Kenya boosts security after village massacre
March 16 2005 at 10:25AM

Nairobi - Kenya has boosted security along its north-east border with Somalia after a brutal massacre there by Somali gunmen of 22 members of a rival clan that forced thousands of villagers to flee their homes, police said on Wednesday.

"We have boosted security and patrols along the areas that we think are vulnerable to revenge attacks," said Gabriel Ndolo, the commander of police in Kenya's North-eastern Province where Tuesday's pre-dawn raid took place.

"We just want to ensure that normal life resumes," he said from the provincial seat of Garissa south of the attacked village of Elgolisha near the frontier town of Mandera.

Eight of the about 40 attackers were killed by Kenyan security forces and officials said the surviving gunmen had escaped into lawless Somalia despite a massive search by paramilitary police assisted by a helicopter.

The surviving gunmen had escaped into lawless Somalia
"They fled into Somalia and it is very difficult to pursue them into the country because it has no administration," Ndolo said. "But we shall do everything to ensure that somebody is held responsible.

"We cannot allow such attacks to go on," he said.

Police believe that Tuesday's raid on Elgolisha - which targeted members of the Garre clan and has been blamed on the rival Gurule faction - is the worst single attack in the dustbowl region known for ethnic clashes, mainly over water and pasture rights.

In it, the Murule attackers used guns, machetes and clubs to shoot, hack and slash to death their victims, many of them women and children including a six-month-old infant, police said.

The marauders also killed nearly a dozen livestock, destroyed a number of rudimentary homes and wounded at least three people in the raid.

As the scale and ferocity of the attack became clear, as many as 5 000 terrified villagers fled their homes around Elgolisha which sits only about two kilometres from the Somali border, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

Ndolo said authorities in the region were working to help the more than 1 000 families - each with three to five members - who fled Eloglisha to the relative safety of the nearby town of El Wak.

"We are making great effort to ensure that people return to their homes," he said. "We are also meeting with clan elders to discuss the issue of security because this is a long-standing problem." - Sapa-AFP

U.N. adviser gloomy on anti-poverty goals
Wednesday, March 16, 2005 ? Last updated 10:48 p.m. PT
By EDITH M. LEDERER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

UNITED NATIONS -- In a poor village not far from Senegal's capital, representatives of rich donor countries spent three years trying to sell insecticide-treated bed nets to the 7,000 residents who suffer from malaria. But only 400 had enough money to buy the protective covers.

In a village hospital in Kenya, three patients were squeezed into every bed and one nurse was caring for 70 patients. The hospital's administrator pleaded for extra nurses. But donors haven't been able to figure out how to help Kenya hire 4,000 nurses laid off because of budget constraints ordered by the International Monetary Fund.

In a village outside Mekele in Ethiopia's Tigray province, where there's no water to produce crops because seasonal rains haven't fallen for five years, near-emaciated residents were digging in the dry river bed to get to the water table. They didn't have a water pump.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's top poverty adviser, Jeffrey Sachs, used these three examples Wednesday from trips he made during the last two weeks to illustrate why U.N. goals to reduce extreme poverty won't be met unless there are dramatic changes in what he called "the ludicrous state of reality today."

While governments in the rich world blame poor countries for bad practices that create these problems, Sachs said many rich countries have failed to meet a pledge they made 35 years ago to earmark 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product to help alleviate poverty in the developing world.

"This is mutual responsibility, not one side's responsibility," he said. "The poor countries are obligated to have good governance and the rich countries are obligated to help them to make the basic investments to keep their children alive - and we're not doing it."

In a speech to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, Sachs was especially critical of the countries that have not set timetables to reach the 0.7 percent goal, and of the IMF and World Bank for not pressing donors to give more. The United States now spends about 0.15 percent of its GDP on development aid while Japan next year will spend 0.21 percent and Germany 0.32 percent.

"For 35 years we've been fighting whether the rich world will give 70 cents out of $100 of its income and keep $99.30. That's what we've been debating. And I don't know how many resources, political and otherwise, the rich world has spent saying we're not even giving 70 cents out of $100," an obviously exasperated Sachs said.

He was the lead author of a recent U.N.-sponsored report by hundreds of development experts that concluded global poverty can be cut in half by 2015 and eliminated by 2025 if the world's richest countries more than double aid to the poorest countries.

"The truth is we've come to the crossroads because people are dying by the millions because of the lack of 70 cents," Sachs said. "But we have rigorous proof that for 70 cents millions could be saved. That's our stark choice this year."

Annan is expected to make recommendations to world leaders Monday on U.N. reform and on meeting the U.N. development goals, using Sachs' report as a basis. The secretary-general has invited the leaders to a summit in September to take action so the United Nations can tackle 21st century threats and achieve a major reduction in poverty and improvements in health and education.

Sachs stressed that ending extreme poverty "is technically, scientifically, economically feasible."

It doesn't take "rocket science" to get bed nets to people who need them, to give malaria sufferers effective medication, to get diesel pumps to villages, and to have a vehicle in villages like the one in Tigray Province in Ethiopia where a mother dying in childbirth must now travel more than 20 miles on a donkey to get to a hospital, he said.

Even before the summit, Sachs said, "We could have several quick wins: malaria could be controlled with a mass distribution of bed nets and effective anti-malarials. School meals programs could be in every hunger hotspot using locally produced foods. User fees for schools and clinics could be dropped immediately with donors making up the financing difference."

This week, he said, he went to the malaria-ridden village outside Dakar with a donation of 3,000 bed nets from Sumitomo Chemical Co., the manufacturer, and gave them to the community.

"So in one day we did seven times more than the donors have done in three years" selling a total of 400 bed-nets, Sachs said.

As for the desperately needed nurses in Kenya, Sachs said the World Bank responded to his plea a year ago by saying it needed to study the request. "It's unbelievable," Sachs said, but he still can't find a way to get donors to fund 4,000 nurses for the East African nation.

Sachs, who heads the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said climate change was probably to blame for the lack of rains in Tigray.

"So we don't implement climate control, and Ethiopians die of hunger because there's no rains to produce the crops, and then we blame Ethiopia for not good governance," he said.

SOMALIA: IGAD to deploy peacekeepers despite opposition by faction leaders
ENTEBBE, 15 Mar 2005 (IRIN) - The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) plans to deploy peacekeepers in Somalia next month, regardless of opposition by faction leaders in the war-ravaged country, IGAD chairman and Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, said on Monday.

"We are going to deploy with or without the support of the warlords," said Museveni, on the closing day of a meeting of IGAD defence ministers in the central Ugandan town of Entebbe.

"Why should the warlords for example reject Ethiopia and Kenya?", questioned the chairman. "If the two countries go there, what will happen? It is a shame for one of [the] ancient races in Africa to suffer for so long, as the rest of Africa looks on."

It was proposed at the meeting that up to 10,000 peacekeepers, as part of the IGAD Peace Support Mission to Somalia (IGASOM), be deployed from 30 April. The proposal, however, has to be endorsed by the IGAD Council of Ministers before it can be implemented.

"What are we waiting for? You should work out the deployment programme as soon as possible," Museveni told the defence ministers.

Uganda’s military chief, Lt-Gen Aronda Nyakairima, said that IGASOM would be deployed throughout Somalia, with the exception of the self-declared republic of Somaliland.

"We shall deploy from Puntland all the way to the south," Nyakairima said.

However, according to a communique issued by the ministers on Monday, the IGASOM force is expected to be replaced by an African Union (AU) force after nine months.

In February, the AU authorised IGAD - which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda - to send a peace mission to Somalia. Its purpose would be to help the country's transitional federal government (TFG) get a foothold there when it relocates from Nairobi, Kenya.

Although the TFG requested the peacekeeping force, opposition to troops from the country's immediate neighbours is widespread in Somalia. Some faction leaders, including those who are members of the TFG cabinet, have said they would not accept troops from neighbouring countries.

"We endorse the deployment of troops from the international community without the involvement of contingents from Somalia's immediate neighbours, Ethiopia and Djibouti," several faction leaders said in a statement recently.

Members of the TFG cabinet who signed the statement included: Hussein Mohamed Aidid, deputy prime minister; Mohamed Qanyare Afrah, minister of national security; Musa Sudi Yalahow, minister of trade; Botan Isse, minister for demobilisation; and Omar Mohamud "Finnish", minister for religious affairs.

The United States and a think-tank, the International Crisis Group (ICG), have also expressed concern about including troops from neighbouring countries without the approval of the Somali people.

"It would be premature for foreign governments to send troops into Somalia when the [Somali transitional federal] parliament is yet to debate the issue," Matt Bryden, the director of the ICG’s Horn of Africa project, told IRIN on Tuesday. "There is popular opposition to the peace mission within Somalia, and such a move could jeopardise the peace process."

IGAD defence officials held their meeting in order to thrash out a deployment plan for the peace mission, including logistics, funding, and the size of the force. The mission is expected to cost about US $500 million, according to an official at the talks.

On 2 March, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said his country was ready to send peacekeepers to Somalia, if invited.

"The bottom line is our offer is still on the table, but we are not going to impose ourselves on Somalia," Meles told a news conference in Addis Ababa. "It is up to the Somali government and the Somali people."

Somalia had no central government between 1991 and October 2004, which was when the TFG was formed in Kenya, after two years of IGAD-sponsored peace talks between various Somali clans and factions.

However, the administration has remained in Nairobi because of security concerns, although officials of the new government have visited the country to build support for their return.

[ENDS]

34 die in Kenyan clashes
Tuesday, March 15, 2005 Posted: 7:46 AM EST (1246 GMT)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Assailants armed with guns and swords shot and hacked to death 22 people, mainly women and children, from a rival clan in northeastern Kenya Tuesday, officials said.

Security forces later killed 12 suspects during an operation to restore order in Mandera, a district troubled by clashes between the Garre and Murule clans, said police spokesman Jaspher Ombati. The clans, two of the ethnic Somali communities that dominate northeastern Kenya, traditionally fight over access to pasture and water for their cattle.

At least 22 people were killed and three injured when Murule fighters launched the pre-dawn raid on a Garre village as residents slept in their homesteads, Ombati said.

Officials said preliminary information indicates that the Murule fighters crossed into Kenya from Somalia, 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from Mandera, officials said.

The killings could trigger revenge attacks similar to those in January in which at least 22 people were killed in a week in the region, 795 kilometers (494 miles) northeast of the capital, Nairobi.

Paramilitary and regular police officers were sent to the region to prevent further violence, Ombati said.

Large parts of the arid region are notoriously lawless, with bandits, some from neighboring Somalia, often carrying out attacks.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Illegal Arms Still Flow Freely Into Somalia
From Reuters
UNITED NATIONS — Weapons are still pouring into Somalia at "a brisk and alarming rate" despite a 1992 U.N. arms embargo, threatening efforts to install a new national government, U.N. monitors reported Monday.
Despite rising prices, individuals from both the transitional federal government and opposition groups are buying up the illegal weapons, according to the latest report from the monitoring group.
The group recommended tightening controls along Somalia's borders and coastline.
Somalia, a lawless Horn of Africa country of about 10 million people, has been carved up into fiefdoms run by rival warlords since 1991. A transitional federal government was formed in neighboring Kenya last year and is trying to establish itself inside Somalia.

Uganda's president presses African countries to send troops to Somalia
By HENRY WASSWA, Associated Press Writer
Museveni
ENTEBBE, Uganda, Mar 14, 2005 (AP) -- President Yoweri Museveni on Monday pressed African countries to send troops to secure Somalia's transitional government as it returns home from exile in Kenya -- even without the support of Somali warlords who presently control the country.

"Somalia has suffered for the past 14 years and we have to deploy troops with or without the support of warlords," Museveni told defense ministers and officials from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development that is planning to send a regional peace support mission ahead of a fuller peacekeeping force.

"For the warlords to say that they are protecting the people and yet they have guns and are holding these people hostage is wrong," said Museveni, who heads the seven-nation regional group. "It is a shame for one of the ancient races in Africa to suffer for so long as we are looking on."

Warlords-turned-Cabinet ministers have said they are prepared to accept peacekeepers from the African Union and the Arab League -- but not troops from neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya.

They, along with Islamic clerics, some Somali residents and the U.S. State Department have that warned sending troops from the neighboring countries would derail fragile efforts to end a 14-year civil war the Horn of Africa nation.

Warlords and lawmakers from a clan that controls the Somali capital on Sunday offered to withdraw 15,000 militia fighters from Mogadishu to guarantee the security of the country's government -- but only if troops from neighboring countries are not sent.

Ethiopia actively supported Somali factions with money and weapons in the civil war that started in 1991, and its troops could seek to advance Ethiopian interests if deployed in the Horn of Africa nation, some Somali lawmakers said.

Somalis also remember the war they lost in 1977 over control of Ethiopia's southeastern Ogaden region, largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis. The Somali army never recovered from the defeat, a fact that eventually helped warlords to overthrow dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

Somalia's government is based in neighboring Kenya because Mogadishu is considered unsafe.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's Cabinet asked the African Union and Arab League earlier this month to send between 5,000 and 7,500 troops with a one-year mandate to protect the government as it organizes a police force and army.

The AU Peace and Security Council authorized deployment of an interim force ahead of a fuller AU mission.

Military experts meeting in Uganda on Sunday recommended sending a 10,000-strong force to Somalia for a mission that will last for around eight months at a cost of some US$500 million (A?374 million), an officer attending the talks said. The proposal was discussed by defense ministers and officials Monday

Peacekeepers to be deployed in Somalia
March 15 2005 at 12:59PM

Kampala - A controversial 10 000-strong regional peacekeeping force planned for Somalia will deploy across the country except in the breakaway region of Somaliland, a senior Ugandan military officer has said.

"The force will deploy throughout Somalia, from Puntland all the way to the south, but not in Somaliland," the officer said after meetings of east African military experts at which the eight-battalion deployment was worked out.

Somalia has been without any functioning central authority for the past 14 years but the region of Somaliland has established its own governmental structures and claims independence from the rest of the war-shattered nation.
The officer said the first phase of the proposed deployment, which has been recommended to begin on April 30, would see three-and-half battalions of troops sent to lawless Somalia to assist the country's transitional government relocate there from exile in Kenya.

Somalia has been without a functioning central authority for 14 years
The first peacekeepers to go would include a battalion each from Uganda, Sudan and Ethiopia and a half battalion from Djibouti, he said on condition of anonymity.

He stressed that the proposal, presented by defence chiefs from the seven-nation Inter-Governmental Authority on Development on Monday, still had to be approved by IGAD foreign ministers.

The officer added that the proposal did not take into account strong opposition from some Somali warlords and Islamic clerics to the participation in the force of troops from Ethiopia and Djibouti.

Those two countries, as well as Kenya, are seen by opponents as having ulterior motives in Somalia.

"The foreign ministers will handle those policy matters," the officer said. "We wrote down the concept and it is them to decide the implementation policy."

However, on Monday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the current chair of IGAD, said the force, to be known as the IGAD Peace Support Mission for Somalia, would deploy with or without the support of the warlords.

"We are going to deploy with or without the support of the warlords," Museveni told defence ministers from IGAD, which comprises Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia. - Sapa-AFP

Somali MPs warn against unapproved deployment of peacekeepers
Now Playing: Source: Agence France-Presse (AFP)
by Bogonko Bosire

NAIROBI, March 15 (AFP) - Nearly 100 Somali lawmakers on Tuesday warned against the deployment of a controversial regional peacekeeping force to lawless Somalia without the approval of the country's transitional parliament.

The lawmakers said the proposed 10,000-strong force -- being put together by the seven-nation east African Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) at the request of Somalia's transitional government and with the authorization of the African Union -- must have parliament's okay.

"IGAD should not deploy troops to Somalia without the approval of parliament," said Abdallah Haji Ali, an MP speaking on behalf of 98 of Somalia's 275 transitional lawmakers.

"The only Somali institution allowed to approve troops is the parliament," he told reporters here after IGAD defense chiefs proposed the three-phase deployment of eight battalions of peacekeepers beginning on April 30.

"Anything outside that will be illegal and contrary to international law. For sure it will bring problems bigger that anybody expect," he said, flanked by several MP colleagues from the war-shattered African nation.

The force, which must still be approved IGAD foreign ministers, is intended to assist the Somali government relocate to Somalia from exile in Kenya, where it has been based since its creation in October due to security concerns.

Despite the government's request for the force and the AU authorization, there is international concern about its makeup and fierce oppositon to it from some Somali warlords and hardline Islamic clerics.

The United States, the United Nations -- which have had disastrous results in Somalia themselves -- and independent analysts have fears about the participation of neighboring countries in the IGAD mission.

The warlords and clerics are vehemently opposed in particular to the participation of troops from Ethiopia and Djibouti -- which along with Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and nominally Somalia make up IGAD.

The Somali MPs echoed that stance, saying troops from Ethiopia and Djibouti, countries perceived as having ulterior motives in Somalia because of their past involvement in the country, should not be included in the proposed force.

"You cannot expect somebody who was embroiled in the war in Somalia to be the one to bring an end to war," Ali said. "These two countries were part of the conflict, they cannot be part of peace."

Shortly before IGAD announced its deployment proposal on Monday in Uganda, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, the current chairman of bloc, said the deployment would happen "with or without" the support of the warlords.

But the Somali lawmakers here said Museveni's comments could lead to a dangerous escalation in fighting in Somalia, which has been gripped by 14 years of anarchy since the 1991 ouster of strongman Mohammed Siad Barre.

"If Museveni goes ahead and deploys, then it will be a military adventure that might backfire on him," Ali said, noting Uganda's foray into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 1998.

"He will not do what he did in eastern DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo, we will not accept it," Ali said. "Somebody should tell Museveni that Somalia is a long way away and he should come slowly."

Museveni deployed Ugandan troops in the eastern DRC in 1998 to protect Uganda from insurgents roaming there, but the United Nations and others accused his troops of looting in the resource-rich region.

bkb/mvl/nb AFP 151208 GMT 03 05

Copyright (c) 2005 Agence France-Presse
Received by NewsEdge Insight: 03/15/2005 10:29:42

Nairobi
Mood:  surprised
Now Playing: I don't get it
Hey,
I wanted to tell you i got your blog by looking at the latest blogs and when i read about the somalia thing, i got really excited although i didn't read the whole thing or understand what was wrote, i just got excited and surprised that Nairodi was there. Bcoz you know, i'm from nairobi. But i'm in the U.S now so keep me posted about anything you find about kenya
danx!

P.S. you can post me at my blog its ivy373.
Or even check out my site. it's http://ivy373.tripod.com
L8er. Asante (which means thanx in swahili.)

GEESKA AFRIKA ONLINE DAILY NEWS AND VIEWS
Djibouti (HAN) March 5, 2005 -On Monday again the Somalia President Abdullahi Yusuf defended his proposal to invite peacekeepers from neighboring countries, including his major regional supporter Ethiopia.



US Secretary Rice (R) and her South African counterpart Dlamini-Zuma

The United States says it is opposed to the use of troops from neighboring countries as peacekeepers in Somalia. The key warlords most dangerous capital militia (USC) are opposed to the inclusion of Ethiopian troops and there have been huge protests in the Mogadishu and USC militia throughout Southern Somalia. The Somalia's neighbors and especially Ethiopia have been accused of prolonging the anarchy by backing militias like SRRC, RRA and Somaliland.

There were chaotic scenes at Baidoa airport as people ran away from the aircraft as the militia demanded wages for guarding the planes for two days. According to the BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan the impasse lasted about 30 minutes. Local warlord Mohammed Nur Habsade assured the armed men that they would receive their money, and a supply of khat, an addictive stimulant popular in Somalia. Baidoa, suggested by some cabinet ministers as a safer, alternative seat for the new government, was by contrast the most dangerous, our correspondent says.

The United States shares the concerns of the international community and many Somalis regarding the introduction of foreign troops into Somalia," US state department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement.

"Somalia's neighbours have legitimate national interests that are best protected by the successful establishment of a stable and effective central government in Somalia; however, any external force should exclude troops from those countries," he said.

The Federal Somalia President wants Ethiopian troops to protect him from USC militia in southern Somalia and to disarm the Sixty thousand USC militiamen in Southern Somlia.

The Somalia President has ended his first official visit to the SRRC controlled area of Southern and easterner Somalia since being elected last year but did not go to the capital, Mogadishu, where he has a zero power base.