Category: NGO services

INDIRECT RULE OR CONTAINMENT OF SOMALIA


October 5, 2019


The international community, including her neighbours consider Somalia dangerous, not because of the extremists she produces, foreign radicals she hosts or sending huge refugees to the Western World. These can be easily defeated or managed as they aren’t more difficult than those in Syria or Iraq. Somalia is regarded dangerous because of the characters of her people. From her colonial rulers and observers to the present Somali Partners’ Forum, the conclusion is keeping Somalia under indirect rule or containment, taking clue from past colonial anthropologists, explorers, travelers, administrators and leaders of colonial powers of Great Britain, Italy and France as well as historically hostile neighbors of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and even Tanzania, which has no borders with Somalia, and lately Djibouti, exploiting the spoils of collapsing Somali Central Government.


As the Somali Central Government had failed in 1991, the International Community had set up the Somali Aid Coordinating Body, the SACB, to direct and manage the problems of  Somalia, basically taking over the sovereignty of the Somali State. As the Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic, TFG, was elected in 2004, the Somali Coordinating and Monitoring Committee, CMC, was created immediately to hang on to Somali sovereignty and not letting it go. That is why the TFG couldn’t operate. Somali Partners’ Forum is the similar grouping as SACB with just different friendly name, doing the same function of indirect rule of Somalia.


The common character of these groups, specifically designed to handle Somalia, is their lack of accoubtability. They aren’t accountable to anyone. They have no common address. Their membership is difficult to know as International NGOs and foreign security services often take part in their activities. They often issue no-reply statements. They always take advantage of high turn-over of naive and inexperienced Somali leaders. The problem is that Somalia, in her desperate humanitarian, governance and security situations, needs the individual countries and organizations that make up such Western oranizations as they need or interested in Somalia too.


In my personal capacity as representative of Puntland Government then, I had to reject the decisions and letters from SACB at the time, reiterating the fact that Puntland was not signatory to 1993 Addis Ababa Treaty on creating the SACB, its Code of Conduct and Policy Paper On Working With Responsible Somali Authorities. In 1993, only Somaliland existed. The rest of these “Responsible Authorities” were traditional leaders, local NGOs and other civil societies, if any.

The reasoning behind the mindset of these foreign organizations is based on historical writings of Richard Burton, Sir Richard Ellot, Enrico Cerrulli,  I.M. Lewis, Gerald Hanley and others, descriping Somalis as proud, firecely independent, extremely intelligent and violent by nature. If not contained and marginalized, they would move beyond their native borders to own up entire East Africa first, after which they could surprise the rest of the world. Their danger lies in the fact that they consider themselves more equal than the white European people. To paraphrase one British colonial administrator of East Africa, the white man couldn’t accept a black man, who thinks he is superior than the European man. They should be contained within the borders of Jubaland. Take a listen to Sir Richard Eliot:


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PUNTLAND’S ACHEELS HEELS

Yes, an imperative reform in Puntland Administration is obvious to all and urgently needed. But, where do we start?

The sectors that had become the Achilles Heels of the State of Puntland are:
  1. Finance sector
  2. Security sector
Fix the two sectors, and Puntland would leap foward fast. These two sectors constitute half of Puntland’s entire problems.
Take first, Puntland Ministry of Finance where the management and personnel are on the same jobs for twenty years with 19th century rudimentary knowledge of financial management and that compoundedly streghtened by their chronic resistance to change, upgrading and reform. It is not an exaggeration – I worked with them as Puntland Chief of Staff at State Presidency during the first three years of Puntland foundation. How did they stay that long each one on the same job? That is their most guarded secret. What is it? The Ministry’s Top Management Team had developed and fine-tuned special skills to make sure that every incoming Puntland President and the new Minister of Finance are happy by providing them with unchecked and unaccounted for access to personal funds. But, if that is an open secret, why didn’t Puntland successive regimes do something about it? Good question! Have you heard the Somali word “Madax-ka-nool referring to Puntland governance?” Yes, you guessed – the President is everything in Puntland. He is the country’s minister of finance and cashier-general at same time. He can buy everybody, including the members of the House of Representatives (the Parliament). Then who would check the powers of the President? You tell me. With the financial muscle of the Ministry of Finance he owns the country and its people. You would say that is an exaggeration. You are free to carry out your own enquiries and independent investigations. But, don’t forget to share your findings with me.
But, that is not all. The top management of Puntland Ministry of Finance is the main obstacle and reason why international agencies and world financial institutions are unable to assist Puntland due to Ministry’s lack of transparency and financial accountability. The Ministry keeps secret even Puntland real revenue and expenses. This has created a situation where world community doesn’t know not only how to help Puntland in development projects, budget supplements and personnel capacity-building, but also how to work with the authorities. Puntland books are closed and they are Ministry’s Top Secrets.
Reform immediately that Ministry, and people of Puntland are half free.
Take Security Sector second, and you would discover the hard facts that nobody knows, even approximately, the number of men and women working in or attached to that sector, forget about their training, quality, incapacitation, mortality or even whether the names in ghost lists exist, or ever existed. How do you allocate resources, wages, pay etc? How do organizations in the security sector could assist Puntland improve its security needs? Yes, it is easy to blame others for your failures? But abive all, how do you defend your country when your lists of forces are ghost soldiers? That is why you hear calls for clan militia support whenever Puntland security is threatened.

These are the two critical sectors that require an urgent and radical reform, but the problems described above extend to other sectors and state departments as well.

ismailwarsame.blog

(Image credit: Dabaraani Media)

RETURNEES DIASPORA KIDS AND SOMALI CULTURE

GAROWE, MAY 23, 2019

It is never easy for kids born overseas in exile with no Somali language skills, cultural experience or imagination of how operating in Somali setting look like as a result of parental failure in raising kids in a foreign environment or refuge camps in Western countries. Most diaspora parents, who themselves were not schooled before they found themselves there, and experiencing language barriers and deep cultural shock, suddenly became the students of their own kids, who pick up foreign languages quicker. Kids become interpreters and translators of the host foreign languages for their own parents. In other words, parental power, while in overseas, shifted to the kids. Parents, therefore, had lost parental influence over kids. Who is going to teach the kids about Somali culture and heritage in host countries then? Hence one often hears the Somali term “Dhaqan Celis” (cultural rehabilitation) in the country.

Diaspora parents seek help for their kids, and their only resort is to send kids back home. The problem back home is that there are no meaningful formal services to provide help in the rehabilitation of these youth to re-orient themselves into the Somali culture and ways of life.

What happens next is that, in the absence of specialized cultural help, kid are re-introduced to their extended family members to help cultivate these diaspora kids along their parents’ cultural heritage. The diaspora kids have no life connections with these people, and the names and extended families have no meaning at all to them. But, where to start to rehabilitate them? Of course, family trees (ancestry) comes first in mind, which means teaching these innocent youth about tribalism and clannism. What is making things even worse is that there are no social amenities or youth programs to get them engaged and make them busy. Double cultural shock and boredom set in in the lives of these young men and girls back home.

Once beaten, twice shy. Diaspora youth wouldn’t opt for another chance to re-visit Somalia, at least, in their early years.

Funny stories about the experience of these young returnees are abundant in Puntland. One such story tells about young female intern in one of the local NGOs, who was informed one morning that they were pleased let her know that she would receive “Mushaar” (salary). To that intern, the the local term Mushaar meant “Mooshaali” (Porridge or oatmeal). After a while, later in that morning, the young woman became impatient waiting for the porridge offerred and asked what had happened to the delivery of the food, to everybody’s laughter.

This story also vainly sheds light on the socio-economic frictions between the “Qorax Joog” (locals) and “Qurba Joog” (diaspora returnees). The locals believe that, with their super job skills, experience and education, the Qurba Joog have better job, political and business opportunities in the country than the Qorax Joog. Hence, a cold war is now slowly brewing, but still at its early stages of debating the issue in the social media and in public/private meetings. If the concerns are not carefully managed in advance, I am affraid of open public confrontations in the foreseeable future as it had happened between Liberian indigenous and diaspora returnees from USA in mid 19th Century.

RECOMMENDATION

ismailwarsame.blog proposes to Puntland/Somalia for setting up formal local NGO services in partnership with international organizations, under State supervision, to provide badly needed help to the Somali Diaspora youth returnees for “dhaqan celis” purposes. Those young men and girls mostly return from Norh America, Western Europe and Arab countries, who may extend help to any sound projects for such kids.

ismailwarsame.blog

(image credit: pewresearch.org)