africom related news clips june 28, 2010

8/9/2019 AFRICOM Related News Clips June 28, 2010.

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United States Africa CommandPublic Affairs Office28 June 2010

USAFRICOM - related news stories

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

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

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

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

U.S. says Guinea vote went "extraordinarily well" (Reuters) (Guinea) The United States hailed on Sunday the holding of presidential election inGuinea seen as the first free vote in the junta-ruled West African state's post-colonialhistory.

US support for Somali government raises questions over military aid (DeutscheWelle)(Somalia) The Western-backed transitional government has been teetering on the edgeof collapse for years under the weight of continued attacks by the al Qaeda-linked Al

Shabab militia and fellow Islamist militant group Hizbul Islam.

Rare Haven of Stability in Somalia Faces a Test (New York Times)(Somaliland) While so much of Somalia is plagued by relentless violence, this little-known slice of the Somali puzzle is peaceful and organized enough to hold nationalelections this week, with more than one million registered voters.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100626/pl_nm/us_g8_obama_africa


http://www.sfbayview.com/2010/erlinder-released-as-rwanda-cracks-down-on-its-own/


http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=51954


http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37960315/


http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,5722273,00.html


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/world/africa/26somaliland.html?ref=africa










AU provides financial support to refugees, returnees, IDPs (Xinhua)(Pan Africa) The African Union (AU) on Friday handed over cheques to countriesaffected by forced displacement in a ceremony held at the AU Headquarters in AddisAbaba, Ethiopia.

UN News Service Africa Briefs Full Articles on UN Website

Blue helmets with UN-African force in Darfur turn to music, reading as peacetools

UN opens new courtroom to try pirate suspects in Kenyan port

Guinea: Ban urges all sides to ensure presidential polls are peaceful and credible

Libya allows UN refugee agency to resume operations

UN human rights expert warns of violations ahead of Burundian polls-------------------------------------------------------------------------UPCOMING EVENTS OF INTEREST:

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

WHEN/WHERE: Thursday, July 1, 10:15 a.m., U.S. Institute of PeaceWHAT: Preventing Violent Conflict: Principles, Policies, and PracticeWHO: Panel Chairs - AMB Marc Grossman, Vice Chairman, Cohen Group; AMB NancySoderberg, President, U.S. Connect Fund; Tara Sonenshine, Executive Vice President,USIP; Conclusions – Dr. Abiodun Williams, Vice President, Center for Conflict Analysisand Prevention, USIP.Info: http://www.usip.org/events/preventing-violent-conflict-principles-policies-and-practice WHEN/WHERE: Friday, July 9, 1:00 p.m., U.S. Institute of PeaceWHAT: Measuring Progress in Stabilizing War-Torn SocietiesWHO: Colonel John Agoglia, Discussant, Director, Counterinsurgency Training Center– Afghanistan; Michael Dziedzic, Moderator, Senior Program Officer, U.S. Institute ofPeace; Barbara Sotirin, Discussant, Deputy Director for Global Security Affairs, The Joint Staff; John McNamara, Discussant, Director, Office of Planning, Office of theCoordinator for Reconstruction and StabilizationInfo: http://www.usip.org/events/measuring-progress-in-stabilizing-war-torn-societies

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2010-06/26/c_13370160.htm


http://www.un.org/apps/news/region.asp?Region=AFRICA


http://actevarsvp.com/acteva/jsp/register.jsp?eventID=a0I50000006PQY7EAO&prtptID=a0D50000002Wnh9EAC&mailId=a0F50000002GGHMEA4



http://www.usip.org/events/preventing-violent-conflict-principles-policies-and-practice




http://www.usip.org/events/measuring-progress-in-stabilizing-war-torn-societies














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Obama to host Africa independence celebration (Reuters)

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

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

Obama's father studied in the United States and returned to work in his post-independence homeland. But he died disappointed with how little freedom from

colonial rule had delivered, according to the younger Obama's own account.

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

Peter Erlinder’s Kenyan lawyer Otachi Gershom, who, like Erlinder, is a defense lawyer

at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda and opposition politician VictoireIngabire left a Kigali courtroom relieved after a Rwandan judge agreed to releaseErlinder on medical grounds. U.S. law professor Peter Erlinder returned from threeweeks imprisonment, from May 28 to June 17, in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, where he hadtraveled to act as defense counsel for embattled presidential candidate Victoire IngabireUmuhoza. Ingabire remains under house arrest, unable to leave the country, and faces apossible 20-year prison sentence. Both she and Erlinder are still accused of violatingRwanda’s unique ―genocide ideology‖ speech crime, which means disagreeing with theofficial history of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

A Rwandan judge agreed to release Erlinder but only on medical grounds, not in

response to the argument that his free speech rights and thus, by extension, the freespeech rights of Victoire Ingabire and other Rwandans are guaranteed by theinternational human rights covenants that Rwanda has signed or by Rwanda’smembership in the British Commonwealth.

In his press conference at William and Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis-St. Paulon Wednesday, June 23, following his return, Professor Erlinder thanked all the people



around the world who had called for his release, and said that he owed his life to themand to the Internet. He called it a triumph for people power, but he also said that itwould not have occurred if he had not been a white American lawyer with friends,family and allies capable of organizing and lobbying relentlessly for his release.

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

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

However, with Rwanda’s 2010 election now only seven weeks away, and neither theFDU-Inkingi nor the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda allowed to contest the election,

more and more Rwandans are losing hope and some have even concluded that onlymilitary invasion could unseat the Kagame regime, a possibility that President Kagamehas attempted to circumvent by force repatriating refugees who might join a rebelarmy.

Assassins go after Rwandan exile Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa

On Saturday, June 25, an unidentified gunman attempted to assassinate Rwandan exileGen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, an outspoken critic of President Kagame and a potentialleader of a rebel army invading to overthrow him. The gunman opened fire on

Kayumba as he returned home from a grocery store in Johannesburg, South Africa.Rwandan police arrested P.S. Imberakuri presidential candidate Bernard Ntaganda inhis home on the morning of Thursday, June 24, to prevent him from leaving for aprotest he had called at the National Electoral Commission. Meanwhile, RwandanPresident Paul Kagame was registering his ―candidacy‖ in the faux election thatNtaganda and the other viable candidates have been excluded from.Ingabire condemned the assassination attempt as another example of Kagame’s favoredmethod of eliminating exiled dissidents and called once again for nonviolent political,not military, solutions.

Rwandan exile and Ingabire supporter Jean Manirarora, now a microbiological researchscientist in Louisville, Kentucky, also called for political solutions but said that Gen.Kayumba has become the greatest threat to President Kagame because he is a Tutsigeneral popular with both Rwandan Hutus and Tutsis and could thus lead a Hutu andTutsi army into Rwanda, with credible claim to being a national liberation army, not anarmy of genocidaires.



―There is no sign of an army organizing to invade Rwanda,‖ Manirarora said, but ifthere were and if Kayumba were to lead it, no one could say that he had come to finishoff the Tutsi because he himself is a Tutsi.

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

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

Shocked and grief stricken, Umuvugizi editor Jean Bosco Gasasiras, now in exile inUganda, accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of ordering his security operativesto assassinate Rugambage. Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa’s wife Rosette continues to

accuse Kagame of sending operatives to assassinate her husband, and Rwandan journalist Godwin Agaba, also in exile in Uganda, said that Rugambage had just writtena story revealing a plot to poison Kayumba in his sickbed in South Africa, where he isrecovering from last week’s attempt on his life. In the shadow of AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command, Africa’s oil rich Gulf of Guinea These arrests and intrigue in Rwanda create urgencies that distract from an AFRICOM(U.S. Africa Command) conference that concluded in Kigali at the same time ProfessorErlinder was being released. The conference was called to plan an August military―exercise‖ in Accra, Ghana, on the Gulf of Guinea, which is critical to the control ofWest African oil and gas and oil and gas transport corridors in the Gulf of Guinea and

the rivers flowing into it.

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

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

Many Africans, not only Rwandan and Congolese, and Americans, especially AfricanAmericans, seemed to believe that this statement reduced the credibility of the Kagamegovernment, which also insists that it had nothing to do with the latest round ofassassinations and assassination attempts in Rwanda and surrounding nations.--------------------



Connecting the Dots from Detroit to Dakar (Inter Press Service News Agency)

DETROIT - Africa's continued struggle for political and economic independence inmany ways mirrors the very own struggles of communities in the U.S. that are nowbeing tabled at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum in Detroit.

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

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

Ahead of the 2011 World Social Forum to be held in the Senegalese capital of Dakar Feb.

7-11, the project is aimed at not only enhancing participation at the ongoing forum butalso to promote issues related to Africa and the African Diaspora.

"What do we see as our priorities? This is meant to be a people's movement assembly,"said Emira Woods, a noted foreign policy analyst on Africa with the Institute for PolicyStudies in Washington D.C.

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

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

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

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

On economic justice, the report details how Africa's massive external debt continues toburden the continent's development and hinder the fight for human rights, health andeducation.



Under World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules, the report says the U.S. and otherWestern nations continue to pursue policies that are antithetical to Africa's interests andperpetuate the extraction of resources from the continent without any benefit to itspeople.

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

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

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) said while debt cancellation for Africashould be at the forefront of the foreign policy debate on Africa, advocates should notforget about communities in the U.S. that have been burdened by debt from hugefinancial institutions.

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

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

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

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

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

He called on the forum to be the "platform for the generation of alternatives" so thatactivists are not only seen as opposing policies but suggesting real alternatives tocurrent policies.



What they are fighting for now, Bomba said, will help "that poor woman in the villageto reclaim a life of dignity".

On HIV/AIDS in Africa, the report indicated that the U.S. and other wealthy nations

control the medications that can keep people living with HIV alive and healthy fordecades.

"Yet currently less than one-third of those in need of these drugs in the global southhave access to these drugs with the greatest need in Africa. As the leading killer ofwomen in Africa, the question of whether the resources exists to provide AIDStreatment and whether corporations are able to exercise global control over the price ofmedicines is a human rights, gender rights and economic justice question," the reportstated.

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

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

"The Detroit to Dakar effort represents an important opportunity to connect the dots

between a flawed economic model and an ideology that has failed to deliver realdevelopment in the United States and on the African continent. Unsound and short-sighted trade policies have given rise to distorted patterns of joblessness, migration,rising inequality and devastation of entire communities all over the world," said TanyaDawkins, an independent analyst and director of the Global-Local Links Project.

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

CONAKRY — The United States hailed on Sunday the holding of presidential electionin Guinea seen as the first free vote in the junta-ruled West African state's post-colonialhistory.



"Based on the assessment of local and international observers and our own electionmonitoring mission, the U.S. Embassy believes voting to have gone extraordinarilywell," the embassy in the capital Conakry said in a statement.

Results are not expected before Wednesday and a second-round run-off between

leading candidates is likely in July.--------------------US support for Somali government raises questions over military aid (DeutscheWelle)

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

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

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

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

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

Somali use of child soldiers reveals concerns over US aid

A young member of an Islamic militia group leads the way with other fighters as theypatrol in southern Mogadishu Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit derBildunterschrift: Somalia's use of child soldiers has raised UN concern



A United Nations Security Council report into Somalia's "persistent violations" in theuse of child soldiers has not only heightened the international community's deepconcern at the continuing practice in African wars and the state of near-constant war inSomalia but has also turned the spotlight on the involvement of the United States in thefight for control.

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

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

There is some concern that by supporting the Somali government, Washington hasviolated a number of international human rights laws and laws against the use of childsoldiers.

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

"The arms embargo which was put in place in 1992 was amended by the UN in 2006 to

allow arms to be sold to the transitional government," David Hartwell, an expert at Jane's Defense, told Deutsche Welle. "The international community has no other choicebut to support the Somali government and the Americans have exploited this to sellarms via the Ethiopians and the Ugandan peacekeepers, who have bought weapons onbehalf of the US and billed Washington."

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

Memories of damaging US losses in Mogadishu

US Marines search a Somali on a Mogadishu street Bildunterschrift: Großansicht desBildes mit der Bildunterschrift: US relief forces were drawn into bloody fighting inMogadishu



While this information will dismay the American public, the fact that the United Statesis again actively involved in Somalia may also come as a shock, especially consideringwhat happened the last time the US was publicly acknowledged as having a role there.

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

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

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

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

Covert operations signal a US return to Somalia

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

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

"Over the past year and a half the US has provided some arms, ammunition, and cash tothe transitional Somali government," EJ Hogendoorn, the director of the Horn of Africaproject at the International Crisis Group think tank in Nairobi, told Deutsche Welle. "Itis also providing transport to government units being trained abroad. There are alsoallegations that it provides some intelligence support and training."



Al Qaeda suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mitder Bildunterschrift: Al Qaeda suspect Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan was killed by US troopsin Somalia

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

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

"But it knows that the situation in Somalia is very fluid. It may be al Qaeda this month

but it could be a nationalist civil war the next. What it has to do is support thegovernment as best it can. This is difficult because it controls so little of Mogadishu andthe troops it trains are easily bought and turned. If the US really wants a secureSomalia, it will have to step up its efforts and change its approach."

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

government.

"The US has been indirectly involved through the Ethiopians and also through - highlyunconfirmed - covert Special Forces operations within Somalia, targeting al Qaedaoperatives," Hartwell added. "Clearly, with the US command center at Djibouti, theycertainly have the assets in place to do this in Somalia and also in Yemen but they'llnever admit to active involvement on the ground."--------------------Rare Haven of Stability in Somalia Faces a Test (New York Times)

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

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

―We’re going to end corruption!‖ one of the politicians boomed, holding severalmicrophones at once. ―We’re going to bring dignity back to the people!‖



The boys cheered wildly. Wispy militiamen punched bony fists in the air. Thepoliticians’ messages were hardly original. But in this corner of Africa, a free and openpolitical rally — led, no less, by opposition leaders who could actually win — is ananomaly apparently worthy of celebration.

The crowd that day helped tell a strange truth: that one of the most democraticcountries in the Horn of Africa is not really a country at all. It is Somaliland, thenorthwestern corner of Somalia, which, since the disintegration of the Somali state in1991, has been on a quixotic mission for recognition as its own separate nation.

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

out slogans from staticky megaphones lashed to the roofs.

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

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

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

But that does not mean the opposition will necessarily win.

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

―There’s probably not going to be many problems with the voting itself, but the dayafter,‖ said Roble Mohamed, the former editor in chief of one of Somaliland’s top Websites. ―That is the question.‖



Many people here worry that if Somaliland’s governing party, UDUB, tries to hold onto power illegitimately, the well-armed populace (this is still part of Somalia, after all)will rise up and Somaliland’s nearly two decades of peace could disappear in a cloud ofgun smoke.

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

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

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

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

South-central Somalia, where a very weak transitional government is struggling to fendoff radical Islamist insurgents, is so dangerous that residents must risk insurgents’wrath even to watch the World Cup, never mind holding a vote.

So in this volatile region, Somaliland has become a demonstration of the possible,sustaining a one-person one-vote democracy in a poor, conflict-torn place that gets verylittle help. While the government in south-central Somalia, which barely controls anyterritory, receives millions of dollars in direct support from the United Nations and theUnited States, the Somaliland government ―doesn’t get a penny,‖ Mr. Said said.

Because Somaliland is not recognized as an independent country, it is very difficult forthe government here to secure international loans, even though it has become a regionalmodel for conflict resolution and democratic-institution building — buzzwords amongWestern donors.

In many respects, Somaliland is already its own country, with its own currency, its ownarmy and navy, its own borders and its own national identity, as evidenced by the



countless Somaliland T-shirts and flags everywhere you look. Part of this stems from itsdistinct colonial history, having been ruled, relatively indirectly, by the British, whilethe rest of Somalia was colonized by the Italians, who set up a European administration.

Italian colonization supplanted local elders, which might have been one reason that

much of Somalia plunged into clan-driven chaos after 1991, while Somalilandsucceeded in reconciling its clans.

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

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

solid green UDUB flag.

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

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

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

Rahman said. ―That’s their choice.‖

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

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

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

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the InternationalFederation of Red Cross were also present on the handover ceremony.



It was noted on the occasion that the donation is a contribution of the AU to address thechallenge of refugees, returnees, and internally displaced persons (IDPs), and is part ofAU's activities in the commemoration of the World Refugee Day observed every year in June.

Commissioner Joiner told Xinhua after the handing over ceremony that the AU forseveral times has made financial contribution to member states that are taking care ofIDPs.

Joiner said AU has a Sub-Committee of the Permanent Representative Committee (PRC)initiated over the past couple of months to see situations of forced displacement on thecontinent.

According to the commissioner, the PRC Sub-Committee reports to the AU CommissionChairperson on the observations made at different countries about refugees and forcibly

displaced persons.

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

"These reports comprise not only the recommendations that are made by the PRC Sub-Committee addressed to the member states that are taking care of these forciblydisplaced persons at a technical level in terms of arrangement that are put in place to

take care of displaced persons in camps most of the time, but also containrecommendations on financial contribution provided to the member states, and also topartners that are involved in taking care of refugees on daily basis; and that is why wehave organized this meeting," she added.

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

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

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

She said the adoption of the AU Convention on IDPs is one of the instruments the AUhas prepared to address issues in the area.



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

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

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

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

Africa is with the largest refugees in the world.--------------------UN News Service Africa Briefs Full Articles on UN Website

Blue helmets with UN-African force in Darfur turn to music, reading as peace tools26 June – The joint African Union-United Nations peacekeeping mission in Darfur hashelped local civil society groups collect thousands of books through a music festivaldesigned to highlight Sudanese culture and its role in maintaining peace in the war-tornarea.

UN opens new courtroom to try pirate suspects in Kenyan port 25 June – The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and Kenya, thecountry currently holding the highest number of piracy suspects, today opened a newhigh-security courtroom to try suspects in the port town of Mombasa.

Guinea: Ban urges all sides to ensure presidential polls are peaceful and credible25 June – Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged the people and institutions ofGuinea to play their part in ensuring that Sunday’s presidential polls are conductedpeacefully and result in the formation of a government fully reflecting the will of thepublic.

Libya allows UN refugee agency to resume operations25 June – The United Nations refugee agency has been allowed to resume operations inLibya, nearly three weeks after authorities in the North African country ordered theagency to stop work and close its offices.

UN human rights expert warns of violations ahead of Burundian polls



25 June – As the people of the small African nation of Burundi get set to cast their votesin Monday's presidential election, an independent United Nations expert today warnedof potential violence and human rights violations, citing a number of recent worrisomedevelopments.

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