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Somali refugees are returning from Ethiopia to the self-declared republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, with little international help, the US Committee for Refugees (USCR) stated in a report on Wednesday, 26 December.

"With negligible help from the international community, Somaliland continues to absorb tens of thousands of refugees repatriating from eastern Ethiopia," according to USCR. Such a massive return of refugees, albeit welcome, was "placing additional stress on Somaliland's fragile, war-torn infrastructure," it added.

Some 4,000 Somali refugees - many from the Burao area, in the Toghdeer Region of northwestern Somalia - returned to Somalia on 22 and 23 December, according to the UN refugee agency.

The Somali refugee population in Daror, eastern Ethiopia, now stands at just 2,437, and the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) hopes to be able to close the camp before the end of the month.

Since the process of voluntary repatriation of refugees to northwestern Somalia started in 1997, over 181,000 had left camps in eastern Ethiopia,

The continuing lack of meaningful assistance to returning refugees was curtailing the already weak capacity of Somaliland's government and international agencies "striving to properly reintegrate returnees", according to USCR.

Returning refugees receive an assistance package to help them get started in their former homes, including basic household items and a nine months' supply of food, according to UNHCR.

If Daror becomes the third of eight Ethiopian camps for Somali refugees to be shut this year - Teferiber and Darwanaji were closed in June - the five sites remaining will host a total of 66,876 refugees: 11,642 in Hartisheik, 11,634 in Kebribeyah, 19,849 in Camaboker, 9,811 in Rabasso and 13,940 in Aisha.

The international charity Education WithOut Borders, together with the Association of African Students at Portland State University, launches a benefit party this week to send thousands of math and science books to the African nation of Somaliland.

The benefit, Books Not Bombs, is a multimedia art and music celebration featuring photographs by Isaka Shamsud-Din, Bette Lee and Regina Jones, as well as African food, political speakers and a dance party. It's from 7-12 p.m. Friday on the third floor of PSU's Smith Center Ballroom, 1825 S.W. Broadway Ave.

Admission is free, but a donation is suggested to help pay the cost of shipping the 25,000 to 30,000 books to Somaliland, an emerging nation that is still rebuilding after years of civil war. The books are destined for the newly established Education WithOut Borders library in Somaliland, and the University of Hargeisa.

Books Not Bombs is the brainchild of three dynamic brothers born in the war-torn country formerly known as Somalia. Abdi, Mohammed and Mohamoud Hassan, all graduates of PSU, were raised in the United States. This is the result of their first campaign.

"Somaliland, which right now is the nation we're sending the books to, went through civil war," said Mohammed Hassan. "Our educational system was destroyed, as was our medical system and the entire infrastructure of the country - you're looking at a nation that has no libraries, no bookstores."

They started Education WithOut Borders in 1999, Mohammed Hassan said. "We saw a lot of organizations that are not really concentrating on humanitarian issues - they're more interested in making money."

Part of the point of their effort, Hassan said, is to promote the idea of not profiteering from relief efforts. The books they will send were donated from many sources, including Powell's City of Books employees union, the PSU library, and the Centennial School District, as well as local residents cleaning our their shelves.

Hassan said the project is also a statement against war. During the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, Somalia was like a political football kicked back and forth. Eventually, it came to rest with a dictatorial president under American control.

"The whole decade of the 1980s, the United States supported the Somali dictator, building up the nation's military but not building any schools for infrastructure," Hassan said. "Imagine if somebody bombed Portland? All the people ran away, thousands ran into the country.

"Somaliland has now been peaceful since 1991," Hassan said. "It's a dilemma: there's no war, no starvation, but the government is not recognized by any other nations right now."

The nation once known as Somalia is today divided into separate north and south section, like Ireland, Hassan said. "Death squads" control the south, but the north has progressed to the point of forming its own government with elected leaders. It is that portion residents call "Somaliland."

Somaliland is described by the United Nations as a "self-declared autonomous state." According to the United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network, last week Somaliland held democratic elections for a new leader.

Also last week, the United Nations reported that more Somali expatriates are coming home to the northern province from 12-year-old refugee camps along the Ethiopian border.

So far, an estimated 43,000 refugee displaced by violent conflict have returned to their native country, and U.N. officials have expressed hope the other 80,000 will go back home by the end of this year.

According to Hassan, the time is right for a massive effort to rebuild the former British colony's educational system. Many Somalis speak English, he said, and there is a great need for the used, but not out-of- date, science and math texts now waiting for shipment from Portland.

"When the students go to class they don't have textbooks," Hassan said. "The teachers write something on the board and the students copy those things."

Part of the difficulty in sending the books is that since Sept. 11, Hassan said, officials they'd been working with to arrange the shipment now are balking at the job

"That's the trick," Hassan said. "We collected all these books from all kinds of people of all races and religions, and now the shipping companies are saying, this place is not stable, we need insurance - it's going to cost $10,000."

Hassan said the books are to be shipped by container to Africa on Dec. 2.

It was in 1899 that Mad Mullah Mahomed bin Abdillah Hassan declared a jihad. The territory, then known as British Somaliland, was our protectorate, but the mullah wanted us out. The mullah was a precursor of Osama bin Laden. Initially our ally in various tribal skirmishes, he turned on us after he had collected some 5,000 militants. Promising his followers eternal paradise on dying in battle, the mullah wrote to the British vice-consul at Berbera, the local capital: "I like war, you do not."

Actually, we British are a violent bunch. We do like war, and by 1904 we had driven the mullah into exile in Italian Somaliland. But in 1909 he returned, bolstered by fresh men and renewed propaganda: "The country is a useless jungle. There are many stones. There are many ant heaps. The sun is very hot."

Shamefully, on the mullah's return, we withdrew our soldiers from the interior. But the mullah's cruelties drew us back to re-establish order, and in 1912 the Camel Constabulary marched on him. Yet it took until 1920 - and deaths on both sides - before we eventually rooted him out. He hid in caves, and only after the RAF bombed him did he again retreat into Italian Somaliland. There he died, of the flu.

The best account of these campaigns can be found in the Memoirs of Lord Ismay, published in 1960. General Hastings "Pug" Ismay was one of Britain's great military administrators, rising to be Churchill's chief of staff during the Second World War and, later, secretary general of Nato. Churchill wrote that they were friends who "worked for many years hand in glove".

Ismay was a decade and half younger than Churchill and, having as a youth read Churchill's books, he modelled his own career on his. Like Churchill, Ismay attended an excellent school (Charterhouse to Churchill's Harrow) and, like Churchill, he was fiercely intelligent. But he was another duffer at exams, so he was reduced to following Churchill into an Indian Army cavalry regiment, then an unintellectual branch of military life.

It was on India's unruly North-West Frontier, facing Afghanistan, that Ismay learnt to fight - and where, like Churchill before him, he played much polo. But in 1914 Ismay was sent to Somaliland and, despite his many requests to transfer to France, he was kept there until 1920. It was, though, because he was fighting the mullah and not the Germans that he survived the First World War.

On returning to Britain, Ismay discovered that he loved high-level staff work, but despite his eminence he could not save British Somaliland from subsequent mal-administration. He was appalled when, in 1940, in the face of Italian aggression, we yet again withdrew our soldiers from the interior to Berbera. There, the Italians overwhelmed us, whereas we could have held out indefinitely in the hills with friendly tribes.

We eventually retook the protectorate, but after the war - anxious to shed our imperial burdens - we gave it, remarkably perhaps, to the Italians. They left in 1960. Ismay always felt that, had British rule been maintained without disruption, the region would have been pacified and tribal warfare could have been expunged.

If America moves in now, let it show the commitment we did not. Let it prepare for a long involvement, and let it establish the institutions of order, secure government and the rule of law that we failed to implant firmly.

The author is vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham

Since 13 October 49 cases of the disease have reported with 6 deaths, said WHO. Laboratory tests have confirmed and identified the disease as Neisseraia meningitides serogroup A, according to the WER. This type of the disease if not controlled quickly can spread rapidly and become an epidemic, "specially in a crowded setting of a city like Hargaysa", a local doctor in Hargaysa, told IRIN on Wednesday.

In order to control the spread of the disease, 19 health facilities have been provided with surveillance and case management guidelines and local crisis committee has been activated, said WER. Local health authorities, WHO, UNICEF and nongovernmental organizations in the area are monitoring the situation.

A statement issued by the Ministry of Information today disclosed that the Radio Hargeysa Internet service would continue proving its services.

The Internet was meant to provide a service to the Somaliland community in the diaspora. In the recent past, the Jamhuuriya newspaper has highlighted allegations by the former manager of the Radio Hargeysa Internet that the radio has stopped its Internet service.

The former manager was dismissed from his job for pursuing a policy that was against the government's policy. The ministry, therefore, would like to assure citizens that the national interest will not be affected because of one person.

The radio therefore would like to assure its esteemed audience, both within and abroad, that Radio Hargeysa will continue providing the normal free Internet service.

An outbreak of meningitis has been reported in Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, northwest Somalia, according to the UN World Health Organization (WHO) Weekly Epidemiological Record (WER). Since 13 October [2001], 49 cases of the disease have reported with six deaths, said WHO. Laboratory tests have confirmed and identified the disease as Neisseraia meningitides serogroup A, according to the WER.

This type of the disease, if not controlled quickly, can spread rapidly and become an epidemic, "specially in a crowded setting of a city like Hargeysa", a local doctor in Hargeysa told IRIN on Wednesday [12 December].

In order to control the spread of the disease, 19 health facilities have been provided with surveillance and case management guidelines and local crisis committee has been activated, said WER. Local health authorities, WHO, UNICEF and non-governmental organizations in the area are monitoring the situation.

The minister of civilian aviation, Muhammad Abdi Dheere, has left to the Kenyan capital Nairobi on official visit today.

The minister is expected to meet officials of international civilian aviation organizations to discuss the relationship between the ministry and their organizations.

Somaliland Minister of Home Affairs Abdullahi Umar Egeh today held a press conference at his office in Hargeysa and said a senior UN official, whose body was last night found at his Hotel Maan-Soor room, committed suicide. The minister said the UN official, a Portuguese national, had been sick when he arrived in the country yesterday. The official complained of throat pains and a woman working with the UN brought him some medicine.

The dead official, Fernando Sami [phonetic], was one of the UNDP staff. The home affairs minister further said the suicide was also confirmed by a Canadian expert who was accompanying the dead official.

The body of the dead official and the Canadian expert left Hargeysa Airport today at 7.30 a.m. [local time].

The president of Somaliland, Muhammad Ibrahim Egal, has released a presidential decree on awareness for the enforcement of presidential and local government electoral laws.

The president released the decree referring to the article 2283 and 11 of the constitution, after considering the approval of the electoral laws by the cabinet, and decision number GW/KF 15/200/2001 of the House of Representatives on 14 November 2001, in which they approve these electoral laws.

The president also held a press conference on awareness of the enforcement of the electoral laws in his resident today. The president said it was not easy to disguise and approve the electoral laws.

The president commenting on the constitution describing it as basic foundation of the existing of the republic of Somaliland, which is followed by the electoral laws that allow the citizen of Somaliland to elect their leaders.

He added that the constitution officially states political freedoms and the independent of the republic, and he stated that it is upon the people of Somaliland to elect in or vote out leaders and approve legal issues.

The president said it is a great honour to officially sign this electoral laws to be a law.

Somaliland's Radio Hargeysa on 6 December

The president of the republic of Somaliland, Muhammad Ibrahim Egal, today issued two presidential decrees reshuffling the minister of finance, and minister of planning.

The presidential decree was as follows: Muhammad Sa'id Ges who was the republic of Somaliland's minister of finance was moved and is now the minister of national planning, while Husayn Farah Dodiye who was the minister of national planning is now the minister of finance.

Source: Radio Hargeysa in Somali 1700 gmt 6 Dec 01 /BBC Monitoring/ c BBC.

Yemen has lifted a ban on imports of livestock from Somaliland and Somalia imposed nine months ago due to an outbreak of Rift Valley Fever.

The first Somaliland livestock has left Berbera port last evening, aboard the vessel MB Salah-al-Din carrying 610 cattle and 1302 head of sheep and goats has left to Yemen.

A number of other vessels are waiting at port to ferry livestock. Since the Yemenis lifted the ban activities at the port and the livestock market have increased.

In Somaliland, where 50 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) depends on livestock production and trade, the ban has had a devastating effect on livelihoods.

Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE had jointly imposed the ban on imports of livestock from the Horn of Africa last September following an unprecedented outbreak of Rift Valley Fever in Saudi Arabia and Yemen that killed more than 100 people, the first time it was seen outside Africa.

The Ceerigaabo deputy police commander said many people, fleeing from the recent fighting in Puntland [northeastern Somalia], have crossed the common border between Somaliland and Puntland, making life difficult and causing economic hardships in Dahar District.

Speaking to our reporter in the region, [word indistinct] the commander said the police force has been deployed in several parts of the district to monitor and check the movement of people in and out of the district.

During their tour, the officials made a thorough assessment of the regional police force and the general security.

Source: Radio Hargeysa in Somali 1700 gmt 26 Nov 01 /BBC Monitoring/ c BBC.

A meeting between the minister of information and ulemas [religious leaders] from various mosques in Hargeysa and a team of German journalist was held this morning in the Ministry of Information conference room.

Minister of Religion Shaykh Muhammad Sufi told the German journalists Somaliland view on the recent attack in America that the attack was inhuman and act of terrorism.

The local ulemas, replying to the German press, denied the war in Afghanistan is between Muslims and Christians. The ulemas farther stated that this is a coalition against terrorism. The minister of information, who also spoke to the journalist, said that Somaliland was against the 11 September attacks on America.

The new radio station was initiated by some Boorama technicians.

The head of the new Boorama radio station, Deq Mahmud Du'ale, who spoke to Jamhuuriya said the station is equipped with electronic equipment and unlike other radio stations doesn't need a transmitter or antennas.

It's also a light mobile radio and doesn't require mains power...

The chairman of the USC-SNA [United Somali Congress-Somali National Alliance], Usman Hasan Ali Ato, today flew from [Mogadishu's] Number 50 airstrip and headed for Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared administration of Somaliland.

Ato was escorted to the airport by senior officials of his organization who described Ato's visit as a private one. Ato is expected to stay in Somaliland for three days.

Reliable sources said operations at the two ports were halted to pave way for the expected American forces, which would be carrying out operations inside Somalia. Earlier, a German newspaper reported that American and German forces were to arrive in the town of Berbera.

Recently, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal [Somaliland's president], toured the provinces and held talks with senior American officials in the town. During his seven-day tour, Egal discussed the American forces with the area residents.

The Ethiopian government is reportedly behind the success of this arrangement. The American government had earlier disseminated reports which claimed that Somalia was harbouring terrorists.

For the past half century, Somalia has been a testing ground for all the political theories the outside world could throw at it: colonialism, European-style statehood, Soviet and, later, American cold war philosophies. None worked.

After its state collapsed in 1991, idealistic foreigners tried a host of new approaches - promoting "community-based organisations" and regional "building blocks". They also failed. Exasperated at a lack of progress, the outside world largely threw its hands up in despair in the mid-1990s and retreated to a position of - as one US official put it - "benign neglect".

Through it all, Somalia has remained what it always was: a rugged clan-based society in the parched Horn of Africa, where militia and tribal elders compete for influence with cross-cutting religious and business interests, and where only traditional dialogue and slow- dawning compromise brings lasting change.

As outsiders ponder a new future for Afghanistan, political analysts are saying they could do worse than to look at the lessons learned from a history of engagement, then disengagement, in this highly complex failed state.

"If, as US President George W. Bush said, the United Nations should take over the so-called nation-building in Afghanistan after the current military action is finished, then maybe it can draw some lessons from Somalia's instructive experiences," says Randolph Kent, the UN's resident co-ordinator for Somalia, from his Nairobi office.

There are many parallels. Modern Somalia is one of the most intimidating places on earth: a dangerous and bewildering mosaic of competing factions and warlords, backed by a host of different regional interests.

A Mogadishu-based transitional government (TNG) - set up last year after months of Somali-driven talks in Djibouti, and whose main aim is to end warlord fighting - is struggling to impose some semblance of state control. But it faces continuing opposition from Ethiopian-backed warlords, who accuse it of following an Islamist agenda. The capital's port and airport remain closed, the cars have no number plates, and Somali passports - the symbol of statehood - can be bought by visitors for a few dollars.

Somalia's north-west has declared its independence as Somaliland, with its own government, and the north-eastern region of Puntland has also built a separate federal administration. While both regions had seen greater stability than the south, they now face internal power struggles and an uncertain future.

Amid this apparent anarchy, powerful businessmen across Somalia have made some remarkable advances, such as the cheapest telephones in Africa, but are accountable to no regulator. State services such as health and education have collapsed, allowing a host of religious and commercial interests to fill the gap.

On balance, say analysts, Somalia has become a living testament to the futility of political solutions driven by outsiders, where western-style state institutions have little meaning and attempts by foreigners to introduce societal change have faced constant failure.

In the early 1990s, for example, the UN was convinced that "community-based organisations" were the key to building democracy. Local groups, delighted at the prospect of funding, mushroomed. Every day UN officials would place new red pins on to aboard and delight at their progress.

But within a few years the approach had collapsed.The US retreated in ignominy after a disastrous attempt to capture a warlord in 1993, and the international mission finally pulled out of Mogadishu in 1995.

Many countries, smarting at their failure, gave up on Somalia altogether. With hindsight, UN officials talk of their naivety in thinking western-style democracy could replace clan allegiances. But since September 11, the west has also learned that disengagement has serious costs. As Somalia's state retreated, Islam filled many gaps, offering schools, courts and in some places the only source of order. That was an entirely reasonable reaction by an overwhelmingly Muslim nation looking for stability, says Ibrahim Disuqi, a member of Al-Islah, a moderate Islamic organisation, who sits in the transitional national assembly.

But government opponents and many analysts say that extremism also rose. One organisation in particular, Al-Itihaad, effectively took over large swathes of territory and allegedly forged links with anti-western networks.

Although TNG supporters argue that its military power and influence has waned over the past two years, suspicions of a secret Al-Itihaad agenda, pursued through business and non-governmental organisations, remain strong. Within days of the September 11 attacks, the US placed Al-Itihaad on a terrorist list. Last week Washington and its allies also closed down Al-Barakat, Somalia's largest company and remittance bank, claiming it was funding Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

The question facing the west now is how to re-engage with Somalia without repeating past mistakes.

Walter Kansteiner, the US undersecretary of state for Africa, believes the US has learned from experience. The US will initiate a more pro-active dialogue with Somalis in future, but it has no intention of reviving its early-1990s zeal.

"The lesson learned is this," he says. "Total benign neglect is problematic; but total engagement and obsession is problematic as well."

The challenge now, he and others argue, will be to offer support for Somali-bred solutions where needed but to resist any temptation to push the process in any one direction, and to engage with reasonable people looking to restore stability, but not to take sides.

If it happened, it would be little short of revolutionary in a region where outsiders tend to teeter from one extreme to the other and pick local allies to achieve their aims. But unless it does, Somalia will remain a constant thorn in the west's side, Kent believes. "We have to learn how to engage, but not impose," he says.

It is a lesson gleaned from hard experience. Whether it will also be applied in Afghanistan is another matter.
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-1998

The drugs were discarded by Liban Pharmacy soon after they expired. Burco's mayor Muse Abdi Muhammad, who spoke during the occasion, urged drug dealers to safeguard people's health by exposing expired drugs. The mayor hailed Liban Pharmacy which carried out the exercise.

The mayor urged other companies to follow Liban's example and said the health department of Burco's local authority will inspect drugs stores for expired drugs.

Husayn Hirsi, UDUB's Hargeysa regional chairman, who spoke during the occasion, thanked the youth who organized the function and said current peace, which needed to be strengthened, was realized through hard work, suffering and a long liberation struggle. Husayn Ali Hirsi briefed UDUB's youths and students on the current transition to multi- party politics, stressing that students should shun clanism, devote most their time in studies and not get too involved in politics.

The chairman of UDUB party's students and youth wing, Mubarak Abdi Farah, who spoke during the occasion, said the youths were from the country's six regions, higher institutions in Hargeysa and Hargeysa university's faculty of education.

He was received by thousands of his supporters, including Suldan Sai'd Suldan Abdisalam. A string of horses was at the airport to mark his first visit to the town. Egal, who had visited Togdheer Region [central Somaliland], will today hold a meeting with elders and professionals from Sanaag Region. Egal's tour of the two Somaliland regions is seen as an election campaign for early next year's presidential polls.

This will however, not be appreciated by his political opponents who want to contests the presidency. His opponents claim Egal is using his position to favour his party to win the next presidential elections - his fourth presidential term.

The US and its allies this week began shutting down the company's operations, saying it had skimmed off tens of millions of dollars to fund the terrorist operations of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

US officials said the Dubai company's chairman, Ahmed Nur Ali Jim'ale, was a close bin Laden associate. But to many ordinary Somalis, living in a country without formal banks, Barakat - a business that encompasses financial services, telecoms and construction - is the only way to access money from their relatives abroad. Remittances are the country's largest source of foreign exchange, estimated at Dollars 500m a year, and dwarf foreign aid flows. The transfers are highly efficient and attract fees of up to 6 per cent.

The impact of closing Barakat on Somali citizens underscores the dilemmas of the US war on terrorism. Much as Afghani civilians have become victims of the war between the US and al-Qaeda, the effort to crack down on terrorist financing is likely to produce many unintended victims.

Even before this week's announcement, international attention on Somalia's remittance banks after September 11 had caused money transfers to decline by as much as 50 per cent in some areas, and the United Nations, which also uses the banks, raised concerns last month.

"In the region we work, 50 per cent of people are completely dependent on these funds," warned Elkhidir Daloum, Save the Children's Somalia programme manager.

"If people are not transferring money, matters could get drastically worse."

While other Somali remittance operators could help bridge the gap, such as Dahab-Shil and Amal Express, their operations are also likely to be affected.

Somalia's economy has already suffered severely over the past year from bad weather, border closures and a ban on livestock exports to the Gulf.

Daloum and others fear that Somalis, many of whom condemned the September 11 attacks in the US, might be driven into the hands of extremists.

Roland Marchal, from the Paris-based Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, said: "If the US wants to marginalise the fundamentalists and get support from the Somalis, they are acting once again in the wrong way," he said. "The US focus on Barakat has had two major effects. Somalis in the diaspora are very reluctant to send money since they could be targeted, and the agents are stopping operating at a time when fresh money is needed more than ever.

"It is easy to see demonstrations in the coming week in Mogadishu: fundamentalists will use that to get social support, and secular or open-minded Muslims will be easy targets for them."

While acknowledging that Barakat is used for both legitimate and illegitimate purposes, US Treasury officials believe the economic impact on remittances to Somalia will be limited.

"There are alternative remittance systems to Somalia," said one official. "Moneygram has an office in Mogadishu. Western Union operates on the borders. There are plenty of opportunities to find alternative remittance systems which will ensure there will be no adverse collateral consequences to families in Somalia."

Yusuf Jumale, Barakat's vice-chairman, said he was "dismayed and really shocked" at the US action - and denied any link with al-Qaeda or bin Laden.

"The first time we heard of this man was when the Americans bombed him in Afghanistan," he said. "We are surprised the American government listened to the propaganda put out by our enemies."

No US authority had asked the organisation anything, said Jumale, reiterating the bank's willingness to open its books to any authorities. "Our lawyers even called the State Department recently and asked if there were any problems - they said no."

But a US Treasury official yesterday reiterated that "we are confident in the intelligence information we have".

The US had begun tracking the operations of Barakat as far back as 1999, suspecting links to al-Qaeda financing, according to former US officials.

In criminal charges laid on Wednesday against the president and treasurer of Barakat's North American operations, US customs officials alleged that the company was operating an illegal wire transfer business and appeared to have structured the transactions to avoid detection by US law enforcement.

UK offer to co-ordinate intelligence

Gordon Brown, the UK chancellorof the exchequer, has offered London as an international clearing house for all intelligence on terrorist finances, writes Robert Shrimsley.

He has told Paul O'Neill, the US Treasury secretary, Britain's National Criminal Intelligence Service could collate and distribute information on possible terrorist money laundering. "It will be necessary to build up an international database on this so we can take effective action against all groups involved in terrorist action," Brown said.

He plans to use next week's meeting of the IMF's international monetary and financial committee to ask all member countries to ratify in their domestic laws, the eight principles governing surveillance and seizures of suspicious transactions.

Some 4,900 of them were taken home from eastern Ethiopia in late October in three UN road convoys, according to a UNHCR official. About 6,400 others are this month due to leave a camp at Daror, also in the east, for Hargeisa, the capital of the self-declared autonomous state of Somaliland, which lies to the northwest of the rest of Somalia.

Most of the refugees left Somalia three years ago to flee factional fighting there.

The UN's World Food Programme gave them food and household tools to last them nine months as well as plastic sheeting and 30 US dollars each.

Daror camp is due to close by the end of the year, becoming the third of eight camps for Somali refugees in Ethiopia to do so.

Last year, some 139,000 Somali refugees were voluntarily repatriated.

Last evening's [3 November] decision by the Djibouti government follows a meeting by officials of the two countries in Djibouti, in which recent differences between the two sides were discussed. Djibouti is fulfilling resolutions reached during the talks and expects Somaliland to reciprocate.

The statement also dealt with issues concerning Somalia. The statement said Djibouti was giving special consideration and full support to the outcome of the Arta conference which was held in Djibouti.

The Somaliland-Djibouti border was closed in April following misunderstandings between the two sides.

This clarification was prompted by a decision made by the Somaliland government on holders of foreign passports wishing to travel to Somaliland.

Fourteen organizations owned by Somalilanders in the Scandinavian countries led by the Somaliland Information Centre, which had its HQ in Copenhagen, have contacted Jamhuuriya on the matter. We contacted the director-general of the Internal Affairs Ministry, Abdirahman Muhammad Ajab and the head of the immigration department, Ali Qodah.

The two officials said the government's decision on holders of foreign passports would not affect Somalilanders and that Somalilanders in the diaspora would not require visas...

A seminar on protection and reproductive health of young girls was formally closed on the evening of 3 November at Hargeysa Club.

The seminar which was held from 29 October to 3 November at Hargeysa's Mansur Hotel, was attended by over 150 participants from international organizations and some African countries where Pharonic circumcision, now referred to as female genital mutilation, is practised. Participants came from Egypt, Ethiopia, Sudan, Djibouti, Somaliland and Somalia...

Shamis Dirir , who is the director of [UK's] Black Women Health and Family Support, which organized the meeting, thanked participants for their presentations...

The Djibouti government has decided, with effect from today, to officially reopen the common border along northwestern Somalia [Somaliland].

A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation press statement said that the government decision was a humanitarian response to the wishes of local people living on both sides of the common border...

Educational sector had its own share of setback inherited from the demise of Somali national government. The highly centralized government-run system of education that used to exist during Barre's era had served poorly for the purpose of the community. Its collapse and disintegration offered a special opportunity for the development of an educational system that is more attuned and adjusted for the political system and cultural outlook of Somaliland people. As with other social services, the absence of effective and functional educational authorities led first and foremost to the broad privatisation of education, with both negative and positive consequences.

Formal education was officially restored in Somaliland in 1991, following the establishment of Ministry of Education, whose major responsibility was to revive and co-ordinate the country's disoriented educational system. Since that time the status of the country's education started to refurbish considerably. The number of schools, students and teachers that are in the system continued to rise gradually. The system of education became somewhat more co-ordinated then ever, the people, especially the young, regained hope and sense of direction after years of despair and new forms of education began to evolve.
System of Education.

Somaliland education puts a heavy emphasis on producing individuals with enriched moral and cultural aspects of life. It also priorities the need for training people with acquisition and application of relevant skills with life. Education of this country is structured like a pyramid, with broad base primary education, a narrower selection of secondary schools and a very small number of universities and colleges at the top. The curriculum of these educational institutions, except for privately owned ones, is a unified one designed by the government.

Somaliland a country where 70% of its population are illiterate, spotlights on basic education, which as they say, provides every citizen, the necessary skills to exploit his/her surrounding environment effectively. Nonetheless, there is a long way to go. In rural population, more than 95% of them have education below the minimun level.

To make matters worse, the condition of higher education is not much better. The country has got only two recently established universities; Amoud University and University of Hargeisa. Apart from few Somali national university alumni and few other expatriate educators from abroad, most of the white-collar professionals, whether in public or private institutions, have no education beyond secondary. Trade, the main sector of employment and productivity in this country, is exclusively dominated by inept and untrained blue-collar workers.

The system of education in this country is non-selective. As there is no diversified choices in education, all students must take one path and end up with the same results. According to many educationists, this highly restricted educational system suppresses personal talent and preference , encouraging educational wastage at the same time.
School, Teacher and Curriculum: A comparative Perspective.

Although there has been significant progress made for the last ten years, school education in Somaliland is still of poor quality. Most of the schools that exist in Somaliland, whether public or private, lack at least some or most of the attributes that make schools effective. Thus, most of them fail to serve the purpose for which they were established.

Since 1991, when formal education was officially restored, the number of teachers who were in the teaching profession was increasing substantially year by year. As the Ministry of Education started from scratch and didn't have much control over the country's educational system, the recruitment of teachers was not organized in a systematic way and they have not set any objective criteria for the selection of new teachers.

Consequently , a large proportion of our teachers are untrained and unqualified. The yearly statistical report of the Ministry of Education indicates that in the academic years 1992/93 and 1999/00 the percent of untrained teachers who were in the system were 84% and 52% respectively. The government has not made much effort to classify teachers and let effective ones remain in the system. As in many countries, teaching is imperilled profession that doesn't receive the incentive and moral building factors it deserves. The government hadn't allocated any budget for the salary of teachers and other educational staff until the turn of this year. The only source of income that teachers used to have was parent's limited donations, which still play an important role in teacher motivation.

For the first years of its existence, Somaliland, with its haphazardly evolved system of education, used the curriculum of former Somalia as a temporary pattern that guides the country's educational structure. In 1997, the Ministry of Education started to discuss the idea of developing curriculum that is unique for Somaliland, transmitting the ethical and moral values to its young generations. After complex and intensive task, the Ministry of Education succeeded to publish the first full textbooks ever prepared for Somaliland primary schools. This became an important factor in encouraging students and enhancing their learning capacity.

The scheme of designing and writing curriculum for secondary schools started in 1998 and was expected to be completed in two-year time. Soon after its completion, the new curriculum began to function in all secondary schools throughout the country. These two projects were both funded by international organizations and implemented and facilitated by the Ministry of Education.

The government has not made much effort to classify teachers and let effective ones remain in the system. As in many countries, teaching is imperilled profession that doesn't receive the incentive and moral building factors it deserves. The government hadn't allocated any budget for the salary of teachers and other educational staff until the turn of this year. The only source of income that teachers used to have was parent's limited donations, which still play an important role in teacher motivation.

For the first years of its existence, Somaliland, with its haphazardly evolved system of education, used the curriculum of former Somalia as a temporary pattern that guides the country's educational structure. In 1997, the Ministry of Education started to discuss the idea of developing curriculum that is unique for Somaliland, transmitting the ethical and moral values to its young generations. After complex and intensive task, the Ministry of Education succeeded to publish the first full textbooks ever prepared for Somaliland primary schools.

This became an important factor in encouraging students and enhancing their learning capacity. The scheme of designing and writing curriculum for secondary schools started in 1998 and was expected to be completed in two-year time. Soon after its completion, the new curriculum began to function in all secondary schools throughout the country. These two projects were both funded by international organizations and implemented and facilitated by the Ministry of Education.
Student Perspective.

As time lapsed, the number of students who are in the system was increasing considerably. This encouraging and progressive trend can be sequel to many factors, the most important ones being peace and stability, improved educational quality, relatively secured economic situation and the development of more flexible system of education.
Student Dropout.

One of the most serious problems that hold sway in Somaliland education and needs to be addressed directly is student drop out rate. The extent and the severity of the problem are quite unimaginable. This can be illustrated by the fact that in some academic years student dropout reaches as high level as 60%. In other words, in these years, only 34% of the students manage to successfully complete several consecutive grade transactions. However, in the scholastic year of 1999/00, the rate was only 4. 9%, which is obviously much lower than all previous years. In the light of these shocking information, there need to be developed a strategy to combat educational wastage.
Women Education.

Officially there is no gender discrimination in Somaliland. Girls and boys are equally welcome to schools and co-education is practiced in almost all-public educational sectors. However, the number of female students lathe system is lagging a very behind that of boys. According to the data provided by the Ministry of Education, the proportion of women in public educational institutions ranges from 24 to 29%, which is relatively small.

At the same time, women's quota in the total number of professional teachers in Somaliland is still quite negligible, scratching from 6 to 10% of all teachers in the country. Although there hasn't been any scientific study aimed at revealing the underlying premises of the problem, the factor that are believed to be of great importance are generally rooted in culture, political and financial circumstance, and of course, Somali family lifestyle.
Urban-rural Student Distribution.

Primary schools in Somaliland are based in two different localities; the urban centres and rural settings. The yearly date of the Ministry of Education indicates that students are unevenly distributed throughout these two main areas. This data signifies that in the academic year of 1999/2000, 18% of students in Somaliland were found in urban centres. This insinuates the disproportionality and the seriousness of the situation. For a shift in the deteriorating condition to be seen, these need to be intensive effort to be applied in extending primary education to remote urban areas.
Private Education.

Private system of education is the second largest educational sector that exists in Somaliland. Before civil wars, the only private educational schools that used to function were Qur'anic schools. However, when the wars and social problems compelled the public system of education to cease, the need for new forms of education became astronomically higher than ever. As an immediate reaction to tackle the worsening problem, Somaliland educators managed to establish schools with wide range of subjects and that cater to the interest of the community.

As a matter of fact these new forms of institutions use widely varying didactic methods as well as medium of instruction and they conform to no common standards. These resulting diversities in curricula, teaching standards, language and quality of instruction pose obvious problem with respect to teacher training, evaluation, certification and formation of global education policy.

He proceeded to explain what population census is used for: "We do need to have census we need it for knowing the number of our children, our schools and the unemployed but not for elections". Reliable population census has political significant, and in Somaliland lack of it remains an obstacle for achieving fair and proportional representation in government. . Egal a veteran Somali statesman-who has been involved in Somali politics for more than half century; to say population census has on political importance or use is misleading-even dangerous.

He is someone who knows very well the real nitty-gritty of Somali politics. So I don't think-unless he is out of his mind- that he is unaware of the fact that one of the root causes of Somali political crisis or discontent is and has been related to the issue of political representation. No one can deny that unfair representation on government was a key grievance of many people during the previous civilian and military governments and which eventually led to the disintegration of the Somali State. In

Somaliland, the issue of political representation has re-emerged many times and remains to be a point of contention. The parliamentary seats were allocated arbitrarily since there was no reliable census- in order to achieve a consensus among the different clans. Though in this scheme all clans are represented in the parliament and in the executive branch, many clans or beelo - the numerically the large ones-are not satisfy with their allocation, and feel that they are under-represented in the central institutions of government. Such political grievance has been one of the causes attributed to the outbreak 1994 civil conflict in Somaliland. And whether such claims are legitimate or not are very difficult to ascertain, as there is no reliable national census.

Therefore, as long as there is no reliable national census the discord within the Somaliland clans over this issue will not subside. Though Somaliland, by ratifying the constitution and legalising the political association, has taken decisive steps towards multiparty election and away from shir beeleed, the elaboration of a future electoral system remains one critical element in Somaliland's transition from "beel-based" politics towards a more formal mechanism for representation. Overcoming such an important hurdle won't be easy.

For more than one year, the lawmakers were unwilling to bring the bill on the election laws to House of Representative floor. May be due to its complexity, since some aspects of the law particularly that pertaining to apportioning of seats, and regional as well as district distribution, are controversial and divisive, could be one explanation for their reluctance.

Fearing that any debate on such controversial bill-though an early debate on the bill could have been helpful- may not produce any breakthrough and it may turn into intense and emotional exchanges, which eventually ends up in a deadlock. Similar to what we have witness when the law was brought to the House floor this month. In order to overcome the expected stalemate, it became necessary to designate a committee that explores an arrangement, which is acceptable to all.

For the comminute it was back to the drawing table without precedent or formula to follow that is acceptable to all. After going through many options and menus, they have proposed a proportional representation based on the parliamentary seats of 1960, which was based on the sixth districts that existed at that time. The proposal raised more questions than it answered. For instances, if the 1960 arrangement was fair enough, the question is did all the districts grow population wise proportionally? In another words is the current population proportional to that of 1960 in each district? Certainly, proportionally some have lost population whereas some have gained, which one is which is anybody's guess.

Feeling under-represented, at least, one clan beel has indicated publicly its opposition -justifiably or unjustifiably -to the proposed representation, before making it to the floor of House of Representative. Reliable population census is a necessary pre-condition, among other things, for designing successful electoral system, as it provides the basis for power sharing, number of parliamentary seats, bolling stations, and above all, fair proportional representation. All established democracies do conduct on regular basis population census.

In USA, recognising the significance of reliable population censes has for political representation, it has been mandatory to conduct population census in every tens years since its independence. Congressional seats are then allocated in every tens years in accordance with the new census and in the process the states that gain population pick up extra congressional seats whereas those, which lose population, lose some of their congressional seats. Nevertheless, no one can underscore its other significance, as stated by . Egal.

It appears that . Egal is determined to finish the transitional process before the end of his term. Right now, for him, the transitional process means just organising any kind of election in Somaliland-albeit that has its own risks. So he has already secured that (1.e. organising elections) for Somaliland: ultimately the parliament will reach consensus on the electoral laws and realistically elections can be held without reliable population census. In December, a round of voting will take place to elect local councils, and then at the beginning of next year, two more rounds of voting one to elect a new House of Representatives and the second to elect new President.

. Egal understands the importance of these polls. I think that he also understands the importance of reliable national census, of building political parties, and of generally establishing the institutional frame that the transitional process demands. Because he is a man with a political mission; he wants to finish what he has just started if time permits him, so that he can leave a political legacy for his people. But he is in a dilemma he is running out of time, and to complete the process successfully he needs more time- at least one more term. And that he has to seek it through ballet boxes since he ruled out any form shir beeleed conference.

His opponents and critics do not think so. They maintain that he is motivated by personal interest (process that works for his advantage) rather than promoting democratic principles. So they are consistently casting doubts about his readiness to relinquish power and his commitment to democratic transitional process or for that matter to a practical one. They see . Egal as someone who wants to hang on to power at any cost. And the ongoing transitional process as bogus process designed to make him stay in office beyond the end of his second term next year, either by election or on constitutional grounds.

In any case, history is not on . Egal's side. After ten years in the rein, the country is more or less confronting with the same political issues and uncertainty that it did ten years ago. Five more years of him may not bring any dramatic changes. Probably "more of the same" and then again back to square one. So the question is what he was not able to deliver in tens years, will he be able to do it in five years?

BEST known for having no government to speak of, Somalia lost what it had this week. On October 28th, the prime minister, Ali Khalif Galaid, lost a vote of no-confidence, which has given him and his 84- member cabinet a month's notice to step down.

His transitional government, which was elected last year at a conference of businessmen, academics and former officials, is recognised by the United Nations, but not by many Somalis. It controls half of Mogadishu and a short strip of coastline. Southern and central Somalia is a patchwork of fiefs. The north has broken away into two separate entities: Somaliland and Puntland.

The parliament which voted Galaid out, by 141 votes to 29, meets in a former police-training college. Its old building is now in the possession of Hussein Mohamed Farah Aideed, a warlord who does not recognise the government, though he drives, with his artillery, unmolested through the capital's rubble-strewn streets.

Somalia's "opposition" consists mainly of similar gunmen, who are prepared to oppose the government but only if it dares step on their particular patch. Musa Sude Yalahow, a former driver who controls much of Mogadishu, says that a central government might be a good idea--so long as it recognised his sub-clan's ownership of the capital. Not far away is Muhammad Qanyare's turf. He joined the government--being minister of fisheries is handy for his fishing fleets--but is hardly more committed to it. He will allow the police into his area "if they can give me a good enough reason". So far they have not.

The government set about soothing tribal rivalries by sharing cabinet posts between clans and sub-clans. But the result was that ministers owed allegiance not to the government but to the clan elders who nominated them. Galaid then tried to rule dictatorially. But this did not work, either.

Most Somalis are fed up with tribal politics. Some speak nostalgically of the days of Siad Barre, the despot toppled in 1991. Many welcomed the new lot, even though the president, Abdiquassim Salad Hassan, was Barre's interior minister. But the government has failed to unite the country against the warlords. Instead, it has tried to buy them off in various ways: 15,000 ex-militiamen are now paid as policemen.

This has cost the government most of its money, and it still dare not deploy the new policemen throughout Mogadishu for fear they will return to their former masters. The Arab League has promised $400m to rebuild Somalia, but not until order returns. Peace talks began in Kenya on November 1st, but without several key warlords or much optimism.

Reports reaching from the capital of Somaliland, Hargeysa, say [president] Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, is ailing.

The reports suggest that Egal is suffering mainly from a liver ailment and is being treated in his native home.

The heavy rains that have been pounding the western districts of Sool Region in recent days have caused the collapse of Jaleelo Bridge, eight kilometres west of Caynabo District, Sool Region.

Similarly, the heavy rains in Sahil Region in recent days have caused widespread destruction, killing livestock and inundating farmland.

Speaking to Jamhuuriya on VHF radio from Caynabo town, the deputy commissioner of Caynabo District, Muhammad Ali Ubahle, said the bridge, which was 10-metres-high, collapsed after heavy rains on 25 October. He said many vehicles that have been plying the main road linking Burco and Laascanood were stranded...

Abstract:Relates the author's experience working as a physician in the Somali town of Arhiba. Rate of malnutrition in the area which leads to the deaths of many children; Living conditions in the area; Lack of sanitary medical facilities and medical supplies.

It has been Eid, the Muslim festival, in Arhiba recently. People greeted each other, there was a great deal of noise, children were everywhere, and there was a perceptible lightening of the spirits.

Nothing much else changed. Arhiba, where we work, is the poorest area of one of the poorest countries in the world. The rate of undernutrition in the Somali area of the horn of Africa is 78%, compared with 68% in Afghanistan and 52% in North Korea (figures from the United Nations). In Arhiba the rate is about 90%. Twenty per cent of all children we see are so severely undernourished that they would probably die without special feeding; 26% of children in any case die before they are five years old.

Children suffering from kwashiorkor consult us every day, brought in by walking skeletons of parents. The area consists of huts and tiny houses made of tin sheets, wood, blocks, and stones. The ground is so arid that nobody can grow the odd tomato plant in his or her backyardif you don't have money you starve.

The unemployment rate is 90%. The tracks between the houses are full of large puddles of raw sewage, unless it rains, of course. On the few days a year that it rains the whole place becomes a sea of mud. Forget the pictures of refugee camps you have seen on television. There are no neat rows of tents here put up by competent Save the Children Fund staff, and no well built latrines. You see, this isn_ht an emergency.

This is normal. This is the way things are here.

We work in a clinic in the middle of this area. The clinic is built out of concrete, and has washbasins and taps, but when we arrived there was no water. Also when we arrived there was no light in the health education room, or the doctors_h room.

We are told that the level of HIV infection in Djibouti is about 10%, and about 10% of people have tuberculosis, but as we are unable to wash our hands easily between one dirty dressing and the next, we may well be spreading rather than curing disease. At the end of December a sign appeared outside the clinic saying that the World Bank was to refurbish it. If that happens it will be a luxury to have running water.

If you see a half dead babywe see about four a dayand if you want to admit it to hospital, the parents often haven_ht got the money to go across town by bus (50 francs, equivalent to 20p sterling) to get to the hospital, let alone the 3000 francs (o12) to get into the hospital. So they go away and the babies die. But they die quietly, so nobody really notices. This week we have seen a two year old baby weighing 2.9 kg and another weighing 4 kg. So far this week, as far as we know, only two babies whom we have seen have since died. You can only do so much with rehydration salts and education when you often have an empty pharmacy.

So what?_h one might say. Chest la vie, terribly sad and all that. The only problem is that it doesn't seem like that at all when you work out here. Walking away from insoluble problemssomething that seems logical when you are in the United Kingdomsuddenly seems less logical when you have a dying baby held by a marasmic mother in front of you.

The trouble is not an uncaring government. There are several excellent projects such as the polio eradication and AIDS awareness programmes run by the government. But what can any government do in a tiny country, totally desert, surrounded by wars, and therefore swamped by refugees? Add to that only one source of income, the port, and the result is misery and starvation on a scale beyond belief.

By Edwin Martin, previously general practitioner, Bedford and Peta Martin, previously health visitor, Cranfield, Bedfordshire

Source: BMJ: British Medical Journal, 9/29/2001, Vol. 323 Issue 7315, p759, 2/3p,

Mogadishu: HOPING to cash in on the bogeyman of the day, some of Somalia's warlords are accusing the one-year-old interim government of turning this battered country into an Islamic state. Their clan-based militias still rule large tracts of fragmented Somalia, 11 years after the overthrow of its dictator, Siad Barre. They used to fight each other, until some of them formed an alliance against the new government.

But the government has had little to do with the rise of Islam. Traditionally, Somalia had a strict and sometimes brutal social code, but its version of Islam was relaxed. The trauma of the war and the destruction of the state made people turn to God and to the only institutions still standing, Islamic ones.

Before the war, for example, only married women wore headscarves. Now virtually no woman goes bareheaded, and even young girls wear the Arab chador (many of them obtained in relief packages from Arab NGOs) wrapped nunnishly around the head and neck. In Mogadishu 50 of the 70 girls' schools are run by Arab NGOs. For 90% of Somali children, the only available schools are koranic.

Post-colonial Somalia used sharia, the Islamic legal code, for its family law and, since the breakdown of the state in 1991, it has been the only law of any kind. The first courts were established in 1993 as an emergency response to disorder in north Mogadishu. One of its judges, Sheikh Ali-Dheere, cut off a dozen or so hands and reportedly cleaned up the streets overnight. More courts sprang up, backed by Arab NGOs and policed by militias.

The government recently announced that the sharia courts would be taken over and their judges retrained alongside qualified lawyers. In theory, the new courts will have three judges, including one for sharia elements. In practice, of the 100 judges who applied for the government refresher course, 80 were from the sharia courts. So, for the time being, sharia remains.

One member of the government, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, predicts that sharia will one day be recognised as the law of the land. But he says it will not be applied to Somalia's war criminals. "If we try the warlord killers, Americans will say, _eFundamentalists are killing people'," he claims. "So we say, _eYou do it, then'."

The reason for his visit to the Somaliland city close to the Ethiopian border was to determine the risks run by the EAL aircraft whose pilots already know the need to pay close attention to the acacia shrubs which surround the airport, which now may add the additional danger of serving as hiding places for terrorists. If Workalemhu Bogale's report is other than positive, EAL might simply decide to suspend its flights to Hargeysa, at least temporarily.

ION - Workalemhu Bogale is said to have been trained by the Soviet Union and its Eastern European allies in the various ways of dealing with plane hijackers. An expert renowned for his knowledge in aerial security, he was living in Germany when the Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) took power in 1991. After forming a new government, its leaders asked him to come work for EAL in Addis Ababa, which he agreed to, several years ago.

The refugees, numbering 153, were welcomed in Qorburale village [untraced] by UNHCR and government officials.

Some of the refugees contacted by Radio Hargeysa said they were happy to return to their homeland.

The president of the republic of Somaliland, Muhammad Ibrahim Egal, today held an extensive press conference in his office. The president said Somaliland is progressing well and should not retreat from its current position.

Egal said that the self-proclaimed prime minister of the Arta faction [Somali Transitional Government], Ali Khalif Galayr, while at the UN Security Council few days ago, asked for financial assistance. But the chairman of the Security Council, a Belgium national, called the Ethiopian envoy to the UN to verify [Galayrs'] appeal.

President Egal further added that the Ethiopian envoy said that funds given to the Arta faction by Saudi government was used to destabilise and destroy the only peacefully set up Puntland administration, which has emulated Somaliland as a shining example. And now, the Ethiopian envoy said, they [the Arta group] wants funds to destroy Somaliland, when they are not even a government.

President Egal said he is very much grateful and congratulates the Ethiopian government for the appropriate and important role it is playing in the Security Council.

The president further said people of Somaliland are self-determined and know their destination.

Commenting on the international events, President Egal said that Islam does not condone terrorism, and it is a religion of understanding.

On the economy, the president said a Saudi company would be buying [Somaliland's] livestock. Regarding oil, he said the government is hopeful that Western companies would come to prospect oil. He said the work of the Chinese companies were already showing good progress.

Addis Ababa: Dr Abdulmajid Husayn, Ethiopia's permanent representative to the United Nations has told the UN Security Council that his county was not partial to any group in Somalia, but that it has been and will be definitely with only the people of Somalia.

Addressing the Security Council meeting, last Friday [19 October], on the situation in Somalia, Abdulmajid said: "Ethiopia was not for the Transitional National Government nor for the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC). We are not with "Somaliland" or "Puntland" to be against others."

He declared: "Ethiopia has been and will be definitely with one group only: the people of Somalia".

Reacting to the position held by those he said, regarded the Arta process as the only genuine attempt at making peace and reconciliation in Somalia, Dr Abdulmajid said Ethiopia disagrees with such a position, although it too, like the UN secretary-general believes that the process was an important milestone in the search for peace and reconciliation in Somalia.

In this connection, the Ethiopian envoy to the UN took note of the numerous attempts made in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya and Yemen towards paving the way for the Arta meeting, which he said, Ethiopia supported from the beginning.

He said Ethiopia worked hard so that this process will not be unravelled, adding that other members of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) did too. The result, he said was the 8th IGAD Summit of Heads of state and government which met in Khartoum on 23 November 2000.

Dr Abdulmajid recalled that the clear message from the Khartoum summit was that "the peace process in Somalia must continue" by including "those parties" who "have not participated in the national reconciliation efforts so far". It goes without saying, therefore, he said that for a politically legitimate national government to be in place, not only the TNG but the parties who were not at Arta have to be on board.

He further pointed out that to follow up on its decision, an IGAD delegation went to Somalia to continue the reconciliation process. The TNG rejected this. It called those who are opposed to them as "rebels" and "warlords." For, their part, the other side also reciprocated by referring to the TNG as just another faction, Dr Abdulmajid stated. He declared that, so long as the reconciliation process is not completed, no single group will command political legitimacy throughout Somalia.

Dr Abdulmajid noted that during the last 10 years, there were many occasions when Ethiopia's national security interest was threatened by terrorists with bases in Somalia and that following one such occasion in 1997, Ethiopia was forced to go after the terrorists and destroyed their camps including their headquarters. He revealed that intelligence gathered during those operations, earlier and recently have clearly established links between the Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya and Al-Qa'idah and that these terror organizations were still in Somalia.

Members of Al-Ittihad together with Al-Islah also fully participated in the Arta peace process, which involvement also made them part of the TNG, Dr Abdulmajid pointed out.

Dr Abdulmajid also took note of what he said was the "dire humanitarian needs in Somalia" describing it "a question of immediate life and death", and expressed hope that relief will reach all those in need in time.

Dr Abdulmajid however also warned that for Somalia to tackle problems of humanitarian nature and many others, including terrorism, the reconciliation process has to be completed.

The press statement issued by the Djibouti Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation dated 21 October 2001, says: "Following the 5 October 2001 visit to Djibouti by a Somaliland delegation composed of Ahmad Yusuf Du'ale, the education minister; and Abdihamid Garad Djama, the foreign minister; and following talks with the Djibouti government, the two sides reached agreement on the following:

1. Put an end to any action capable of endangering the relations between the two countries, be it verbal, written or any other form of hostile propaganda;
2. Facilitate the movement of goods and people between both countries;
3. Establish permanent relations mainly, by putting in place a follow up commission;
4. Carry out jointly maximum vigilance with regard to all that may constitute a danger to the security of both countries;
5. Resolve disputes through consultations and dialogue;
6. Oversee on both sides, the protection of private property belonging to citizens of both countries.