called "failed state" of Somalia, embarking on a process of internally driven political, economic and social reconstruction.

Somaliland's democratic transition began in May 2001 with a plebiscite on a new constitution that introduced a multiparty electoral system, and continued in December 2002 with local elections that were widely described as open and transparent. The final stage of the process - legislative elections - is scheduled to take place by early 2005.

- The electoral process has met with widespread approval from domestic and international observers alike, but has not been without problems, the ICG report noted. Several violations of democratic ground rules had been reported.

This had included the enlistment of government resources and personnel in support of the ruling party's campaign, the disqualification of numerous ballot boxes due to procedural errors, reports of government harassment and intimidation of opposition supporters in the aftermath of the election, and the opposition's initial refusal to accept defeat all marred an otherwise promising democratic exercise.

Thus, the ICH held, "the next phase of the democratic transition will be the most critical." Until opposition parties are able to contest parliamentary seats, Somaliland would function as a de facto one party state.

Somaliland's international partners could "play a key role in assisting the National Electoral Commission to convene legislative elections with the least possible delay, while ensuring a level playing field," ICG said. "Constitutional and judicial reforms may also be required to ensure the integrity of the democratic process over the long-term."

Somaliland's "increasingly credible claims to statehood" now were said to present the international community with "a thorny diplomatic dilemma" at a time when other (southern) Somali leaders are meeting under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) with the aim of establishing a new Somali government.

Recognition of Somaliland, although under consideration by a growing number of African and Western governments, is still vigorously resisted by many members of both the African Union (AU) and the Arab League on the grounds that the unity and territorial integrity of member states is sacrosanct.

- Furthermore, the creation of a new Somali government emerging from the IGAD process that claims jurisdiction over Somaliland threatens to open a new phase in the Somali conflict, the ICG analysis says.

Diplomatic hopes for a negotiated settlement between Somaliland and a future Somali government, however, were seen as "unlikely to bear fruit." A hypothetical dialogue on Somali unity would have to overcome mutually exclusive preconditions for talks, divergent visions of what a reunited Somali state might look like and incompatible institutional arrangements.

- Failing a negotiated settlement, any attempt to coerce Somaliland back to the Somali fold would entail a bitter and probably futile conflict, ICG warned. "The question now confronting the international community is no longer whether Somaliland should be recognised as an independent state, but whether there remain any viable alternatives."

The report by the Brussels think-tank gave several recommendations. The Somaliland government was urged to "demonstrate a genuine commitment to pluralism by releasing remaining political detainees." Further, it should withdraw the proposed press law to create a basis for a free press and conclude the formal transition to a multiparty political system "with the least possible delay."

The UN and the African Union, on the other hand, were urged to "adopt a more open-minded approach to the question of Somaliland's ultimate status," in particular by dispatching fact-finding missions to assess the current situation and to recommend policy options.

The international community the should take Somaliland's demands under formal consideration, including a legal review of the territory's case vis-?-vis the current AU charter and grant Somaliland observer status pending a final decision on its international status, ICG urged.

The ICG is a renowned think-tank on international conflicts and has been seen to have large credibility within the UN, the European Union and the US. This is the first time any influential group has recommended the recognition of Somaliland's independence.

In a statement, received by IRIN on Monday (21 July), Somaliland warned Somali leaders and the international community to "abstain from any unfriendly declaration or acts against Somaliland".

"In the event that any person claims to be representing the government of Somaliland and/or its people in the ongoing Somalia peace conference, and in the event that such person or persons are accorded such status, the government of Somaliland hereby officially states that this will hinder any possible future dialogue between Somaliland and any future legitimate government of Somalia (former Italian Somalia) (brackets as received)", the statement said. The Somaliland minister of information, Abdillahi Muhammad Duale, added that Somaliland welcomed any peace deal between the parties "in the former Italian Somalia", but added "this has nothing to do with us".

Some Somali leaders attending the peace talks in Kenya have, in the past, proposed that extra delegates be allocated to represent Somaliland and have repeatedly called for the region to be brought into the process.

Duale told IRIN that Somaliland's position was well-known. "Our position has always been constant," he said. "We have never been part of previous processes and we will not be part of this one or future ones".

"Any claims or declarations of sovereignty over Somaliland by a future Somalia government will be viewed by Somaliland as an indication of hostile intent," he warned.

The Somaliland statement said the authorities were prepared to take part in a dialogue with Somalia "as equal partners, when and if a legitimate, democratically-elected government is established in Somalia (former Italian Somalia) with the full support and mandate of the people of Somalia".

Somaliland, a former British protectorate, declared unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, but has received no international recognition.

In a statement, received by IRIN on Monday, Somaliland warned Somali leaders and the international community to "abstain from any unfriendly declaration or acts against Somaliland".

"In the event that any person claims to be representing the government of Somaliland and/or its people in the ongoing Somalia Peace Conference, and in the event that such person or persons are accorded such status, the government of Somaliland hereby officially states that this will hinder any possible future dialogue between Somaliland and any future legitimate government of Somalia (former Italian Somalia) [brackets as received]", the statement said. The Somaliland minister of information, Abdillahi Muhammad Duale, added that Somaliland welcomed any peace deal between the parties "in the former Italian Somalia", but added "this has nothing to do with us".

Some Somali leaders attending the peace talks in Kenya have, in the past, proposed that extra delegates be allocated to represent Somaliland and have repeatedly called for the region to be brought into the process.

Duale told IRIN that Somaliland's position was well-known. "Our position has always been constant," he said. "We have never been part of previous processes and we will not be part of this one or future ones". "Any claims or declarations of sovereignty over Somaliland by a future Somalia government will be viewed by Somaliland as an indication of hostile intent," he warned.

The Somaliland statement said the authorities were prepared to take part in a dialogue with Somalia "as equal partners, when and if a legitimate, democratically-elected government is established in Somalia (former Italian Somalia) with the full support and mandate of the people of Somalia".

Somaliland, a former British protectorate, declared unilateral independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991, but has received no international recognition.

1. Somaliland is not a party to the Somali factions conference in Kenya and resolutions from the talks will not be binding on the Somaliland Republic since it is not participating in Mbagathi talks (Kenya).
2. Only when Somalia achieves consensus and sets up a national Somali government will Somalia and the Republic of Somaliland be able to discuss their common interest.
3. We urge the Italian government not to interfere with Somali peace talks in Mbagathi and not to cultivate enemity on the people of Somaliland who have decided their future.
4. We also wish to inform the international community that the Republic of Somaliland will not accept anything imposed on it, which could bring about negative effects to the Horn of Africa and the rest of the world.
5. We also appeal to the international community to recognize the peace, democracy and statehood which emerged in Somaliland.
6. The three (Somaliland) national political parties will further call upon the Somali factions to reach consensus on Somali politics and set aside their differences for the interest of their people so that peace is achieved in their country.

The three Somaliland national political parties further agreed to have a joint strategy to counter these issues. The statement was jointly signed by the secretary-general of the UDUB Party, Mr Muhammad Isma'il Bulale, the secretary-general of Kulmiye, Mr Daud Muhammad and the deputy secretary-general of Ucid Party, Mr Abd-al-Rahman Muhammad Abdullahi.

The statement said following an assessment carried out by the House of Representatives on political trends, especially on the meeting which is being held in Kenya, there was need to circumvent designs targeting Somaliland and it has decided to support the statement made by the Council of Elders on 9 July (The statement released by the Council of Elders said Somaliland had joined The Somali Republic in 1960 on its own accord and had decided to secede from the union through consensus among its people, citing the peace conferences in Burco and Boorame in 1991 which culminated in the declaration of Somaliland, and the recent referendum approved by 97 per cent of its people. The statement said union with Somalia was a dream and was unattainable. The statement said Somaliland would only consider being a member of a federal republic for Somalis if all regions including Djibouti, Northeastern Kenya and Ethiopia's Ogaden region were members of that union. The statement accused the Italian ambassador to Somalia and the chief mediator at the talks of being antagonistic to Somaliland).

The statement by the House of Representatives said the house was ready to participate in any effort to counter hostilities emanating from the so-called Somali faction leaders.

The International community, the communiqu? said; should be reminded once more that Somaliland was not at any occasion a party to, let alone an active participant in the reconciliation talks southern factions were holding among themselves in Eldoret, then Embagati, of Kenya. None of the resolutions, consequently, reached there, the statement said, were in no way applicable to Somaliland or of concern to its people. In contrast, it said, Somalilanders had, for the duration of the Kenya talks, been praying for the talks to end differently by bringing the protracted hostilities among southern factions, the death and destruction and the incalculable losses they caused over the years to a conclusive end.

If, the statement warned, the principal aim of the talks was to impose a new, more empowered, internationally sanctioned faction over the people of Somaliland and their government as is starkly evident at this stage, the international community may, then, be well advised to contemplate the dire consequences such a rash conclusion would introduce a fresh to the greater peace and stability of region, at large. More likely than not, the statement said pushing Somaliland under an alien, conspicuously inimical, ?foreign? power clique would, definitely, ?endorse an escalation of armed proxy conflicts?, thus preparing fresh ground for further genocides as well as unnecessary civil strife and disability to the peoples of the Horn.

To head off the adverse effects of the Embagati warlords attitude towards Somaliland and the self-determination its people adopted back in May 1991, the Honourable members of the Somaliland House of Elders strongly impress upon the international community to better start noting the Somaliland cause and its right to self determination. ?Or should it be understood?, the Elders said ?that the international community was, in fact, loathe to, and never supportive of the self-determination Somaliland had a right to demand, the self-reliance it had manifested and the peaceful co-existence it effected through years Somalia-South was embroiled in conflict and blood-shed? Or is it that the world would really have loved us in same predicament as Somalia?? ?If not for any of the above the world should find the right responses to Somaliland voices?, the statement said.

The Elders? communiqu?? closed with a short, powerful paragraph calling the government to devise and publish its strategy and policies regarding the on-going offensive against the afore-adopted resolutions on sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples of Somaliland.

The Elders Communiqu?? follows a statement the other half of Somaliland?s bi-cameral parliament - the representatives released a few days back lambasting derogatory, press statements Ambassador Carlo Ungaro, the Italian envoy to ?Somalia?, the so-called ?President? of the Mogadishu-based Arta group, Abdel Kassem Salad Hassan and the incumbent Kenyan Chairman of the Somalia talks, Ambassador Kiplagat for sometime in the recent past, been, apparently, increasingly growing fond of making. The representatives made clear; too, that Somaliland had a greater score to settle with Somalia (South) after they, hopefully, settled their own among themselves, first.

The KULMIYE and UCID opposition parties, however, co-released a joint response to the warlords; Kassem, Ungaro and Kiplagat et al conspired denunciations of Somaliland sovereignty.

The outside world, on the other hand, chose to remain a nerveless bystander, passively letting a Pandora?s Box the Ungaro Company ltd statements were forcing open proceed. Even the placards Mogadishu civil society actors were waving aloft for all the world to see, which blatantly compromised their non-political nature by stridently shouting on and on ?Somalia unity is sacrosanct!? has not awakened the world to a Somalia conspiracy against Somaliland.

Mr. Nouh, also, the acting Director of the only public Library in Hargeisa, told The Republican, Friday, that the library had to extend its free lending and reference services to wider users in and around the city, and that this could only be achieved in partnership with public spirited stakeholders, the government and the newly elected Local Council of city. ?To date, the only input the central government has contributed towards the establishment of Library - the building which houses it - still remains its most valued asset?, Mr. Nouh said.

The offer of use of building was made them, he said, through the good offices of the late President of Somaliland, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal. ?The only other occasion assistance outside its founder Ahmed Yussuf Ismail Samatar and his contacts came the library was began with a visit a single user made to the library in November, 2002 - a visit that began innocuously enough but of which effect had done wonders for library while it lasted contribution Ms Mary Enright, Ireland, put into motion from then on began he said with an intervention she made on behalf of Library with the ICD office here which helped accomplish a measure of structural rehabilitation jobs, paid for a number of library book shelves, purchase of chairs and stationery and paid for bills settling technical repairs and updates made to the library computers and photocopier. ?The library is most grateful to these two personalities who initiated and delivered contributions that they could muster within their abilities for the use and benefit of all?, Mr. Nouh said.

The library has been gathering popularity since its inaugural opening date in June 2002. ?In May and June of this year, alone, the library lent out 556 books to users. For the same period, 1666 others have made use of its reading, reference facilities without taking out books?, he said.

The Gandhi Public Library is open from Saturday to Thursday.

At a ceremony marking the occasion, held at Ming Sing, here, on July 3 the trainees - all of them girl, were given certificates detailing in what areas members of each group were being honoured for attending and completing the courses designed and delivered on the duration of training.

One of the two groups, numbering a total of 35, altogether, successfully completed the first phase of a 3-year program that NOVIB was supporting.

According to Ayan Omar Abdi, the project manager, the group have reached a stage where they could be honoured for taking full advantage of skill courses they have taken in food processing, tailoring, knitting, health, business management, Somali language and mathematics.

The girls in this group were selected from Family Life Education Centres (FLECS), which traditionally ran such courses, in the past, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education.

The second group, 40 more, attended tailoring courses, and was sponsored by OXFAM GB.

Ms Edna Adan Ismail, the leading honorary guest at ceremony told the graduating trainees that what they have achieved and were being acknowledged for, was of no mean feat. ?My first footsteps into the path that led me away from the childhood comfort of home pointing out the way to where I stand today as Foreign Minister to this great nation was started by a training in knitting and food processing I signed for?, she said - she went on to regale her young fans with stories that highlighted how a combination of determination, motivation, hard work, singleness of purpose and a constant quest for further, higher goals were what made life worth living.

Ismail Mohamed Ahmed, Acting Executive Director of HAVOYOCO, officiating the award-giving occasion urged trainees to put what they have learnt to good use by providing for themselves and their families through the skills they have gained.

Ms Fatima Saeed Ibrahim and Ambassador Sa?ad Sheikh, present, also, added their views to how they saw the skill trainings the graduates just came through - and what and where this first step would potentially lead to those who kept their futures focused.

?Somaliland, surely, owes much to an independent press that considerately helped it across treacherous grounds to safety unruffled and a much better, stronger entity for the experience?, the officer, conveying the formal standpoint of the journalists association on the issue, said. ?No self-respecting court?, the officer said tapping a faxed report of the proceedings, ?can justify a sentence as severe or as disturbing as that it handed down the reporter last Wednesday, which seem to have been plucked off from an altogether different, more serious case?.

SOLJA, the officer said, sincerely hoped that the serious miscarriage of justice which, as reported, took aback the two sides in the case and the generally public alike, would adequately convince those honourable members of the Parliament who believed that freedom of expression as practised by an independent press and an intolerant, asphyxiating environment as that systems with more skeletons to keep hidden than transparent leaderships favoured.

The Association statement reached The Republican desk the same day another the Editor-In-chief of the 6-day Jamhuuriya newspaper, the oldest, most popular Somali paper in Somaliland, published on that Paper?s Friday edition.

The Editor, to whom regional bureaus directly reported, called the Erigavo trial of reporter Absiyeh ?unjust? and ?unjustified? in light of the relative substance of the light charges levelled against reporter

The Chief Editor, Hassan Saeed Yussuf, said his paper would appeal against the court decision and that the paper would, simultaneously, start a litigation process against the presiding judge to justify or flounder in his own interpretation of the law.

Publication of the Jamhuuriya report, also, coincided with a news despatch the BBC Somaliland Correspondent, Mr. Ahmed Saeed Egeh sent the service?s Somali section same day.

Together, the newspaper article and the BBC report, repeatedly broadcasted over all the Somali airtime slots, Friday, hammered the case of the independent press vs. ills inherent in a state controlled press effectively home, awakening many to how fast the flow of information was going to be shackled in irons if a press law such as that the incumbent government was trying to push, presently, through Parliament was passed.

The public, going by the spontaneous reactions people showed on reading or hearing about their case, seems to be just awakening to the fact that their first, democratically elected administration was seriously practising the art of state intimidation, and specially so soon after it was installed on their votes.

People kept reminding each other through out Thursday and Friday other indicators of a miscarried democracy and justice as manifested by administration.

Issues that recurred most often in conversations noted, relating to this latest case, were:

1) Another government instigated case designed to tie up a sister paper - Haatuf - in a lawsuit that charged it with - again - misrepresentation of facts.

2) The published insistence of Honourable speaker of the representatives Ahmed M. Adan ?Qaybeh?, to teach the independent media for, ostensibly, questioning the legitimacy extension of term the Elders of gave them; for publishing articles and documents detailing his opposition to the sovereignty of Somaliland in years not so distant, and by, allegedly, giving space to the views and programs of opposition elements.

Whatever course the government - proposed press law which Journalists Associations, other professional organizations, the Somaliland Forum and intellectuals all stand opposed to, the June 9 Erigavo court case which ruled that reporter had to be given a one-year prison term plus a six-month ban from earning his pay plus all the other government missteps which included imprisonment of people for their political views -definitely train brighter floodlights in government intentions and competence to govern.

The funds were provided under the auspices of the Ambassadors? Fund for Refugees in Africa, an initiative of the U.S. State Department?s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration. The Ambassadors? Fund help to fill gaps in on-going refugee support programs that are not already being addressed by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in recipient countries.

The report is mainly positive and praises Somaliland?s achievements and political maturity. It is relatively extensive and discusses many aspects of Somaliland?s system of governance, political background, Human Rights Situation and so on. In addition pointing out weaknesses in the Judiciary, the Nordem team is critical to certain clauses of the Constitution, the restriction of the press freedom and the practice of the police and custodial courts. They are particularly apprehensive of the shortcomings of the police and custodial courts and argue:

Quote: The police forces and custodial courts are seriously lacking resources as well as being badly equipped for carrying out investigations; shortcomings that in some cases may cause badly founded prosecution, as well as inappropriate detention and conviction of individuals. Unquote:

The report is quite comprehensive and contains in depth analysis of the election procedures and the political institutions of the country.

Full text of the report is available from: http://www.humanrights.uio.no/.Follow this link: Somaliland: Presidential Election 2003, on the left side of the page. The Institute told me that the report will always be available from their website. It may, however, after sometime, be moved from active pages and into the archives. Search then with: Presidential election or Somaliland and election or different combinations of Somaliland, presidential, election and so son.

Please disseminate

Ahmed H Nur, Wakiilka JSL EE Norway

Somaliland: Presidential Election 2003

NORDEM Report 08/2003

Preface

Introduction and Executive Summary

Political Background

^[1] Even when the rebellion started in the North, the main target was to liberate the whole of Somalia; Interviews with six former leaders of the SNM Conducted in Hargeysa October 1998.
^[2] According to most sources all Hawiyes left in 1986 after the showdown between Ali Wardigly and Silaaniyo. Nevertheless, one of the observers met and interviewed exiled Hawiye leaders that stayed in the organization until 1989, as Abdi Daher, youth leader of SNM in Calcutta.
[3]An additional number of South African mercenary pilots participated in the campaign. Government militia recruited from the Ogadeeni clan “searched” the countryside for rebels and killed randomly in the process. ;The estimate of the casualties is taken from Ahmed, Ismail I and Green, Reginald H.(1999): “Heritage of war and state collapse in Somalia and Somaliland”, Third World Quarterly 20:1, page 120
^[4] The singular form of Shir beeleedyo is Shir Beeled, Abdirahman Ahmed Ali was chosen as the first President of Somaliland because he was at that time the chairman of the SNM.
[5] The concept of Somaliland today enjoys considerable support from the local population, as shown by the May 31, 2001 referendum over a constitution that stipulated independence , It was a referendum where 1,148,940 of the 1,188,746 registered voters voted for the constitution The Initiative and Referendum Institute, a non profit Washington based organisation, monitored the election and found it to be free and fair. The groups homepage is: http://www.iandrinstitute.org, the report is still available on the internet.

The System of Governance of Somaliland

The Constitution

The Executive Power

The role of the Guurti

The House of Representatives

The Judiciary

The Human Rights situation in Somaliland

^[6] The House of Elders’ failed attempt at mediation before the preliminary result of the elections was announced by the National Election Commission April 19, 2003, was also widely seen as an unasked for interference into the work of the independent electoral commission, where the HoE did not fully understand their role. However, the Guurti asserted that their only aim was to mediate in a situation that potentially could lead to a post-election conflict.
^[7] The Judicial Commission is composed by 3 senior representatives of the Supreme Court, the Attorney General, D.G of the Ministry of Justice, the Chairman of the Civil Service Agency, 2 members appointed by the HoE and two appointed by the HoR.
^[8] Ibrahim Hashi Jama, Somaliland Forum web-site “The Somaliland Supreme Court and the Presidential Elections” May 2003
^[9] Partly because of this lack of confidence, the public still strongly supports the traditional means for conflict solving, where the clans’ elders are called to mediate between the parties to the conflict. Outside the cities, as many as 90% of conflicts of both civil and criminal nature are solved outside the formal courts. In towns, the existing hybrids between the traditional and state court systems create a confusion that in the outcome might affect the final outcomes of conflicts. In addition, a semi-recognized religious court system exists, where the religious leaders, the Sheikhs, make decisions particularly in family matters such as marriage, divorce and heritage covered by the Sharia. The religious courts are in general considered highly skilled and they enjoy a high level of confidence.
^[10] Before the war, four Christian churches existed in Hargeisa. Currently, no churches are working and only few Christian families remain, although Christians have previously held central positions.
^[11] The morning of April 20, a group of Kulmiye supporters consisting of women and youngsters gathered in order to protest the result in front of the NEC. The observers’ team has a reliable witness report from one of the participants, a woman of 34 who participated in the event. According to her statement, the group had first turned up outside Silaanyo’s home to express their support. Silaanyo himself had urged the supporters to be patient and go home, but angered, they continued to the main street close to the NEC. There, they were met by police forces that shot in the air to spread the crowd of approximately 60 people. The woman ran together with the other demonstrators in the opposite direction, and tried to hide in a yard. However, she was caught up by a uniformed member of the police force who soon was accompanied by several of his colleagues. The girl was badly beaten, and brought to the police station together with some 7 – 8 other protesters, a pregnant woman had also been beaten. The woman was let out of prison shortly afterwards having pretended to be a relative of the beaten pregnant woman who needed medical care.

Somaliland, Traditions and Demography

Nomadic emigrational patterns

^[12] Estimates of the population vary between 1.02 million and 3.5 million, inn all estimates nomads are said to make up a large proportion of the total.
^[13] Ahmed Alazhari was the former head of the Horn of Africa Business college in Hargeisa
During the early years of Somaliland the different positions in the government were distributed according to a clan based formula, as a way of appeasing the different clans.

The Legislative Framework

Overview

Legislation related to the presidential elections

The Regulation of Political associations and Parties Law (14/2000, PPL) and the registration of candidacy

^[15] Notably the laws that were in force in 1960, and later Somali laws that are being harmonized within a Somaliland context.
^[16] With exception of the Isa clans that have traditional laws differing from other clans’ laws on major aspects. In case of a conflict between a member of the Isa clan and other clan – a common solution would be found through negotiations.
^[17] This means in fact that naturalized citizens may not have the right to vote. However, this is probably not the intention, and one of the very few naturalized citizens was indeed reported to the observers as allowed to vote.
^[18] See more about the registration of political parties under next headline.
^[19] The amount is fixed to 1 000 000 Somaliland Shilling, approx. 140 USD.
^[20] See Recommendations

The Electoral Administration

The National Election Commission

The Lower Level Electoral Offices

The administrative preparation of the elections

Monitoring the campaign

Security measures

Ballot papers

The role of Political Party Agents

^[21] The opposition parties who had the right to nominate candidates for the NEC, consisted at the time of all registered political associations, not only those three who gained the right to be registered as political parties after the Local Council elections in December 2002. Only the UDUB party could not propose candidates for these posts.
^[22] See however some related reservations under the headline “Political Party Agents”
^[23] See more about this under VII.
^[24] E.L. Art.32, 1.,2., 56, 1b), 63

Voter and Civic Education

^[25] A total of approximately 7 500 citizens were trained through these projects.

The Role of Women in the Presidential Elections

^[26] HORMOOD placed ultimately 2 women on the list, and UDUB ultimately none. Kulmiye placed two women, UCID one and Sahan one. Asad had none.
^[27] The promises the parties made were: KULMIYE 10-20% parliamentary seats, a number of Director General positions. UCID: 10% parliamentary seats.
^[28] See more on this under "Electoral Campaign"

Civil Society

The Political Parties of Somaliland

From Political associations to Political Parties

The Parties:The government, The UDUB (United Democratic people's Party)

KULMIYE (The Gathering), the strongest contender

The UCID party (the Justice and Welfare party)

^[32] Yasiin Mahamod Heer “Fardoon” (Bent finger) was perhaps the president’s strongest card to achieve this goal. He was the only one of the “Ballot box” ministers that lacked a background in any of the political organisations that participated in the December elections. He had however been a member of the first government of Egal, working as a health minister from July 1993 to November 1994. More important, he had been a representative for the Dolbahante clan at the big clan gatherings of the early nineties. In 1996 he also became a member of the parliament. It was widely believed that a Garad, a traditional clan chieftain in the Dolbahante clan, pressured the president to make Yasin minister. The Garad in question, Ismael was the 7th Garad of Dolbahante, from the Yama Siad sub clan, and the eldest one of all the seven, thus enjoying huge respect in Sool. The appointment was thus a strategic move to gather support among the Dolbahantes. Another minister Aniisa Haji Hassan, had a background from UDUB, thus his appointment had nothing to do with any strategy focused on the inclusion of the pre December political organisations. However, he was also from the Warsangeli clan and thus the perfect candidate for the post as minister of Sanag. Again this appointment was mostly due to the wish to strengthen Somalilands control of the eastern regions. Nevertheless, political reasons still influenced the appointments, the second minister for Sool, Foad Adan Ade, also a Dolbahante, had a previous background as deputy chairman of the ASAD party. Amhed Mahmod Farah, another minister of state also had a background from ASAD, thus even the second wave was influenced by electoral considerations.

^[33] Muhammed Barood, a member of the UFO group, a group that started out as a non-violence oppositional group under the Barre Regime and had formed a vital element in the HORMOOD party, became KULMIYE Executive officer to the Region of Hargeysa. The UFO group had been started in the early eighties as a self-help group; it soon became regarded as oppositional by the Barre regime. It is a popular joke that they were arrested for cleaning the sewers of Hargeysa hospital.
^[34] It did however attract some very notable politicians, such as Mohammed Hajji Elmi, the popular ex major of Hargeysa, however the latter kept a low profile and gave voting support only.
^[35] Many of them also shared a background from the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF).
^[36] Abdiraman Aw Ali “Tolwa”, joined Suleiman Mohamed Adam ”Saleban Gaal” and his party ASAD. Mussa Bihi joined SAHAN, however he later left them, Kahin joined KULMIYE.
^[37] NSS was former dictator Siad Barres dreaded security apparatus
^[38] Some also included Mr. Ahmed Adan Qaybe, the Speaker of the House.

^[39] He was by many named the “Sadat” of Somaliland
^[40] This point became a hot issue after the first election, sources supporting him claim that he saved many lives when working in Siad Barres National Security Services, this by being lenient. His political enemies, stress that he acted actively to suppress the opposition in Somaliland, applying harsh methods.
The vice presidency was usually given to a member of the Gadabursi clan
^[42] The presence of these two in his government also did much to reduce the perception that UDUB governance was NSS governance. Both fought the Barre Regime intensively, Siad Barre had imprisoned Edna Adan and Abdillahi Mahmmed Duale had been an active member of the SNM. Duale was not the only member of the government that had fought the Barre regime, the new Minister of Defence, Ismael Umar Ahmed “Boos” , also had a SNM background. The Minister of Reconstruction and Reconciliation Abdilahi Hussein liman “Darawel” had also been fighting the Barre regime and worn the uniform of an SNM soldier, however, the later had joined quite late in the struggle.

^[43] He is the sponsor and supporter of the Committee to Guide and Inform on Good Behaviour, an organized WAHABI group that tries to prevent westernisation of the Somaliland society by blocking cinemas and theatre.
^[44] At least one well known extremist, Ali Warsame, the Al Itahd al Islam, and organisation that had ties to Al Qaeda during the mid nineties, former leader, actively tried to become a member but was refused to join the party, even after he had voiced his support for it.

^[45] His leadership was contested. Many Somalilanders, including the late Sheik Ibrahim Sheik Yusuf Sheik Ali Sheik Madar, blamed him for the split between him and his second in command, Ali Wardigly, in 1986. This was a split that led many members of the southern Hawyie clan to walk out of the SNM organization; Madar (1998)
^[46] Another of his nicknames is "Laba Tole"; He had also tried to recreate SNM as a political party, but chose to merge the new reform SNM organisation into the ASAD party.
^[47] Despite the proficiency and quality of its party organisation, KULMIYE was actually the youngest of all Somaliland party organizations. It had its first convention on the 11 to the 15th of August 2002. Nevertheless, this was more than made up for by the wide experience and the great oratorical ability of their leaders
^[48] Many claim that Hargeysa was actually founded by Feisal Ali Farahas fourth grand father Suldan Deria who was a suldan of Isaaq tribes. According to one version of the story he invited Sheikh Madar from Bulahar in Red sea to teach Qoran teachings to Idagaale children.
^[49] His last position in Mogadishu was as a President in the privately owned construction company "Ayaan".

The Electoral Campaign

^[50] Refer to Appendix III.
^[51] The KULMIYE party’s leader, “Silaanyo” ironically claimed that Osman, a staunch UDUB member, was the best campaigner KULMIYE had.
^[52]Some of UDUBs younger members showed great spirit on local level, an UDUB youth member drove a long trader all the way from Denmark and used it as a campaign car setting up shows and plays and as a stage for performances with hired singers.
^[53] The media was not systematically monitored by any observers or institutions during the electoral campaign. The conclusions are made on the basis of impressions of the NORDEM team’s study of newspapers and Radio while present in Somaliland, and other observers impression of the media during the campaign period.
^[54] Nevertheless, they both admitted that they had never been threatened by dismissal directly The threats were said to have been hidden in allegations of breaking the work code and thus indirectly endangering their positions.

Observation on the Polling Day

Opening

Voting - Overview:

Identification of voters

Inking

Agents and Observers

Polling station premises

Secrecy of the vote

Security

Lack of ballot papers

Closing and counting

The tabulation process - The procedure

Lack of publication on local levels

Announcement of the national preliminary result

The slimmest possible victory and the quest for the small numbers

The NEC in the Regional Electoral Offices

^[55] According to the NEC, village/clan elders would be present to identify voters in the polling stations. However, according to the NORDEM team observations, only exceptional polling stations had such persons present.
^[56] The Gabeley District received 62 200 ballot papers. A total of 43 056 votes were cast.
^[57] See however under the headline "Human Rights situation in Somaliland"
^[58] The result of the polling station Guriga cuqaasha (484), contained an error, as Kulmiye was initially given 771 votes, instead of 741 votes, resulting in a total number of ballot cast to exceed those received by 30. Likewise, the result of Ina Jebiye (497) originally gave Kulmiye 1 132 votes, instead of 1 032, resulting in a total number of ballots cast to exceed those cast by 100.

The Review Process

44748164 According the Election Law article 65, the Supreme Court has the jurisdiction to announce the final results of the elections. The Court has the responsibility to check that the elections have taken place in a lawful manner and that the calculations made by the electoral administration have been correct. According to the election law, the checking will be carried out on the basis of the records transferred by the electoral administration. Decisions made by the commissions should also be examined. The law itself is limited on details concerning the nature of the checking procedures. However, it must be considered as quite clear that the Supreme Court members have the authority and duty to demand from the election administration all the information they consider necessary to check “that the elections have been conducted properly in law and in the way calculations were done”. In addition, the Court has the sole jurisdiction to decide on any claims concerning the elections of President and Vice-President. Any plaintiffs must file complaints to the Court within 20 days after the preliminary outcome of the elections has been announced.
Only the UDUB and KULMIYE parties made claims to the Supreme Court. UDUB claimed that KULMIYE had received 144 excessive votes in the Sanaag region. In addition, they claimed irregularities in some 10 additional polling stations^[59].
KULMIYE claimed the miscalculations in Buroa and Garadag, and Boroma (27 excessive votes to UDUB). In addition, they claimed that an uncounted ballot box from the polling station Balli-Alanle should be counted. The polling station in question had been closed for security reasons around 4 p.m. after an otherwise smooth voting had been disrupted by UDUB supporters, and the ballots^[60], allegedly in a KULMIYE stronghold, had never been counted. The information concerning the claims of the parties only reached the public at the will of the political parties themselves. The NEC apparently responded to the Supreme Court's request for clarification on some of the complaints submitted by KULMIYE and UDUB, and refuted UDUB's claims as baseless ^[61].
The NEC also dismissed KULMIYE's claims in Buroa, but conceded that UDUB by mistake had received 7 votes in Garadag and 27 in Boroma. The NEC also admitted that the ballot box in Balli-Alanle had never been counted. Apparently, the NEC had been informed about this case on April 20, the day after the announcement of the preliminary result, but left to the Supreme Court to decide whether the this particular ballot box should be counted or not.
The Supreme Court opened the hearings on May 8, twenty days after the announcement of the preliminary result. Representatives of mass media, political leaders as well as Parliament and religious leaders were present at the hearings, in addition to NEC members. The Supreme Court announced the final result on May 11, 2003, and declared Dahir Rayale Kahin and Vice-President Ahmed Yusuf Yassin winners of the presidential elections. The Court ruled that UDUB received 205 590 votes and KULMIYE 205 373 votes, 217 less than UDUB. UDUB lost 5 votes, and KULMIYE 142 compared to the preliminary result. Regrettably, the Supreme Court did not publish the reasoning behind their judgement. However, the figures can be recognised from the claims made. Because the results of the elections were contested, the general confidence among the citizens of Somaliland would most likely have increased significantly if the narrow result had been properly explained a by the Supreme Court. This is another aspect that should be reviewed for future elections. According to international recommendations for election dispute resolution, plaintiffs should have the right to have a reasoned decision on each of the claims made.

^[59] Polling stations numbers 466, 467, 491,494, 495, 496, 498, 562, 563 and 565.
^[60] Around 700 ballots were cast.
^[61] NEC claimed that the figure of 144 excessive votes to KULMIYE were in fact 142, but that also these had been corrected by the NEC before the announcement of the preliminary result.

Conclusion

Recommendations

A meager infrastructure has begun to take shape. It's being created under the guise of a new country, a place called Somaliland. I had heard rumours that it was reasonably safe to visit this new republic, which no one will admit exists - and which no country will formally recognize. This place in the "black hole" that Kofi Annan called Somalia is a calm bastion in the factional anarchic storm - the only way which the world has known Somalia for over a decade.

I HAD BEEN told that to enter Somaliland by vehicle, a town called Jijiga in northeastern Ethiopia was the entry point. Hargeisa is the capital of this self-declared state, and Boorama is a larger town just near the border. Reaching one or the other would be my goal.

Desperately early in the morning we took off from Addis Ababa to Dire Dawa, a reasonably busy Ethiopian town graced with a paved runway and new terminal. We were asked to deplane while they refuelled. A curious middle-aged British woman approached me.

"Hi. Who are you working with?"

She was nearly flabbergasted to hear that I was a tourist: a tourist out here, heading for Jijiga, the apparent aid coordination centre of Ethiopia.

Upon arrival in Jijiga: no paved runway. Two tin shacks. Many military men standing around. She offered to get me a lift into town with the people she was meeting.

Jijjga is a reasonably large town for this part of the world, although camels wandering through the town centre are common, and much of the place is made up of dirt road and shacks. The entire area was surprisingly green. "We have been getting rain for the past few weeks," one of the local aid workers told me.

I was taken back to their office with the lady and three local workers. "Only a tourist," I said, as we sat, drinking soda water, chatting; them wondering what I was doing in Jijiga, sort of curious but very friendly.

I was assigned not one but two locals to deal with my itinerary: to the immigration office and get stamped out, but only if I can get back in. And then find a bus to Boorama or Hargeisa. Whisked away in their spiffy Land Rover to the immigration office, I got to talking with one of the men. "This town is where all of the aid groups are centred," he said, "and also where the people come to get food."

"Is there enough for everyone?" I asked, expecting the usual African optimism.

"I don't know."

And I still wonder.

THE BUS TO Boorama had left an hour ago; the only one of the day, which I found quite odd. We went back to their office. "So, I guess you're in Jijiga for today?" one of the men asked.

"Well, perhaps. Let's wait and see if there is another way to get to Boorama or Hargeisa today." And the thought must have clicked in his head, because he suggested that I go to Hartishek, where it was easy to connect to Hargeisa. Before I knew it, I was in a tiny bus screaming across the muddy road to the halfway point between Jijiga and Hargeisa: Hartishek.

Rolling across green fields, it was easy to see that many nomads were going back out to the countryside with their herds and beginning life again. The desert here swallows rain fast and graciously; the plains around Jijiga are rolling green now, when only a few years ago they were fodder for the news as endless tracts of dust.

Before Hartishek, still deep in Ethiopian territory, the bus passed through the first Somali roadblock. Of course, it does not actually block the road: it is merely two sticks on either side of the dirt road with a string hooked across. No one paid any attention to me. But I knew from the features of the people in the bus that I was far from Ethiopia already: these people were almost all Somali.

Hartishek is a refugee camp, surrounded by mounds of garbage. In that garbage children play, and African vultures twice the size of the children scavenge. Thousands of plastic bags have been tied onto the whithered bushes; the dirt road turns into deep mud ruts, and crowds of women sit on the side clutching large tin cans bearing the EU symbol. The dirt, the dust, the garbage, and the multitudes of people in such a tiny, desperate town; thousands upon thousands of little white huts that look like bubbles across the rolling plains: this is Hartishek.

A small boy, the conductor for the bus I was on, led me to a Land Cruiser that was loading up for Hargeisa. I met an older African man there: A bit tired in the eyes, with white hair and beard, he spoke with honest-sounding English. He said he was a refugee. "I don't know why God created the black man," he confided in me, "all he does is suffer. And they are rude. How many African countries have you visited? Are any of them without suffering?"

He was certainly pessimistic. He also offered the idea that I pay for all of the seats on the vehicle so it could go immediately.

Usually, I don't do this; and the price was high. However, I only had a few days at the most to see Somaliland, and every minute counts at this point. Unfortunately. I have often said to myself that a little time in a place is far better than no time at all, and have had many great experiences this way. So with scant regard for budget I paid the high price - although for the simple fact that it was better security as I was about to enter what is essentially a rogue state, I think it was a smart move.

Another roadblock was not far from the town and a Somali with an AK-47 slung behind him disappeared with my passport and driver into a shed. The old man was still in the Land Cruiser with me. "Perhaps you need a translator," he said. "I could translate for you."

I offered him a modest sum in Ethiopian currency to come with me. "But I will return immediately, and I need to buy the bus back." "As you like," I said with a friendly smile. He quietly slipped out the back door and disappeared.

The Somali with the gun came out of the shed and up to my window, one hand holding the end of his AK-47 behind his neck, and grunted at me. He didn't make eye contact, but merely looked in the truck quickly to see if there was anything illegal or valuable he might want. And then, we were on our way.

THERE IS NO road from Ethiopia into Somaliland; in fact, there is no formal land connection whatsoever. In Djibouti you have dirt tracks impressed by determined four-wheel-drive vehicles, and in Ethiopia you have the same. Except this time the rains came.

Three years of rain began to fall, and the dry green of this semi-arid land turned into a mudstorm of water and dust. The haze of the raindrops was blasted by the wind, and the ruts cut deep by Land Rovers were turning into rivers. We began sliding, spinning slightly, and eventually - of course - got stuck.

One half hour lost. One mud-drenched driver. But we persisted, and I saw massive turtles crawling across the dirt. They were the only ones who didn't seem to mind, although I am sure the nomads were not complaining too much either.

It was here, moving toward the Somali frontier, that the mood truly changed. There was nothing but us and a general direction. And about two hours later, we reached the real border of Somaliland, another stick-and-string checkpoint. The driver stopped. We stared at the old man who sauntered towards us.

His face was nearly a skull: an older man, decked out in a beige uniform, his AK-47 slung over a shoulder and a hat to die for - a tall and official looking cowboy hat with faded letters on the front that spelled RANGER. The driver explained the usual story of the tourist and the destination, and the string dropped.

Somaliland. Somalia. Whatever you call it, this was not Ethiopia. It hadn't been for over seventy-five kilometres.

The landscape became different: more barren, dry, and somehow surreal. The flat grass shifted into rocky scrub and rolling hills. A dirt track to an ignored republic. An obscure way to an obscure country.

Slowly the nomads began to appear, and then we went through the first town with brick buildings. All were destroyed. The nomads persisted in their tents, though. Their sheep, all with white bodies and black above their neck, wandered and ate the sparse foliage. Old military vehicles, rusted and burned, littered the countryside. And suddenly, two hours after crossing the border: pavement.

A road - and another checkpoint. Four boys dressed as soldiers hopped in the back of our vehicle. The story was told again. We drove in silence to the police station, where we were directed into the city and into immigration. And behold, after a smooth half hour ride, the land dipped into a valley and there lay a large looking town:

Hargeisa. Capital of the country that no one will admit exists. Multitudes of coloured cement houses. Arabic and Somali signs dot the bright yellow and blue buildings. New cars roll by. It is wet, quiet, but it's a city. And the capital of this odd, odd country - Somaliland.

SOMALILAND HAD NEVER really been a fluid part of colonial Somalia - before 1960 it was its own country, a territory of Britain, while Somalia was a territory of Italy. British Somaliland became independent in 1960 - for four days. After that, it was decided by the European powers-that-be that the two Somalias should become one country, and the capital should be Mogadishu. And of course since it came from the mouth of a white man, it was so.

When the government of Mogadishu collapsed in 1991, Somaliland used the opportunity to declare independence. By no means were things rosy for the new country from the beginning - civil war raged until 1995, but hostilities continued until 1998, and now things are just tense between the west and the east of the country. Those that know the country know that it's safe right now. But so few know the country; no one in Ethiopia really seemed to know anything about it.

A guide in Djibouti was certain that I would be killed if I tried to enter Somaliland via their border - but after he had talked to some of his friends he found out otherwise. Advisories across the world send conflicting reports about the state of the country, not only because they don't want their citizens to go there, but also because no one has an embassy in the country to confirm what's going on. One fellow I spoke to on the internet actually said it was safer than Ethiopia - and yet the Canadian embassy in Addis Ababa insisted that I come down to their office outside of their usual opening hours to get their advisories about the two countries.

Immigration looked at my passport, and told me to come back at nine in the morning when they were open, and could get the stamps out. Taken to a hotel room for the night, I unloaded my bag and a Somali-Ethiopian who was born in Somalia but had lived in Ethiopia but pretty much the Somali region of Ethiopia (get that?) took me to change money. One US Dollar = 3000 Somaliland Shillings. The largest note is 500 shillings - I was given a fat clump of bills that landed on the moneychanger's table with a thump.

Cafeterias lined this road in Hargeisa, and all eyes were on me as throngs of Somalis sat in their plastic chairs and listened to the radios. There were no televisions around. Dinner was three samosas and a Fanta for a whopping US dollar's worth of Shillings. The Somali who led me around, surprisingly, didn't ask for a tip. Just by that gesture I knew he wasn't Ethiopian.

We walked back to the hotel. "May I ask you a question?" he said, and then without waiting for my response, proceeded: "What do you think of Somali people?"

I never had the chance to answer him as we walked to the reception in the hotel and I handed over a wad of money to pay for my room.

But if I had answered his question... The Somalis: physically, they are often rather tall, skinny, with slightly distorted facial features like an overbite, long chins, and deep set eyes. My instincts tell me they are odd; more unpredictable than other African societies, more in tune with ancient associations to clan and tribe than other Africans who have accepted the westernization of their societies. I will go out on a limb here and say they rely more on their instincts than the other, more colonialized, African ethnic groups.

The Somalis are the people in Africa who have most abruptly rejected any colonial influence, with the anarchy in the east a sort of return to ancient tribal warfare. They are a devoutly Muslim people. They are African, and harbour no outsider's interference in their destiny.

Crazy? Perhaps. But the Somalis are Africans at their most base. They want to do things their way. They will learn through their own mistakes. And they will find a purely African solution to their problems.

HARGEISA IS A busy town when it's not raining, with a few of those Arabesque attractions a tourist brochure might put in when there isn't really anything of interest: a few mosques, a market, a main street. Buildings appropriated by government. But like most of Africa, it's far more interesting than it looks.

On my way to immigration a babbling man on the street began to follow me, holding his arms out. "Five hundred years ago the slave ships began their way across the ocean," he shouted, "and the chains of west Africa still burn on my wrist!" I gave him a curious look, and he was eventually called aside by some older men, who probably told him not to bug the white man like that. A few minutes later a group of women began to follow me; I felt a pinch on my shoulder. They had thrown a rock at me. "Have you ever been in a war?" the officer at immigration asked me. His boss wasn't there yet to stamp me in; he was supposed to arrive at nine, and now it's ten thirty. I told the officer I was talking to that I had never been in a war, or at least, not my own. And I've certainly never fought in one. "It's not good," he replied. "But in 1988 - we had to fight."

Tensions were escalating in 1988 - the regime down in Mogadishu had ordered several thousand people killed in Hargeisa. Even now war damage is one of the most prevalent sights in the city.

The officers were all decked out in army uniforms, nicely pressed, with clean black berets on their scalps. The officer I had been speaking to grinned. I asked him about the fact that no country recognized Somaliland. He grinned again. "It makes no difference to us. If they want to recognize us, then let them recognize us. If they don't want to recognize us, then they don't recognize us."

He continued. "We are nomads, you know? Life is simple here. You wake up, eat, chew Qat, tend the animals, eat, and sleep. Political things matter little. If people want to fight us, then they will lose, because we have nothing to lose."

I finally received my entry stamp, and departed the office. I had met a doctor earlier in the day who was looking for a western reference, as Africans often are (no matter that they're also looking to make some cash by helping out foreigners). He invited me for tea after I ran into him a few hours later, and we chatted. He was very interested in studying his PhD abroad, so I offered to mail him a university catalog. He gave me a tour of his hospital: clean but bare, and no sign of any patients or medical supplies. He then offered to arrange me a private car to Boorama, for cheap. But first, there was the matter of lunch.

The doctor, a friend of his and I wandered over to a large open restaurant, with dirt floors and a dingy, dark indoor room. We sat outside. Mango juice, water, a dish of spaghetti with sauce, and a large dish with rice and two loins of goat meat; and also some very awful tasting "animal" soup. All fine and dandy you say. And yes, it was all fine, except that you have to eat all of this with your fingers. And yes, people wash their hands before and after meals. He and his friend directed me toward the private taxi stand after our lunch.

Soon we became surrounded by men - shouting, pulling, pushing, surrounding us. I was asked to sit down while he negotiated. Five minutes later I got up and moved through the throng into a taxi, shrugging off hands pulling at me, always mindful of my bag. The taxi was stuck, we locked the doors as the crowd persisted. One man reached through an open window and tried to unlock my door; I pressed against the lock quickly as the taxi finally sped off. We stopped several blocks away to negotiate a price.

We settled on a sum that was extremely expensive for the region, but my time constraints forced me to accept it. The doctor took down his car number, his name, his tribe's name, his grandfather's name, and the make of his car and threatened to throw him in jail if anything happened to me. Yet another example of how an African does not trust his fellow African.

Off I went to Boorama. I gave the doctor some cash for his help. The taxi driver's cut was such a large amount of bills that he had to stuff several stacks of them in his glove compartment - here, people have an incredible skill which is flipping through dozens upon dozens of bills very quickly using their thumb and forefinger. I never did get the hang of it.

Copyright 2003 Sobaka and Diacritica Press. All Rights Reserved.

Somaliland's Foreign Minister Edna Alda Ismail loves delivering babies at her hospital in the capital, Hargeisa. When she is not at the foreign ministry or representing her country abroad, she spends her time at the hospital she established with her own money. "I am still a nurse and a midwife. I was doing my midwifery at three o'clock this morning. There was an emergency," she told the BBC's Network Africa programme.

The foreign minister of the breakaway republic of Somaliland is well known in her country, having been married to the late President Mohammed Egal.

Recognition

She spends a lot of her time travelling abroad to convince foreign governments to recognise her breakaway republic. In recent days she has also been busy explaining her country's position on the Somalia peace talks currently taking place in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The government of Somaliland has rejected suggestions that the breakaway republic should reunite with Somalia. All this leaves the foreign minister and practising midwife very little free time. I am married to my job. I am married to my hospital. I am married to my work. I am married to Somaliland's sovereignty

"My spare time is my sleep time. I live in the hospital and if there is an emergency they call me and I go down and I attend to it". "Thank God we got a living baby and a living mother this morning," she said. Somaliland's foreign minister is respected for her generosity and strong personality. She says patriotism is what drives her to do what she does.

The foreign minister helps women deliver babies

"I do what I do because I am a Somalilander. Because our country was destroyed so much yet today Hargeisa is one of the most beautiful cities in East Africa". "It is a demonstration of the resilience of the people of Somaliland - not just one person," Edna says.

No choice

She could be a proud Somalilander, but then Edna Ismail is no ordinary citizen of the breakaway republic of Somaliland.

She has worked with international organisations such as the World Health Organisation.

Before that she trained as a nurse in London. "I have been lucky. I have had opportunities that some of my other people have not had".

The capital was destroyed during years of civil war

So, I have no choice. I have to do what I do and I am happy to do it," Edna says.

Married, married, married

Edna Ismail is single although she is no stranger to marriage - she has been married three times

Her first husband was the late President of Somaliland, Mohammed Egal.

She says she has no plans of marrying again. "I am married to my job. I am married to my hospital. I am married to my work. I am married to Somaliland's sovereignty and stability, human rights and the rights of people who deserve to be recognised". So, Is she too busy with diplomacy and midwifery to spare time for a husband? "I have had three husbands. I am 66 years old. I know what it is like to be married. Marriage has its good and not so good times," the Somaliland foreign minister says.

In June 2003, the results of a collaborative nutrition survey in the Sool plateau of Sanag and Sool Regions were presented to partners in Somaliland. The results indicated a global acute malnutrition rate of 12% (<-2z-scores or oedema) and an under-five mortality rate of 1.9/10,000 children/day. Consequently FSAU intensified their nutrition surveillance activities in the region and latest reports show a further deterioration in the nutritional status of children utilising a health facility near one of the affected areas.

As shown on the table, the MOHL health facility in Las Anod and Huddun indicates an increasing proportion of malnourished children in an increasing number of clinic attendances between March and June this year. Significantly, children attending the MCH in Las Anod are reported to be mainly IDPs who had come from parts of Sool plateau and lower Nugal valley. Health workers report increased incidences of respiratory infections, diarrhoea and other communicable diseases in the region. These two child illnesses were associated with inadequate water usage at household level and harsh (dusty) weather prevailing at the moment.

A qualitative assessment conducted by the FSAU nutrition monitor in the area has also suggested that existing sub-optimal breastfeeding practices have further deteriorated due to the poor nutritional status of the mothers and the stress related to population movement. Households currently have reduced access to milk, the preferred food for young children particularly in the Sool plateau and Lower Nugal valley. Children are currently fed on 'anjero ', white rice and sugar with minimal protein intake. Food security assessment in region estimates a food deficit of 25-35% in Sool plateau and 15-25% in lower Nugal valley. The deficit is expected to increase should the 2003 Deyr rains be inadequate. Water prices still remain exorbitant and access for the poor has reduced significantly (a 200 litre barrel of water costs about $4.5 instead of the normal $1.5 three month ago). The situation points to a worsening nutritional status should interventions delay.

Following the presentation of the nutrition survey results, there have been on-going discussions on possible interventions in the region. WFP and UNICEF in close collaboration with local authorities are currently working on modalities of initiating targeted general food distribution to about 3,500 vulnerable households in Sool plateau of Sanaag and Sool Regions as well as supplementary feeding for malnourished children. Other recommendations discussed for consideration include: continued close monitoring of the food and nutrition situation in the area; intensification of promotive and preventive health care interventions focusing on immunisation, and control of water related diseases. Nutrition related interventions include intensification of the standard messages on breastfeeding, complementary feeding and frequency of feeding of infants and young children during health and illness. Government and non-government partners in the water sector are being encouraged to consider the rehabilitation of run-down boreholes, berkads and dams with the aim of increasing access to water for both human and livestock. The promotion of alternative income generating activities through a credit programme to reduce over-reliance on livestock sources of livelihood is also being considered.

NUTRITION SURVEYS - 2003

Dates	Area 1	Sub-Area	Organisations	Status 10th July 2003
February 2003	Somaliland	Hargeisa Returnees	UNICEF/MOHL/FSAU	Prelim. results available
March/April 2003	Puntland	Galcayo Town	UNICEF/MOH/FSAU/MSF-H	Report available
May 2003	South	Kismayo	UNICEF/FSAU	Report available
May 2003	Somaliland	Sool Plateau	FSAU/UNICEF/MOHL/NPA/SRCS	Prelim. results available
July 2003	Puntland	Bosasso	UNICEF/MOH/FSAU	Underway
July 2003	South	Belet Weyne	UNICEF/FSAU/IMC/SRCS	Underway
Jul/Aug 2003	Bakool	Elberde/Huddur	IMC/FSAU/UNICEF	Planned
August 2003	South	Tayeglow - Bakool	FSAU/SRCS/UNICEF	Planned
August 2003	Somaliland	Haud of Togdheer	FSAU/MOHL/UNICEF	Planned
August 2003	Somaliland	Burao IDPs	FSAU/MOHL/UNICEF	Planned
August 2003	Puntland	Kandala, Iskushuban, Gardo	UNICEF/MOH/FSAU	Planned
Sept 2003	South	Dinsor	IMC/UNICEF/FSAU	Planned
Sept/Oct 2003	South	Haradheere	FSAU/CISP/UNICEF	Planned
Oct – Dec 2003	South	Micronutrients survey all zones	UNICEF	Planned
Nov/Dec 2003	Puntland	Jeriban & Galgodob	UNICEF/MOH/FSAU	Planned
2003	Somaliland	Awdal	FSAU/UNICEF/MOHL	Planned
2003	Somaliland	All regions (IDD)	UNICEF	Planned
2003	Somaliland	Sanaag	UNICEF/MOHL/FSAU	Planned

Source URL: http://www.unsomalia.org/FSAU/index.htm

**The FSAU FOCUS on Gu 2003 Crop Establishment will be issued at the end of July.

** The FSAU field team in the north is working on Gu crop establishment in Somaliland. The results will be highlighted in the August Monthly Report.

Further information is available through PO Box 1230, Narobi, Tel: (254-2) 3741299, 3745734, 3748297, Fax: 3740598, E-mail: fsauinfo@fsau.or.ke, or look at www.unsomalia.net under the ?FSAU? webpage.
Background

Rainfall was erratic and distributed unevenly during the Gu 2003 rainfall season in southern Somalia. This has implications for the crop establishment for both sorghum and maize crops as they are mostly rain-dependent. Insecurity has also negatively affected crop establishment especially in Bay region and parts of Middle Shabelle, while other factors such as soil insects (white grubs) grass-hoppers, stem borers and rodents (rats) have also taken their toll.

The total cropped area for the Gu 2003 in southern Somalia is estimated at 388,100 Ha, marginally up (2%) from the post-war average of 332,500 Ha and slightly down (-2%) from the area cultivated -397,800 Ha, in Gu 2002. Sorghum accounts for 54% of this year?s cultivated area and maize 46%. The total Gu 2003 cereal production is expected to be approximately 214,900 MT. Maize accounts for 68% of this production and sorghum 32%. This production is 28% more than the post-war average harvest (167,900 MT) and is marginally more than the final Gu 2002 cereal harvest figure (208,900 MT). These estimates are subject to ?risk factors? outlined in the box opposite.
AN ASSESSMENT OF PASTORAL CONDITIONS IN THE NORTH FOLLOWING GU SEASON RAINFALL

Background

The following analysis is based on a pastoral assessment carried out in the north during June in the following regions : Galgadud, Mudug, Nugal, Bari Sanaag, Sool, Togdheer, Galbeed and Awdal Region. In southern Somalia a comprehensive pastoral assessment was not carried out but all indicators in the most likely vulnerable areas suggest that conditions are near normal.

In the North-East and North-West of Somalia, there are three main grazing areas - the Hawd, Sool Plateau and Nugal Valley - and several lesser areas - Dharoor, Deeh, Addun Golis and Gagaab. The level of migration in and out of these grazing areas during the Gu season is the main indicator of the Gu rainfall?s impact on pastoral livelihoods. Mixed rainfall performance during the Gu 2003 season has impacted pastoral grazing areas (and hence the pastoral livelihood) to different degrees.

Hawd Plateau

Rainfall began on time and was evenly distributed throughout the Hawd plateau. Good rain intensity regenerated pasture and replenished water sources. Livestock body condition recovered and milk yields were normal. However, due to below-normal rains in last Gu season, camel conception rates were low and this is reflected in a lower calving rate and overall production this Gu. Sheep and goat reproduction was normal following good Deyr rains. Goat milk production is expected to offset the income deficit from camel milk sales and will possibly increase access to household food sources.

Deeh, Addun, Gagaab and Golis The Gu season in this area was above normal and similar to the Hawd. Livestock condition is normal. Pastoral indicators show that households are likely to access enough food and income over the coming months.
Sool Plateau

(Covering parts of Sool, Bari and Sanag Region) This area has experienced three years of successive rain failure which has killed a significant number of livestock. Overgrazing and poor pasture have resulted in poor livestock productivity, which, combined with a low water availability has decreased herd sizes and their composition. The marketing of livestock has become more difficult forcing poorer pastoral households to adopt extreme coping strategies to survive. Heavy charcoal collection, one of these strategies, has serious long term environmental consequences.
The Normal situation

Normally, poor households on Sool Plateau get an estimated 25% of their annual household energy needs from livestock products such as milk, ghee and meat, while 70% of their annual energy comes through the market purchase of staple food for which they Gu Season Assessment: Crop Establishment (Southern Areas) and Pastoral Areas Of Concern (Northern/Central areas)
The Current Situation on Sool Plateau

Ninety per cent of the Sool Plateau received no rain. There was however localized rain in parts of Bari and Sanag which brought some relief in terms of water availability and forage regeneration. However, in-migration to those areas rapidly led to overgrazing. As a result of the poor rainfall situation, early migration took place in Sool plateau to Nugal Valley, the Hawd, and the coastal/Deeh areas. Wealthier households used trucks to transport their animals while poorer households walked, leaving behind a trail of dead camels and shoats on the migration route. Aggravated by the long distance between pasture and water points, households remaining on the plateau had to rely on water trucking, an expensive undertaking that costs Sshs. 30,000-50,000 per drum of water. This has gone up from Sshs. 10,000 in a normal year. The number of saleable animals in herds have decreased due to weak body condition. This has led to reduced purchasing power amongst poor households and the lower strata of households in the ?middle? wealth group. Camel and pack animals have been hardest hit by the drought due to scarce vegetation and more frequent water transportation stress while estimates show that 20-30% of shoats on the plateau have died. The Gu season coincides with the delivery period for sheep -pastoralists have culled the new-born to save their mothers. This will undermine the future herd reconstitution, production and off-take.

Consequently, livestock productivity, livestock salability, opportunities for employment, opportunities for self-employment and gifts/ social support are now half what they would be in a baseline year. Unlike the Nugal Valley, households in this area are paying an extra 40% (in US Dollar terms) for water. Despite making comprehensive use of coping mechanisms, poor households on Sool plateau of Sanag and Sool region are still facing an annual household energy needs deficit of between 25-35%- and more than 3,500 households are facing chronic food insecurity .

Responses

FSAU, UNICEF, WFP, MOHL and the Ministry for Pastoralism and the Environment held a meeting on 9 June in Hargeisa to discuss possible interventions.

- Targeted general food distributions in the highly vulnerable areas of the plateau for the next 2-3 months (until the Deyr season) to an estimated vulnerable population of up to 3,500 households in the Sool plateau of Sanag and Sool Regions.

- Supplementary feeding programme for pregnant/lactating mothers and children under five years in the plateau in the next 2-3 months.

- Rehabilitate run-down boreholes, berkads and dams with an aim of increasing access to water for both human and livestock. The water points normally dry up quickly and need to be deep to maintain a constant water supply.

- Promote alternative income generating activities through a credit programme to reduce over-reliance on livestock sources for maintaining livelihoods.

- Continued close monitoring of the food and nutrition situation in the area and intensification of surveillance activities. - Intensify the promotion of preventive health care interventions focusing on immunisation, hygiene, and control of water related diseases.

- Promote nutrition education through the MCH/outposts focusing on breastfeeding, complementary feeding and frequency of feeding of infants and young children as well a feeding of sick children.

Note : This month most livestock traders switch from Bossaso port (high tides cause it to shut until September) to Berbera port. This affects livestock traders as port charges are higher at Berbera.
TABLE II : LIVESTOCK EXPORT TABLE JUNE 2003 Berbera
Item -- ** March -- April-- May -- June

Camel -- 2,173 -- 0 -- 2,405 -- 800
Cattle -- 3,273 -- 1,566 -- 2,518 -- 3866
Shoats -- 22,655 -- 12,035 -- 22,971 -- 16,502
Total -- 28,111 -- 13,601 -- 27,894 -- 21,168

** Berbera Port Authority
SOOL REGION

The part of the Sool plateau which falls in the Sool region continues to remain in an alarming situation (with the Sool of Sanag) as up to 3,500 households face deficits of 25-35% of their energy requirements. For more information on this area see the article on page 3. The lower Nugal Valley is in an alarming situation with the poor group experiencing a 15-25% deficit of energy requirements. The remaining areas of the Nugal Valley FEZ are experiencing normal conditions for the time of year. Food security has improved as livestock condition has improved, following adequate Gu rains. Animals are easier to sell and livestock prices are now 20% higher than the baseline. In the third week of June the weather changed to the Hagai dry season characterized by dry winds. The situation in the Hawd FEZ is normal. Most of the grazing rangelands are in good condition and there is limited out migration taking place in the area. However, rangeland resources may be stretched as in-migration of camel herds from Sool plateau have now moved into the Hawd.
SANAG AND TOGHDEER

The part of the Sool plateau which falls in the Sanag region continues to remain in an alarming situation (along with the Sool of Sool region) as up to 3,500 households face deficits of 25-35% of their energy requirements. In the Sool plateau of Sanag region, berkads and balleys remain empty as a result of sporadic and insufficient Gu rain. Access to employment and self-employment are limited and almost 30% of pastoralists do not have sellable animals due to the prolonged dry spell and debt burden. To fill an increasing deficit many poor pastoralists on the Sool plateau have turned to charcoal burning, despite the environmental implications. For more information see the article on page 3. Consecutive poor rains have detrimentally affected the upper Dharoor in Sanag region which extends to the south of Erigavo and Bosasso. The 2003 Gu season failed in ninety per cent of the area which prompted a massive migration towards the neighboring Golis mountains and the upper Nugal valley. In the Golis Guban of Togdheer and Sanaag, the Gu rains were good and revived browse and grazing, benefitting livestock. In the Hawd of Togdheer, the situation is good. This is a result of good rainfall, favourable terms of trade, improved range resources, abundant water, sustainable herd size and normal livestock production.

NORTH WEST AND AWDAL

In the agro-pastoral areas of the region Gu rains started on time in April but had eased up by June. A slightly reduced area is likely to have been planted in the region due to lack of availability of tractors, the selling of traction animals due to the high prices that they were fetching in early months of the year, the selling of farmland close to towns as they enlarge especially in Hargeisa, Borama, Gabiley and Tog-Wajale. In general, the sorghum and maize is doing well apart from a handful of villages. Livestock body and production is normal for June. In the coastal and sub-coastal belts, livestock body condition and production is good. Pasture and browse has regenerated following its depletion earlier this year when Ethiopian pastoralists in-migrated to the region from Shinnile. The FSAU field monitor reports that Awdal maybe bracing itself for a new influx of migrants from this area due to the deteriorating situation in this part of Ethiopia. FSAU will monitor. Good rainfall was received in the Hawd where livestock production and body condition is reported as good.

In the north west the Karan rains have started. These fall in June through to August. They have a positive effect on agro-pastoralists and help to regenerate grazing areas. In the sub-coastal areas of Sahil and Galbeed, un-seasonal but beneficial showers have already been received. These showers reduced worries of early pasture depletion which was exacerbated by an abnormal influx of pastoralists from Ethiopia into the area at the beginning of 2003.

"The unemployment rate is more than 90 percent and such a huge number of idle people may undermine peace," Ahmed, a former resident of Manchester, told AFP in the Somaliland capital, Hargeisa. "It is good to invest at home," said Ahmed, 32, who has expanded his business to the poverty-stricken villages and shopping outposts neighbouring Hargeisa.

Of the 2.5 million people in Somaliland, at least 85 percent live on less than a dollar a day.

Ahmed, like several other small-scale traders in Somaliland, warned that the ever-increasing rate of joblessness in the tiny Gulf of Aden entity threatens to lure idlers back into gunslinging and crime, just like in neigbouring Somalia in the south.

"Something must be done to avert such a disturbing scenario," Fatuma Ismail said, herself a full-time currency dealer.

She explained that forex businesses along the pavements of Hargeisa have of late turned into rewarding ventures in a society that heavily relies on small-scale trade and livestock to eke out a living.

Fatuma, a mother of four, said security in Hargeisa's main Ba'adle street is favourable to traders, who deal mostly in Somaliland shillings. "I don't fear anyone. I can display my currency in Ba'adle street," she told AFP, pointing at a locked metal box fastened with aluminium wires and a padlock, which was also full of bundles of foreign currency notes.

"People bring foreign currency notes -- US dollars, Saudi riyals, Ethiopian birr and United Arab Emiratess dirhams --- and I change them for a commission," she said, explaining that the commission is her only source of livelihood.

"I get enough to feed my kids, pay for their education and care for my disabled husband," she said, but warned that "the rising number of people who have nothing to do might fracture the delicate peace that keeps Somalilanders together."

A small group of other traders voiced similar fears.

Somaliland unilaterally broke away from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, five months after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled.

As Somalia proper degenerated into anarchy and violence -- it still lacks any semblance of a working central government -- Somaliland, although in the absence of international recognition, has built up many of the institutions of statehood.

It now boasts a president, government, police force, penal code, currency and customs.

The police force has managed fairly well to keep law and order among Somalilanders despite shoddy equipment and the sturbborness of thieves and drunkards.

During a stroll through the bumpy streets of Hargeisa at dusk, AFP journalists were crossed by mean-looking but politely speaking police officers. "Please sleep on time, we are looking for thieves and drunk drivers," one of them said, explaining that petty criminals lurked at night.

Aden Mohamed "Dool", who deals in Khat, mildly nacortic leaves chewed by the majority of the population, said idlers steal cash to buy Khat as soon as the cargo lands from Etiopia.

Lasanood has been the capital of Sool Region since 1984, as well as capital of Lasanood District. Sool Region has other three districts, Ainabo, Taleh and Hudun (Ceynabo, Taleex and Xuddun, respectively) as shown on the Map. Geographically, Lasanood is located at the centre of a prime grazing area known as the Nugal Valley. The town is also close to the other high potential grazing areas of Hawd and Sool plateaus. Thus, Lasanood's location gives the town a unique characteristic of strong urban- pastoral linkage Before the collapse of the government in 1990, Lasanod was a small town with a population of about 20,000. However, within one decade, the population skyrocketed to 60,000 by 2001 (WHO, 2001). A study conducted by SC-UK in 1998 on IDP and returnee population in Somaliland revealed that 73% of the population in the town were returnees from other parts of the country. Of the returnees, most came from other parts of Somaliland, especially Sanaag Region as well as Hargeisa, Burao and Berbera towns. These households had been displaced by 1988-1992 civil war and armed clan conflicts in those areas. However, many others in Lasanood have returned from the main towns in the south due ethnic tensions and clan affiliation. Others still are internally displaced people (IDPs) from the inter-riverine area in the south who were forced out from their villages and who lost their assets. Some of these households came as early as 1994 in search of a secure working environment and better living conditions.

Another factor accounting for Lasanood's rapid growth since 1990 is that successive droughts in Sool Region over the last several seasons claimed the lives of a significant number of livestock, especially sheep and goats (shoats) and camels, which are two important determinants of wealth in these pastoral food economy zones.Local herders living in the Sool Plateau and lower Nugaal Valley of Taleh District, in particular, experienced several unbroken rainy season failures that decimated their camel herd to about 50% of the normal size. The drought has also affected poorer pastoral household ability to obtain enough food and income as they experienced significant asset loss that severely weakened their purchasing power. Some of those households who could no longer live in a pastoral setting became destitute and dropped out of pastoralism altogether, migrating to Lasanood town.

Demographically, Lasanood is a very homogenous town in terms of clan affiliation and has been enjoying relatively peace and stability since 1990. This has encouraged a substantial level of investment from members of the Diaspora community, mainly in the form of housing, transport and small businesses. Of late, growing investment in the construction sector has been creating more job opportunities and lubricating the local economy, and thus still attracting more people into the town. These outside investments also partially explain the ever-increasing population number in the town. However, former pastoralists are finding it hard to compete with better skilled former southerners, who get most of the available construction jobs.

A significant level of integration exists between IDPs, returnees and original inhabitants, facilitating reasonably good overall food security. However, as the population growth exceeds the growth of jobs, infrastructure and public services, health facilities are overstretched and, and accessibility to clean water has been an acute problem, especially for low-income households, putting more strain on household purchasing power.

Main Livelihood Sources

Lasanood has a relatively strong economic base, which depends primarily on livestock sector. Other mainstays of the local economy are remittances (for better off and middle classes) from the diaspora community and the transport sector, supported by a good road network which links the town to Berbera and Bosaso ports as well as central Somalia. Moreover, the substantial cross border trade between Puntland and the neighbouring Zone Five in Ethiopia passes through Lasanood, which makes it a growing commercial hub.

Even though there is no strong baseline at household level showing the relative importance of various income sources among households according to different wealth group, the livestock sector is believed to be the most important source of income for most households. During a rapid assessment on June 7-8 and interviews with local elders and key informants, FEWS NET and FSAU found that 50-60% of the urban population derives a substantial amount of their income from the livestock sector, directly or indirectly, in a normal year -- defined as 1996.

Most households in town own livestock, mainly shoats and some camels, which are kept by their kin or family members in the countryside. Thus, a significant number of the population, especially the middle wealth and better off groups, has continuous and unlimited access to livestock and livestock products in a normal year. Overall, urban household food and income is closely linked to pastoral production and therefore drought in the pastoral areas has more far reaching implications on the urbanites in Lasanood than one would otherwise expect.

Lasanood is also the commercial link between Zone Five of Ethiopia, Puntland and central Ethiopia as well as the major livestock market in Burao (Somaliland). Many households, therefore, engage in livestock trade. It is this trade and associated service sector that provides an additional important employment opportunities for poor households.

However, the ban on imports of Somali livestock ban by Somalia's trade partners in the Arabian Peninsula since September 2000 has seriously damaged the livestock trade and related employment opportunities. Moreover, successive droughts in Sool and Hawd Plateaus weakened livestock and reduced their marketability. This has hurt market activities and employment opportunities for poor urban households.

Nowadays, poor and very poor households in Lasanood, representing 20-25% of the population and owning fewer animals of their own, receive the bulk of their food and income from sources other than own livestock or the livestock trade. Construction, small business, and petty trade are the most important employers for lower income households.

FEWS NET, FSAU and local health workers found that self- employment activities generate up to half (45-50%) of poor household income in a normal year. Important self-employment activities include street vendoring, operating teashops, collecting and selling firewood, milk retailing and collecting and selling sand and rocks for construction. The second important income source is paid employment, which contributes 30- 35% of annual poor household income. Paid employment includes construction, portering, employment on small horticultural farms, delivery and sale of water by donkey cart, and selling khat on behalf of khat distributors. Income from sale of livestock and livestock products provide 15-20% of poor households' annual income, while gifts and social support provides about 5% of their annual income. On the expenditure side, poor households spend 60-70% of their annual income on staple foods. In addition to local cereals, rice and wheat flour are the main staple foods consumed by poor households in a normal year. However, prices of locally produced cereals like sorghum and maize always remain high due to high transportation cost from the south. In most cases, households prefer imported rice and wheat flour to local cereals. Poor households also spend 15-20% of their annual income on non-staple food purchase, such as sugar, meat and, edible oil. Households spend 10-15% of their annual income on non-food essentials, such as house rent, clothing, kerosene and firewood.

Poor household income options are not easily expandable (when households can expand some sources of income to offset a decrease in another sources of income). Hence, their normal expenditure patterns leave them no extra income to cater for health care or clean water, making them vulnerable to water borne diseases. Moreover, price of potable water has been increasing since 1994 as shown in Figure 2.

The Water Problem

Lasanood lies in the middle of the Nugal valley, which has an abundant water resource. The water table is shallow and most of the wells in the town (about 17 of them) are only 8m deep. This shallow depth has become a health hazard as water in wells come in contact with seepage from shallow latrine pits. Thus, the incidence of water contamination with human wastes is very common. This is confirmed by high level of water borne diseases and diarrhoea among children of poorer households who cannot afford to buy clean water for consumption.

Available water is not suitable for household domestic uses, cooking and washing. Furthermore, laboratory analysis of the shallow wells in the town, carried out in Dubai by the Lasanood business community, found a substantial amount of mineral content that rendered it unfit for human consumption. Depending on level of income, households receive water from a number of sources. Some households can afford to buy water trucked from berkads (large cement-lined water run-off reservoirs) in the Hawd Plateau, hand dug wells, boreholes, streams and, communal dam. Water harvested from roofs of the buildings is common. The community dam, which is 3km away from the town, holds water in the first 3-4 weeks in a normal rainy season.

However, according to Sool Region Medical Doctor, a number of analyses conducted in Nairobi and Germany confirmed results similar to those found for the shallow wells - a high level of minerals and other hazardous chemical compounds. Elders and health workers also reported a significant level of diseases/mortality rate among under-five children of low-income groups like the destitute and IDPs. Despite the efforts by the Norwegian Peoples' Aid (NPA), the only international agency on the ground, availability of clean water is a continuing endemic proble m. Data from the Lasanood OPD shows that the incidence of water borne diseases and diarrhoea among children has remained high in the last six months, as shown in Figure 3. The most prevalent diseases are gastro- intestinal parasites, Salmonella, Hepatitis and other waterborne diseases. Doctors associated most of these diseases to the quality of the water that people consume. This in turns compromises child nutrition and growth, especially among poorer urbanite groups who cannot import water from great distances/buy.

M. Y. Aw-Dahir, FEWS NET Dr. Ahmed Arten, FSAU FM Osman Abdi, FSAU Nutritionist, With contribution from Dr. Muse Gelle, Sool Region Medical Doctor, USAID/FEWS NET Tel: 254-2-350523/4/5 Email: somalia@fews.net

In Somaliland and Puntland pastoralists migrate seasonally between three main grazing zones, depending on the on the rainfall performance, pasture and water availability. These gazing zones are the Hawd and Sool Plateaus and Nugal Valley (Figure 1). During normal seasons, pastoralists do not travel great distances but stay within their traditional grazing areas. The level of in- and out-migration is one of the main indicators of the season's performance in a particular grazing area. Out migration is mainly triggered by poor pasture and water resources but disease outbreaks and insecurity can also compel herders to leave with their animals.

FSAU, FEWS NET and their partners conduct pastoral assessments twice a year during the gu and deyr seasons to determine seasonal performance on the rangeland and hence, on pastoral household livelihoods. The gu 2003 assessment coincided with a worsening drought and growing concern from both Somaliland and Puntland authorities about the impact of successive rainy season failure, exacerbated by delayed gu rains in April-May this year. The gu pastoral assessment was carried out between May 27-June 9, 2003.

Objectives of the Assessment

1. Determine overall gu 2003 season performance on pastoral livelihoods;

2. Identify vulnerable population groups and areas requiring heightened surveillance; and 3. Recommend feasible and appropriate humanitarian interventions.

Principal Findings

Performance of the 2003 gu varied between grazing areas, as discussed in the following sections.

Hawd Plateau Food Economy Zones

The rain started on time and normally throughout the Hawd Plateau. Distribution and intensity were normal to above normal; pasture regeneration and water replenishment were adequate. Livestock recovery from the preceding harsh dry season or jilaal (November through mid-March), body conditions, reproduction and milk reproduction rates were normal to above normal. However, due to previous below-normal rains in the deyr season, camel conception rates were below normal during the gu. For sheep and goats, on the other hand, reproduction rates were normal to above normal due to the good deyr rains. Extra goat milk production is expected to offset income deficit from poor camel milk sales and will possibly increase normal household incomes and food sources. Yet, pasture and water resources are not expected to last before the next rainy season (October).

Deeh, Aduun and, Golis Food Economy Zones

Generally, the gu season performance was average to above average in these grazing zones. Similar to conditions in the Hawd, the pastoral production indicators show that households will have normal access to enough food and income over the coming months. Livestock conditions are also normal in these food economy zones.

Dharor Food Economy Zone

Consecutive seasons of poor rains affected the upper Dharor of Sanaag region, which extends from Erigavo to Bosaso districts. Gu season rainfall was only 10% of normal, prompting a large-scale out migration of pastoralists households to the neighboring Golis Mountain ranges and Upper Nugal Valley. These households are not expected to return to their home areas until the next deyr rains, expected in October, improve the situation.

Nugal Valley Food Economy Zones

The Nugal Valley is divided in to two parts: Upper and Lower Nugal valley. The Lower Nugal Valley extends from Taleh District of Sool Region up to Dangorayo Distric t of Nugal Region. In this pastoral zone, rains started late and were below normal. Water run off and floods from the Sool plateau, which normally help pasture to regenerate, did not come either because rainfall was poor in Sool plateau and did not provide enough water run off. Moreover, 80% of the Lower Valley experienced rain failure and rains could not replenish water sources or regenerate pastures fully. Livestock, especially camels, migrated to the Hawd while sheep and goats (shoats) migrated to parts of Upper Nugal Valley, an area experiencing successive rain failure like the Sool plateau. However unlike their counterparts in the Sool plateau, pastoral households in the Lower Nugal Valley have easy access to water from hand dug wells. The Upper Nugal Valley received good rainfall, which is more or less similar to that received in the Hawd. The pace of seasonal recovery for those households and animals that migrated was normal.

Sool Plateau Food Economy Zone

This zone has been experiencing successive rainy season failures over the past 2-3 years that resulted in overgrazing and poor livestock productivity. Drought also decimated a significant number of livestock. Moreover, the population of Sool Plateau has been facing acute food insecurity due to the following factors:

- Decreased herd size and non-optimal herd composition
- Poor livestock productivity and marketability
- Shrinkage of food sources and income options
- Shifting of wealth groups (fewer better-off and more middle and poor households) and a reduced asset base.
- Social support fatigue
- Extreme coping mechanisms and environmental degradation, and
- High malnutrition rates among children and mothers.

The Current Situation

The gu 2003 rainfall was only 10% of the normal in the Sool Plateau (Figure 2) which covers part of Sool, Bari and Sanaag Regions. However, localized rainfall in parts of Bari and Sanaag brought about some relief in terms of water availability and limited forage regeneration. These areas experienced a sustained in-migration and overgrazing which could reverse the beneficial effects of the previous rainfall. The poor rains in the Sool plateau resulted in early out-migration towards the

Nugal Valley, Hawd, Deeh and coastal areas. Better off households used trucks to transport their animals while poorer households trekked theirs, leaving a trail of dead camel and shoats along the migration routes and near water points. For those who remained in the plateau, access to water is still difficult for livestock as they rely on water trucking from various permanent water points. Water prices are unusually high, ranging from Ssh 30,000-50,000 per drum compared with Ssh 10,000 in a normal year, due to the long distance between pasture and water points. The number of marketable animals within the herds is rapidly declining due to weak body conditions that lead to falling prices and hence, low purchasing power especially among poorer households and lower strata of middle wealth groups. Pack animals (camels and donkeys) are hardest hit by the current drought due to scarce vegetation and more frequent water transportation stress. Some 20-30% of shoats died. As the gu season coincided with the delivering period of sheep; birth rates were high but pastoralists culled the new-born to save the mothers. This action is expected to undermine the future herd reconstitution and sustainable off-take as well.

Poor Household Baseline Vs Current Situation

In a normal year, poor households in the Sool Plateau receive income and food sources from livestock and livestock products. Livestock products (milk, ghee and meat) contribute about 23% of annual household energy needs. Market purchase contributes about 70% while the remaining 7% comes from gifts and social support (Figure3). However, drought induced shocks changed food access significantly from baseline conditions. For instance, livestock productivity (milk, meet and ghee) reduced to about 50% of the baseline and households now obtain only 13% of their energy needs from livestock products. Moreover, gifts and social support declined and now contribute about 3% instead of 7%.

As bulk of poor households' energy comes from market purchase, cash income is always needed to buy staple foods. The sale of livestock products provides about 40% of household income in a normal year, followed by the sale of livestock (37%). Self-employment, paid employment and gifts/social support contribute 25%, 14% and 3% respectively.

However, successive rain failures and drought have reduced poor household income levels. Analysis of the 2003 gu season, supplemented by field observations by FSAU and FEWS NET, shows that (after applying potential expandability) sale of livestock products contributes 18%. However, income from sale of livestock expanded and reached about 43%; income from self-employment and paid employment reduced to 50% of the baseline and now contribute about 29% and 10%, respectively. By using all possible coping options to the maximum, households in the Sool Plateau were able to reduce their initial income deficits. However, they are still facing a food gap of about 30% (Figure 3), which is likely to prevail up to the next rainy season (deyr). External assistance is therefore crucial to bridge this gap.

Conclusion

Of late, the pastoralist in this food economy zone experienced recurrent drought and below-normal rains, which impaired vegetation cover and water availability and weakened livestock conditions. Furthermore, the below-normal gu rains triggered huge asset losses, debt burden, low purchasing power, reduced options of coping strategies and drastic reduction of social support as fewer households had the means to support others. The resultant food gap among poorer households has led to the resumption of charcoal making activities, which had previously been stopped by the communities with the support of the local authorities.

FSAU and FEWS NET estimated that 9-10,000 poor pastoral households living in the Sool Plateau of Sanaag, Sool and Bari Regions are currently facing moderate food insecurity. Humanitarian intervention is needed to avert further asset depletion and worsening food insecurity, not to mention more charcoal making, which can reduce rangeland carrying capacity in the future.

USAID/FEWS NET Somalia; Tel: 254-2-350523/4/5 email: somalia@fews.net

Although the delegation's mission has not been disclosed, it is thought to be as a result of an invitation by Somaliland to senior officials from the South African government and the ruling ANC party.

South Africa currently holds the chairmanship of the African Union and has enhanced its bilateral relations with Somaliland. Several South African government and party officials have visited Somaliland. Similarly, several Somaliland delegations have visited South Africa in the last two years.

They decried the date as a sad day which deserved no celebrations or any form of considerations as far as the Somaliland people were concerned. 1 July is being celebrated heavily in Somalia today, marking the 43rd anniversary since southern Somalia regions gained independence from Italy. In a joint statement signed by party heads, Ucid and Kuliye officials said 1st of July is a painful reminder of anguish and sorrow to the Somaliland people, resulting from the bad marriage and unification with (rest) of Somalia. (Passage omitted).

Following mediation by elders and religious leaders in Northwest Somalia ('Somaliland'), the main opposition party Kulmiye, officially accepted the results of 'Somaliland's presidential election as per the decision of the Supreme Court which upheld the results of the elections held in April 2003 that declared the incumbent Dahir Riyale Kahin of the Unity of Democrats (UDUB) party the winner.

The security situation in Somaliland and Northeast Somalia ('Puntland') was relatively calm, save for an incident in in Gardho, Puntland, in which clashes between rival miltia resulted in three people killed and two girls wounded in cross fire.

Emergency Preparedness and Response training for UNICEF staff...

To enhance the capacity of UNICEF staff, a National Emergency Preparedness and Response planning workshop was held for international and national staff based in Nairobi and others from the rest of Somalia. It was held in Hargeisa, Northwest Somalia.

Health programme highlights

UNICEF organized a workshop in Burao, Somaliland, to sensitize health workers and dispel misconceptions on issues related to immunization of children and women. Some 25 people including physicians and nurses from both the private and public sector participated.

Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) campaigns were conducted in the five regional capitals of Somaliland. It took the combined effort of 77 immunization teams to see the campaign through, resulting in about 39,000 children aged under five years and 11,000 women of child-bearing age being immunized. During the campaigns, iron-cum-folic acid tablets were distributed to women of childbearing age for the prevention of anaemia.

In Somaliland, some 20 midwives from Galbeed region were trained in life saving skills at the Edna Adan Hospital in Hargeisa. UNICEF provided support for another one-week refresher training course for 20 traditional birth attendants from Hargeisa town at the hospital. Some further 40 midwives and nurses from health centres in Awdal and Sool regions were also trained in breastfeeding promotion and lactation management.

For further information on UNICEF, visit its website at http://www.unicef.org/

The rally, which coincided with the 43rd anniversary of the day when Somaliland received its independence from Britain on June 26, 1960, was organized by Somaliland's community in London. The picketing demonstration started at 12 noon London local time and continued for several hours. At 5 pm, Omer Dixood, Somaliland government?s special envoy to Europe for recognition affairs, accompanied by a young lady were allowed into the Foreign office to deliver a written note to ministry officials.

In their message to the British government, the Somaliland community urged he British government to grant diplomatic recognition to Somaliland.

The Somalilanders, many of them British citizens thanked the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair for assisting in Somaliland?s recent local and presidential elections.

Somaliland's women came to the rally in good numbers, showing a stronger presence than men.

Exceptionally active were Hibaq and Ayan Ashur who started picketing wrapped in the national flag from 12 noon.

A very enthusiastic Ayan Ashur said, "I just felt as if I were in Somaliland."

Hamda who fled Hargeisa as a child in 1988 following the bombardment of residential areas said she still remembers how she had to flee her hometown with others.

British officials of the Foreign office assured the Somaliland demonstrators that they will receive a reply to their petition from the ministry in due course.

Somaliland is labeled as a "breakaway state" by some analysts, while others describe its success as "the little country that could" (2).

In fact, Somaliland did nothing more than end a union it had entered into as a sovereign independent state, and has since pulled itself up by its own bootstraps.

Recently, Senegal, the European Union and Somaliland's neighbour Ethiopia have shown promising signs of wanting to end the impasse.

Ethiopia hosted Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin on a state visit late last year and President Wade of Senegal hosted the Somaliland president recently.

A South African delegation, paid a fact-finding visit to Somaliland in January 2003 and declared it to be "a challenge rather than a problem for the African Union".(3)

"The country has shown the African renaissance spirit of self-reliance and resilience and has produced a sustainable government and constitution."

"They have got their act together while in the south (Somalia) the Transitional National Government (TNG) has been unable to do so."

"The international community must take notice of this. It cannot remain ostrich-like with its head in the sand", said Fatima Ismail, a human rights activist. (4)

The energy that the international community has put into the process that led to the installation of the southern TNG has not produced the desired result. (5)

The Kenyan government earlier appointed a new mediator to take over the Somalia peace talks in Eldoret, Kenya, which have been bogged down since they began in October 2002.

Bethwell Kiplagat, a senior Kenyan diplomat, will replace Elijah W. Mwangale, who was blamed by Somali warlords and Western diplomats alike for not properly managing the talks. "Warlords continue to hold sway in Somalia and violence has resumed to a disturbing degree. The international community should be looking at the reality on the ground," said Ismail.

"If the international community plans to apply the principal of territorial unity and the fiction of a "sovereign Somalia" without understanding the history, facts on the ground and the genocide experienced, it would be planting the seeds for conflict more deadly than previously seen in Africa", said Professor Hussein Bulhan, head of the Somaliland Academy for Peace and Development and former head of the Anti-Apartheid Movement at Boston University.

"The expectation of the Somaliland people has rightly been raised by the success of their democratic and modest economic development. To frustrate this expectation and to force a union with the South, against the will of the people, is also to court a deadly conflict," he said.

Supporting peace in Somaliland where it only prevails, providing an incentive to it and extending it, is a worthwhile and realistic target.

Ethiopia, which makes increasing use of the Somaliland port of Berbera, has opened a diplomatic trade-liaison office in the capital of Hargeisa along with numerous EU and UN agencies.

The United States and other Western powers, mindful of the strategic importance of the Horn, continue to investigate establishing an interest office in Somaliland - something that would be impossible in the ungovernable Somalia.

Somaliland's major problem is that is too small to wield any muscle against the international organisations that ignore it.

But as the African focus moves increasingly off the Great Lakes and onto the Horn of Africa, this country of 3,5-million people will become an example of stability, good governance and economic discipline.

Geographically Somaliland, an area of 137 600 square kilometres forms the top of the figure seven made by the Horn of Africa. It is roughly the size of England and Wales. It was formerly British Somaliland while Somalia, the bottom of the 7 - was an Italian colony. Both colonies gained independence in 1960. Somaliland decided shortly after independence to form a union with the south. Before taking this step, however, it had already been recognised by 35 countries. The partnership was decidedly biased in favour of the south.

When southerner Siad Barre took power in a coup he brutally crushed northern opposition. This included flattening the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa, using a combination of artillery, South African mercenaries and bomber aircraft that took off from the airport on the outskirts of the city. On the outskirts of the capital, lie a number of UN acknowledged mass graves as testimony to southern brutality.

After Barre's fall in 1991, the Somalilanders wasted no time in ending the union with the south. After months of deliberations attended by many sectors of society, the grand conference of Burco as well as the second conference at Borama, a sort of South African Codesa, revoked the act of union and reinstated the independence that their territory enjoyed.

This action raised hackles in the then Organisation of African Unity, ever nervous about secession and determined, for better or worse, to maintain colonial boundaries.In fact, Somaliland's declaration of independence transgressed neither of these. The country was not breaking some pre-independence bond with the south. It was merely breaking a union that it had entered into as an independent state, for which there are numerous African precedents.

Somaliland has not violated colonial boundaries. It has occupied no more than that territory once occupied by the British and recognised as independent in 1960 by the international community.

Not only are Somaliland disenchanted with the uneven arrangement and traumatised by the civil war that killed more than 50 000 of their compatriots and 500 000 displaced, but they see no inducement to return to formal ties with what is to all intents and purposes an anarchic state.

The TNG of Somalia - that carries the seat at the United Nations, the Arab League and the African Union, cannot pretend to control anything more than a few blocks of Mogadishu. What caused this rush towards recognising a government with no territory nor administration, after having ignored arguably real and effective government in Somaliland?

The remainder of the country remains ungovernably in the hands of warlords.

Following the withdrawal of United Nations peacekeeping troops from Somalia in 1995 the international community, and particularly the United States that pulled out a year earlier, wanted nothing to do with anything bearing the label "Somali".

However security considerations post September 11 2001 have reinforced the strategic importance of the Horn that is now being patrolled by a German led European force.

The rebuilding of Hargeisa, which Barre reduced to rubble and turned into a minefield, has happened without assistance from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

The economic development has been largely supported by Somalilanders in the diaspora. Proven oil reserves, coal and gemstone mining, livestock and fisheries production, remain untapped. (6)

More importantly Somaliland has built a strong democratic society that seamlessly passed the test last year with the death of President Mohamed Egal.

Within hours of confirmation of his death at 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria, vice president Kahin was sworn in as national leader. Both Egal and Kahin had been nominated by a council of elders in 1993 that re-elected Egal in 1997.

Kahin faced a full electorate in the country's first presidential elections on April 14 this year. International observers, including South Africans, declared the presidential elections as "peaceful, orderly and transparent". (7)

Somalilanders had their first taste of democracy in May 2001 when an internationally observed referendum confirmed their wish to remain apart from Somalia and endorsed a new constitution.

Highly successful municipal elections - also internationally observed and the first since 1969 - were held on December 15, 2002.

Somaliland is undergoing a full house of democratic procedures with parliamentary elections due to follow shortly on the presidential ballot.

Relations with northern neighbour Djibouti were chilled by that French dominated enclave hosting a conference that parachuted the Transitional National Government into power in Mogadishu.

By all credible accounts, the President of Djibouti, considerably interfered in this process and some conclude hijacked the process driven by his specific interests.

Observers have rightly questioned: where in history has a president enjoyed the right of nominating delegates to a parliament of a neighbouring country? In addition the election of a long-standing minister of interior in the scorned Barre regime as TNG president was received with shock in Somaliland.

This gut-wrenching shock is captured by a Somali refugee in Kenya who said "Mogadishu has fallen into the clutch of thugs, no better than hyenas, who have no idea what honour is, what trust is, what political responsibility means".

Asked whether he would go back to Mogadishu. He went on, "Would you ask a hyena to watch over your beef stew? Because you would be a fool if you trusted a hyena, wouldn't you?" (8)

By contrast, a recent UN 2002 review declared Somaliland as "the exception to the violence" and the prevailing anarchy in Somalia.(9)

Clearly, Somaliland's extraordinary indigenous conflict-resolution methods may provide an example to the southern Somalis. But, now the international community and notably South African agents of peace, cannot be delicately silent on supporting Somaliland's success story and its emerging democracy. Are we ready for this critical Nepad imperative?

Notes and References

1. Iqbal Jhazbhay teaches at the University of South Africa and is a member of the ANC's Commission of Religious Affairs. He also serves on the Board of the Institute for Global Dialogue. E-mail: jhazbmid@unisa.ac.za
2. See an insightful overview article by David Shinn with the title: "The Little Country that Could". See also the article by the eminent scholar Ioan M Lewis with the title "Mohamad Siyad Barre's Ghost in Somalia". Another text of importance is the unpublished article by Matt Bryden, "The Banana Test: Is Somaliland Ready for Recognition".
3. This fact finding visit was undertaken by Mr. Welile Nhlapo, Head of the Presidential Support Unit in the Presidency of South Africa. The Unit primarily focuses on conflict resolution in Africa.
4. Amnesty International, while not the favourite of all political activists, called recently for acknowledgement of Somaliland's record of stability, political pluralism and media openness. It recently convened its regional conference in the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa.
5. See the recent report of the International Crisis Group, Negotiating a Blueprint for Peace in Somalia". The report depicts the situation on the ground and has noted that the TNG has collapsed and shows no sign of life on the streets of Mogadishu.
6. See the article by Shannon Field, "Somaliland elections boost oil prospects", Sunday Independent, April 20 2003, page 7 and the article by JJ Cornish, "Hope in the Horn of Africa", Mail & Guardian, April 25 2003, page 20.
7. "Interim Statement of the South African Observer Mission on the Somaliland Presidential Elections of 14th April 2003", issued on 15th April 2003. The 10-person South African election observer team also included members from the Johannesburg-based Electoral Institute of Southern Africa.
8. Farah, Nuruddin. Yesterday, Tomorrow: Voices from the Somali Diaspora. London: Cassell. 2000.
9. See "Somalia: Review of 2002", dated 17th January 2002 on the website of the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network

Let?s give the doctor a break for a little while and turn our attention to another professional. Your druggist also has a certain accountability when it comes to filling your prescriptions. Typing out a label with a prescription number is not adequate. He should put the name of the drug and the dose on the container when he sells it to you. There is absolutely no good reason in the world why you should not know the name of the medicine you are expected to take. In fact, there is every reason for you to know it. Just as important as the name, is the date on which the pharmacist sells the drug and the expiration date of the medication. When your pharmacist receives a shipment of drugs, it always has an expiration or termination date stamped on it.

No drug container-closure system is indefinitely stable and the manufacturer or packer of a drug product is responsible for determining the stability characteristic for each of his products. Unfortunately, your pharmacist almost never places the expiration date on your drug container, which means that you have absolutely no idea when the medicine loses its effect or changes chemical composition. Many drugs should be aware of that fact unless your pharmacist types the date on the label.

Once you have your little bottle of expensive drugs clutched in your hot sweaty palm, you cannot just truck it on home and store it in your medicine cabinet and forget about it. The careful storage and maintenance of medicine is absolutely essential to its sage and effective utilization. How many times have we read the little note that says "store in a cool dry place" and just ignored it completely? Many o today?s powerful and complex new drug preparations are not very stable chemically. Rapid changes in environmental conditions, such as temperature and humidity, may affect them adversely. In fact on the way home from the drugstore, the chances are pretty good that you might leave the medicine on the seat of the car or in the glove compartment while you head off to take care of other errands. The amount of time the medicine sits in a hot car in the summer or in a freezing car in the winter can seriously affect the active ingredients. By the way, if possible, avoid having the pharmacy deliver your drugs, since you have no idea how long your medicine has been sitting in the delivery vehicle while the delivery person makes his rounds.

If the storage conditions are not maintained within certain narrow limits, then not only may you be receiving a less than therapeutic dose, but the breakdown products may produce unexpected and hazardous side effects. For example, improperly stored Tetracycline may deteriorate to a toxic by-product and produce an anemia-like reaction in some patients. Do you leave your medicine on a heater near your bed in the winter, or perhaps on a kitchen table where the sun could rapidly destroy the contents? Light is detrimental to many drugs, especially vitamins, some major tranquilizers (Thorazine, mellaril, etc) various antibiotics, and certain blood pressure medications. The color of a drug?s container, as well as how well it is stoppered, may also contribute to the preservation of a medicine.

Nevertheless, many medications can be influenced by the type of bottle and the tightness of the cap. Humidity is an absolute disaster for most drugs, since pills tend to absorb water vapor and will then deteriorate much faster than in a dry environment. It is darn hard to "store in a cool, dry place" during the summer when the temperature is 95 and the humidity is out of sight. Ask your pharmacist about the best conditions for storage. If there are children in, or making regular visits to, your household be sure to request child-proof containers. Sure it?s a chore to open them, and they do not seal perfectly, but hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five used to suffer from accidental drug poisoning every year. Child-proof containers have substantially reduced the number of such deaths. Why take chances?

To stash it under the mattress, to deposit and where to deposit one?s money is that person?s choice and business, not the government?s business. On his first decision, the controversial and polarizing Minister of finance has threatened via the manager of the Central Bank, one of his staff, that the money transfer establishments "xawalada" are infringing on the business of Somaliland Banks. This is unfortunate: It is a setback on the entrepreneurial and privatization spirit, it is against the constitution of the country, it is against freedom of choice, it is against competition, it is against market oriented economy, it is a throwback to the dark ages of the "faqash", and worse it is a witch-hunt and a smoke screen to punish Dahabshiil for his alleged support of the opposition Party - KULMIYE. This isn?t the first time Rayaale administration has threatened and/or severed contractual business agreements with KULMIYE supporters. The speaker of the House, Qaybe, discontinued a business relationship the parliament had with IPRT after, Ahmed Issa, director of the institute supported KULMIYE. Indicting citizens for their political right to choose is against the democratic principles; it shouldn?t stand and we all should be outraged.

Government isn?t the solution; government is the problem. These are the words of President Ronald Reagan when he was the governor of California. By and large, it has been proven that government is wasteful, inefficient and not customer friendly. The order of the new millennium is re-inventing government: big government is out and leaner government is in. On November 2002, President Bush announced that the federal government is privatizing 85,000 federal jobs. This privatization crusade is in line with the structural adjustment the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank are prescribing for the 3rd world (developing) to mitigate the severe blow of the chronic poverty and to improve the standard of living of the less fortunate. In the view of the donor nations and the leading economists, privatization is part of good governance and the road to economic development. It is the market forces and not the government crooked inclinations that influence and determine the most efficient mode of delivery of goods and services. Somaliland, the poorest country in the world, is salivating to be dole dependent and that would leave her no other option but to adhere to the prescription of privatization and leaner government.

Private sector knows no boundaries. Traditionally, some economic sectors like power generation and supply, banking, transportation (airlines), telecommunications, and postal services were reserved for government. And the reason was two fold: some were capital intensive and the private sector capability of raising funds was limited then, others were too unattractive and required subsidy to provide the service. Today, both limiting factors have been debunked. Fortunately, raising funds from the capital markets, venture capitalist and multilateral financial institutions has reached new heights. Similarly, the private sector?s ingenuity and efficiency improved the bottom line of unattractive services such as postal services. For example, Federal Express (FEDEX), united Parcel Service (UPS) and DHL are only a few who are flourishing in the once seemingly unattractive postal service that was traditionally government prerogative.

Government has a role but commercial activity is not one of them. Since its inception, Somaliland has come a long way. To start with there was no government, much less regulation, civil society and security. Amid the chaos and the destruction, the public never lost the stamina and the vigor to improvise not only to survive but also to improve the conditions economically and otherwise. With that unparalleled ingenuity, shrewdness and resilience, the public and not the government jumpstarted the economic wheels with great force and minimal funds. Due to the government?s inability to raise funds, the private sector stepped in and succeeded in delivering services that were traditionally reserved for government such as telecommunications, banking, financial services, transportation and electricity. Enterprises like Dahabshiil, Daallo, Delmas, Star airlines, power generating stations, the new post office, telecommunication companies such as STC, SOLTELCO, TELESOM, water bottling, plastic and vehicle plate licenses manufacturers and many more are thriving and has become synonymous with the success ascribed to Somaliland. Today, Somaliland is flourishing because of that and not because of benign, facilitating, efficient and effective government. Indeed, government has a role but that of a facilitator and a regulator. And more, maintaining law and order, dispensing justice fairly, creating and facilitating opportunities for the private sector should be her prerogatives.

The fear is the new Finance Minister might bring this nascent economy to a screeching halt. The threat to clip the flying feathers of the private sector is out of step with the economic order of the day. Government planned economy is out. The days of rationing of food and the long lines for basic staples such as bread, flour, and cooking oil is over. Further more, the current government has neither the financial muscle, nor the expertise and the managerial skill to undertake, maintain and deliver the services the private sector has provided so efficiently. The Minister should fix what isn?t working and stay away from what is working.

Who would you trust, is the question? The attributes of the businesses that are engaged in "Xawaala" are: honesty, efficiency, affordability and convenience. And government isn?t known for these qualities, rather it is known for corruption, mismanagement, misappropriating taxpayer?s public funds and unbearable bureaucracy. Furthermore, salaries are on arrears and that puts the government into insolvency and that deters the public to bank with the government. Would a reasonable person trust his/her few dollars to a destitute organization or to a reputable enterprise? The Minister needs to take a crash course in economics and learn more on the traits of money and investment; money goes where it feels safest and the government coffers aren?t trustworthy, at least not yet. That is the problem and the Minister should take note.

One more thing, the constitution in letter and in spirit enshrines private enterprise and market economy as the underpinning pillars of our democracy. The Minister is confusing raw power to authority. Government is always repressive but neither the Minister nor his proxy at the Bank has the authority to legislate who could accept deposit and who couldn?t. That power is invested in the legislature and as of today, the legislature has neither formulated nor enacted banking regulations. Even then, the constitutional right would militate the legislature against over stepping and limiting the horizon of the entrepreneurial spirit. Presently, traditional or not, there is no economic sector that is beyond the aspiration and the reach of the enterprising public in this era. The Minister and the government should consult with the constitution.

The private sector and more so the "Xawaala", is the backbone of Somaliland. Break it and paralysis is the outcome. The consensus is that over 60% of the families in Somaliland live off not on land, not on industry but on the remittance from the diaspora. Due to these dire circumstances in Somaliland, even the Americans shied away to impede the money transfer "Xawaala" after 9/11. At any rate, traditionally and culturally, bank or without bank, the majority of Somalilanders don?t bother to utilize the services of a bank and that wouldn?t change today or in the immediate future. And until, government earns the public?s trust, the friendly grocery store in the neighbor would remain their choice.

The threat from the Minister and his staff didn?t arise out of economic decision for the benefit and development of Somaliland. Economically and sensibly, as outlined above, threatening the private sector particularly "xawaala" would bring the economy to a halt. As a result, chaos would ensue and the long awaited hope of foreign investment and political recognition would be derailed and that hopelessness might threaten the existence of Somaliland.

But what was the Minister?s intention, one might ask. It rhymed with vendetta. During the campaign, the ambassador publicly affirmed his crusade to settle scores and this is the 1st installment of that dream, it seems. But destroying Dahabshiil, would equally and eventually destroy the remaining growing enterprises such as Daallo, Delmas, and telecommunication companies. Obviously, Somaliland?s survival hinges on growing economy and without it, it would collapse, and collapse pretty hard. Hopefully, destroying Somaliland isn?t the Minister?s ultimate intention.

Somaliland has rightly chosen not to participate in any of the many peace talks held on Somalia since the collapse of Barre?s government in Jan 1991. From the beginning, the people of Somaliland have considered Somaliland?s attendance of these gatherings, in the form of participating delegates, as an unnecessary step designed to compromise the independence and sovereignty of the country. Every Somaliland government has had to comply with this popular position. But in every peace conference about Somalia, participating faction leaders would bring up the question of Somaliland in their debates, especially whenever they were unhappy with the proceedings of the conference. So it is not entirely surprising to hear a lot of noise being made at the current Mbagathi peace talks, by Somalia?s warlords, about Somaliland?s non-participation.

In fact Mbagathi is no different than the many other talks that preceded it, at least in terms of the mission it was set to accomplish. Somaliland has already addressed and resolved all the issues that the Mbagathi conference is supposed to deal with, such as peace and reconciliation, demobilization and democratization, elections of a government and parliament, to name a few. Somaliland is not at war with Somalia either. The question the participants in Mbagathi need to ponder is why Somaliland has been successful in finding solutions to its problems while Somalia has failed on every occasion?

One important reason is that because Somalilanders had suffered so much in the hands of southern-dominated governments, they are determined to succeed, so that what happened to them in the recent past does not happen again. Another factor for Somaliland?s success is that unlike Somalia, Somaliland?s traditional values and local mechanisms for conflict resolution were not destroyed during more than 80 years of British colonial rule. Somalilanders also differ from the people of Somalia in that they have a strong aspiration for freedom from Somalia and are strongly committed to regaining of their lost sovereignty as an independent state. An equally important element in Somaliland?s successes is that it had a chance to develop a civic and democratic political culture during the war of liberation against Barre?s dictatorship.

The problem with Italian Somalia is that its political culture is heavily influenced by colonialism, fascism and the mafia. These three evils were the models adopted by the southern political class that took the place of the Italians after independence in July 1, 1960. No wonder following Somaliland?s independence in June 26, 1960, that its independence leaders were cheated into accepting a union with Somalia on terms set by the latter?s Italian-trained leaders. From Adan A. Osman, A. Sharmarke and Abdirizak H. Hussein, to Siyad Barre, Abdillahi Yusuf and Qasim Salad, the southern political establishment kept in close contact with their Italian patrons with the aim of perpetuating fascist culture and Mafiosi practices in this corner of the world. When seen in this light, then one can easily understand the call by the Italian envoy for Somaliland to join the Mbagathi conference as just another expression of the congruence in interest and outlook between the southern Somali warlords and their Italian masters.

For the sake of peace, Italy and Somalia?s warlords must understand that Somaliland and Somalia are two sovereign states and that the boundaries between them are those of the colonial era. Mr. Ungaro and the delegates at Mbagathi should not have the least doubt that, Somaliland's indepdendence is final and irreversible; that independence for Somalilanders is not a luxury but a question of survival and self-preservation from a repetition of the genocide inflicted on them by Italian Somalia. They better not waste their time on devising tricks for fooling the international community. They should learn from the mistakes of past conferences, particularly the most important lesson: for peace talks on Somalia to succeed, they should focus on fixing the mess in that former Italian colony.

Somaliland has never been more vociferous in its criticism of the world?s obstinate refusal to comply with its request of recognition than this time. Somaliland says and argues that it has all the following things, which are necessary for a country to be a recognized country:

1. Known international borders and all government institutions such as President, Parliament, Cabinet of ministers, Police force, Military and a Judicial system.
2. Currency and a Passport.
3. Somaliland has its own symbols or insignia such as flag and emblem, National anthem and all the government agencies have their own badges.
4. Somaliland?s population is 3.8 million; the population and the size of the country are irrelevant as there are more than 40 countries in the world, with much less size and population than Somaliland yet exist as recognized countries. The least example is Liechtenstein a country in the heart of Europe. It has a population of 29000 people, a house of parliament of 30 members, a prime minister and a police force of 800 officers. Can you believe it? They played against England in the European qualifiers just two weeks ago.

Somaliland should be able to pass the five tests set for joining the world. These are: to hold a referendum, to establish political parties, to hold local elections and then to hold presidential elections and last but not least to have an overall and a long-lasting peace. What a course of treatment! Its friends imposed on Somaliland to a strict diet but luckily, it has passed all but one. What is that one? It is the most bitter and thorny tablet that Somaliland has ever come across. It is a large one and it is very difficult to swallow especially when your throat is very narrow and you do not have water to push it down when swallowing. What is this big tablet, it is the parliamentary elections, Somaliland is jumping the last fence after that sipping water and tablets will be easy.

The probability of Somaliland to attain its chief trophy is increasing by the day rather than diminishing, the continuity of sustainable peace is also a major factor for Somaliland?s argument to accomplish its long-awaited accolade.

Somaliland now needs to invade the world with an operation to be code-named like those ones we heard from the USA and Britain such as Desert storm, Desert fox and Shock and Awe. The operation that Somaliland must start now is a one by which it will seek International recognition. The operation can be codenamed like, Let me be part of the world, or Shock and Recognition.

Before the first shot of the operation, Somaliland must start an unprecedented shuttle diplomacy all over the world, It must get many countries on board and if some start wobbling, Somaliland must pick up the coalition of the willing and leave the unconvinced states with this harsh warning; you are either with us or against us.

Somaliland will never forget anyone who throws his weight behind it. If Somaliland obtains no recognition in the medium term from the outside world its long-term future hangs in the balance and to put it in a nutshell we are not off the hook yet!

While nobody can predict exactly how events will unfold in Somaliland in the coming months or even years, some long-term consequences of the election are as clear as were the election outcome. Just as it was predetermined that the UDUB party will win, it is now inevitable that our relationship with the globe will change dramatically in the years ahead.

Somaliland will prevail against all the odds.

Ahmed Ali Aden, Birmingham, UK.

Dear Mr. Abdillahi Daud,

I am really astonished with your sightless attempt to rehabilitate a disgraced and failed politician who wanted nothing but to be president of the Republic of Somaliland at any cost, even if he has to destroy the security of the nation he wanted to rule and create political instability and chaos in the process. To their credit, the people of Somaliland have now realized that Mr. Sillanyo?s sole political objectives were in short; the "presidential seat or bust" and if unsuccessful inflict serious political and security damages to the very nation he wanted to impose his Stone-Age political model and dictator like system of government.

It?s part of the human nature to opt for selective memory occasionally, especially when it suites their desired image of the realities around them, hence, it?s understandable that you blindly want to acknowledge a tiny fraction of what really did happen and dismiss the rest myopically but to argue that Mr. Sillanyo saved Somaliland from political chaos and potential civil war is absurd to say the least. Here is why: First, unless you were in a far too distant galaxy and did not have any contact with the Milkyway, you should know by now that Mr. Sillanyo was the person who saw the seeds of potential civil war, political instability, insecurity, civil disorder, constitutional crisis and chaos by rejecting the democratic will of the people of Somaliland, which they freely expressed in the ballot-box rather than at the barrel of the gun. We can argue endlessly the technicalities of the election results, how it was conducted and the tallying methods used, but the undisputable fact still remains and that is: Mr. Sillanyo and his party-KULMIYE lost the election and they should have accepted the democratic will of the people of Somaliland and do exactly what the other party which also lost the election did: gracefully accept defeat and move on. Rather than shedding crocodile tears and displaying dangerous brinkmanship with endless and false complains.

Mr. Sillanyo should have realized that he would have done tremendous contributions to the political, economic and social development of Somaliland by engaging active opposition politics and rigorous examination of government policy making and implementations at every stage. Doing this would have also helped him his desire to portray himself as a responsible statesman (which, I must say, he cannot qualify by any positive standard known to man) and improve his personal image for future presidential election bid. Unfortunately, he lost that golden opportunity and the damage he inflicted on himself and the rest of the nation is undoubtedly beyond repair.

For instance, if a thief steals your car today and realizes that he cannot get away with it and brings it back to you tomorrow, you might be happy to have your car back at first, but that does not necessarily change the fact that the thief is still the criminal who stole your car in the first place! Likewise, Mr. Sillanyo tried unsuccessfully to highjack the election and in the process created serious political and security problems for the nation. As a result he disgraced both his public and private image by rejecting the election results at first and then accepting that very result only after he realized the powerful popular political revolt directed against him and his party both in the Diaspora and more importantly back home.

Contrary to what you wrote, Mr. Sillanyo did not voluntarily accept defeat but was forced to recognize that his brinkmanship was bringing disastrous results for him and for his party. As a result, he realized at the end that the current political realities in our country would not allow him to proceed with his misguided and dangerous political adventures. He and his like minded people in KULMIYE understood to their peril that the people of Somaliland had enough of tribal bickering and failed politician like Mr. Sillanyo who are disguising themselves as new "democrats" despite the fact that they are willing to sacrifices everything Somaliland stood for, including the very existence of the republic in order to get elected.

Second, Mr. Sillanyo, KULMIYE and their like-minded people both abroad and at home have constantly claimed that the election results were not conclusive enough for any party to be the clear winner. I acknowledge that UDUB?s lead was somewhat smaller than the normal statistical margin of error (+/- 4%) but the fact is that the current Somaliland constitution does not require qualified majority system for a party to be declared as the winner of any given election. Mr. Sillanyo and all the other presidential candidates knew this fact well before the election process started. My question is: if Mr. Sillanyo was unhappy with election laws and the simple majority procedure, why he did not complain about it before the election results were announced? Why he did not say, that he would prefer qualified majority system or something to that effect in the first place?

Third, Mr. Sillanyo foolishly failed to understand that there is a democratic system of government and rule of law in Somaliland, which sets the framework for all political activities; the very system that allowed him and his party to operate freely and contest for the highest office in the country. Needless to say, he was part of a succession of Egal administrations that have drafted and amended the current Somaliland constitution. This means that he knew the election laws, the role of the Supreme Court and how its members were elected well before the election process started. Why then complain about the Supreme Court?s constitutional role and dismiss its panel of judges as Mr. Rayale?s cronies? I mean you cannot have your cake and eat it? Can you?

Unless we are really walking with dark "tribal sunglasses" and as a result are suffering blurred vision, I believe Mr. Sillanyo must stand trial for treason on the grounds that he intentionally tried to endanger the very existence and security of the Republic of Somaliland and the well being its people. He and other KULMIYE executives who stood silently beside him when he was savagely trying to dismantle the constitution political structure of the country must not be allowed to get away with what they have attempted to do.

For the record, I admit that I, like many other people was a victim of Mr. Sillanyo?s deception and have seriously considered giving my political support to him and to his party. Fortunately, before I could make that foolish and fatal mistake the election ended and as the saying goes; the rest is history. Indeed, I am still party-less like many people!

With kind regards,

Bill Ainashe, City of Falls Church, Virginia, United States

According to a UN Development Programme (UNDP) press statement, the project has trained and equipped two teams in the Somaliland police force. "The squads consist of a team leader and three policemen trained in unexploded ordnance [UXO] disposal and first aid, and a commander who is in overall control," UNDP said.

They were trained for 12 months by a UN Mines Advisory Group before being deployed under their own command.

The teams, which come under the direct command of the Somaliland police commissioner, have destroyed 10,000 items of UXO and mines since they became operational in July 2002. "What is uplifting about this specific project is that there is a sense of ownership, and Somalis themselves are excited about it," UNDP Country Director Andrea Tamagnini said. "UNDP encourages the involvement of the local administration in enhancing the local capacity for demining in the country."

By virtue of the project's success, UNDP now plans to extend it to other regions. It has already received funding from the European Commission to train two teams in the northeast (Puntland) and another two in the south, the statement said.

Landmines were extensively used in Somalia during conflicts with Ethiopia in the 1970s and 1980s and during the civil war in the 1990s when all sides to the conflict laid mines. Almost all regions of Somalia have been affected by mines or UXO.

The mine-clearance project, which is implemented by the UN Office of Project Services (UNOPS), is part of UNDP Somalia's 'Rule of Law and Security Programme'.

Ghalib, who hails from Somaliland, is a delegate to the Somali peace talks currently under way in Kenya, and a vocal supporter of Somali unity within a federal system of government. He opposes Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence from the rest of Somalia. He was detained on Saturday at Hargeysa airport, where his aircraft landed in transit to Mogadishu.

Du'ale said a group of eight young men protesting against Ghalib's arrest attacked Hargeysa airport on Monday. One of them died of wounds sustained during the attack, and the rest were arrested. Also wounded in the attack were two airport security officers. Du'ale added that "airport operations were back to normal within one hour".

On Monday, the minister told IRIN that any Somalilander who called for reunification with Somalia "calls into question the existence of the country and will therefore face the law".

Somaliland Information Minister Abdullahi Muhammad Du'ale told IRIN on Tuesday (24 June) the ex-minister, Gen Jama Muhammad Ghalib, had not been charged because he was in transit. "It was decided that since he was claiming to be in transit, not to prosecute him, but to deport him," Du'ale said.

Ghalib, who hails from Somaliland, is a delegate to the Somali peace talks currently under way in Kenya, and a vocal supporter of Somali unity within a federal system of government. He opposes Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence from the rest of Somalia. He was detained on Saturday (21 June) at Hargeysa Airport, where his aircraft landed in transit to Mogadishu.

Du'ale said a group of eight young men protesting against Ghalib's arrest attacked Hargeysa Airport on Monday (23 June). One of them died of wounds sustained during the attack, and the rest were arrested. Also wounded in the attack were two airport security officers. Du'ale added that "airport operations were back to normal within one hour".

On Monday, the minister told IRIN that any Somalilander who called for reunification with Somalia "calls into question the existence of the country and will therefore face the law".

(IRIN) Is Ethiopia ready to recognize Somaliland following your talks with the foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin?

(Edna) Recognition is something that will take its natural course, but what we talked about were the bilateral relations of the two countries, the trade relations, and the common concern about security in the region. We discussed food aid coming in from the European Union through the port of Berbera, flowing freely without being looted, without military escort across Somaliland. (IRIN) But as your most important ally did he say in a year's time we will recognize Somaliland?

(Edna) That he did not say, but it has been said before that Ethiopia will not be the first to recognize us. But they certainly will not be the third.

(IRIN) Who is going to be the first?

(Edna) We think the smartest country will, because recognition of Somaliland is something that is bound to happen. The independence of Somaliland, in the fifties, came about as a result of mutual agreement and treaties, with pomp and pageantry, with signatures of documents. At that time when Somaliland gained its independence from Britain, 34 nations recognized Somaliland including the Security Council members of that time. We have never severed relations with any of those countries; so technically, we are still recognized by 34 countries of the world. The problem now is our former partners, our Somali brothers, are in such disarray, such confusion that there is no way we can part like we did with Britain. Somaliland is not self-declared unless somebody is brave enough to tell me Britain does not exist.

(IRIN) Why then won't Britain recognize Somaliland?

(Edna) I think probably I would attribute it to humility, stiff upper lip. I don't know. Britain has not been as forceful as Italy has been to defend Somalia. And I think it may be because they are afraid it may be seen as nepotism. A former territory, supporting it blindly - whereas it may be seen as more credible if it is a country that has no links with Somaliland recognizing it on its merits.

(IRIN) Who in Africa are you targeting as the key countries?

(Edna) We are looking at South Africa, Mozambique, Senegal, Uganda, Ethiopia, and many African countries. Most of them are very understanding, but many misinformed about how the emotional union of Somaliland and Somalia came about. It was never a domination of one country over the other; it was the union that came about because people wished to share a destiny.

Somaliland is the most senior of the two partners, the first born of two twins. It should have been triplets because Djibouti in 1977 opted not to join that union wisely. When the union - an emotional union that was never ratified - which never had benefited from legal documents being signed, between Somaliland and Somalia got into trouble and ended in a very long and hard civil war of 11 years, we closed our borders and got down to the hard task of rebuilding our country. On the other hand in Somalia regretfully they had destroyed their own country, their own cities, and it continues to disintegrate. It is very sad. We hope one day our brothers in Somalia will understand the wisdom of peace and stability so we can sit across the table and have a dialogue.

(IRIN) Will you try and get those countries to pressure the African Union to recognize Somaliland?

(Edna) I don't think pressure - convince perhaps, inform perhaps. Somaliland is a bright example of what Africans can do with their own resources, determination and self-help. Somaliland held a referendum in May 2001 when 97 per cent of our people opted for separation from Somalia. Now we have managed to build ourselves up, we can look for a headway because at the beginning we were very preoccupied with clearing our country of land mines, bringing our people home from refugee camps in Ethiopia.

(IRIN) But the fear is that recognition will lead to the further disintegration of Somalia?

(Edna) How much more disintegration can happen in Somalia? How many factions are there - 17? I don't think Somaliland can be blamed for the disintegration of Somalia. They didn't need Somaliland to help with their disintegration. I think the disintegration of Somalia has been caused by the funds pouring in from international taxpayers. Money has poured in and much has been looted to buy more guns and create more warlords. It has been a comedy. The world expects us to produce a divorce document when there has never been a marriage. It cannot be done. If Somaliland is recognized we will play a very major role in the reconciliation of the clans in Somalia. We know them better than anybody else.

(IRIN) What is it like being the foreign minister of a country that is not recognized?

(Edna) For me a sense of pride, a duty that gives me great honour to perform.

(IRIN) But it must be very frustrating being a foreign minister that no-one recognizes?

(Edna) No way. I am proud of the achievements of my country, and I am proud to be the foreign minister of that great country that is Somaliland. We have achieved far more than other countries have. Look at Liberia, look at Zaire, look at Sierra Leone, and look at Ivory Coast. I would rather be the minister of foreign affairs of Somaliland than the minister of foreign affairs of some countries. I am proud of Somaliland.

(IRIN) When will Somaliland be recognized?

(Edna) I think 2003 is a good year. So many good things have happened in Somaliland. Recognition would be the icing on the cake. We are paying a heavy price for being peaceful. There is nothing sensational happening, there are no bodies of dead marines being dragged through the streets of Somaliland like there were in Mogadishu. There are no international troops to keep peace in Somaliland. We maintain our demobilization and our peace ourselves. There are no foreigners kidnapped or no hijacks. Nothing sensational happens. It is just a very dull country that is getting on with its daily life - rebuilding.

Ghalib, who hails from Somaliland, is a delegate to the Somali peace talks currently under way in Kenya and a vocal supporter of Somali unity within a federal system of government. He opposes Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence from the rest of Somalia.

He was detained on Saturday at Hargeysa airport, where the aircraft he was travelling in landed in transit to Mogadishu. "He was kept at the airport police cell for the night," Abdirahman told IRIN. On Sunday he was moved to a jail in town. Abdirahman said he was allowed to see his father on Sunday afternoon "after the intervention of elders". "He seemed to be in good condition," he added.

He claimed the authorities arrested his father for supporting the concept of "a federal Somalia including Somaliland". "He was offered freedom if he would renounce his position, but he refused," Abdirahman said.

Somaliland Information Minister Abdullahi Muhammad Du'ale told IRIN that Ghalib was detained on Saturday because he had broken Somaliland laws. "Anyone from Somaliland who advocates the reunification of Somaliland with Somalia calls into question the existence of the country and will therefore face the law," Du'ale said. He said Ghalib's case would go "through the proper legal channels".

Ghalib is a member of the Gar-Hajis, numerically one of the largest subclans of the Isak, the dominant clan in northwestern Somalia.

Meanwhile, Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG) has called for the release of Ghalib. "We regret the detention of Gen Jama and call on the authorities there to release him immediately and unconditionally in the interest of peace and stability," Information Minister Abdirahman Ibbi told IRIN.

It is not officially known why the young men whose number is not stated have attacked the airport, however it is known that there was a plane at the airport heading for Mogadishu which was supposed to carry General Jama Mohamed Qalib for deportation out of Hargeisa and out of the entire self styled republic.

The general, the former commander of Somalia's National Police Forces, was arrested in Hargeisa two days ago as he was onboard a plane heading for Mogadishu in transit in Hargeisa.

Qalib, who belongs to the dominating Issak tribe of Somaliland, has been accused of lobbying for a federal system for Somalia, something the secessionist administration of Somaliland strongly opposes to.

Qalib has been held inside the prison in Hargeisa in the past two days, something which seriously angered his clansmen in Hargeisa, and the attack at the airport is strongly believed to have been related to this matter.

Abdulkadir Muse, commander of Somaliland police forces, said the situation is now under control and that three of the attackers were wounded and another number which he did not specify were arrested for the matter.

Hargeisa town, normally known as a peaceful city, has been tense on Monday.

Battle wagons from the army of the breakaway republic and a large number of policemen have been deployed at the airport for fear of more attacks. Hargeisa residents feared that more armed confrontations might ensue if the issue is not settled peacefully.

Accompanying the ambassador were his wife Mrs. Sheilagh Wickstead, David Bell, first secretary in the British High Commissioner in Nairobi and Owen Richards, Political Secretary at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa.

During their stay in Hargeisa, the delegates were warmly welcomed by Somaliland's officials, including President Dahir Rayale Kahin, leaders of the opposition parties, Election Commissioners and members of the civil society organizations. Somalilanders in general expressed gratitude and appreciation of the British government?s support for their country?s democratization process, and Somaliland's press also ran positive commentaries on the visit.

The British Ambassador Wickstead disclosed that his government would provide financial assistance to Somaliland?s forthcoming parliamentarian elections. He also stressed that the Parliamentary elections be held as soon as possible.

Wickstead pointed out that Britain was ready to step up assistance for Somaliland by providing support for health and education sectors as well as capacity building.

Until now no formal charges have been brought by the government against the group. Wickstead said that he conveyed to President Dahir Rayale of the need to file charges against the detainees, if there were charges, and to bring them to court as soon as possible. The ambassador also emphasized that the government should investigate if there were cases where the security forces had taken actions beyond their power, following the presidential election, and to take the necessary measures accordingly. Wickstead indicated that his embassy will follow closely how these cases will be dealt with in the near future.

HIV AIDS: Management Of Terminally Ill Aids Patients

Terminal stage, if AIDS overlaps the advanced stage of AIDS. Severe fatigue, severe debility, neuralgia, renal failure or dementia may be present in advanced stage of AIDS. Infections may be worsening. Response to therapy may be poor, particularly to the antiretroviral drugs. Incidence of drug allergy is high. Some physicians hold the view that "fewer is better". Yet, ARV na?ve patients in advanced stage of AIDS may still have a chance to recover with appropriate antiretroviral therapy.

In the terminal stage the antiretroviral options may have been exhausted for the antiretroviral experienced patients. Still the prophylaxis of opportunistic infections must be considered. The impact of prophylactic drugs on patient?s quality of life and versus risk of disease must be weighed. Even prophylaxis may become limited by adverse effects. Antifungal prophylaxis, pneumocystis carinii pneumonia prophylaxis may be necessary to maintain quality of life. Similarly patients who suffered recurrent attacks of herpes may also be protected, for it affects quality of life. Prophylaxis of mycobacterium avium complex or cytomegalovirus may be a little more difficult to choose readily.

Palliative therapy for the symptoms would be the major concern of the physician caring for the terminally ill AIDS patient. Quality of life is important at this stage. Fever and accompany nightsweats complicate terminal stage AIDS. Infection or neoplastic diseases may be the cause induced and treating the disease process may be the best way to give palliation but sometimes no clear-cut cause may emerge. Fever and adrenocortical insufficiency may also be explored.

Nausea and vomiting in the late stage of AIDS is common, caused by AIDS cholangiopathy, CMV disease, lymphomas or CNS leisons. All drugs in the therapy should be re-evaluated their ability to cause GI complications and pared down. The goal of therapy in the term9nal stages is patient comfort.

Diarrhea and dehydration and electrolite imbalance may be life threatening in the advanced state of AIDS. Drugs, infections and neoplasms may cause diarrhea. Some are treatable but diarrhea may also be due to untreatable organism or it may be idiopathic.

Anorekia and weight loss is a usual complication in the late stage AIDS. Chronic disseminated infection, diarrhea along with malabsorption and GI complications due to medication usually lead to wasting. Inadequacy of calories intake leads to wasting. Appetite stimulants are not useful in the terminally ill patients but total parenteral nutrition may help but it is initiated only after careful evaluation.

Progressive physical deterioration, loss of friends and isolation consequent to AIDS, impoverishment, all combine to cause severe depression in many terminally ill and it should be aggressively treated.

Pain is a complication in half of the advanced stage AIDS cases. Peripheral neuropathy, chronic abdominal pain and pain from skin leisons and pain from immobilization are usual. Pain can be expected as the HIV disease advances and it is comparable to cancer pain in the advanced stages. It is paramount to treat pain in the terminally ill.

While Somaliland's citizens are willing to take their disputes to court for settlement, the government has shown a tendency to take actions outside the judicial process whenever it wants to, especially in political matters. The imprisonment without trial of SNM veterans, and the summary trial of Haatuf Borama correspondent Mohamed Omer last month, are two good practical examples of this inclination.

Some might argue that given Somaliland?s weak judicial system vis-?-vis the executive branch, there could be no guarantee anyway that one would get justice through the application of due process of law. But a more persuasive counter argument is that once the government accepts to confine its actions within the rules of law, then it would still be possible for the public to ask for improvements in the implementation of the process.

With the UDUB-controlled House of Representatives close to approving a draconian press law giving the government wide powers to clamp down on press freedom, and President Rayaale's deaf ears to calls for due process, more and more Somalilanders have enough good reasons to be alarmed about the future of their liberties.

But seriously is that enough for a disease which ravaged more than 37 million persons in Sub-Sahara Africa alone?

I guess not and I?m sure you will agree with me, and here is the reality of HIV/AIDS in the ill fated horn of Africa:
- 10% infection rate among males in Djibouti
- 15% infection rate among bar hostesses in Djibouti
- 36% infection rate among commercial sex workers in Djibouti

Let us not go far; in Ethiopia the HIV prevalence among commercial sex workers was 20% in 1988, 32% in 1989, and 55% in 1990.

These researches are conducted by US Naval Medical Research Unit n. 3, in 1986 and National Research Institute of Health Lancet Volume 341(8854) 8 May 1993, respectively, and that is just HIV-1, the other type of (HIV-2), extensive studies was not conducted in the horn of Africa.

After decade or so later and dramatic increased interaction between Somaliland population and neighboring countries, the HIV/AIDS literature indicates the prevalence (dadka cudurka qaba), in Somaliland is 1%.

I have attempted to acquire their preliminary data, to replicate their analysis, so we can have clear picture the way they conducted the research and see how it is possible to have such a low infection rate when every country in Africa has 6% infection rate or more but the data is no where to be found. Now that is too good to be true.

Let me give the benefit of the doubt for those who believe the HIV/AIDS infection is non-existent or low in our country, how long do you think we?re going to down play the situation?

The point of this note is, we?re facing a major treat, and Somaliland youth (risk group) do not have a clue what they?re up against, they rather analyze and broadcast political arena events.

Bottom line I would like to say wake up and smell the roses, we need to do something about this, before it hits us had in the next few years.

Y.Garow MD MPH, Atlanta

Efficiency: The cost of administering the tax should be as low as possible, so that a large part of what is taken from the taxpayer is not used up in collecting the tax. Certainty: The amount of tax that is due, the method of payment, and the deadline for payment should be clear, so that each taxpayer can be certain about his or her obligations.

Convenience: The time and manner of payment of a tax should be as convenient as possible for the taxpayer In Somaliland taxes fail to conform to any of these criteria. Firstly, Somaliland has one of the most unfair tax systems in Africa - a regressive system that causes the poor to pay proportionately higher taxes. The commodities consumed by the poor attract higher taxes and are most easily taxed. As a result those who spend over 90% of their income on food have the highest tax burden. The luxury goods and services used by wealthy families attract very little or no taxes. A destitute family in Sheikh Noor shanty town (Hargeisa) with an annual income of $140 will typically have a tax burden of $30 - a net contribution of 73 days? income to government coffers.

Secondly, we have a tax structure, which is inefficient and expensive to administer. It is estimated that around 30 cents of every tax dollar collected by customs goes in administration costs. The recently established Inland Revenue wastes more resources than it collects. The costs of tax collection include administrative costs and the costs taxpayers incur in complying with, legally avoiding, or illegally evading taxes.

Thirdly, taxes are imposed arbitrarily. Because rules have been deliberately made complex and difficult to understand, it is up to the tax collectors to decide who pays what and how much. The main purpose of levying taxes in arbitrary and non-accountable ways is to provide income for the collectors and corrupt officials. The current Laws of Direct Taxation, which were originally translated from Italian, are so confusing that even civil servants at the Inland Revenue rarely consult it. They simply do not understand what it is all about. None of the taxation documents are written in Somali or are available to the tax paying public.

Fourthly, corrupt tax officials choose a time and manner of payment that forces taxpayers to bribe them. Tax collectors carry out surprise visits to businesses and demand on-the-spot payments. Tax police also raid businesses and imprison owners at the request of junior clerks.

Not only is the tax structure too complex, unfair, inefficient and inequitable, but the amount of revenue it generates is miniscule. The current tax revenue of about $20 million per annum, which is roughly two per cent of GDP, is the lowest in Africa. Eritrea, which has a similar economic structure and roughly the same GDP, raised more than this in its first year of independence. Its tax revenue now is ten times that of Somaliland.

More worrying for the government is the fact that this tiny revenue is in decline. The last Minister of Finance recently claimed that he increased government revenue from 84 to 101 billion shillings in the last two years. But adjusting for inflation, the revenue actually fell in real terms from $15 to $13 million. Unless the government takes drastic action this trend is set to continue. What is urgently required is a major overhaul of the tax system.

Key Elements of Structuring

1. Simplify the Tax System: The system should be easy and simple to administer. One of the lessons learned from experience is the importance of a simplified tax system with few taxes, low and uniform rates, limited number of rates for each tax, a broad base and limited exemptions. Simplified tax forms and procedures encourage compliance and are inexpensive to administer.

2 Broaden the Tax Base: The government should seriously consider introducing value added tax. VAT is generally tax-neutral in terms of economic efficiency and can substantially increase tax revenue. This will be particularly effective in the booming services sector such as telecommunications, which does not contribute much to overall taxes. A standard rate of 10% on telephone bills can generate large revenue but will not affect telephone companies or small telephone users. An organization or individual who receives a monthly telephone bill of $1,000 can easily afford an additional $100 of tax. Those who make one-minute international calls to their relatives abroad will not notice this.

3. New Income Tax Laws: The current law on direct taxation should be replaced urgently. This absurd law requires that anyone who earns more than 72,000 shillings ($10) per annum should file a return. It sets the income tax rate for those who earn 6,000 shillings (less than a dollar) a day at 25%. Too bad if they are below the poverty line!

4 Reduce Entry Regulations for Businesses: In an economy dominated by informal sector, it is in the government?s interest to encourage as many businesses as possible to register. The current regulatory framework makes it difficult for businesses to formally register. A starting point would be to abolish current regulations, which require all importers to buy expensive Ministry of Commerce licenses. It currently costs at least $1,000 to purchase such licenses after completing a long bureaucratic procedure involving certificates from Inland Revenue, $700 deposit at a government bank account, criminal background checks at the CID, compulsory Chamber of Commerce membership, proof of ownership of fixed assets and so on. The transaction costs involved in the process are beyond the reach of the hundreds of small traders who regularly order goods from Dubai.

5. Reduce Trade Taxes: Heavy reliance on trade taxes undermines the competitiveness of our international trade. Effective import taxes as high as 30% are unsustainable given the absence of import taxes in the neighboring Puntland. It is also important to consider exempting staple food items mainly consumed by the poor.

6. Abolish Multiple Exchange Rates: The use of artificially set exchange rates at customs further complicates already complex tax codes. For example, the value of imports are first converted into SL shilling using one of the "official" exchange rates, which is usually below 50% of the market exchange rate. When the nominal tariff rate is 50%, the effective rate will be in the region of 20-30%. This has no purpose other than to confuse taxpayers and encourage corruption. A 20% tax rate should mean 20% and not 50%.

7. Consult Taxpayers: Businesses need to be fully consulted and given sufficient time before tax changes are introduced. Last year?s failed experiment aimed at increasing trade taxes by 280% illustrated the cost of poor decision making. The Minister of Finance was advised in one afternoon that by changing official exchanging rates, they could at a stroke increase trade tax rates by 280%. In the following day, the cabinet unanimously approved the proposed idea, which they saw as another form of disguised tax. Two weeks later embarrassed ministers were forced to abandon the tax rate changes after the country?s entire international trade activities stopped for fourteen days of confusion.

8. Improve Data Collection: Without reliable information, policy makers cannot make informed decisions. With the complete absence of data of any sort, setting tax rates is like shooting in the dark. It is scandalous that ten years after the Ministry of Finance was established we do not even have national accounts of any sort. Make the System More Transparent and Accountable: Both revenue collection and public expenditure need to be more transparent and accountable. No taxation without representation.

Dr Ismail Ibrahim Ahmed Btecsomaliland@aol.com London, UK

The burden of proof and the burden of responsibility must always reside with the government of the day; defending a wrong based on one?s party affiliation is unpardonable and inexcusable. Violations of human rights and un-lawful detentions without access to the writ of habeas corpus are self-evidently evil and un-just. I oppose every infraction of human rights and support every attempt to reveal, expose and un-earth these violations.

I further believe that they should be exposed internationally as well as nationally; any attempt at squelching these rights is, in a word, unjustifiable. Moreover, I believe that democracy and human rights are prior to the state and my moral and ethical support of Somaliland is based on its commitment to protect my life, liberty and property, to borrow a phrase from John Locke. These include my fundamental human rights. The argument that we do not live in an advanced liberal democratic state, whose traditions of liberalism created these rights, is a red herring and does not apply. A human beings well being requires no such nonsense, from a dead or alive white male, or for that matter dead or alive Africans; any camel herder can tell you that we have had these rights and continue to posses them. It requires the commitment of a state to protect its citizens and not to have the state as a predator of these rights. The issue of democracy and human rights clearly represent, in my opinion, the basic building blocks of civilized politics for any progressive citizen.

The fact that I have stated these basic beliefs says much about the way the debate on this issue has emerged, speaking volumes of how it has been politicized. I have joined this debate - again - because our esteemed newspaper to which I contribute regularly - Somaliland Times - in its issue # 72 posed an important question, directed to UDUB supporters in the diaspora & particularly to Rashid Garuf - on the issue of recognition vs. human rights. The publishing of four opinions by pundits whose sympathies with Kulmiye are in the public record motivated my joining this debate as a matter of, for wont of better term, "opinion balance" given that the editorial support of these opinions.

I believe the that the question that has been posed is wrongly formulated simply because there is no apparent division between recognition and human rights, the two are not mutually exclusive rather, they are mutually inclusive. Somaliland should not be recognized if it is a flagrant abuser of human rights and becomes a dictatorship adding to what Miss Omaar has appropriately called "another basket case in Africa". Quite correctly, every progressive in Africa is haunted by the images of genocide and tribalism and civil war. Somaliland is a classic example of how to build from these disasters. Any regression then should be met - as Rakiyya correctly puts it - with grave apprehension.

The debate on human rights in the opinion pages of the Somaliland Times though has been cast on a biblical canvas with profound and dramatic explosions of indignation. Some have used private debates in the Somaliland Forum as a sounding board for their "opinions without borders" an unfortunate elevation of offensive writing as a modus operandi. Opinions have varied from the absurd - a claim made in one opinion, that Somaliland is at the grips of a dictator and his denizens of "faqash" pretending to be the legitimate government of this republic, appropriately titled "This is not the Somaliland I envisioned" - to the bizarre, where the people of Somaliland are asked if they understand democracy, appropriately entitled "Does the public understand Democracy?" No doubt our post-modern indulgences are at work here and those in the diaspora, the coming opinion elite, feel that our camel herders, making the wrong choice in the recent elections, do not deserve democracy at all. These, in a word, are the pretensions of the diaspora in their creation of Somaliland?s own Vanity Fair.

The facts of our case I believe looks somewhat like this. Somaliland stands - if we are to speak contextually - as a rather sterling protector of human rights and a country where a complete reformation of politics as we have known it, is occurring. Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Uganda, and Sudan all recognized states and members states of IGAD are basically dictatorships and massive abusers of human rights. Eritrea and Sudan, being particularly heinous examples of what is wrong with Africa; the Sudan, to say the least, a sad example of Frantz Fanon?s prophesy of what the post-colonial condition would entail. Uganda and Ethiopia are yet to hold presidential elections or for the latter multi-party elections. In short they are benevolent dictatorships. That is how the Duvaliers started in Haiti if it is remembered. Indeed these countries, situated right here in our neighborhood cannot claim any resemblance to Somaliland - a testament to the people of Somaliland determination to protect their rights. I need not debate this issue further because Somaliland has reached - to use a massive understatement - point of no return. However, much remains to be done and citizens ought to remain vigilant.

Rakiya Omaar?s reporting of human rights abuse is an important reminder of how long the road to institutionalizing the culture of human rights is. As well, her publishing of these reports is a prerogative of human rights activist and a right. It is the governments responsibly to disprove these allegations; it is the governments responsibility to create a position for human rights in this government so as to have an official government position on this issue; it is the governments responsibility to understand the savvy nature of our globalized world and the pundits that come along with it; it is the governments responsibility to come clean on these issues; it is the governments responsibly to learn the public opinion debate and the credibility framework under which these debates operate: in a word, the spokesperson of the government ought to be writing on these pages and internationally, instead of its supporters. The government ought to learn to be articulate, hopefully this debate and these warnings will introduce to them - by being stung - new ways of doing the business that they are in - public relations. Individuals nonetheless must speak out against these issues of human rights, the record of this writer being in the public domain.

Rashid Garuf and I hold somewhat different opinions on this issue, however, as a patriot, and a person whose contribution to the struggle for Somaliland is second to none. Garuf is entitled to his rights of free speech as everyone else. Garuf?s contention that these reports hurt the image of Somaliland is solid; that they should not be publicized is not. It is not the responsibility of the activist to self-censure himself/herself - the onus of responsibility as I have argued remains with the state. The history of governance being what it is in this continent we ought not to be too offended with this assertion.

The mantle of credibility has also been raised on this issue and particularly on the person of Miss Omaar. This I find most unfortunate. I need not repeat the lady?s record here, suffice to say that in a male organized and male dominated polity, women?s voices - and it is plain to see - get the short end of the stick given our patriarchal dispositions. Women in our country are not particularly welcome in our politics. Rakiya Omaar?s - a precious voice and a bona fide leader in the field of human rights - forceful intervention into the debate or as the creator of the debate itself is to be congratulated. However, this intervention often comes with a price, for everyone, and this is the crucial place where I part company with - in my opinion - those who refuse to recognize the principal of criticism offered to us by our new political system of our public figures; Rakiyya Omaar quite nicely fitting the description of a public figure engaged in the democratization process. The criticism is this: at a time of multi-party politics human rights organizations and human rights activists must not only be impartial in the political party process, they must be seen to be impartial. Miss Omeer herself must be wondering out loud why a segment of the population even a small segment thinks or believes this. This fact alone suggests some rectification on her part, as far as impressions go. This criticism is warranted given the tremendous uproar by Somalilanders inside the country and in the diaspora on Rakiyya Omaar?s intervention on this debate clearly situated in the discourse of the opposition.

The claim that her nearly overt support for a political party creates doubts on many of her criticism of the President and UDUB particularly during an election is a legitimate issue and should not be placed, hypocritically, on the moral high ground nor characterized as un-important or beside the point; it is the point and precisely the point. There are some criticisms to be made and no one ought to self-censure oneself for this or that reason. The right to the speech works both ways.

Impartiality and more importantly to be seen to be impartial is a crucial principal in the work of human rights and a founding tenet of human rights organizations. This point then ought not to turned, twisted, and altogether deformed - as many have done - as an attack on Miss Rakiya Omaar, a person held in high regard by the people of Somaliland and by this writer in particular - this sentiment being in the public record. What I am saying here is that we can have a civil debate on this issue without taking the moral high ground - a principal ploy by opposition pundits who clothed themselves with false and misleading moral garments in this campaign - lest others bring down the whole debate with charges of immorality and double standards to the detriment of a sterling tradition in Somaliland: debate of our issues in the pages of our national newspapers with grace, most of all with grace.

Human rights to be sure, belongs to this sphere of politics, given our new found voice in this multi-party template, important issues that characterize the underlying and recurrent themes of our collective political life ought to be exposed and brought front and center for the people of Somaliland and outsiders to consider as this young nation continues on its path to democratization. In a word, no stone should be left un-turned. I welcome further debate on this issue.

A. Mohamed Ali Xaashi ?Dhimbiil?, dhimbiil@lycos.com

The school in the port of Berbera, 155 kms (96 miles) northeast of the capital Hargeisa, was financed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), which has launched a major campaign to take abandoned children off the streets here and in other towns.

Today it houses 58 street girls and 73 boys abandoned by their poor families.

"B, T, J," they chant, the Somali Latin alphabet in Arabic.

Local religious leader Sheikh Hassan Sheikh Ali said the number of street children has swelled in Somaliland, which declared independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991 and has yet to be recognised by the outside world.

This is because traditional extended family arrangements have collapsed, he added. "Under the Somali clan set-up, orphaned or poor children were always catered for by relatives, and that is why there had been few street children in Somaliland," Ali said. "But now, most families are poor and cannot even take care of their own children, let alone a relative," Ali told AFP at a Berbera beach mosque.

A Berbera municipal official estimated at 10,000 the number of street children in the whole of Somaliland, whose population numbers 2.5 million people. He said about another 20,000 children were working under-age, most of them selling merchandise such as cigarettes.

UNICEF officials said they will only target about 6,000 of these children.

The UN agency's Berbera education project was made possible when the city's council agreed to assist a local charity to build decent shelters and provide other materials to support the street children.

The project is also helping change traditional views on the education of girls.

Asha Ismail Liban, owner of a small restaurant in Berbera, pointed out that job opportunities here were reserved for men because "they were given the opportunity to go to school, while the girls were left at home to serve the family."

In Sheek village, 60 kilometres (37 miles) south of Berbera, 16-year-old Asha Ahmed was out herding her family's livestock, helped by two of her sisters, both of them under 10 years of age. "I would like to go to town to learn, but I cannot abandon my beloved family as I am their daughter," she said. "My future is bleak without education, unless Allah gives me a good Somali husband," 16-year-old Asha said.

Burao is located 280 kilometres (175 miles) east of Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway republic of Somaliland which declared independence from the rest of Somalia in May 1991, five months after dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled. It has yet to be recognised by the outside world. "Objects used for the excision are not sterilized and at the same time could again be used to mutilate more women, who could already be HIV positive," Hodan lamented.

Another doctor and four other medical personnel at the hospital agreed, pointing out that there were already HIV cases in Somaliland where, due to a lack of proper awareness campaigns, people are still not aware of the risk of infection.

But an elderly religious man immediately dismissed the concerns expressed by the medical personnel. "AIDS is a hazardous message from Allah to adulterers and other turncoats, who act sexually against nature," religious elder Abdi Dahir Ali said. "Any person who remains committed to his legally accepted wife would not be affected by the so-called sickness. The world is not a safe place while homosexuals and lesbians are free to spoil the planet," Ali added.

Asked about the use of condoms, Ali warned that the condoms themselves could be infected. "White people are very notorious when speaking about other races. STDs were first brought to Africa by the colonial soldiers and AIDS originated from the United States, that is California," Ali claimed.

But Hodan warned that if the FMG is not legally forbidden in Somaliland, "the practice would inflict disastrous health risks for its women and society at large."

The Somaliland government estimates that only one percent of its population is HIV positive, but aid agencies say the number is slightly higher. "The situation is not like in neighbouring Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia, but if massive awareness and preventive measures are not taken, the number of infected people might increase sharply," an expatriate aid official told AFP.

A statement by the Somaliland presidency spokesman, Abdi Idris Du'ale, said: "Ambassador Myles Wickstead said his mission was related to:

1. Congratulating the president, the government, parties and members of the public for the exemplary democratic elections which were held in Somaliland. He added that they had decided to "contribute to the forthcoming (parliamentary) elections".

2. Discussing how to improve bilateral relations and assisting Somaliland. He said following the accomplishment, more assistance would be provided to Somaliland.

The president of the republic of Somaliland first and foremost urged the ambassador to convey the appreciation to his government for its support. He said: "We cannot forget the vital support you provided us."

The president said the issue of the recognition of Somaliland was the biggest impediment to progress in the country, and asked for support on this matter. (Passage omitted)."

Recent reports accusing the Somaliland government of having violated the human rights of some of its citizens in the wake of the 14 April presidential elections, seem to have drawn negative responses from certain officials and individuals who support UDUB's (Allied People's Democratic Party, ruling party) government based on the belief that such revelations would damage Somaliland's chances of getting recognition from the international community. Opponents of disclosing human rights violations have assigned their harshest criticism to a report by African Rights and its director, the Somaliland-born human rights activist, Rakiya Omaar. The report which was issued on 23 May 2003 by African Rights under the title "Somaliland: Shadows of the Past as Human Rights Deteriorate", contained well-documented cases of human rights violations allegedly carried out by the government. Strangely enough, none of those who responded negatively to African Rights bothered to call upon the government to conduct an inquiry into the allegations. A logical question is why the government committed the alleged violations in the first place, since it obviously knew that revealing such actions would jeopardize Somaliland's chances of recognition? Or did the government think that depriving citizens of their rights is a serious crime only if it were reported by international human rights and media organizations? Unfortunately, this notion that only negative publicity abroad is what matters is the dominant attitude among government leaders. Most of the less senior officials in the Administration even care less and less as one goes down the ladder of bureaucratic hierarchy.

Moreover, viewing "recognition" as something that could be gained as a result of a one-time or few-times accomplishment, such as the successfully held local and presidential elections is misleading.

In the present and foreseeable future, "recognition" would only be won if Somaliland continues to consolidate its stability and makes progress in democratization and good governance. Somaliland has certainly made considerable achievements in the above areas in comparison with other countries in this region or elsewhere in Africa. But Somaliland could have done much more.

One thing is certain. Somaliland will not be able to sustain its achievements unless basic freedoms such as the rights of movement and expression are upheld, and the rule of law is respected by the government and citizens alike.

No one is going to respect a government that fails to investigate allegations of human rights abuses levelled against its officials or one that tolerates arbitrary arrests, appalling prison conditions and the use of lethal weapons for the dispersion of peaceful demonstrations.

The gentlemen in the diaspora who support UDUB have to take this into account. They have to ask why President Riyale's administration is still denying trial to a group of SNM (Somali National Movement) veterans who were arrested on 19 May on charges of engaging in anti-government activities?

Isn't it a double standard to describe Kulmiye's (Solidarity, opposition party) position of rejecting the decision made by the Somaliland electorate in the 14 April presidential election as unconstitutional, while at the same time the UDUB-led government violates the constitution through the unlawful use of the police and harassment of journalists?

"The ministry expects that measures it has implemented at the field to thwart any fraudulent practices adversely affecting fairness and transparency of the examinations from national to site levels would not only bring about tangible results but would also return public trust and confidence of ministry and its examination board," HE Usman Hasan Mirreh, Somaliland minister for education said.

The minister said student chances for higher education, and for specialized vocational training opportunities are more promising successful entrants this year than they were before.

"In addition to the places the two universities of Amoud and Hargeysa and the intake the Regional Veterinary Institute of Shiikh offers graduating students, fellowships we expect from Egypt and university placements that negotiations we are carrying with a number of countries in region would probably make available augur a very promising future for the successful," the minister said. Director-general Abdirahman Muhammad Maal, elaborating on the themes the minister touched on, told reporters that openings for further education were pre-ponderously - but understandably - in favour of those who successfully sat for their General Secondary Certificate exams.

To date, the director-general said, fairly confirmed places awaiting GSCE graduates were as detailed below:

On the other hand, the DG (Director-General) said, the ministry took all possible steps to ensure that students either passed or failed in exams solely by merit of their individual absorption and retention of subjects taught and learned. This undertaking, he said, was not made any easier by a graph of graduating classes that was no where near that of last year. Number of schools that had graduating classes in regions, he said, were on the up, too. "Graduating form four students sitting for the 2002-2003 scholastic year exams are 61.7 per cent more than those who sat for same exams last year," he said.

Put differently, 1,200 students sat for their GCSE last week, registering 740 students more than the 460 of last year - 2001-2002. For students sitting for the Intermediate Leaving Exams, the number was 4,000 - an increase of 1,000, meeting 25 per cent on those who qualified for examination roll numbers last year. "There were four new form four schools too, this year joining other regions that had already fielded classes for graduation the previous year," DG Maal said.

Ceerigaabo High and Garadag of Sanaag Region and one each in Burco of Togdheer and Berbera of Sahel were, said the director, the four secondary schools that had joined others who had graduating form four classes.

Of the six regions that today constitute the Republic of Somaliland, Sool, alone, has yet to field its own secondary leaving classes.

All together the ministry had its task cut out by allocating invigilators, supervisory inspectors and resources to a total of 49 schools, among which number were 13 secondary schools, spanning across five regions for the deciding exams of 7 to 12 June, last week.

Mr Daud Ahmad Farah, president of the National Board of Examinations, told our reporters that the ministry assigned 54 invigilators and nine site supervisors to ensure that graduating secondary students did not lack on-site guidance on administration-related matters or supervision. The number assigned to observe and maintain orderly process of examination rules at the 36 sites where intermediate leaving exams were taking place were, in contrast, 300 invigilators supervised by 26 site inspectors. "In none of these 49 sites nothing that could not be handled by teachers and ministry officials on duty there was reported," Mr Daud said.

Three privately owned centres, Daud said, were among the schools who had standard eight students sitting for their final intermediate leaving exams: Two in Hargeysa; one in Ceerigaabo. The rest, he said, were Togdheer five, Sanaag two, Sahel two, Sool three, Hargeysa 16 and Awdal two.

Mr Ahmad Ali Adan, Regional Education Officer of Hargeysa, present at the ministry briefing at one occasion, his supervisors pointed out, was, decidedly, weighed heaviest by a myriad of responsibilities that other REOs were spared of mainly. For one, they agreed, Hargeysa had the largest number of graduating classes, and the capital of the republic, which mirrored the soundness and efficacy of national rules and regulations.

Mandate of the governments environment management policy is to ensure our survival and improve the quality of life by conserving and protecting our environment as explicitly stated in our constitution which provides: -

1.Every one has a right to have an environment that is not harmful to his health or well being.
2.To have the environment protected for the benefit of present and future generations through legislation and measures that: -

- Prevent pollution and ecological degradation.
- Promote conservation and secure ecologically sustainable development.

The policy and mission of the Ministry in developing and implementing this policy: is also to insure implementation and development of a National Environment Strategy and Action Plan (NESAP).

NESAP would include the commitment to: -

- Ensure the development and implementation of integrated management system in both private and public.
- Take lead in coordinating, monitoring and enforcing implementation of this policy in consultation with all interested parties.
- Develop and implement effective education and information strategies to increase public awareness of environment issues.
- Develop process, procedures and implement programme.
- Develop mechanism to effectively deal with international cooperation.

As a public trust and as the custodian govt organs: the Ministry of Environment and Pastoral Development accepts the leading role in taking this responsibility and ensuring that appropriate and necessary measure are taken to:

- Ensure the people environment right are enforced.
- Ensure govt fulfils it's obligation to act as custodian of the environment.
- Promote, co-ordinate and enhance sustainable development with all organs at the local, regional and national level.
- Develop and co-ordinate the implementation of all integrated and holistic environment management system.
PRINCIPLES

To guide the govt, the principles for environmental management are to achieve the vision and over circling goals of sustainable development. Environment sustainability is the key to attain this vision. The following principles are the fundamental demises the govt have to use, test and develop policies and consequent action under taken.
These principles could be summarized:

1.Accountability govt is accountable to policy formulation, monitoring and enforcement.
2. Govt allocate functions to the respective institution that can effective achieve the objective of the policy.
3. Co-ordination of environment concern affecting all life. It therefore requires inter-government harmonization of policies, legislation, monitoring and regulates other environment function as required by the policy.
4. Equity: there should be equal access to environmental sources benefits and services to meet basic requirement of the human well being.
5. Global intentions a co-operation and responsibilities.
6. Good Governance

Government recognize global and regional environmental issues and act upon it.

Good governance depends on the trust and reciprocal relation between govt and the people. This includes: accountability, transparency, responsibility of implementing the policy and encouraging the people to participate.
7. Inclusively

Environment management also consider needs, value, and interest, which include indigenous knowledge:
- Action on any instruction failures and other relevant issues.
- Endeavour to achieve environmental sustainable development by conservation and protection measure.
- Deliverable to assist in achieving growth.
- Achievement of integrated environment management that sustained health-working conditions at present and in future.

To ensure the successful implementation of environment policy, the NESAP [National Environment Strategy and Action Plan] by developing implementation strategies and action plans that addresses institution arrangement and issues. In order to under take this. Govt must identify institutions, institution's structures to implement government approach, augment existing capacities, functions, and establish within frame work creating structure required to establish the co-ordinate mechanism and prioritise all development processes.

Objectives

-- Review of existing skills, function of Ministry of Pastoral Development & Environment and re-align them to optimise implementation of National Environmental Strategy and Action Plan.
-- To ensure the successful implementation of environmental policy, the NESAP will develop implementation of environment strategies and action plan that address institutional arrangements and issues. In order to do this, government must: undertake an audit of existing skills, capacities, function and the development of resources in the Ministry of Pastoral Development & Environment.
-- Identify appropriate institutional structure to implement the governance approaches set out in this policy and establish a time frame for creating any new structure that are required.

This must include:
- Appropriate mechanisms and structure for coordination
- Mechanisms to deal with inter-governmental disputes
- Appeals and conflict solution mechanisms and structures
- Mechanisms to deal effectively with international environmental obligation, agreements and issues not covered by treaties conversions or agreements.
- Identify appropriate ways in which to build institutional capacity.
- Budget for the development and implementation of strategies and action plans.
- Reallocate resources to meet new programs and needs.

NES & Process

The Ministry of Pastoral Development and Environment will draw up an initial proposal in consultation with other departments and spheres of government. It will then embark on a participatory process to consult all interested and affected parties before drawing up a final strategy and action plan for implementation. This will be done within a year of the policy being adopted.

Coordination of policy process

The National Environment Strategy and Action Plan will prioritise and coordinate the development of all environmental policy processes, bringing them into line with this framework policy. It will also identify and initiate any further policy processes that are required.

Strategic Goals

Within the framework of the overarching goal of sustainable development government has identified seven strategic goals for achieving. These goals are interdependent and implementation must address all of them to be effective. It is vital to recognize that environment concerns and issues cut across various sectors and functions. Therefore sustainable and integrated management of the environment depends on cooperation and initiatives from all sectors of society. Many supporting objectives address functions of other government departments that impact on the environment and will require cooperation and commitment for effective implementation.

Ministry of Pastoral Development & Environment will play a lead and supportive role to ensure coordinate and effective implementation of the policy.

The strategic goals and their supporting objectives address the major issues government faces in its drive to achieve environmentally sustainable development and ensure an integrated system of environmental management. The vision and policy principles have guided the choice of goals and objectives and will also guide policy implementation.

Goal 1: Effective Institution Framework and Legislation

Create an effective, adequately rescued and harmonized institutional framework and an Integrated legislative system, and build institutional capacity in all spheres of government to ensure the effective implementation of this policy.

a) Objectives: -

1.Institutional Framework

To conduct an audit and review of existing skills, capacities, functions and the deployment of resources in the Ministry of Pastoral Development & Environment and realign them to optimise implementation of national environment policy and the National Environment Strategy and Action Plans.

2. Integration and coordination

To investigate ways to integrating and coordinating all government functions affecting environment management, and establish appropriate mechanisms and structure effective working relationship and administrative arrangements between different departments and organs of state in all spheres of government in carrying out their environmental functions.
- To develop a coordinated approach to the integration of environment concerns in the policy process of all national department.
- General principles for decision-making and conflict solution.
- How existing environmental legislation can be consolidated and streamlined.
- Key legislative and institutional needs requiring immediate attention.
- To use the results of the audit and review to develop relevant and effective environmental legislation, norms and standards.

3. Reviewing and Updating Policies, Plans and Programs

To conduct regular reviews of the relevant and appropriateness of all government policies, strategies, plans, programs and legislation, with an impact on the environment in order to update them in line with progress in environment management.

4. Reallocation of Resources

To effect planned and measurable shifts in budgetary and resources allocations in all Ministries and other organs of state need people, sustainable resources management and the redress of past mistakes.

5. Researches and Development

- To identify priorities, and facilitate relevant research development.
- To provide adequate financial and human resources to expand government capacity to: -
- Study environmental problems, evaluate trends and identify and analyse existing and emerging environmental and report effectively on the state of the environment and promote continues improvements in environmental management.
- To promote the training of adequate number of environmental scientists, technicians, educators, officials, managers, and from all communities.

The heating effect of the sun is derived from the infrared rays emitted by the sun. They are invisible to the eye, but easily felt by our bodies.

A solar water heating system collects this heat from the sun and transmits it into the water through the use of copper pipes inside it. The heat is transmitted by convection (the heated air in the solar collector passes the heat to the copper pipes) and conduction (hot copper pipes directly hearting the water in them).

The solar hot water system consists of a solar collector panel - which is a glass-topped box of Aluminium framing with copper pipes crisscrossing inside it.

These copper pipes are connected to a storage tank, placed about 1 foot above the collector. Normal Galvanized Iron pipes (commonly known by plumbers as G.I. pipes) are used to do the plumbing connecting the cold-water inlet and the hot water that goes to the bathrooms and kitchens.

The principle behind the hot water system is called the THERMOSYPHON. It works in this way, when cold water is heated; it becomes less dense (becomes lighter) and rises. This water displaces the cooler water above and makes it flow downwards; the cold water is then heated, becomes less dense and rises, forcing the cooler water above to flow downwards. The process is repeated over and over until there is no difference in temperature between the water below and above.

In the same way, the cold water in the storage tank of the system flows to the bottom of the solar collector and in the presence of sunshine; the water gets heated and rises in the copper pipes. The reason why copper is used is because it is a good conductor of heat and also because it does not rust. The water then exists at the top of the collector and enters the top of the storage tank. This water displaces the cooler water in the tank to the collector, where it is heated and the process is repeated over again.

The heated water remains hot in the tank due to the insulation around it. The hottest water is found at the top of the tank and so the hot water pipe to the showers is connected to the top of the tank. The cold water will be found at the bottom of the tank and so the cold water inlet plumbing are connected to the bottom of the tank.

Cold water flows into the tank, when water is used in the kitchen or baths. It is important to have a cold-water storage tank above the solar hot water system's tank; this is to ensure that there is continuous flow of water.

Solar water heating systems are known to reach temperatures of 120C0 since they do not have temperature controllers, care should be taken when turning the hot water taps especially during the afternoon hours. It is advisable to turn on the cold-water taps first then the hot water taps second, until you have achieved the desired temperatures. Solar hot water systems can be used in preheating water in industrial applications, this way energy is saved.

The abundant hot sunshine in Somaliland is a good candidate for solar hot water heating system; they would be very handy during the chilly winters. They are also great for hotels and lodging, due to the high hot water consumption in these areas.

They would reduce over dependence on petroleum-generated electricity and the use of environmentally unfriendly charcoal for heating water.

Principally, 1 square meter size of solar collector will heat 75 litres of hot water. For comparison, 2 square meter size of solar collector, which will heat 150 litres of hot water, will provide hot water for 4 - 6 person family. It therefore means that for an average 8-person family in Somali, a 300-litre hot water system would be sufficient.

Just to compare the cost repercussions of the installing a 300 litre (4m2) solar hot water system versus a 50 litre (Anniston) electric heater.

The electric heater costs $$$$$

Consumption of the heater = 1200watts

Heating hours once a day = 2 hours.

Energy used in heating once a day = 2400watthours = 2.4kwh

Cost of heating per day (per K wh) = 2.4.Kwh X $$$$ = $$$$

Cost of heating per month = $$$$X30 days =$$$$

Cost of heating per year = $$$$X12 months = $$$$

Cost of heating for 5 years (this is the estimated life of an electric heater) =$$$$X5 years =

Total cost of system in five years =

Total cost of 300 litre (4m2) solar water heating system = 2400

This system is guaranteed to work for twenty years with minimal maintenance.

From the comparison, over a period of twenty years, the electric heater user will spend $$$$$ dollars while the solar water heating system user will have saved $$$$ dollars. This is without considering the environmental effects that will have gained. Remember, a penny saved is penny earned.

The hindrances to solar hot water system are that they are applicable in areas with piped water; if not then a separate system for pumping water can be used. The other hindrance is the high initial cost incurred; the cost comparison has shown that it is actually cheaper to have a solar water heating system.

Give solar water heaters a serious thought.

The expulsions, coming at a time the president was expected to complete the shape up of a new, post elections cabinet that he began only on June 5, took every one by surprise at street level.

Two aspects relating to the expulsions, particularly, astounded the general public. One, that the usual `Responsibility is rotational' statement Somaliland presidents ordinarily used when giving some high government official the boot did fit neither the time nor the on-going presidential appointments to the first cabinet the President was forming after winning the post in country's first multi-party elections on an UDUB ticket. The statement came out in a press release Abdi Idiris Dualeh, Presidency Spokesman, made on Thursday, June 12. Two, the President could have went on filling the remaining positions of his new council of Ministers, merely leaving out those he wished to keep out without attracting much attention to himself or his office.

As it is, the President's latest move only managed to start people wondering at how a straight, mandatory process should be so unnecessarily made to appear convoluted, difficult and amateurish. That a process once started need not have faltered in mid-step to spite someone that one could have sailed past un-noticed, or the fact that the 2 expelled ex-cabinet ministers were critical of government and its UDUB party accusing them of mobilizing national resources, extra-judicially, to come on top at the recent, April 14 presidential elections, did not go by unnoticed with public, either, going by the strong though muted reactions news of the expulsions generated.

President Dahir Rayaleh, sympathetic supporters counter, was grappling with an unkind situation. The President, they say, was trying to find a balance between a desire to put together a government that was neither as wieldy nor as ineffectual as the one it would replace, and a political reality that told him to retain as much of the loyalty that put him up for the post he holds as can be retained through political appointments.

The President, however, may still lose more supporters than gained, political analysts, here, contend if he does not immediately:

a) Complete remaining top - level cabinet appointments, qualitatively, to fit an extensively pruned council tree out of consideration for the wishes of the electorate.
b) Enter into constructive dialogue with opposition to set a date for parliamentary, general elections, showing a genuine propensity for changes and amendments to regulating instruments where such are required.

On June 5, last, the president appointed Ahmed Haji Dahir to Planning, Ms Edna Adan to Foreign Affairs, Mohamed S. M. Gees to Fisheries, Hussein Ali Dualeh to Finance, Ismail Adan Osman to Interior, Ismail Omar Adan to Defence and Mohamed Hashi to Commerce and Industries.

Only Ministers Hashi and Dualeh were new among this 1st batch.

"We always caution each other against encroachment of individual rights, against violations circumventing the letter and spirit of the national constitution and what the laws of country strongly enjoin us to uphold and abide by. But there are those who positively relish dragging these revered laws on the dust, smashing them gleefully and with total abandonment, relying on immunities and anonymity of offices held", Ghelleh said, obviously alluding to government officers signing party supporters to incarceration without, on the other hand, ensuring that the law took its due course to safeguard the constitutional rights of `suspects'.

Ghelleh said there was no other course for government now, in light of its case crumbling against the detainees, but to immediately return them their usurped rights.

Mujahid (Veteran fighter) Kahin went a step further by accusing the flagrant violation of national laws, customary decencies on individuals who presently held high, decision-making positions in all of the executive, legislative and judicial organs of Somaliland.

"There are those who, if permitted, would have enacted Ghani-, Morgan-like personalities complete with their diabolical, psychopathic characters", he said.

Mujahid Kahin said that, here, in present-day Somaliland, history-tainted characters on the side of the cruel dictatorship, against which Somalilanders long struggled until they toppled it, were among those holding topmost responsibilities.

Among those intentionally besmearing the loftier aspirations and goals of the people of Somaliland were those who had had the immorality to negotiate for their total annihilation or abject subjugation with South African mercenaries only not that far back in history.

In fact, Mujahid Kahin only but supplied the name of the latter character he painted. But it was confirmed to enterprising reporters that the very man who put the negotiations with the South African mercenary, pilot fighters on the road was none other than the current speaker of the House Representatives, the Ahmed Mohamed Adan - then a Director General at General Barreh's Foreign Ministry.

Intimate knowledge of the movements of an engaged opponent, suspiciously watched former sworn enemy of Somaliland, had obviously driven Kahin to link past with present.

The following scans show other moves Qaibeh made in later periods to undermine a then, newly - proclaimed Republic of Somaliland.

The government of Somaliland, Dualeh said, applauded the `reviewed' political stand that the leadership of the KULMIYE party now adopted as proclaimed in the latest press release it made to that view.

Dualeh's official, Presidency position on the KULMIYE Communiqu?' further stated that the government was now ready to enter a dialogue bridging the political chasm between the two sides. To members of the informal Somaliland Council of Sultans (traditional leaders) who infused this fresh breath of hope to a generally desired settlement to the politically-steeped dispute between the two. The Presidency statement warmly commended their efforts, promising them consent to enter into dialogue, as negotiated.

The government statement did, however, steer clear of any mention of whether it had still one or two conditions tucked up its sleeve or was coming to the negotiating table with a singleness of purpose that solely rested on desire to consolidate national unity.

The government statement came only a day after the Parliament expressed similar pleasure at the re-phrased KULMIYE point of view on election results, as chairman Ahmed Mohamed Siilaanyo made it known on Tuesday.

"The Ministry expects that measures it has implemented at the field to thwart any fraudulent practices adversely affecting fairness and transparency of the examinations from national to site levels would not only bring about tangible results but would, also, return public trust and confidence of Ministry and its Examination Board", Osman Hassan Mirreh, Somaliland minister for Education said.

The Minister said student chances for higher education, and for specialized vocational training opportunities are more promising successful entrants, this year, than they were before.

"In addition to the places the 2 universities of Amoud and Hargeisa and the intake the Regional Veterinary Institute of Sheikh offers graduating students, fellowships we expect from Egypt and university placements that negotiations we are carrying with a number of countries in region would probably make available augur a very promising future for the successful", the Minister said.

Director General Abdirahman Mohamed Maal, elaborating on the themes the Minister touched on, told reporters that openings for further education were pre-ponderously - but understandably - in favour of those who successfully sat for their General Secondary Certificate exams.

To date, the Director General said, fairly confirmed places awaiting GSCE graduates were as detailed below:

On the other hand, the DG said, the ministry took all possible steps to ensure that students either passed or failed in exams solely by merit of their individual absorption and retention of subjects taught and learned. This undertaking, he said, was not made any easier by a graph of graduating classes that was no where near that of last year. Number of schools that had graduating classes in regions, he said, were on the up, too.

"Graduating Form IV students sitting for the 2002-2003 scholastic year exams are 61.7% more than those who sat for same exams last year", he said.

Put differently, 1200 students sat for their GCSE last week, registering 740 students more than the 460 of last year - 2001 -2002. For students sitting for the Intermediate Leaving Exams, the number was 4000 - an increase of 1000, meeting 25% on those who qualified for examination roll numbers last year.

"There were 4 new For IV schools, too, this year joining other regions that had already fielded classes for graduation the previous year", DG Maal said.

Erigavo High and Garadag of Sanaag region and 1 each in Burao of Togdheer and Berbera of Sahel were, said the Director, the four secondary schools that had joined others who had graduating form IV classes.

Of the 6 regions that today constitute the Republic of Somaliland, Sool, alone, has yet to field its own secondary leaving classes.

All together the ministry had its task cut out by allocating invigilators, supervisory inspectors and resources to a total of 49 schools, among which number were 13 secondary schools, spanning across 5 regions for the deciding exams of June 7 to 12, last week.

Da'ud Ahmed Farah, President of the National Board of Examinations, told our reporters that the ministry assigned 54 invigilators and 9 site supervisors to ensure that graduating secondary students did not lack on-site guidance on administration-related matters or supervision. The number assigned to observe and maintain orderly process of examination rules at the 36 sites where intermediate leaving exams were taking place were, in contrast, 300 invigilators supervised by 26 site inspectors. "In none of these 49 sites nothing that could not be handled by teachers and ministry officials on duty there was reported", Daud said.

Three privately owned centres, Da'ud said, were among the schools who had standard 8 students sitting for their final intermediate leaving exams: 2 in Hargeisa; 1 in Erigavo.

The rest, he said, were Togdheer (5), Sanaag (2), Sahel (2), Sool (3), Hargeisa (16) and Awdal (2).

Ahmed Ali Adan, Regional Education Officer of Hargeisa, present at the ministry briefing at one occasion, his supervisors pointed out, was, decidedly, weighed heaviest by a myriad of responsibilities that other REOs were spared of mainly. For one, they agreed, Hargeisa had the largest number of graduating classes, and the capital of the Republic, which mirrored the soundness and efficacy of national rules & regulations.

Self-Determination in the Shadow of Globalization?

The analysis above makes clear that Somalia is not an ahistorical clan society. It shows how self-determination involves building polities that can impose order in a defined space through controlling the exercise of coercion and regulating transactions with outsiders. It underscores that self-determination is not an endogenous process. Polities develop as results, some more intentional than others, of internal and external interactions. This is not surprising. Major scholars and historians of state formation in the West long have noted that states developed there through internal processes of bargaining between authorities and those who wield means of coercion on the one hand, and societal responses to pressures and opportunities in the wider world on the other hand. This variability appears in Somalia's past too. Somalia's north appeared as `stateless' to I.M. Lewis quoted at the start of this work, as it did to Richard Burton in the 19th century. Yet it was also in the north that from the 10th to the 15th century was the site of small kingdoms under the Sultanate of Ifat. A 16th century sultanate included parts of the Upper Shabeelle River, Jubba River and Indian Ocean coasts that now are centres of disorder and conflict.

At the start of this work I highlighted four propositions that contribute to an explanation of this variation, and by extension the formation of new polities as vehicles for self-determination in the contemporary Somali space. These propositions also provide a basis for drawing out broader implications for movements of self-determination in the contemporary world, especially in the context of state failure, violence and economic marginality. First, throughout Somalia unofficial and non-state institutions have played key roles in building new authorities. Inter and intra clan negotiating norms, clandestine markets, and informal political networks tied to Barre's patrimonial strategy of rule all featured more centrally than did formal institutions of the Somali state, especially after collapse of the irredentist state-building project in the late 1970s. Barre and his cronies manipulated laws such as the franco valuta foreign exchange mechanism in the service of the informal institutions of patronage and clandestine deals that kept their political networks together. Likewise, international aid provided more resources for this social construction of violence and accumulation in the 1980s.

The second proposition, however, provides a lens for distinguishing the variable impact of these informal networks for the destruction and reconstitution of authority and the control of coercion. The variety of experiences in the Somali space shows that when formal and informal institutional frameworks favour old networks of elites with greater ties to local communities, the scope for intervention of disruptive political entrepreneurs is reduced. The experience of Somaliland, and to a lesser extent Puntland shows how local clan elders and military strongmen had to rely upon their ties to local communities and a large diaspora population to weather the consequences of Barre's suspicion and distrust of their intentions. Even if these people wanted to be part of Barre's privileged inner circle, they found that they faced greater hardship and fewer opportunities than did more favoured groups elsewhere in Somalia. By extension, this shows how marginality in the earlier period of patrimonial politics gave incentives to local authorities to build defensive arrangements. These later turned out to be social resources that gave clan elders the means to mediate conflict, control coercion and most importantly, regulate the social use of wealth to prevent enterprising strongmen from recruiting young men to loot local communities and rush to bargaining tables in distant cities to assert a claim to rule Somalia.

A major implication of this observation is that activities that governments, international agencies, and activists define as fuel for conflict and appropriate targets for suppression-`conflict diamonds', smuggling rackets and the like-may play important roles in mitigating conflict and underwriting self-determination. It is not the illegal or forbidden nature of the transactions that is most important in this analysis. Instead, the social context of these transactions is what determines the local legitimacy of this activity. Authorities in Somaliland succeed in substantial measure in the most basic task of governance, to `compel men equally to the performance of their covenants, by the terror of some punishment' whether in the guarantee of commercial contracts in lieu of Somaliland's access to conventional international commercial institutions, or to force local militias and armed young men to heed the broader interests of their communities. The major policy implication for this observation is that wanton international suppression of `illicit' or `wartime' commerce, as when the US president directed in late 2001 that sanctions be applied against informal money transfer institutions that serve overseas Somalis who send money home, can increase the risk of violence and undermine successful efforts at promoting order.

Third, where elites who adopt old informal institutions-such as clandestine commerce in the case of Somaliland-face competition from new institutions and channels that offer resources, the risk of fragmentation is higher. The cases above show how this proposition undermined order throughout Somalia during Barre's regime. The president attracted followers through offering resources that were autonomous of the social control of the communities from which these men hailed. Violence became generalized throughout Somalia by the late 1980s, even worse in the north than the south, but not all violence was the same. Everywhere it was worse when predators with outside sources of income attacked. The difference in the north was that legitimate local authorities, especially clan elders, could regulate sources of income for local strongmen and recruit them for fighting off interlopers. Later events demonstrated the same principle. Puntland's Abdullahi Yusuf, for example, proved more willing to loot his own community and defy arbitration by Puntland's elders when he could rely upon Ethiopian support. Indeed, it appears that Ethiopian authorities recognize that sponsoring endless `peace conferences' is a good way to keep Somalia fragmented to ensure it never poses an irredentist threat or that Somali groups develop effective ties to Ethiopia's own Oromo separatists. The broad policy implications for this finding are round-tables, conferences, NGO aid and other `conflict prevention' measures can intensify conflict and promote fragmentation if they are sought without consideration of the nature of local social control over resources and coercion. UN-sponsored peace talks in Mogadishu, for example, attract militia leaders to the city, resulting in an increase in fighting that overwhelms the local mechanisms that elders have devised to control conflict.

Finally, if local actors can meet the above conditions-regulate the flow of resources through all channels, including clandestine, control how those resources are used in order to mitigate freelance exercise of coercion, and do so free from the disruptive influence of outsiders bearing gifts and enticements that give enterprising freelancers other alternatives-they prove able to equip their societies to exploit opportunities in the international economy. The world economy is not favourable to places like Somaliland or Puntland. There is little that these places can sell to the rest of the world. On the one hand they remain highly dependent upon diaspora remittances, and they are not attractive places for investment by people who do not share the cultural ties and understandings that are integral to the regulation (and success) of business there. On the other hand, this condition may exempt local people from some of the more disruptive aspects of the world economy such as the sudden appearance of extremely efficient foreign enterprises that have more leverage to defy local interests and priorities. Somalilanders may lament the poor state of their economy at present. But strong ties between their diaspora and the informal regulatory power of local authorities seems to offer at least the possibility of following the paths of UAE, Singapore, Hong Kong, and to some degree Lebanon, which are among the few examples of prosperity and successful integration into the world economy on the basis of transnational family and clan cultural networks rather than the centralizing administrative projects that scholars of early modern European state-building describe (and which World Bank and other officials increasingly prescribe).

Taken together, these propositions recognize that marginal status in the global economy can be integrated into movements for self-determination, in this case, Somaliland's autonomy. Seemingly `archaic' and even (from an outsider's view) illicit social forms and activities can play important roles in this political change. Thus Lewis' `call of kinship' is important for understanding the Somali space and the future of its constituent parts, but it is hardly immutable, nor is it opposed to self-determination and state-building of a sort that is able to integrate into wider economic and political circuits.

Rayale has won a lot of praise from Somalilanders for appointing the capable and hardworking Edna as foreign minister. With her skills in persuasion and her remarkable ability in articulating the cause of Somaliland in a way understandable to foreign interlocutors, Edna is expected to make a difference in how Somaliland will pursue the issue of diplomatic recognition.

Edna is the founder of the Edna Maternity Hospital in Hargeisa, a project she has funded with her entire life savings and pension income earned from working as health officer for the WHO for many years.

But hopes for the new cabinet to rid Somaliland government institutions of rampant corruption have been dashed by the appointment of Awil Ali Dualle as the country's new Finance Minister. Awil, a British military school graduate had served as Siyad Barre's Ambassador to Uganda and Kenya. As one of Siyad Barre's cronies, Awil had shown "little hesitation in acquiring money often through ruthless means," a person familiar with him recently said. Hargeisa, 3 June 2003 (Somaliland Ministry of Foreign Affairs) - At the invitation of the Honourable Dr. Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, MP, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chair of the Executive Council of the African, the Rt. Mohamed Said Gees, Foreign Minister of Somaliland, paid an official visit to South Africa from 23 to 1 June 2003.

Minister Mohamed Said Gees was accompanied by Minister Edna Adan Ismail, Minister of Family Affairs and Social Development and Minister Mohamed Awale, Minister of Pastoral Development and Environmental Affairs.

Consequent to the discussions, the political relationship between South Africa and Somaliland has been strengthened with the agreement to continue discussions and exchange of strategic ideas. In addition officials will meet to take forward a common agenda agreed to by the principals.

In the political sphere the Ministers discussed issues such as: expanding Somaliland's peace and stability, the instability in Somalia; conflict resolution in the DRC and Sudan; Somaliland's policy position on the current Somalia peace talks in Nairobi; and the Ministers discussed positive ways to sustain Somaliland's peace and stability.

Minister Mohamed Said Gees congratulated South Africa, for the presence of South African NGO election observers for the Somaliland Presidential elections headed by internationally reputed Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, and on the leadership of President Mbeki up to and following the launch of the African Union. Minister Mohamed Said Gees stressed that Somaliland prefers to have relations and dialogue with democratic entities.

In addition to the bilateral discussions held by the Foreign Ministers, a meeting was held with Minister Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency of South Africa. In order to enhance further discussion on peace and stability in the Horn of Africa, the Ministers agreed that they would be discussed at senior political level in the near future. Minister Mohamed Said Gees thanked the Government of South Africa and its people for the warm hospitality and support extended to his delegation.

Mohamed Said Gees, Foreign Minister of Somaliland, during his visit also had the opportunity to meet with the Foreign Ministers of Mozambique and Sudan, the Mozambique Environmental Affairs Minister and, pay a courtesy call on H.E Pascal Mocumbi, the Prime Minister of Mozambique, in Maputo.

The Somaliland delegation also held talks with the Secretary-General of Africa's oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress, Comrade Kgalema Motlanthe.

On the final day of his visit, Foreign Minister Mohamed Said Gees, while addressing the media called on the international community, particularly Somaliland's neighbors, to provide diplomatic recognition to Somaliland. The Minister stressed that "the world cannot afford a replay of the cardinal error, where Arab countries did not recognise the State of Israel. This fatal error has led to world instability, unprecedented misery and human loss of Palestinians and Israelis. The Horn of Africa and the world cannot afford further human loss and to ignore Somaliland's stability and democratic local and presidential elections."

During Egal's presidency, Awil wanted to be appointed as Somaliland's representative in Kenya, but Egal turned him down. According to Abdi Aw Dahir, a former minister under Egal, the late president knew Awil well and didn't trust him. Awil's appointment as Finance Minister is seen by observers as proof of President Rayale's lack of stamina in routing corruption out of the government.

Known locally as Clean for his zero toleration of corruption and indiscipline at work, Mohamed Hashi Elmi is a perfection-obsessed workaholic. His most recent achievements included the building of Hargeisa Municipality form nothing to an effective institution (1995-1996). Many residents of Hagreisa agree that his successors as Mayors failed to keep up the high standard of municipal services that he left behind, let alone beat his record of achievements. The fact that the local government of Hargeisa is still functional today is partly due to the system he had installed and put into practice. By bringing Hashi on board, an architect by profession who turned into politics at the end of the seventies, President Rayale is seen to have made a smart decision. But many people have been disappointed that Mohamed Hashi was not appointed in one of such positions as Finance, Public Works, Planning or MRR&R where they believe he could have been more effective and useful.

The reappointment of the two ministers of Planning and Interior in their previously held positions has also drawn a lot of public criticism. Both men have been described as lacking the necessary qualifications for running their respective ministries.

Minister Mohamed Said Gees was accompanied by Minister Edna Adan Ismail, Minister of Family Affairs and Social Development and Minister Mohamed Awale, Minister of Pastoral Development and Environmental Affairs.

Consequent to the discussions, the political relationship between South Africa and Somaliland has been strengthened with the agreement to continue discussions and exchange of strategic ideas. In addition officials will meet to take forward a common agenda agreed to by the principals.

In the political sphere the Ministers discussed issues such as: expanding Somaliland's peace and stability, the instability in Somalia; conflict resolution in the DRC and Sudan; Somaliland's policy position on the current Somalia peace talks in Nairobi; and the Ministers discussed positive ways to sustain Somaliland's peace and stability.

Minister Mohamed Said Gees congratulated South Africa, for the presence of South African NGO election observers for the Somaliland Presidential elections headed by internationally reputed Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, and on the leadership of President Mbeki up to and following the launch of the African Union. Minister Mohamed Said Gees stressed that Somaliland prefers to have relations and dialogue with democratic entities.

In addition to the bilateral discussions held by the Foreign Ministers, a meeting was held with Minister Essop Pahad, Minister in the Presidency of South Africa. In order to enhance further discussion on peace and stability in the Horn of Africa, the Ministers agreed that they would be discussed at senior political level in the near future. Minister Mohamed Said Gees thanked the Government of South Africa and its people for the warm hospitality and support extended to his delegation.

The Rt. Mohamed Said Gees, Foreign Minister of Somaliland, during his visit also had the opportunity to meet with the Foreign Ministers of Mozambique and Sudan, the Mozambique Environmental Affairs Minister and, pay a courtesy call on H.E Pascal Mocumbi, the Prime Minister of Mozambique, in Maputo.

The Somaliland delegation also held talks with the Secretary-General of Africa's oldest liberation movement, the African National Congress, Comrade Kgalema Motlanthe.

On the final day of his visit, Foreign Minister Mohamed Said Gees, while addressing the media called on the international community, particularly Somaliland's neighbors, to provide diplomatic recognition to Somaliland. The Minister stressed that "the world cannot afford a replay of the cardinal error, where Arab countries did not recognise the State of Israel. This fatal error has led to world instability, unprecedented misery and human loss of Palestinians and Israelis. The Horn of Africa and the world cannot afford further human loss and to ignore Somaliland's stability and democratic local and presidential elections."

For more information contact the Pretoria operations unit at + 27 - 82-880-8603. Issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Hargeisa, Somaliland.

Although Somaliland has not been accorded international recognition since its self-proclaimed independence from Somalia in 1991, the region has emerged as a peaceful stronghold in a country torn apart by war and factionalism for over two decades. In May 2001, Somaliland conducted a referendum that resulted in endorsement of a new constitution and reaffirmation of its status as an independent state. In keeping with such democratic practices, political parties were re-established in Somaliland in 2000, and historical presidential elections were held on 14 April 2003.

In the run-up to the elections, the nascent political parties have worked to develop the capacity to effectively represent citizens' views, support candidates competing for office, and participate in post-election political processes. The organizations' execution of these tasks will be instrumental in legitimizing the elections, and Somaliland's first test of the strength of its fledgling democracy is yet to be determined, as election results are currently being contested. A successful outcome will not only affirm the region's continued conviction for democratic governance, but could also serve as a model for the conflict-ridden Horn of Africa where such conviction appears scarce.

This roundtable discussion will gather experts from the fields of Democracy and Governance to discuss some of the following issues, particularly in the post-election environment:

-- Election results and acceptance of appeals decisions
-- Continued maintenance and funding of parties in the lead-up to parliamentary elections
-- Power-sharing within government and the transition from vertical to horizontal authority structures
-- Constitutional reform
-- Cultivation of loyal opposition parties

Featured participants to include:

Lange Schermerhorn, former U.S. Ambassador to Djibouti
David H. Shinn, former U.S. Ambassador to Ethiopia
John Prendergast, Co-Director of the Africa Program, International Crisis Group
Facilitator: Ahmed Esa, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Practical Research and Training

Recent reports accusing the Somaliland government of having violated the human rights of some of its citizens in the wake of the April 14 presidential elections, seem to have drawn negative responses from certain officials and individuals who support UDUB's government based on the belief that such revelations would damage Somaliland's chances of getting recognition from the international community.

Opponents of disclosing human rights violations have assigned their harshest criticism to a report by African Rights and its director, the Somaliland-born human rights activist, Rakiya Omaar. The report which was issued on May 23, 2003 by African Rights under the title "Somaliland: Shadows of the Past as Human Rights Deteriorate", contained well-documented cases of human rights violations, allegedly carried out by the government. Strangely enough, none of those who responded negatively to African Rights bothered to call upon the government to conduct an inquiry into the allegations. A logical question is why the government committed the alleged violations in the first place, since it obviously knew that revealing such actions would jeopardize Somaliland's chances of recognition? Or did the government think that depriving citizens of their rights is a serious a crime only if it were reported by international human rights and media organizations? Unfortunately, this notion that only negative publicity abroad is what matters is the dominant attitude among government leaders. Most of the less senior officials in the Administration even care less and less as one goes down the ladder of bureaucratic hierarchy.

Moreover, viewing "recognition" as something that could be gained as a result of a one-time or a few-times accomplishments such as the successfully-held local and presidential elections is misleading. In the present and foreseeable future, `recognition' would only be won if Somaliland continues to consolidate its stability and makes progress in democratization and good governance. Somaliland has certainly made considerable achievements in the above areas in comparison with other countries in this region or elsewhere in Africa. But Somaliland could have done much more.

One thing is certain. Somaliland will not be able to sustain its achievements unless basic freedoms such as the rights of movement and expression are upheld, and the rule of law is respected by the government and citizens alike. No one is going to respect a government that fails to investigate allegations of human rights abuses leveled against its officials or one that tolerates arbitrary arrests, appalling prison conditions and the use of lethal weapons for the dispersion of peaceful demonstrations. The gentlemen in the diaspora who support UDUB have to take this into account. They have to ask why President Rayale's Administration is still denying trial to a group of SNM veterans who were arrested May 19 on charges of engaging in anti-government activities? Isn't it a double standard to describe KULMIYE's position of rejecting the decision made by the Somaliland electorate in the April 14 presidential election as unconstitutional, while at the same time the UDUB-led government violates the constitution through the unlawful use of the police and harassment of journalists?

The leadership of UDUB realised the alternative - applying resistance, judgement antagonism and hatred - has the effect of empowering what we oppose ( KULMIYE and their leadership). We decided to do our job as a responsible party and create our part of the reality that the people of Somaliland were experiencing.

Rayale, the president of Somaliland and the leader of UDUB, consulting with his political campaigners and the elite of UDUB, understood:

-- If there is light (truth and wisdom) in the soul, there will be beauty (goodness) in the person (The leader).
-- If there is goodness in the leader (person), there will be harmony in the land.
-- If there is harmony in the country, there will be order in the nation - Somaliland.
-- If there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the country - Somaliland.

We are sure that evil (Ignorance and arrogance) is like a shadow - it has no real substance of its own, it is simply a lack of light (the truth). You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it but you cast a light (the truth) and that is what UDUB leaders did to stop KULMIYE leaders when they failed to uphold the constitution of Somaliland, let alone the morality of keeping the promises they undertook.

The campaign is over but I have one word for Ahmed M. Sillanyo and his company: "when ego is relinquished, the vision becomes clear and in seeing we find the purpose (the goodness of the people of Somaliland)."

Waste no time debating yourself, what a good man for Somaliland be. Must be one and start communication and dialogue with the president of Somaliland, this is what democracy is all about.

Never deprive the citizens of our small country of their hope, it may be all they have, Ahmed.

Every man is responsible of writing his own history book by his deeds or his words; it is not for us UDUB to judge KULMIYE or UCID. That is for the public of Somaliland to judge, but we are accountable for own actions and policies.

President of Somaliland Daahir Rayale Kahin, backed by the people of Somaliland will run the country and do his job at his best to make Somaliland a better liveable place for us all and our children. There is nothing like a dream to create a future for our children and our people.

We live for the future. Somaliland belongs to the energetic young men and women, do your job.

I hope the new government will come with a change in terms of accountability, credibility and a new culture of good governance - a transparent one. This new government is a UDUB government and it should fulfil its promises to the nation. No more broken promises.

Mohamed Mohamoud Adan, UDUB-Norway mlenin49@hotmail.com

It is most unfortunate that Faisal Ali Warabe should present himself as the sole champion and defender of Somaliland, its institutions and constitution. It s also most unfortunate that he should expect the people of Somaliland to believe him and trust that he will defend them against the very men who spent the best years of their lives in a struggle with the evil regime of Siyad Barre.

I do not need to speak for these men nor does one need to defend their record at a time when Ali Warabe was doing other things with his youth and wealth when these same men and women staked everything they had in a war they did not know they would win and for a country they wanted to liberate.

The people themselves and the history of this country will write the record of each.

I would however like to respond to Ali Warabe's on the issue of human rights and the value of the reports of the press, media and African Rights and Rakiya Omaar in Somaliland.

He stated that these reports have and are likely to damage the country abroad and that they have confused the people of Somaliland. In both respects, therefore, in his view, the writing and/or the publication of these press and human rights reports are damaging and contrary to the interest of Somaliland.

Again, I will not speak for the media of Somaliland who are more than capable of speaking for themselves in response to Ali Warabe.

What is tragic, however, is that Ali Warabe who stood as a presidential candidate of an OPPOSITION(!) party should turn out to be so anti-press and anti-human rights before he even has any hope of being a minister let alone president. Instead of defending Somaliland's citizens, their rights against everyone and the rule of law, he is telling us that these people should not be defended by anyone at all and/or that their beatings, imprisonment and ill-treatment at the hands of the "Government" should not be reported. Either way, these victims as they have informed the press and African Rights should be ignored.

If Ali Warabe will do this to defenceless women and children and their legitimate and CONSITUTIONAL rights at this very early stage of his political career, what might he do to the rest of us at a later stage of his career if he held real power?

Ali Warabe, the people of the US impeached President Nixon for lying on tape and for harassing 2 journalists from the Washington Post. They upheld the law. Know that Presidents come and go but the people and the law are permanent. And yet you talk of a ship and dollars lost when they talk of women, children, their rights and the constitution.

What does Somaliland stand for if not these people?

For historical background also, I respond to Ali Warabe. Rakiya Omaar, a graduate of 2 universities in history and then in law, chose to change from being a corporate lawyer in New York to work with the Lawyers Committee on Human Rights also based in New York. This was in 1982. She did so when she began working to support those imprisoned in Hargeisa, Burco and Berbera known as UFFO. And she changed her career altogether when she was given an original signed copy of the transcript of the National Security Court report of this same UFFO case.

This is the starting point of her human rights work, namely Somaliland and she has been on the case ever since. That is over 20 years ago. As you are no doubt aware also, she resigned from her post as Executive Director of Africa Watch when America went to war against the people of Somalia during Operation Restore Hope.

She did all this without seeking political office as you do and yet she speaks for the men, women and children of Somaliland. It is tragic that she should be doing what a politician like yourself should do and it is tragic that you as a politician instead of speaking for defenseless men, women and children as is your duty not only as a man but as a politician at that, should be blaming her for doing it.

Last but not least, when she was defending the rights of UFFO and the people of Somaliland in the US, Europe and the world press, some of the same arguments that you make today were the very same ones used by Siyad Barre and his former Ambassadors such Ahmed Mohamed Adan "Qaybe".

The human rights the Rayaale administration is violating and the civil liberties it is eroding, which Africa Right has recently catalogued and released, has infuriated few in the diaspora. On the other hand, a disturbing analysis of Somaliland's budget (use of resources) that revealed fiscal irresponsibility, abuse of power, gross mismanagement, deliberate waste of meager resources and misplaced priorities, was received without furor - as if systematic corruption is a birthright.

Briefly, Africa Right's report has documented numerous incidents of human rights violations and systematic erosion of civil liberties, while the budget analysis I have compiled demonstrated unprecedented levels of mismanagement and bad governance. For example, President Rayaale is the highest paid elected public official in the whole world, higher than that of Bush according to the adopted budget of 2003. Similarly, Vice-President, Ahmed Y. Yassin is paid higher than the Vice-President of the United States. Ridiculous. Indeed both reports are damaging to the reputation of Somaliland, however the reaction they generated were starkly different: one muted, the other loud even though orchestrated. But the underlying reason for the reactions was one and the same: keep it under the rug; let us not fuss about human rights infractions and fiscal mismanagement right now, and let us not wash our dirty linen in front of the world community, lest it may cost us recognition.

Freedom and human dignity come before political recognition. The suggestion of tolerating inhumane treatments now, trusting that the perpetrator (government) would outgrow and ban them later after recognition is received, is a sacrifice Somaliland can ill-afford. The Somaliland diaspora should know better. In North America and in Europe, abusing your family is not only reprehensible but it is also against the law punishable by hard labor of many years behind bars. Studies about family relations have concluded that espouses that don't report and endure abuse eventually pay the highest price. Obviously, tolerating abuse encourages more. The obligation to intervene, chronicle, report and stop such infractions isn't only the duty of the human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Africa Right but it is also the duty of the global community as a whole. More importantly, the constitution guarantees these rights and civil liberties and the government has a fiduciary duty to protect the inalienable rights of its citizens and like any family the government should be held accountable for human rights violations under all circumstances. Recognition doesn't factor into the human rights equation.

A different stroke for different folks, some argue. That is discriminating, objectionable and unacceptable. Sadly, some of my colleagues in the Somaliland Forum argue that Somaliland is too young to understand, too inexperienced, too illiterate and too nomadic to care and to bother human rights issues. The implication is human rights and civil liberties of those who are less fortunate deserve to be violated. First, human rights are inalienable: That is god given and like life no one has the right to take it away and the level of education and social status doesn't factor in the human rights equation either.

Second, committing human rights violations at an early age might prove costlier to break it at a later age. It is not cost effective and the benefits are: none. Only good behavior and good governance are redeemable at the international forums.

Governments are repressive by nature. Granted that, it is always prudent to be vigilant for surreptitious human rights transgression. But the human rights violations being committed against the people of Somaliland today are blatant and that should be a poignant remainder of the not so distant past. Recently, an American ex-State Department official shared with me that Hargeysa has the dubious distinction of being the only city in the world where fighter jets took off its airport, bombarded the city and its citizens and landed at the airport of the city they just attacked like nothing happened. Did it really happen? Some might argue.

Thanks to the mighty pen of Ms. Rakiya Omaar, the world-renowned human rights activists, that has drawn attention to the plight of Somaliland. And thanks to the diligence and the dedication of human rights organizations like Amnesty and Africa Watch headed by our own Nightingale Rakiya, the international community has registered and chronicled these memorable incidents on its minds and its records. The carcasses are plenty and the scars are too horrific to disguise and dismiss and now that the international Court is established, the international community is on the footsteps of the perpetrators. Justice would be served swiftly and that should deter the would-be violators. Of course, human rights violations committed today aren't of the same scale as that of the "faqash" disturbing pattern is emerging and if it isn't exposed today, then when? And who would be a better activist to do so than Rakiya?

It is time to be vigilant. Considering that the majority of the current administration is former members of the infamous National Security Service (NSS), which oversaw the death and destruction of the country, the likelihood of relapsing into the old habits is pretty good. For that, it isn't the time to be complacent and marginalizing human rights violations; and certainly not the time to sweep it under the rug; rather, it is time to be vigilant.

Bad behavior shouldn't be rewarded. For those of you who are concerned of how this negative publicity would affect Somaliland's chance of recognition, rest assured that it wouldn't enhance Somaliland's position. But sacrificing human rights to gain recognition and facing the international community with a well-rehearsed grin like a totalitarian society isn't contemporary at this age. The end doesn't justify the means. And by the way, enhancing Somaliland's image would take more than faking a grin: whole lot more. Practicing democratic principles, respecting human rights and civil liberties, separation of powers, accountability, transparency, free and fair elections, curbing corruption and waste, working at least 16 hours a day, allocating resources according to need would go a long way in improving Somaliland's hand.

Compare that with these malfeasance: rigging elections, bankrupting the coffers, printing election money to cause unnecessary inflation, appointing sixty ministers to help for the campaign, violating human rights, chewing "qaat" 8 hours a day, pulling down $515,900 and $188,700 respectively (compare that with $400,000 and $181,000 the salaries of President Bush and Vice-President, Dick Cheney) as a yearly salary while the meager salaries of the security forces, a paltry yearly sum of $216, remain on arrears three months at a time; while the mentally unstable are languishing in the hospitals; while kids are unschooled; one could go on and on. This isn't what I have envisioned. These negative practices are enough to cancel out any goodwill accrued for Somaliland.

Frankly, the detractors of the Africa Right's report aren't disputing about the facts. As a matter of fact, there was nothing new on the report. The local newspapers have extensively written about most of the incidents the report documented. The fear of the detractors is that Rayaale's administration would be no match for the credibility and the professionalism of Africa Right in the international community. The pen is mightier than the sword. Interestingly, the critics of Africa Right's report have failed to denounce the fiscal irresponsibility of the regime, which the budget analysis has uncovered. Misappropriating funds isn't a birthright but human rights are. What a double standard!

Once faqash, always faqash is a maxim that I found meaningful in anticipating the intentions and the activities of the former ex-NSS officers and their associates. And that is why I wasn't surprised to learn that Faysal Ali Warabe was the first to attempt to discredit Africa Right and its work. Some are never rehabilitated. May the rest of us aim for higher marks on human rights and realize that respecting human rights and civil liberties are constitutionally guaranteed. And that is the law of the land.

African Right's report on the human rights abuses in Somaliland is a wake up call for all Somalilanders. The arrests of SNM veterans without due process, the siege of the elders in Gabiley, curfews and the everyday and ongoing harassment of opposition members are what we fought against, and what we never expected to see again. Taken together, these are all terrible reminders of past ugly times.

When the African Rights report: Shadows of Past; was first published I was shocked and dismayed. Not because I did not hear of human rights abuses in Somaliland before, but because of its magnitude and timing, at this time. The people that fought for this country and that made it what it is today were being arrested and abused at Minter's order. The women and children what were abused and made homeless by the Faqash, are being harassed and terrorized by our OWN police. The elders and traditional leaders whom we owe the peace and stability we have today are being treated as criminals. This should not have been possible in a nation like Somaliland with such a recent history of abuse and oppression. This should not have been in Somaliland, twelve years after it has reclaimed its sovereign status. Most importantly, this should not have been allowed to happen to the poor people of Somaliland who have already been burned once; thus twice shy about resistance and struggle.

The overwhelming majority of Somalilanders in the Diaspora work very hard to make themselves a better life, and for the betterment and development of their country, Somaliland. For them, a recognized and prosperous Somaliland is their ultimate goal. I am among these Somalilanders in the Diaspora; and for the good parts of past decade, I have spent most of my time campaigning for the Somaliland cause. However, as many here in the Diaspora, I have become disillusioned about the situation in Somaliland of late. I have become sad and angry because the Somaliland I see today is not the Somaliland I envisioned. I am dismayed because the efforts and energy of Somalilanders everywhere, which they have invested in Somaliland for the past 12 years, is close to being wasted. I am lost and unable to find a way forward because the Somaliland I used to call the only hope of Democracy in the horn of Africa is becoming another member of the Dark Continent. I am worried because Somaliland seems to be in the hands of a President who is unable to control his Ministries or take charge of his lieutenants. I am fearful for the future because the actions and deeds of the current government do not give me hope for the future.

My dear country men/women, this situation cannot be allowed to go on for much longer. Somalilanders are very patient people in their nature; but they are also very sensitive to injustice and inhumane treatments. Therefore, in the interests of Somaliland, and in the interests of our good earned reputation in the international arena, I ask the government of Rayale Kahin to bring these barbaric acts of human rights abuses to an abrupt halt. I urge him to hold his Ministers accountable; else the people, the Country and History will hold him accountable for their actions. I plead with him for the sake of this country, not to wreck the good name and reputation this country has acquired over the past decade.

I have envisioned a Somaliland where justice and freedom are taken for guaranteed. A Somaliland where arbitrary arrests, police beatings and/or brutality are things of the past. Was I wrong? I believe there is still hope, but for how long that hope will remain, no one knows.

There is no point in asking African Rights not to publicize these abuses; African Rights has a legal, ethical and moral obligation to publicize them. However, the government has a responsibility to prevent these acts of abuses from taking place, and blackening the good name of Somaliland. I am confident that the government will head the advice of its many citizens, less it wants to be judged by history and by the people.

Finally, although most of these human rights abuses were well publicized in the local Media, at the time, I, nevertheless, would still like to thank and knowledge the bravery and heroic acts of a decent Somalilander, a Somaliland heroin: Ms Rakiya Omaar, who is doing a splendid job for her country and people. We all remember her services to her people and her country in the early 1990s and late 1980s when no one wanted to hear about the plight of Somalilanders; and she was the one telling everyone that would listen about the plight of Somalilanders. In line with most concerned Somalilanders, I would like to express my appreciation and gratitude for her services to her nation and people. She is a Somalilander we are all proud of; a heroin, in a society where heroes are made into villains within strikingly very short period of time.

Some may say, `Qaybe and Rayale are members of the "beelaha daafaha" as H. Abdi Waraabe said recently, so let us give them an allowance for that'. Well, this is not a valid refutation of what I just said - that these men remained with the Faqash till the last minute, and would, most likely, still be with the Faqash had the SNM lost the war. Moreover, we cannot have it both ways; we cannot say `Ok. We are going to leave the "shir beeleed" behind us' and at the same breath say `let us not talk about certain things concerning certain people because they happen to be from certain clans'.

Such an argument is irrelevant anyway, because I am not talking about clans, I am talking about individuals. There are many Isaaqs who were with the Faqash till the last minute also. Rayale and Qaybe are the most visible leaders we have today and they happen to belong to the `beelaha daafaha`. Had Allah, swt, made Rayale and Qaybe off springs of Isaaq men my arguments would still be valid. I am describing what I see.

A glaring example of illogicality in Somaliland is the case of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This man came from Garoowe and straight into the highest legal office of the land. No questions asked. This doesn't happen even in companies. An applicant for a senior position in any company would be grilled to determine if he or she is compatible with the culture and niche of the company.

I suppose if Cisman Kalluun and Jama Yare come back tomorrow they will be accorded heroes' welcome and bestowed with senior government positions! Why not?

Can you imagine Bathists or high officials in the Dergue regime ruling Iraq or Ethiopia? How did it happen that Somaliland is ruled by the remnants of the Faqash? Why weren't there any safeguards? Could this error be the Achilles' heel of Somaliland?

Are we really serious about seeing an independent Somaliland? Or are we playing with the emotions of the populace? Why are we taking such unnecessary risks? What has Somaliland lost by being led by these men? Can we ever know? Can anyone guarantee the people, for instance, that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court or Qaybe are for the sovereignty of Somaliland? Does it matter or it doesn't? If it matters then why is Somaliland led by these people? If it doesn't matter then why do we chastise the Arta clique for being full of Barre's remnants? We should put up or shut up. We should know what we are doing.

Suleiman Mohamoud (smohamoud@hotmail.com)

For the first time of its history, Somaliland elected its president on April 14: successor of Mohamed Ibrahim Equal, deceased on May 3, 2002, Dahir Riyale Kahin (51 years) will direct during six years this old British protectorate, which amalgamated with Somalia in 1960, before making secession on May 18, 1991. The Somaliland(138 000 km2) is located at the north of Somalia, vis-a-vis the gulf of Aden. Its 3,5 million all inhabitants are Moslem sunnites. 80 % of them belong to the ethnos group issak, and 55 % are wandering or seminomad.

Destroyed to 80 %, in 1990, at the time of the civil war, the capital, Hargeisa, account today 500 000 inhabitants. It has an airport and a university. It is, says one, the surest city of the Horn of Africa. Berbera is, on the other hand, the economic lung of the country: it is by its port which the near total of exports (cattle, incense) and of the imports forwards (primarily of the qat, very consumed here). 70 % of the resources of the country come from food agriculture. All the other activities, of electricity on the telephone while passing by air transport, were privatis?es. The thin financial resources of the state come from the taxes perceived in the port of Berbera. They make it possible to ensure only the basic services: education, health and the defense, which, with it only, absorbs 70 % of the budget.

Liberal in economy, the capacity somaliland is remainder, on the political level, very largely tribal: the clans are represented there in proportion to their influence in the two Rooms of the Parliament. The three principal parties of the country - the Unit of democrats (UDUB), left the outgoing president, and two formations of opposition, Kulmiye ("Solidarity") and Justice and re-establishment (UCID) - have newspapers published by private companies. On the other hand, Radio operator Hargeisa, the station of State, does not have a competitor: in June 2002, the private radios were prohibited by the ministry for Information.

Somaliland resembles an oasis of peace in the medium of a very unstable area. Its principal problem: officially, there does not exist. For twelve years that it makes an effort there, it has still not managed to obtain the recognition of the international community, which closes to him the access to the assistances of the World Bank and the IMF Difficile, under these conditions, to conclude its development. Blow, the country remains very dependent on its neighbors, who buy in particular his cattle to him. The basement somalilandais is certainly rich in coal and oil, but no foreign company is ready to invest in a country not recognized, which, so does not offer any international legal guarantee. While waiting, the autoproclam?e Republic lives with the assistance of the diaspora: 500 million dollars per annum.

? The Intelligent 2003

FSAU REPORTS AND ACTIVITIES

** The FSAU Gu 2003 Seasonal Workshop and analysis will take place between 16-24 June in Hargeisa. This will assess crop establishment in Southern Somalia and look at the state of the pastoral areas in the Northeast and Northwest and Central Regions.

** The FSAU Livestock Officer will go to the Northwest for two days in June to investigate reports of an unknown sheep disease. Mahdi Kayad will report back to the July SACB Livestock Working Group with his findings.

Food Aid Distribution

Sool Plateau Update : Although rains did fall during May, their intensity and distribution were not uniform and the cumulative number of days that it rained was below normal. Pastoralists who were able to move out of the plateau have limited access to markets due to the long distance from their villages. Middle and poor pastoral groups who remained on the plateau are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain sufficient cash to purchase their daily food requirements, having lost up to 60% of their income. There is virtually no income from milk sales, which used to provide approximately 40% of a household?s income and the return on livestock sales, which typically provide an additional 40% of income, has been halved. Berkads have not been replenished sufficiently and water continues to be expensive and difficult to obtain. For additional pastoral areas of concern, see the vulnerability map and the regional highlights in the north. A nutrition survey by FSAU, UNICEF, NPA and SRCS has recently been completed in the Sool Plateau. Data analysis is underway and preliminary results will be shared in the June 2003 nutrition update.

Wood fuel and charcoal production

FSAU Livestock Officer, Mahdi Kayad, has written a report on the impact of wood fuel and charcoal production on the environment and livelihoods in Somalia. This article is a summary of his report? please e-mail Mahdi.Kayad@fsau.or.ke for a copy. The majority of the Somali people are intrinsically linked to the country?s natural environment and resources through both their livelihood and culture. The rangelands in Somalia have always sustained two production systems: 1. the wood fuel and charcoal production system, on which the country has depended for hundreds of years for its energy and 2. the livestock production system.

The wood fuel and charcoal industry has particularly benefited the poorer wealth groups as it creates employment and income opportunities, providing an important cash alternative especially in times of poor crop production.

Until, the late 1950?s it appears that the production of wood fuel and charcoal had little noted impact on the environment. This changed in the 1960?s when the increasing growth of populations in urban areas such as Mogadishu and the accompanying demand for energy, combined with charcoal exports, meant deforestation was occurring at an alarming rate. As a result, between 1969 and 1991 the Somali government banned charcoal exportation. With the subsequent collapse of the government, charcoal production and burning re-commenced at ever more destructive rates.

Charcoal is produced from the acacia Bussei hardwood tree and is found in high densities in Sanag, Sool, Bari, Togdheer, Galbeed, Bay and Bakol. In the short term, cutting down trees removes valuable fodder and forest products from the livestock sector, decreases wildlife habitats, increases soil erosion and causes hardship to local people who depend on trees for a multitude of traditional purposes. Long term effects of charcoal production include the eventual depletion of reserves, energy deficits and high fuel prices. Recognizing the negative impact on the environment, the Puntland administration has recently banned the export of charcoal to the Gulf states and the Somaliland administration is considering new regulations to put an end to charcoal production in the North West. This has increased conflict between those who depend on charcoal to sustain their livelihoods and those who depend on range resources for other uses.

An assessment of charcoal production was carried out by the Ministry of Pastoralism and the Environment in Somaliland between 1997 and 2002, focusing on three urban towns: Hargeisa, Berbera and Burao. Data was collected from the main check points and tax-paying locations in the towns.

The FSAU field monitor in Hargeisa reports that charcoal production in the three towns has increased for the following reasons: urban populations have grown, increasing the demand; charcoal production has become a common income option for rural communities; the price of coal has increased; and there are no effective controls in place to protect the environment from de-forestation. Possible ideas to address the impact of the wood fuel and charcoal industry on the environment include the following:

(1) Improve efficiency of charcoal production (for example, include fuel-wood trees in agro-forestry planning).
(2) Improve efficiency of charcoal and fuel-wood use (for example, through improved stoves and education)
(3) Provide alternative sources of energy especially those that are competitive in price, such as kerosene, coal, biogas, solar gas and other natural gases.

Livestock exports

Between June and September the Indian Ocean?s high tide prevents small vessels getting into Bossaso port. Berbera port can accommodate much bigger ships, so Bossaso closes down during these months. In June the number of animals exported from Bossaso will reduce dramatically. This affects livestock exports, as traders switch to Berbera, and it also reduces employment and income opportunities for urban and poor groups who work at the port. The Livestock Export Table below shows that exports from Bossaso increased considerably during May as traders did as much business with the Gulf States as possible before the port closure in June.

The Somali shilling/dollar exchange rate is particularly relevant to a household?s purchasing power in relation to imported commodities. When the Somali shilling gains value, imported commodities become cheaper, when it loses value, goods become more expensive. In April the dollar traded for 20,000 Ssh and in May it was down to 16, 000 Ssh.

Traders imported extra commodities in May, just before Bossaso and other seaports closed due to the Indian Ocean high tides. This improved the supply of imported commodities, bringing prices down. During May, the Somali shilling strengthened in most urban markets as a result of the relative calm in the country and the expectations raised by the International Reconciliation Mission which visited parts of the country to examine ways of restoring comprehensive peace. This gave traders confidence to release additional dollars onto the market, reducing the demand for dollars and strengthening the Somali shilling.

SANAG AND TOGHDEER

The overall food security situation in the Hawd of Togdheer is normal due to good rains which have improved livestock and milk production. There has also been a rise in livestock prices. Some localized pockets, however did not benefit from this good rain. In Sanaag region, the death of livestock due to lack of pasture is still occurring on the plains of Erigavo and some parts of Badhan district. The growth in herd size of shoats is 50% lower than normal because of drought related infertility, abortion and the death of new born lambs and kids. Many poor and middle households are spending 70-80% of their income on food and others have reduced their number of meals from three to one. In the Sanaag region the rain has been mixed. In Nugal Pastoral valley in Eil-Aifweyn district, there has been rainfall but it was not sufficient. Community elders from Eil-Afwyne and Erivago have verified around 230 destitute households who have moved into villages and up to 400 ?invisible? destitute who have moved to various urban centres. The positive impact of these mixed rains are unlikely to immediately reverse the economic and social problems that communities are experiencing. Most parts of Sanag (including Sool Plateau)have experienced three years of erratic and poor seasonal rainfall. Purchasing power is reduced due to the livestock ban and there has been a high death rate amongst breeding and pack animals.

NORTH WEST AND AWDAL

Good rains fell in April in both regions and although it is unusual for it to rain in May, the sub-coastal and coastal belts received rain during the month. Availability and accessibility to both pasture and water has improved, replenishing both water surface catchments and shallow wells. Animal and milk production increased in May. In Wajaale, the price of cattle milk fell by 34% compared to April. However, the price of milk in urban markets such as Hargeisa did not decline as animals remain far away from the main markets. The Ethiopian border restrictions continue, making it difficult to collect milk from across the border in Ethiopia. 70-75% of the agropastoral households planted their fields in April and May with maize and sorghum. Poor households have been badly affected by a lack of tractors. The condition of the crops planted to date is good. The FSAU will follow up on area planted and crop establishment in next month?s report.

SOOL REGION

The delayed Gu rains arrived but their performance has been mixed over the various ecological zones of the region. The Hawd plateau and upper valley of Lasanod and Ainabo districts received average Gu rains which reduced the threat of livestock losses and food insecurity.With the exception of lower Nugal valley (and especially Taleh district which is in an alarming situation), the Nugal valley FEZ is in normal condition. Most Nugal valley herders of Lasanod and Hudon district out-migrated to Ainabo district last month but have returned to their home areas this month, where it has rained. In constrast, pastoralists in Taleh district are moving from their grazing areas to Garowe districts due to poor rainfall. In the Sool Plateau FEZ rainfall intensity is below normal. Many livestockholders have paid for costly out migration to the South West (Hudon district) which is the closest area to receive beneficial rains. Access to local markets is becoming more difficult due to the long distance from their villages. In general, the food security situation is improving in those areas that received rains. However, the food access for poor and fifty percent of middle wealth groups in Sool plateau and parts of lower Nugal is below normal. The FSAU Field Monitor recommends that the SACB Food Aid working group look at this area for possible food relief and also consider measures to address the structural vulnerability of adversely affected groups, for example restocking for poor and destitute families.

Silanyo had rejected the result of the election in which incumbent President Dahir Riyale Kahin of the Unity of Democrats Party (UDUB), was declared the winner. Silanyo at the time told IRIN that his party "categorically rejected" the results of the 14 April poll. On 19 April, the Somaliland Election Commission (SEC) declared Kahin the winner of Somaliland's first multiparty presidential election. The SEC's decision was later confirmed by the constitutional court.

Silanyo maintained that "there was a lot of injustice in the election process, but we decided to accept the results in the interest of the people". He said that Kulmiye was ready for talks with UDUB and the government, but declined to say when such talks were likely to start.

Several sources, however, told IRIN that Kulmiye's acceptance of the election results followed "intense pressure from elders and other local and business leaders". UDUB has also reportedly agreed to discuss "Kulmiye's concerns", one of the sources said.

Another source told IRIN that the two parties had reached an arrangement, but were not saying it publicly. He said this could involve some sort of power-sharing "sometime down the road". "Both sides were afraid of being accused of jeopardising Somaliland's peace and stability, a position no politician wants to be put in," he said.

"Although Kulmiye Party believes there was great injustice in the election of the president and the vice-president Somalilandon 14 April 2003, it values the general good of the people of Somaliland, and had decided to accept the advise by sultans (clan chiefs) who have urged us to accept the election results and overcome the difficult and disquieting circumstances which have been facing us. Kulmiye Party congratulates the people Somalilandfor the excellent way in which they voted. The leadership of the party specially thanks its supporters for the mature and able manner in which they voted for their party."

The statement, signed by the chairman of the commission, Muhammad Jama Roble, stated that, as far as ordinary structures and administrative nature of a government is concerned, and as per our knowledge to the governance in our country, the Somalilandpermits multiparty system, stipulating that all registered political parties have full rights to compete for the post of presidency and deputy-presidency. Similarly, Article 34, paragraph 2 of the constitution, states that every citizen should protect and safeguard the constitution and the rule of law in the country. The statement referred to the recently concluded presidential elections, which, according to the supreme court and the electoral commission, was won by the ruling UDUB party. This means that the supreme court's ruling should be accepted as the final judgment.

Therefore, the statement reads, the Kulmiye party is, legally and unconditionally, bound to abide by the court ruling, while at the same time respect the country's constitution and all that appertains to it, including section 20 of the electoral commission's code of ethics and that of political party registration, section 14 of the year 2000.

Finally, the commission advised the Kulmiye party to accept the final ruling arrived at by the Supreme Court of Somaliland.

About 100,000 innocent civilians were killed, while hundreds of thousands of people were forced to flee their homes seeking refuge in camps in eastern Ethiopia. It took the SNM 2 years and several months more to totally defeat the enemy.

At least 10 veterans of the 31st May 1988 offensive are being held now in Hargeisa central prison. They include Mohamed Ahmed Hashi Madar (Weere) who as a high school student escaped arrest in 1982 to join the SNM, Axmed Barkhad, a civil servant, Abdul Aziz Habane, currently a businessman and Mohamed Dahir, an-unemployed father of 9 children. These men and others were arrested on May 19, 2003 by Somaliland?s security forces. No charges were officially brought against them and it is not yet known whether they will face trial.

According to the Minister of Interior, Ismail Adan Osman, the veterans were held for being suspected of belonging to a larger group of ex-combatants that the government had earlier described as planning subversive activities against the state. KULMIYE opposition party described these arrests as part of a repressive policy aimed at the persecution of its members. Most of the people arrested in connection with this case were known KULMIYE supporters and activists.

The police department has so far avoided making any comments on recent detentions, which were directly ordered by the Minister of Interior.

Hassan came first to Hargeisa last February, and it was during that trip that he visited the Group Hospital, the only public medical facility in the town. Upon his return to England the same month, Hassan saw a documentary film on Hargeisa Group Hospital aired by BBC1 Television.

In March, Hassan started a fund raising campaign at his school and returned earlier this month to Somaliland with $3362 collected from Hull?s Endeavour school children. The target of the campaign is to raise $15000, with the money planned to be spent on covering some of the basic needs of the children?s ward in the hospital.

Chris?s father, Hassan, immigrated into Britain from Somaliland in 1937. Hassan never came back to his country of origin. Chris left Hargeisa Thursday, on his way back to England, after re-establishing his family roots in Somaliland.

Yassin?s comment came after Jamhuuriya newspaper ran a lengthy statement on Thursday by a group of journalists claiming to have been playing a mediator role, in order to reconcile existing differences between President Rayale and KULMIYE?s Ahmed Sillanyo that emerged in the aftermath of the April 14 presidential election.

In the statement, the group known as the Somaliland Journalists Association said both Rayale and Sillanyo had accepted a proposal for unconditional talks. However, Vice-President Yassin said the position of Rayale was that talks with KULMIYE were conditional on the opposition party first conceding the election.

Ahmed Yassin said the SOLJA statement was fabricated and was without basis. He also indicated that SOLJA was not an honest broker. The vice-president reaffirmed that only if that condition was met by KULMIYE, would negotiations start.

The Somaliland Times has learned that Somaliland's Minister of Information, Abdillahi Mohamed Dualle, had originally come up with the idea of SOLJA playing a mediator role. Sources told the Somaliland Times that the minister?s motive was to save his job in the face of the expected cabinet reshuffle. The minister of information also asked SOLJA's leaders to convey a message to president Rayale on how satisfied and delighted they were to have Abdillahi Dualle in the Ministry of Information.

But following SOLJA?s debacle, the whole mission was aborted, and reports say President Rayale was not impressed by SOLJA's claim of mediation.

Meanwhile, a group SomalilandSultans, Islamic clerics and civic leaders have taken the initiative to mediate a negotiated settlement of the present political conflict between President Rayale and his UDUB party on the one hand and the opposition KULMIYE party, led by Ahmed Sillanyo and Abdirahman Aw Ali. Both sides were understood to have welcomed the initiative.

In the article, it was reported that the minister of interior Ismail Osman recently briefed the standing committee of the Council of Elders on the security situation in the country.

Haatuf reported that the minister told the committee that some incidents of mutiny and disobeying of orders had occurred within the ranks of the army, and that sympathizers with ex-combatants recently taken into police custody did exist within the Armed Forces.

At a joint press conference on Sunday, both the minister of Interior and minister of Defense, Ismail Omar Adan, denied Haatuf 's report, describing it as baseless. The Chairman of the standing committee of the Guurti, Gahnug Bosh-cade also disputed "the allegation that the minister of Interior talked about military affairs."

Haatuf published the statements of denial issued by the ministries of Interior and Defense as well as Bosh-cade. But the newspaper stood by its story.

Kahin of the UDUB, who had been the incumbent president, was confirmed as the winner of last month's disputed presidential election by the Somaliland High Court.

Kulmiye's presidential candidate, Ahmad Muhammad Silanyo - Kahin's main challenger, told IRIN at the time that his party "categorically rejected" the results of the 14 April election.

The Kulmiye senior official said the party "does not recognise UDUB as the winner of the elections. The court's ruling was not based on the facts, and is an injustice". "In the national interest, we are calling on UDUB to come to the negotiating table without any preconditions, and as equals", he added. "Kulmiye will do everything in its power to safeguard the country's peace and stability."

Somaliland, a former British protectorate, declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991 after the collapse of the Siyad Barre government, but has not been internationally recognised. Over the past decade, it has moved away from conflict, while the rest of Somalia has been locked in civil strife.

Antimicrobial resistance (cont?d)

Can antimicrobial resistance be halted?

No. But it can be contained. Antimicrobial resistance is a normal biological phenomenon - the response of microbes subjected to the selective pressure of antimicrobial drug use. The main priority should be to prevent infection in the first place. After that, containment of the problem is the best we can aim for. And since it is antimicrobial use that drives resistance, the focus of any containment strategy should be on minimising any unnecessary, inappropriate or irrational use of antimicrobial drugs. Many groups of people play a role in determining how and where antimicrobials are used:

1. Patients and the general public; 2. All groups of prescribers and dispensers; 3. Hospital managers and health care professionals; 4. Users of antimicrobials in agriculture; 5. National governments; 6. Pharmaceutical, diagnostic and ?surveillance? industries; 7. International agencies, NGOs, professional societies.

All of these groups need to be engaged developing and implementing a resistance containment action plan.

Who contributes to misuse of antimicrobials? Antimicrobial resistance is a natural consequence of antimicrobial use, which kills the sensitive organisms leaving the resistant ones to survive and multiply (section of resistance).overuse and misuse of antimicrobials do not help patients, they merely add to the problem of resistance and waste resources.

Prescribers

There is a wide variation in the prescribing of antimicrobials and other drugs. In primary health care 30-60% of patients receive antibiotics perhaps twice what is clinically needed misuse is common and may take the form of incorrect dosage or inappropriate prescription. In Tanzania, 91%of antibiotics were prescribed with incorrect dosage and in India over 90% of prescriptions did not have dose specifications. Inappropriate prescription of antibiotics has been reported to occur for viral respiratory tract infections in 97% of cases in China and 81% of cases in Ghana. In propriety prescription of antibiotics for childhood diarrhoea commonly occurs, as reported in Pakistan. Here private general practitioners were found to prescribe significantly more antibiotics (41%of pediatric cases) than pediatricians (36% of pediatric cases) in the public hospitals. Hospital prescribers are often the role models for primary health care prescribers. Unfortunately, antimicrobials are misused just as much in hospitals as in primary health care. Why do providers prescribe antimicrobials too often and unnecessarily? There are many causes including:

- Lack o knowledge or information, leading to uncertainty about the diagnosis and the most appropriate drug(s), and fear of poor patient outcome - Patient demand - Earning a living through selling medicines

Many prescribers in developing countries have little access to good quality information about diagnosis and drugs. Standard treatment guidelines are often unavailable and health workers are often unsupported and unsupervised. Frequently, drug company representatives are doctors? only source of information. Such information may well be biased, particularly with regard to how effective their company?s drug is compared to rival drug of the same class. Uncertainty of the diagnosis, fear of poor patient outcome, (and in industries countries, fear of litigation), lead to over prescription for antibiotics. In many developing countries, the diagnostic process is often inadequate to arrive at a diagnosis with any certainty.

The International Health Awareness Network (IHAN), based in New York City (USA) and headed by Dr. Sorosh Roshan, is planning to undertake an immunization and public health program this summer in Hargeisa. Dr. Roshan and her team are coordinating with the Somaliland Minister of Health and the Hargeisa Group Hospital to complete this endeavor.

IHAN is a nongovernmental organization affiliated with the United Nations Department of Public Information and accredited by ECOSOC (the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations). The organization was conceived in 1987 by Dr. Roshan at the "End of the Decade Women's Conference" in Nairobi, Kenya, during the United Nations' Third World Conference on Women and has been building momentum ever since. IHAN is a not-for-profit, non-governmental organization in consultative status with the United Nations. The organization?s mission includes advancing women's and children's health at local, national and international levels through education; collaborating with the United Nations and other organizations to design and implement programs and policies that improve women and children's health and quality of life; and educating, empowering and providing health care to women and children with a focus on socioeconomic disadvantaged groups.

Every year IHAN supports at least one program or field project in collaboration with the host country. This year?s project will be undertaken in Somaliland and will focus on primary health care. Stage I of this project, to be completed in July, aims to renovate the Hargeisa Group Hospital and vaccinate approximately 30,000 children in the area against common childhood diseases.

In November 2002, IHAN participated in a fact-finding and need assessment mission to Somaliland. IHAN determined that the Hargeisa Group Hospital, the only public hospital, is in dire need of renovation. The hospital infrastructure, medical supplies, and equipment require dramatic improvements in order to meet the basic health care needs of the community. The needs of the Hargeisa community are great as the majority of women examined during this assessment mission suffered from the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). There are many cases of pelvic inflammatory diseases, vesico vaignal and rectal fistulas that need to be attended to. IHAN would like to adopt the Hargeisa Group Hospital and its constituents to ensure that their needs are met on an on-going basis. The project team will include U.S. trained doctors, nurses, and support personnel. This team will partner with the Ministry of Health Somalilandand the local healthcare providers through the Hargeisa Group Hospital.

In order to ensure the most sustainable outcomes, the Somaliland Project is determined to undertake two more Stages with the Somaliland Project. Stage II is scheduled to take place during the summer of 2004. The Project Goals for this stage include a complete renovation of the operating room and of the medical library. Stage III should occur during the summer of 2005. The main goal of this stage will be to revitalize the medical school in Somaliland and ensure that the medical staff is as well-educated as possible according to the rigors of modern medicine.

The estimated cost of Stage I will be approximately $25,000. This figure includes the cost of updated technology and equipment, new linens and windows, and the replacement of the Hospital?s windows. IHAN has been soliciting funds from individuals and appealing to grant-making organizations, but there is still a need for most of the funds. If you or anyone you know would like to donate your time or resources to this project, or would like further information, please contact Dr. Sorosh Roshan at 212-721-0119 or soroshr@hotmail.com. The mailing address for IHAN is 160 West 66th Street, Suite 57B, New York, New York, 10023, all checks should be made out the International Health Awareness Network with the phrase ?Somaliland Project? written in the memo space.

So far, the issue of KULMIYE?s reluctance to concede the presidential election has been seen as the stumbling block before the starting of a process of a negotiated settlement. Each side is exploiting the issue of election concession to weaken the position of the other side. This tactic has been politically counter-productive for both President Rayale and KULMIYE.

Ahmed Sillanyo?s insistence that UDUB come to the negotiating table without claiming to be the winner of the presidential election has in itself been an unnecessary pre-condition. It has put KULMIYE in the awkward position of being portrayed as the intransigent side. Elements within UDUB and the government who are against dialogue in order to protect their illicitly acquired privileges, have used this issue against Kulmiye and have gone to the extent of accusing its leaders of trying to undermine Somaliland?s sovereignty. The situation has prompted Ahmed Sillanyo to take a rather reconciliatory position during Thursday's press statement in which he reasserted his party?s full support and respect for Somaliland?s constitution and recognition of the country?s institutions.

On the other hand, President Rayale?s demand that KULMIYE first concede that it had lost the election as a pre-condition for holding talks with its leaders has at best been self-defeating. KULMIYE?s refusal to accept the final election results won?t change the fact that President Rayale had been announced winner of the poll, even though by a mere 217 votes. That's why UDUB and government officials shouldn?t have sounded hysterical, as if the legitimacy of the presidency was conditional on getting KULMIYE?s approval. Of course it would have been good for the country, both for domestic and international reasons, and for KULMIYE as well, if Sillanyo would have had come forward to speak for the record about what went wrong with the election, proposed a joint effort by the political parties and the civil society for the development of a more reliable electoral system and, then, gone to Dahir Rayale to congratulate him. Still, now that a process of mediation has begun, both president Rayale and Sillanyo should not squander this opportunity. The people Somalilandwant a quick solution to this impasse.

To Ahmed Silanyo: We are concerned about the attacks on Somaliland interest by few KULMIYE supporters. The recent article by Rakiya Omaar (Shadows of the Past As Human Rights Deteriorate) in the international media has damaged the interest Somalilandincluding chances for recognition. Obviously you do not believe everything she said in her reports, if you do believe it as true report, we are certain that you and KULMIYE would have been the first to protect Somaliland and its people. We believe that you can see how damaging this article is to any chance for Somaliland recognition and we are confident that you would not want to hurt Somaliland's chances for recognition.

To see in detail more articles from KULMIYE supporters that are damaging to Somaliland interests including its chances for recognition, please visit www.somaliland.com, the webmaster for this site is also the webmaster for www.KULMIYE.com. and we are concerned about such articles that attack Somaliland interests only in this page - not all of them.

Rakiya Omaar?s allegations (human rights violations in Somaliland) and others like it have political motives and unfortunately their actions hurt Somaliland interests much more than Dahir Rayale, his government or UDUB party. We are very confident that you will do everything in your power to protect the interest Somalilandand its image both inside and outside the country. We feel as leader of our people you will not watch from the sideline while Somaliland interests are being destroyed by very few KULMIYE supporters and that is why we are writing this appeal to you today.

To Rakiya: you have done many things for your people and Somaliland during Siyad Barre regime by exposing the regime's human rights violations. For that your people are very grateful to you. We believe your latest article (Shadows of the Past As Human Rights Deteriorate) published in www.allAfrica.com web Site is politically motivated. We have made this conclusion based on your articles during Somaliland elections in which you supported KULMIYE party. You are very intelligent and you know how much your article will damage Somaliland interest as oppose to Dahir Rayale, his government or UDUB party. We certainly hope that you will consider our appeal to you to stop attacks that damage the interest Somalilandcauses and its chances for recognition.

We can understand feeling hurt, angry and frustrated with the results Somalilandelections, and we are asking you (Ahmed Mohamed Sillanyo) to intervene and ask those supporters who make habit of attacking Somaliland interests to control their feelings - attacks on national interests should by no means be acceptable to you. If and when such attacks happen, as we have shown you in this case, we hope you will consider our appeal to protect Somaliland?s interests.

Metro-Washington DC Somaliland Community Rashid Garuf (rgaruf@msn.com)

Exchanges between Somaliland?s large Diaspora of information and views about the situation "at home", mainly conducted via email and the Internet, reflect the determination outside the country for this new nation to succeed. The economy Somalilandalready relies substantially on the remittances of these men and women. And many regularly and generously use their education, experience and position, usually in the west and in the Arab world, to offer finance, skills and ideas for the development of Somaliland. Like the majority of the country's permanent residents, these people hold their breath as they wait for international recognition of Somaliland. Sitting at their computers at opposite ends of the world, they share a common understanding of the need to present a united front.

Somaliland?s case for recognition depends, after all, upon not being a "basket case." On a continent where tribalism, clan warfare, political violence, massacres and war are common afflictions, peace is the highest achievement. And when you have come from the back of the race to win this prize, as we in Somaliland have, we all know its true worth. This understanding is why I began writing articles related to issues of human rights and justice soon after returning to Hargeisa a year ago, and it?s also almost certainly why these issues are seen as contentious by some other Somalilanders. My general feeling is that debate in itself is healthy and welcome. Discussions about the kind of nation we want to build in Somaliland are essential; and committed Somalilanders outside the country have as much right to participate in these as those who remained or have returned.

All the same, of late, I have come to realise that, unlike the positive feedback, the few negative responses I have received to my articles have not been targeted at the substance of my opinions; rather they appear resentful of my decision to express them. Speaking only for myself, I can accept, and even understand, why others may wish to quarrel with my views. However, criticisms motivated by a desire to cover up problematic issues have now been aimed at Shadows of the Past as Human Rights Deteriorate, a discussion paper on Somaliland issued by African Rights on 26 May. The paper is based on testimony from people in Somaliland who have, in one way or another, been victimized. In this case, a public response is required.

In a press release issued on 29 May, Rashid Garuf of the Metro-Washington DC Somaliland Community called upon Ahmed Mohamed Sillanyo, leader of KULMIYE, "to intervene and ask those supporters who make [a] habit of attacking Somaliland interest to control their feelings", arguing that Shadows of the Past "damaged the interest Somalilandincluding [the] chances for recognition." He went on to say that these "allegations and others like it have political motives and unfortunately their actions hurt Somaliland?s interest much more than Dahir Rayale, his government or Udub party." Clearly, these are strong claims which African Rights would reject. It already made clear in the introduction to this paper, that "there is an understandable reluctance to broadcast the potential for recent events to spark serious reversals. For many who care about the future of their country, and hope that its gains in terms of peace and security will win it recognition as an independent state, silence might appear to be the best policy. But the shadow of Somaliland?s conflict-ridden past hangs over the issues and personalities at the centre of current political tensions. In this context, silence, coupled with the prevailing lack of international attention, is unlikely to promote the necessary resolve to stem a decline in the human rights situation, which has, unfortunately, begun."

Garuf?s criticisms were, in fact, directed at me personally, rather than at African Rights. It is important to clarify the distinction between African Rights as an organisation and myself as an individual, although there are overlaps. African Rights was founded in 1992 and since that time its aims and practices have been shaped by many concerned individuals, including myself, firstly as co-director and now as director. But consistently, and above all, the organisation?s work has been defined by its aim of "advocating on behalf of those suffering injustice and oppression." To achieve this it carries out participatory research, encouraging victims of human rights abuses to speak not only about their experiences but to give their views on how these should be addressed. In other words, African Rights seeks to act as a platform, and the principal voices in its work are those of the people interviewed. It is indicative of the nature and intention of Garuf's criticism that he has chosen to criticize me rather than the organization. The aim is to reduce the facts raised in the discussion paper, which he argues are "not true", to what he perceives to be my personal political beliefs. The effect is to ignore or malign the individuals whose views and experiences are contained in the paper.

Shadows of the Past provided details about the beating of unarmed women and minors by policemen in Hargeisa; the unlawful arrest and detention of peaceful protesters; a ban on the constitutional right to organize demonstrations; restrictions on freedom of movement in Hargeisa; the siege of a group of elders meeting in Gabiley; direct and indirect constraints upon the media and the arrests of journalists; the dismissal from the army of former combatants of the Somali National Movement (SNM): and the arrest and imprisonment, without charges, of a group of ex-combatants. It provides a brief snapshot of the current situation; a more comprehensive national coverage of human rights problems would undoubtedly make even more dismal reading. Perhaps Mr Garuf knows this, and that is his worry. Certainly Faysal Ali Warabe, the leader of the party, UCID, knows it. But since he has decided to throw his political lot in with the government, he too has seen fit to attack African Rights? report.

Amid the many problems Somalilanders are facing, Garuf?s press release is in itself a trivial matter. But there is a certain amount of danger attached to such views. In the many years I?ve been working in human rights reporting, I have encountered such arguments repeatedly, usually from the leaders of dictatorships. The "defense of the national interest" that Garuf claims to be interested in, has frequently been used as the motivation to cover up human rights abuses or to intimidate government critics, including, as we should not forget, by Mohamed Siad Barre in Somalia. Yes, Garuf, we all want to see Somaliland win international support, but my experience tells me it won?t work to pretend that beatings of women and children, or illegal detentions, haven?t happened. Looking the other way is only likely to increase the opportunities for such acts. Surely that is not the kind of nation we want to live in, and I doubt it?s the kind that many from the Diaspora would want to return to.

International recognition Somalilandas a sovereign nation is dear to all the people of Somaliland. I am well aware of the political, economic and social cost of the struggle for survival under the current circumstances. But the argument that ignoring human rights abuses will advance the cause of recognition is an illusion. Recognition demands proof of sound policies by a government-including respect for human rights-not patriotic statements. Over the past 12 years, the people Somalilandhave shown formidable reserves in their efforts to resolve conflict and to rebuild their shattered homeland. They can, and will, battle for recognition, but on their feet, not on their knees, from a position of truth and self-confidence, not from a policy of silence.

Rakiya Omaar is the director of the human rights organisation, African Rights.

In accordance with Somaliland?s constitution the final verdict on the country?s first presidential elections since its creation in 1991 was transferred to the Supreme Court and after two weeks of careful deliberation the Supreme Court declared on 11th May that the UDUB party had indeed won the elections. Yet again, the KULMIYE party rejected the supreme courts final verdict just as they had the election commissions previous result even though the other opposition party, UCID, accepted the results issued by both bodies.

It is well known that the KULMIYE chief, Sillanyo, had pledged during the election campaign that he would respect the outcome of the elections but after realizing that he had lost he cried foul. If Sillanyo had no faith in neither the election commission nor the Supreme Court then he shouldn?t have made such a pledge nor should he have contested as a presidential candidate at all. The fact that the elections were fair and free and that the counting of ballots was transparent and rigorous has been confirmed by the international observers who stayed in Somaliland in the days preceding voting day and during the ballot count.

In the midst of this, members of Somaliland?s parliament and council of elders intervened in order to defuse the tension and advised that a coalition government compromising all the three parties, UDUB, KULMIYE and UCID be formed. President Rayale, who is also the chairman of the UDUB party, heeded their advice and wholeheartedly accepted the idea of power sharing even though the constitution Somalilanddoes not oblige the winning party to form a coalition government with the other parties. Rayale acceptance was due to his willingness to find an amicable solution to the current impasse by compromising and offering such a concession to the KULMIYE party. The UCID party, which has acted in a dignified and responsible manner throughout recent events, accepted to take part in a coalition government but unfortunately the power greedy KULMIYE, who are not interested in power sharing, has rejected the conciliatory steps of the honorable members of parliament and council of elders who have since Somaliland?s creation been at the forefront of maintaining and strengthening the peace and stability that the country enjoys today. If the KULMIYE party has misinterpreted President Rayale?s good faith and the UDUB party?s compromises as a sign of weakness they will soon find out how wrong they were. It is quite clear that the KULMIYE leaderships position is to create as many obstacles for the incoming administration and they are hell bent on derailing Somaliland?s progress in order to make the whole country suffer just because a few men could not assume power after losing through the ballot box in elections that were by all international standards fair and free. In the post-election period, not even the KULMIYE voters expected their party to act in a reckless manner that would jeopardize the whole country and because of this the KULMIYE party has deviated from the path that its supporters had hoped it would take and betrayed the trust of its supporters as well.

Somaliland?s current predicament is like a ship in high seas while a few on board are trying to drill holes into it and leave it to sink as they jump onto the safety rafts that they have prepared for themselves. Those few are no doubt the hierarchy of the KULMIYE party who during the past two months have demonstrated their selfish behavior and utter disrespect for their people by creating one crisis after another in their attempts to assume power at all costs. The KULMIYE party has turned into a destructive group rather than be a constructive opposition like the respectable UCID party. In a string of callous statements coming from the KULMIYE camp, their latest one stipulated "we are prepared to talk to the ruling party, the Unity of Democrats Party (UDUB), so long as they are not claiming to be the winners of last month's elections. In the national interest, we are calling on UDUB to come to the negotiating table without any preconditions, and as equals."

Such a proposal is not only absurd but would in effect mean that there would be no authority to call a government at all in Somaliland and this would not only have dangerous consequences on the country?s security and stability but this would at the same time undermine our international credibility as a country. If the KULMIYE party, as they claim, really had the interest of the country at heart they would not have kept on creating one stumbling block after another and should have accepted the proposal of power sharing so that Somaliland could move forward and use the recent elections as an opportunity to convey to the world that Somaliland is a democratic state that deserves international recognition.

The stubborn stance of some of KULMIYE?s leaders has even alienated others within the party who want to find a solution to the problem, put the election events behind them and take part in the country?s development with their brethren from the UDUB and UCID party. Reliable sources emanating from the KULMIYE camp report that these voices of reason within the KULMIYE party are growing louder by the day and they are beginning to oppose the disruptive tactics of Sillanyo and his few die-hard henchmen. In the meantime, the UDUB and UCID party, whose combined votes constitute 58% of the recent election count, should immediately form a coalition government because Somaliland?s progress as a nation should not be held hostage to KULMIYE?s intransigence and hurdles.

Our election was declared transparent and fair, even excellent to the African standards. That is how the international observers concluded in their statements. And the other night, here in Toronto, thousands of Somalilanders and others attended the 18th may celebration. One of the key speakers was the prominent Canadian MP from Scarborough (subrb of Toronto) Jim Kirgianis, a leading member of the international observers that monitored the Somaliland presidential election. Kirgianis, as guest speaker in the May 18 celebration, explained in his words with no or little surprises at all that "Somalilanders as a people who managed to conduct a fair election under difficult condition can and should go and teach other African nations about democracy and elections".

However; having said that it was to be expected to face blame and counter blame after such hard competition and fierce battle of campaigning. And it makes that much more contentious when the vote count is too close as it was in this case. In other words there was no clear-cut winner in this election. Nevertheless, President Rayaale is our legally elected president.

The winners of this election in my opinion are the people of Somaliland, their constitution and their system as a whole. Mind you this is not the first time that we put our infant constitution to the test. It did pass already couple of hurdles. To note one such hurdle was how power was transferred when the late president Egal passed away suddenly. Without a clear system and constitution on hand, one can imagine the havoc, confusion, and the chaotic nature it might have brought on us. Thanks Allah we succeeded.

That this country went through historic moments, I cannot say better than that of my close friend and colloque Said Omer Moussa (Moments and Destiny). Destiny is far away yet, we can glimpse the rising Sun of prosperity from the not distant horizon. There is nothing wrong, if you belong to KULMIYE, UDUB, UCID and any other party that you may choose for your own reasons. The issue in this case however, is the overall well-being Somalilandand it is troubling when some of us miss or fail to look at the big picture.

The harmful, negative rumors and speculations that we read these days from the Internet are very much disturbing. It is against the long-term interest of our citizens. These kinds of lies, propaganda and fabrications from few webmasters and deluded individuals is not disgusting only, but rather an insult to our noble cause of nation building. They should be ashamed and stop their destructive criticism and character assassinations that is of no help to no one.

Ladies and Gentlemen; those of you may have and ambition of one day holding a public office for the people of Somaliland, these name calling and smear tactics will not help your future political endeavor. You might be doing an irreparable damage to your career. The public is so smarter than you think; they may forgive you but will remember the character you displayed. And reward you accordingly.

Brothers and sisters in diaspora; instead of contributing to our Maandeeq with negative energy, it is time to build bridges of unity and purpose. In order to meet the vast needs and help our impoverished and unrecognized small nation, each and every one of you must bear in his/her mind that Somaliland will stay here even long after UDUB, KULMIYE, Sillanyo and Rayaale are placed in the dust bin of history. And what kind Somalilandwill stay surely depend on our deeds.

May Allah bless Somaliland and its people.

Arbitrary arrests and searches, unjustified detention, misuse and abuse of power, illegal care views, soldiers? overdue salary and benefits, overly compensated corrupt officials, incompetence, disregard of human rights and civil liberties, intimidation of independent media, hunting down certain groups because of political allegiance, utilizing the Radio as the mouth piece of political party and the Supreme Court as a rubber stamp, is not the Somaliland I envisioned. This resembles more of a past era, that of the "faqash".

Disappointed, you bet. Free and fair elections, separation of powers, protection of property, the rule of law, respect of democratic principles and values, protection of human rights and civil liberties, nation building and development, managing public property and funds properly, curbing corruption, transparency and accountability and other similar universally accepted values and norms were my dream. And this is far from what Somalilanders are subjected and experiencing today.

No wonder, the dream has turned into nightmare. Trading a despot with another wasn?t my dream. The Gestapo elements and agents of the despot Siyad Barre that have ruined the State of Somalia have re-surfaced in Somaliland, re-kindled the old habits, engaged in subversive activities and are concocting schemes to slain the unsuspecting, fragile Somaliland that have re-emerged out of the ashes. Oppression, suppression, subjugation, intimidation, and unfairly targeting the opposition are the key operative codes designed to spark the explosion. The intended result: fatal implosion. This is the strategy and unfortunately it appears that they are succeeding at the expense of Somaliland.

No peace without justice. Injustice no matter under what banner shouldn?t stand. Accepting and tolerating injustice doesn?t justify the end, it is cowardly, and it only encourages more injustice. Recognition under tyranny would compound the misery, the corruption and the disparity. According to the Islamic tenets, justice is worth fighting for and Somaliland shouldn?t relent until the dream is realized.

We have to ask ourselves why KULMIYE, and its leader & Presidential candidate, Ahmed Sillanyo, have refused to accept the decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the recent elections. After all, KULMIYE, along with the other two parties contesting the elections, committed itself to accepting the results of the vote as determined by the bodies so authorized by the Constitution. Yet, KULMIYE now rejects that determination and instead calls for "talks". Whom does KULMIYE want to have "talks" with and what would these "talks" be about? KULMIYE does not say. Clearly, they are unhappy with losing the election, but do they really believe that they can "talk" their way to an ultra-vires victory? Are they that deranged? The answer is that they are not and that their patently ridiculous call for "talks" is a smokescreen for an evil and self serving purpose.

KULMIYE?s intention is to blackmail Somaliland into giving it by extortion what it could not win at the ballot box, i.e. a large role and say in the next government. They plan to cast Somaliland in the same light as Somalia, i.e. that we are a country without a legitimate government. It is not surprising that KULMIYE timed its transparent ploy to coincide with the end of the tenure of the TNG in Mogadiscio, since they aim to tar us with the same brush. KULMIYE is also aware that with the successful completion of the local and Presidential elections (which the international observers unanimously pronounced as essentially free and fair), Somaliland is on the verge of securing some form of recognition from the international community. These elections were the crucial test that many members of the international community wished to witness before considering Somaliland?s case seriously and positively.

By calling the Constitution itself into question at this crucial time, KULMIYE has finally shown its true colours. The unbridled ambition of its leadership, Sillanyo and his new political allies (that alienated and discredited bunch of erstwhile heroes known as QAAXO), supersedes any loyalty they have to Somaliland. They have put their own personal interests above the wishes and interests Somalilandand its people. This is not new or surprising from QAAXO, but it is a source of great regret that an elder statesman like Sillanyo would be party to such a venal endeavour. KULMIYE has to understand (and if refuses to, it will be made to understand) that enough is enough - Somaliland will not be blackmailed and KULMIYE will have to obey the law of the land, like everybody else. The clearest contrast between blind, self serving ambition and ambition born of nationalism can be seen in the difference between KULMIYE and Sillanyo?s response to the election result and that of UCID and Faysal Ali Warabe.

Ahmed M.I. Egal, Dammam, Saudi Arabia, 28th May 2003

As one of the regions of the envisioned greater Somalia, Somaliland was neglected by both the civilian governments in the early 1960s and later the dictatorship regime of Said Barre. The only exception occurred when Bile Rafle was the Governor of Togdheer and later the Northwest region of ex-Somalia. Since the days of the British rule only the late Bile Rafle had the vision to improve the infrastructure and I have great respect for that, Pay credit where its due (in Somali Gaal dil gartiisana sii). Although Bile Rafle is not Somalilander by birth and his administration in Somaliland was short time, his legacy includes many tangible improvements in both Buroa and Hargeisa.

As an example, I can remember how crowded and difficult it was to walk through the old huts "Aqal Somalis" in Dumbuluq. As a child growing up in that vicinity, I frequently ran to the Hargeisa football stadium when there were games or other activities to watch. It was a nightmare to go from one side to the other, even though the area was less than two square kilometers. The same location today houses the Edna Maternity Hospital, the National Teachers Training Center, a police station, ex enji warehouses, and other important buildings. Although the streets created by Bile Rafle in Hargeisa are still usable, some of them are now blocked or narrowed by houses recently erected by our own people with no regard for the city?s plans and esthetics.

Since the liberation of Somaliland, our cities and territories have deteriorated and there is no evidence of a plan or vision to improve the infrastructure, which has been neglected for so long. It?s true the country was destroyed by the old regime and the Somaliland government has done lot of work in other areas, but it could have done more if it had implemented a reasonable plan to improve the infrastructure of the whole nation.

All thought Berbera to Hargeisa, Kalabaydh corridor is a major route but we shouldn?t have put more emphasis and neglect rest of the country?s roads.

In this article I?ll just touch on some of the infrastructure of our country and what solutions could be found within our own people.

Deteriorating transportation is the most visible problem, one that is noticed by both residents and visitors. The roads and the streets of our country don?t need a huge investment but rather smart investment that can be home grown. For example, each city that has enough revenue can contract out the rehabilitation and reconstruction of their roads, streets and drainage system.

The contractor who wins the bid for that task would be paid from the city?s general fund with a preset amount of contract value. If the contractor can?t meet the requirement of the contract, then he/she wouldn?t get paid for that month until the contractor meets the requirement of the specific task.

The contractor or contractors would have to invest the first month?s material and labor, and each city must have a fund that is payable to any contractor who invested in the city?s infrastructure. A preset amount should be placed in an escrow account that will not require endless approvals or the nightmarish bureaucracy that currently exists today. It is my hope that the private sector will be eager to invest when they see the benefit to them and to their cities.

On all the major roads in Somaliland you will find more potholes than pavement. As I drove around the country recently and had discussions with the authorities I became aware of the extent of the problems facing the Somaliland Road Authority and the Ministry of Transport and Public Housing. Somaliland?s government cannot improve or rehabilitate these conditions unless the private sector is willing to assist in developing and improving the country?s infrastructure, something they would benefit from on a daily basis. The private sector can assist in the development of the country by either funding or opening their own construction companies, manufacturing plants, and industries to produce or provide the materials needed in the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the country. For example, bringing heavy equipment into the country would greatly facilitate the rehabilitation of bridges or construction of new structures that is so badly needed from one region to another. The government could utilize the equipment and construct infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, drainage systems, ports, airport tarmacs, etc.

As of today the main route between Berbera, Hargeisa, and Togwajaleh has been completed, yet is plagued with thousands of potholes and bumps that are constant nightmares for drivers who travel daily on that route. The rest of the country needs continued effort to rehabilitate and maintain roads from Berbera, Buroa to Las Anood, from Hargeisa to Buroa and from Buroa to Ergavo. I am very excited about the EC?s assistance to the Somaliland Road Authority but we need to put lot of effort in planning to implement all the projects that can be included with the limited funds donated for Somaliland roads.

Water resources and supply system of the country have been ignored by everyone in power including the old regime, the present administration, the UNDP, and even the NGOs who are supposed to provide assistance. According to the yearly budget of the SACB, Somaliland?s share of funds for 2002 was twenty five million dollars ($25 Million out of $110 million dollars for all Somalia that was collected from donors); however, there is little to show for that money. To this day, the nightmare shortage of water in Hargeisa continues as was reported by the BBC reporter in Hargeisa on May 22, 2003.

I was very happy to hear the director of the Hargeisa water agency Boobe announce the centralization of the power system for the wells in Geedeble and the addition of one more supply pipe to the two existing twelve-inch pipes that currently must supply the city of six hundred fifty thousand residents. The most important thing is not the additional pipe and the storage tanks but how it?s managed once the supply system is in place. Only time will tell that.

As one of the Diaspora visitors to Somaliland I was very disappointed to learn that planes cannot land at night on the runway of Hargeisa International airport due to the lack of runway lighting. In talking to a pilot who frequently flies to Hargeisa I was also surprised to learn how much was paid for landing rights. A runway lighting system could be installed within a week and would cost the airport administration less than a couple of weeks? worth of the fees collected from those who utilize the airport facilities.

There is also a simple way to provide a lighting system without the need for a generator to supply energy. Solar-powered runway lights can be purchased by anybody for little more than conventional runway lights, and eventually the system would pay itself. In contrast, a generator would burn fifty gallons of diesel each night. These will also help the passengers who fly from Dubia/Sharijah to Hargeisa who needlessly spent four hours in those terminals instead of starting their journey early and arriving Hargeisa before dawn.

The new terminal for Hargeisa international airport is great addition to the airport facilities but what is frustrating about this project is