Somaliland – the pull of terror – ISN
November 11th, 2008
Somaliland flag (ISN)
Recent terror attacks in the self-styled independent Somaliland could be designed to destabilize the secessionist region, dragging it into Somalia’s brutal quagmire, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
Somaliland is not Somalia. Ever since Somalia fell apart in the early 1990s that has been the message hammered out by Hargeisa’s would-be officials, who would be officially officials if Somaliland was ever officially recognized.
The latter has not yet happened, despite Somaliland’s relative stability and nascent democracy – casting the rest of what was Somalia more clearly as the wanton haven for pirates, warlords, terrorists and chronic suffering that it is – with over 3 million people homeless due to fighting, and aid workers a constant target for murder and kidnap.
Somaliland has a working political system, government institutions and its own currency. 
(more…)
Congo – Ghosts of Liberation – ISN
November 7th, 2008
Ghosts of liberation
Genocide’s legacy looms in the eastern Congo as renewed fighting sparks diplomatic grandstanding, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
Reacting to renewed fighting in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), British Prime Minister Gordon Brown proclaimed last weekend: “We must not allow Congo to become another Rwanda.”
Foreign Minister David Millband joined his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, in eastern DRC in a show of diplomatic concern, with talk of EU troops coming to back up an overwhelmed UN force.
(more…)
Darfur: Is Qatar’s Peace Process Stillborn – IslamOnline
October 29th, 2008
Fighters from the Minni Minawi faction of the Sudanese Liberation Army who signed the Darfur Peace agreement, take part in a military exercise during UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador actress Mia Farrow's visit, at Galap camp, north of Darfur. (Reuters' photo).
Despite objecting to previous initiatives to get a UN peacekeeping force in to the western Sudan region, Qatar has set itself as the latest honest broker attempting to mediate a solution to the Darfur conflict, but some may see it as another move to sidestep the International Criminal Court.
When Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir was accused last July by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of 10 charges: three counts of genocide, five of crimes against humanity and two of murder, odds were long that the erstwhile coup leader would ever face trial.
Odds were shorter, of course, that the willful and wily Al-Bashir, now a somewhat Janus-faced US ally in the “war on terror,” would pull some stunt to undermine the ICC warrant. His latest gambit – the apparent arrest of Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman, commonly known as Ali Kushayb, a prominent Janjaweed commander – is as transparently hollow in its sincerity, as it is adolescent in its audacity. At the same time, it could prove a factor, among many others, in ensuring Sudan’s President does not join Head of State counterparts Charles Taylor and Slobodan Milosevic in facing international justice.
Khartoum has appointed special prosecutor for Darfur crimes, and announced that it will try Kushayb, who, like Al-Bashir, is wanted by the ICC.
Diplomatic Back-Channeling
Nice work if you can get it. This move comes after three months of diplomatic back- channeling, with the National Islamic Front (NIF)/National Congress Party (NCP) leadership in Khartoum assiduously- cultivating (more…)
Zimbabwe: credit where credit’s due – ISN
September 17th, 2008
Morgan Tsvangirai campaign poster - Zimbabwe's April 2008 election
Zimbabweans face economic turmoil, putting the western market crisis into sharp relief, while a new unity government deal seems a ploy to put aid money into ZANU-PF coffers, Simon Roughneen writes for ISN Security Watch.
Perhaps he was thinking of Joshua Nkomo – Robert Mugabe’s former liberation-ally later political rival who joined ZANU-PF in a coalition government in the 1980s – only to see some 20,000 of his supporters killed, as Mugabe ensured his then-rival posed no real challenge here to his hegemony.
Maybe he has a pension plan in a western bank, and was sweating over the Lehman Brothers collapse, which was simultaneously reverberating around the world’s stock markets as he sat impassively after making an impassioned plea to the world’s donors:
‘We need to unlock our doors to aid [...] we need medicine, food and doctors back in our country.’ (more…)
Charging of al-Bashir may provoke backlash – The Irish Times
July 15th, 2008
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/0715/1215940932576.html
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir
OPINION: The International Criminal Court may lay genocide charges against President Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese dictator, but he’s unlikely ever to stand trial, writes Simon Roughneen .
‘Peace and justice are two sides of the same coin.” The words of former US president Dwight Eisenhower may offer some long-term solace for those caught up in Sudan’s regionalised wars, but yesterday’s landmark charging of Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, with 10 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC) may scupper any chance of bringing peace to the wider region.
Or so goes the argument. The “peace and justice” template has become a “peace versus justice” dichotomy, as immediate-term political realities prompt less idealistic observers to question the efficacy of courts and tribunals intervening in real-time conflicts.
To illustrate, in Uganda, ICC proceedings against senior figures in the millenarian-psychopathic Lord’s Resistance Army are regarded as hindering the faltering peace process, after two decades of cult-driven rape, abduction and murder. Meanwhile, the ICC trial of Thomas Lubanga, a Congolese militia boss accused of recruiting child soldiers, has stalled amid disputes over evidence being withheld from the defence.
Sudan might prove different, however. Not only are the charges more significant – including genocide – politically speaking, there is scant peace left for the ICC to destabilise. (more…)
Narcotic use, drought rob babies of food – The Washington Times
July 13th, 2008
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jul/13/narcotic-use-drought-rob-babies-of-food/
DIRE DAWA, Ethiopia | When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most.
Weighing only 10 pounds, Ayaan is among nearly 100,000 Ethiopian children whose lives are at risk. Just four days before her first birthday, she is lighter than an average 3-month-old baby.
A clinic at Kersi, about 15 miles outside Ethiopia’s second city Dire Dawa, has seen an increasing number of such cases in recent weeks, as have locations across the south and west of the country. Much of the land is used to grow the cash-crop narcotic known as khat.
Khat plantation outside Dire Dawa, June 08 (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
In more than a dozen villages outside the city, this reporter witnessed groups of mainly young men, but also some women, getting high in the shade on the chewed leaves. Khat is an appetite suppressant, and local culture means that children often eat only after adults. (more…)
Despite food shortages, Ethiopia to grow biofuel crops – The Irish Examiner
July 7th, 2008
Despite hunger, Ethiopia’s growing economy looks to biofuel crops to cut energy costs
- Simon Roughneen, Dire Dawa, eastern Ethiopia
When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most. Weighing only 4.5 kg, Ayaan is among the almost 100,000 children whose lives are at risk across Ethiopia. Just four days before her first birthday, she weighs no more than an average 3 month old baby. This clinic, about 15 miles outside Ethiopia’s second city Dire Dawa, is seeing an increasing amount of such cases over recent weeks.
Mother gives her child some specially-made therapeutic food, designed to offset malnutrition (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Here land is used to grow the cash-crop narcotic known as khat. In over a dozen villages on the northbound road out of the city, this reporter witnessed groups of mainly young men, but also some women, getting high in the shade on the chewed leaves. This drug is an appetite-suppressant, and local culture means that children often only eat after adults. As the doctor at this clinic told this newspaper “if parents are on khat, the whole family goes hungry.” (more…)
Young Ethiopians malnourished – RTÉ World Report
July 5th, 2008
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0705/worldreport.html
At a feeding centre for malnourished children in southern Ethiopia (Photo: Simon Roughneen)
Ethiopia: already too late? – Irish Examiner
June 30th, 2008
Mother & child at GOAL clinic, Awassa. (Simon Roughneen)
- Awassa, southern Ethiopia
“She is seven years old”, said Matiwos Kambata to this reporter. Incredulity would be the most apt response, were it not for the fact that his little sister Regisa, who looks no more than three years of age, is among the hundreds of thousands whose lives are in jeopardy as Ethiopia suffers another life-destroying drought. The darkening clouds – the wrong ones – of drought and hunger again stalk the countryside, while the much-needed rainbearers remain elusive, aloof as some capricious deity in the sky and oblivious to Regisa and the hundreds of thousands of severely-malnourished children below.
When drought and food shortages hit, it is the very young who suffer first, and most. The stabilisation clinic at Galla Wacho, about 40 kilometers from the regional capital Awassa, where Matiwos and Regisa have stayed for a week, to allow the medics there carefully oversee what all hope to be the first step in her recovery, usually caters for under-fives, rather than older children.
A crisis spreading? Perhaps. Sitting alongside Regisa is Benetu: listless, emaciated, unable to walk due to a combination of hunger and illness, but at twelve years old a fearful indication that as the drought takes its toll, the crisis threatens to spread to older and stronger age groups. (more…)
Ethiopian drought effects made worse by global food and fuel prices – VoA
June 26th, 2008
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2008-06-26-voa33.cfm MP3 below: |
- Simon Roughneen with Joe deCapua
It’s estimated four and a half million people in Ethiopia need immediate food assistance as a result of drought. That’s on top of more than seven million already receiving other types of humanitarian and government aid. Higher food prices have made it more difficult to deal with the situation.
Simon Roughneen, a freelance journalist and analyst, is traveling through the drought-stricken parts of the country. He’s currently in Sidama Province in the southwest, about 800 kilometers from Addis Ababa. He spoke to VOA English to Africa Service reporter Joe De Capua. (more…)
