U N I T E D   N A T I O N S
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
Integrated Regional Information Network for Central and Eastern Africa

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HORN OF AFRICA
IRIN-HOA Weekly Round-up 62
03 - 09 November 2001


CONTENTS:

SOMALIA: US shuts down money transfer group
SOMALIA: Flooding leaves thousands homeless
SOMALIA: Puntland election hits a snag
SOMALIA: Refugees repatriated from Ethiopia
SOMALIA: Nairobi talks end in "success", border reopened
SUDAN: Belgium tackles Khartoum, rebels on child rights
SUDAN: Concern for abducted relief workers
ERITREA: Four EU envoys return, students released
ETHIOPIA: British Council launches development website
DJIBOUTI: Border with Somaliland reopened

SOMALIA: US shuts down money transfer group

Abdiqassim Salad Hasan, the interim president of Somalia, said on Thursday
that he would set up a committee to investigate suspected links between a
leading Somali telecommunications and money transfer company and
international terrorist groups. On Wednesday, US authorities ordered the
immediate closure of the Al-Barakat company and the seizure of its assets
worldwide, accusing it of transferring funds on behalf of the chief terror
suspect, Osama bin Laden, and his Al-Qaeda (Al-Qa'idah) network.
Abdiqassim said he would not take any action against Al-Barakat's
operations in Somalia until the investigation had been concluded.

The US government claimed that Al-Barakat had been formed for the specific
purpose of aiding terrorists. "By shutting these networks down, we disrupt
the murderers' work," said US President George Bush. However, Al-Barakat's
founder and chairman, Ahmad Ali Jimale, told IRIN from his office in Dubai
that he had absolutely no links with Bin Laden or Al-Qaeda, insisting that
his business was clean, and had been established for the benefit of the
Somali people, not of Bin Laden. "These accusations are nothing but lies,"
said Jimale. "If the US authorities undertake a thorough investigation...
they will find that we have nothing to do with any illegal activities."

Jimale said he formed Al-Barakat, which now operates in 40 countries
worldwide, following the outbreak of civil war in Somalia in 1991 and the
collapse of the country's banking system, as a means of helping Somalis
who had fled the country as refugees to transfer much-needed funds to
relatives back home. To date, the hawalad transfer system, as the informal
banking network is known, remains the only way of transferring funds to
Somalia. Yasin Khalif, a manager of Amal, another Somali-run hawalad
company so far unaffected by the closures, told IRIN such transfers were
the only means of income for between 70 and 80 percent of the Somali
population. "Shutting down the hawalad is tantamount to condemning
hundreds of thousand of Somalis to a slow death," said Khalif. [Full
report at Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=13593]

SOMALIA: Flooding leaves thousands homeless

Flooding by the Juba river in southern Somalia has displaced an estimated
1,300 families near the town of Jilib, 380 km south of Mogadishu, a press
statement from the Office of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator,
said on Wednesday. While many parts of southern Somalia still await rain,
heavy downpours in Ethiopia have caused the rivers downstream in Somalia
to swell, leading to the flooding. "UN agencies, along with local and
international partners, are working to save lives and protect agricultural
land across flood-affected areas of southern Somalia," the statement said.

On Wednesday, senior UN officials flew to the affected area to conduct an
aerial survey. The statement quotes Randolph Kent, the UN Resident and
Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, as saying that the current flooding
would not alleviate drought conditions. "Flooding along the Juba and
Shabelle rivers will in fact increase hardship if riverine crops are
destroyed," he said. On 2 November, the United Nations Children's Fund
(UNICEF), responding to the crisis, dispatched a team of aid workers to
provide displaced households with emergency materials, including plastic
sheeting, blankets and mosquito nets, said the statement. It said
additional assessments of medical, food, and seed needs were being carried
out in conjunction with the World Food Programme (WFP), the Food and
Agricultural Organisation (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and other NGOs.

SOMALIA: Puntland election hits a snag

The electoral commission of the general conference of the self-declared
autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, presented its
election programme on Sunday, a delegate to the conference told IRIN. "The
commission presented the programme to the delegates, who unanimously
adopted it today," Ali Egal, said on Monday. Twelve out of 15 presidential
candidates had been endorsed by the delegates, he said. The approved
presidential candidates, who had been allotted 20 minutes each to present
their manifestos, began making their presentations on Tuesday, Adan
Abdirahman Dolar, a local journalist, told IRIN. They candidates were
slated to finish their presentations the same day, these to be followed by
the start of elections on Wednesday, Dolar said.

On Wednesday, however, the conference delegates, who were at that time
about to hear the speeches of the last four candidates before the start of
voting, were denied entry to the conference hall by armed militia. "They
seem to have taken over the conference hall and a branch of the Puntland
Bank," Dolar said. The militia, who had originally been brought to the
venue to provide security, were complaining that they had not been paid
for three months, he said. Elders led by Islan Muhammad Islan Muse, the
conference chairman, are still trying to find ways of resolving the
situation, while the militia are denying that their action is politically
motivated. "This morning, when I asked them about the problem, they said
all they wanted was their salaries so that they could pay their bills,"
Dolar told IRIN, on Wednesday.

He added, however, that if the elders failed to resolve the situation
soon, "it could turn into a political scenario, with those opposed to the
conference taking advantage of it, thereby plunging the region into
confusion". There has been confusion over the leadership of Puntland since
the end of June, with Col Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad and the former chief
justice, Yusuf Haji Nur, both claiming to be president. The controversy
started after Abdullahi Yusuf, whose term was to have ended on 30 June,
claimed that his mandate had been extended by parliament for three years.
The militia were still in control of the conference hall and the bank on
Thursday, "but the elders seem to be close to a resolution", Dolar told
IRIN that day.

SOMALIA: Refugees repatriated from Ethiopia

Thousands of Somali refugees were repatriated from camps in neighbouring
Ethiopia last month, bringing the total of returnees for this year to more
than 43,000. A spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR)
told IRIN on Monday that 6,380 refugees had been repatriated from the
Daror refugee camp during October, and expressed the hope that the Daror
camp would be empty of refugees and closed down by the end of November.

The spokesman said the refugees, most of whom have been living in Ethiopia
for 12 years, had been repatriated to their home areas in and around the
town of Hargeysa, the capital of the self-declared autonomous Republic of
Somaliland. There were, he said, approximately 6,000 refugees left in
Daror camp, adding that if UNHCR succeeded in repatriating those still in
the camp then Daror would become the third Somali refugee camp in Ethiopia
to be closed down following the successful repatriation of the refugees
living there. A total of about 80,000 Somali refugees remain in Ethiopia.

SOMALIA: Nairobi talks end in "success", border reopened

Four days of peace talks between the Somali Transitional National
Government (TNG) and factions opposed to it came to a close in Nairobi on
Sunday, with both sides claiming the talks had been a success and
announcing that they had agreed to meet again for further reconciliation
talks. As an immediate sign of progress, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi
also announced on Monday that the Kenya/Somalia border would be reopened
immediately. Moi had closed the border in July, citing a spillover of
insecurity in Somalia as the reason.

A date for future talks was not given, but will be announced by "the heads
of state of the front-line states - Kenya, Djibouti and Ethiopia" at a
time to be mutually agreed, according to a joint statement issued by the
parties to the talks. The agenda also includes items on clan-based power
sharing, renunciation of violence as a means of settling political
differences, and cooperation with the international community on
eradicating terrorism. The agenda also provides for all Somali state laws
to be reviewed "in accordance with the requirements of the reconciliation
process", said the statement.

Both the TNG and the Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council (SRRC)
delegations expressed satisfaction at the result of the talks. The TNG
spokesman, Abdirahman Dinari, described it as moving the reconciliation
process "a step forward". Mawlid Ma'ane of the SRRC said the talks had
proved that Somalis were capable of talking and reaching agreement. "We
are moving in the right direction," he added.

SUDAN: Belgium tackles Khartoum, rebels on child rights

Belgian Secretary of State for Development Cooperation Eddy Boutmans, who
has just ended a mission to investigate children's rights in Sudan, on
Sunday expressed strong concern to the Sudanese government over the
abduction of women and children by government-aligned militias in the
"transitional area" between northern and southern Sudan. Boutmans and his
colleagues had, in discussions with people and in direct testimony, been
told of recent instances in in Wau and Aweil, Northern Bahr al-Ghazal
State, where government-aligned militia engaged in serious human rights
abuses, he told IRIN in a briefing on Tuesday.

"Government militia - or at least militia under direct or indirect control
of the government, accompanying and protecting the train convoys that
supply the northern [government] army in the south - have engaged in
practices that are very fundamental violations of human rights: looting,
killing, burning down villages and also abducting children and women,"
according to Boutmans's information.  Most of these abductees would be
brought to northern regions, where most of them would end up in slavery -
be it herding cattle or working fields, or in houses, he said. These raids
and abductions, on which the Belgian mission had testimony, and which had
also been documented by other sources, was "really a very serious and
unacceptable human rights problem that is terrifying the whole region",
Boutmans added.

Visiting the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Sunday, the Belgian mission
made their country's concern over these actions very clear to Sudanese
Foreign Minister Mustafa Uthman Isma'il and International Cooperation
Minister Karam al-Din Abd al-Mawla, Boutmans said. "We very strongly
insisted that with these practices going on under their direct or indirect
responsibility, they had an obligation to take action - and at the
highlest level. This is a very severe violation of human rights, and the
state has the responsibility for having this stopped - certainly if it's
carried out with the least connivance of the army," he added. [Full report
at Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=12866]

SUDAN: Concern for abducted relief workers

The fate of a Kenyan worker with a Christian relief agency in southern
Sudan was still unknown on Wednesday, several days after
government-aligned militia seized her and two Sudanese co-workers in
Northern Bahr al-Ghazal, the Sudanese Catholic Information Office (SCIO)
reported on Wednesday.  The Catholic bishop of Rumbek in southern Sudan,
Caesar Mazzolari, has appealed to the Sudanese government to ensure the
release of Juliana Muiruri, seized on Friday (2 November) after a raid by
pro-government forces on the compound where she worked as a nutritionist
for Church Ecumenical Action Sudan (CEAS). Two male Sudanese co-workers,
whose names could not be ascertained, were taken along with Muiruri,
according to a statement on Saturday from the rebel Sudan People's
Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A).

Muiruri was abducted from a relief centre in Aweil, where she had fled
from "marauding government troops and militias" who raided the nearby town
of Nyamlell, in Northern Bahr al-Ghazal State, the SCIO reported on
Monday.  However, sources in southern Sudan have suggested to IRIN that
the three aid workers were taken captive by the paramilitary Popular
Defence Forces (PDF) during a food distribution east of Nyamlell. "At the
time of her kidnapping, she was working in a war zone with the sole intent
of assisting the tired civilian population," SCIO quoted Mazzolari as
saying. "I feel that Juliana Muiruri's liberation is [would be] an act of
justice that the government... must carry out if it wants to demonstrate
to the world that human rights are respected in Sudan." [Full report at
Http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=13201]

ERITREA: Four EU envoys return, students released

Four EU diplomats, who had been recalled from Eritrea in protest aagainst
the expulsion in October by the Eritrean authorities of the Italian
ambassador, returned to the capital, Asmara, this week. The ambassadors of
Germany, France, Holland and Denmark were back at their posts by
Wednesday, the BBC reported. They had been recalled after relations
between the EU and Eritrea soured following the Eritrean governemnt's
arrest of leading opponents to the ruling party, the closure of the
country's independent press and the arrest of local journalists. Although
Italy is yet to send an ambassador back following the expulsion of Antonio
Bandini, it is understood that the EU has not withdrawn support for, or
suspended, any of its previously agreed aid support programmes for
Eritrea.

Also this week, Mesfin Hagos, a former Eritrean defence minister turned
critic who avoided arrest because he was in the US at the time of the
government crackdown, denied government accusations that he and his fellow
government opponents had launched a conspiracy to destabilise the ruling
People's Front for Democracy and Justice. Mesfin also responded to claims
that the opposition group had held a meeting in the US in August to
outline opposition strategy, and which the government claimed had
concluded with a plan to open opposition cells in all spheres of Eritrean
society, including the army. "I have never contacted people in the army. I
know our country's sovereignty depends on the unity of the army. That
unity must be sustained," Mesfin said during an interview with the BBC.

Meanwhile, the last group of Eritrean students being held in detention
following student opposition to a summer work programme were released this
week, the BBC reported on Wednesday. Quoting diplomatic sources in
Eritrea, the BBC said the five students were released from the desert work
site in Galaalo. All five were reportedly members of the student union
executive disbanded by the government when hundreds of students were
arrested in August following student disturbances prompted by the earlier
arrest of the student union president, Semere Kesete. Semere was arrested
after voicing criticism of government interference in university affairs
and the summer work programme.

ETHIOPIA: British Council launches development web site

The British Council, in conjunction with the Christian Relief and
Development Association (CRDA), and umbrella group of NGOs and faith-based
organisations working in Ethiopia, on Tuesday launched a web-based gateway
to development information on Ethiopia, a British Council information
officer told IRIN. Genet Awlachew told IRIN on Wednesday that the
Development Information Network (or DEVINET) web site, as the network is
to be known, is on-line and already "disseminating information that is
crucial to decision makers".

Following on from the successful implementation of a similar initiative by
the British Council in India, the Indev project, DEVINET seeks to
establish a database of the experiences and activities of local
development organisations to help facilitate operations, avoid
duplications and, where possible, improve efficiency. DEVINET will aim to
encourage communication and information sharing between NGOs.

"In this way NGOs can network themselves in a better way so that they can
share experiences on development issues, create partnerships to achieve
common goals and avoid duplications," said Awlachew. Amongst other
services, DEVINET will provide directories of NGOs working in Ethiopia,
their existing development projects, research undertakings and outcomes.
[For more information, go to www.devinet.org]

DJIBOUTI: Border with Somaliland reopened

The government of Djibouti has reopened its common border with the
self-declared Republic of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, a senior
Djibouti official told IRIN on Monday. "The border has been opened with
northern regions of Somalia," said the official. This followed the
fulfilment by the Somaliland authorities of agreements reached in October,
he said. The provisions of the October agreements included the ending of
hostile propaganda. "They have fulfilled their sideof the bargain, and we
are now reciprocating." A Somaliland official confirmed to IRIN that the
common border had been "open since Sunday". The border was closed by the
Djibouti government in April.

Relations between the two sides soured following Djibouti's hosting of
last year's Somali peace talks, which led to the establishment of the
Transitional National Government (TNG). The Somaliland administration
boycotted the talks, accusing Djibouti of interfering in Somalia's
internal affairs. The Djibouti official insisted that Djibouti had not
changed its policy of supporting the TNG and favouring Somali unity in
general. "We have made no compromises in this regard, and our friends in
Hargeysa know it." Hargeysa is the capital of Somaliland.


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Copyright (c) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2001


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