Fyr

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Posts posted by Fyr

  2. Posted

    Now this is personal, or was it friendly respect/joke? huh..

    No, it was merely a description of his first post.

     

     

    If “roll†means how we act, I can assure you that we are very nonchalant Somalis. As for Sweden being boring place comment, all I have to say is come and visit then the place before you make your childish judgements. For the weather conditions comment well I can’t complain to mush for the lovely spring weather. By the way how is your city’s weather treating you?

     

    but you shouldnt acted the way you did, without knowing for sure that i will get banned. now, you just made a total fool outta yourself. and believe me, im laughing at ya.

    Well I’ am glad that my “should’ve got†comment made you laugh some mush and in your eyes made me completely fool wish only goes to say what I said about your behaviour before.

    ps. the n-word wasnt an insult.

    Black.hawk you might like to be called the n-word but I really hope you know that there are people in this world whom don’t like to be called the n-word.

  3. Posted

    Originally posted by black.hawk:

    why was my post deleted without any notice?

     

    it went like this:

     

    i wonder how many meaningless threads nobody replies to, the SOL forum can sustain?

    LoL :D:D

    No it was more like the “N†word followed by “get the hell out of my thread†and then bla bla “why are you doing this†and finished with “I don’t like your presencesâ€

     

    You sound just like a kid who got his candy taken by other kids. How many times does one have to jog your memory that this is an open public forum and not a disclosed one? Anyone can have a say here got it? You’re lucky, calling someone the N word should’ve got you banned.

  7. Posted

    A truly twisted guy with a lot time on his hands and with one cruel way to make money or should we call it some form of extortion. It's repulsive what lows people will go to make money these days, well anyway I say let this guy eat the bunny.

     

    savetoby.com

  13. Posted

    Qat vs Sustainable Development

     

    Unsustainability as interpreted by Jodha (1992) refers to intergenerational inequity, an adaptation of the original Brundtland Report that starkly stated: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" (WCED, 1987). The problems associated with qat, primarily the reduction in the quality of the land resource and the rapid overpumping of stored water, preclude sustainable development. As for economic development, one subset of sustainable development, unquestionably qat has brought great benefits to the villagers engaged in growing it. But as Kennedy (1986) points out, the economic growth that has occurred "must be viewed as shallow and temporary." There is an illusion of economic prosperity in Yemen, which the profusion of Toyotas on the streets and electronic goods in the stores amply demonstrates. However, the essential societal changes that are a prerequisite for economic development are not present. Yemeni social critic Saad Saleh Khalis (1993b) writes that:

     

     

    "No development can be achieved in Yemen as long as this plant called qat takes up 90 percent of the spare time of the Yemeni people.... Some may argue that this is an old tradition of Yemen just like the arms and jambiyas. But even if that were so, harmful traditions must be thrown away.... The people and the government are satisfied with cursing qat and its effects."

     

     

     

    Indeed, the people and the government are satisfied with merely - and rarely - cursing qat; the government has no adequate policies to apply to the problem. In the interim, the population of Yemen is expected to double every 19 years. As in other developing nations, urbanization is rapid: by 1991, 30 percent of the population was urbanized, compared with just 13 percent in 1970 (World Bank, 1993; Anonymous, 1994). High infant (131 per 1,000) and child (190 per 1,000 for children under 5 years) mortalities are indicators of malnutrition, as is a maternal mortality of 10 percent per birth (Kolaise, 1994). The expulsion of 1.2 million Yemeni workers from Gulf Cooperation Council states following the 1991 Gulf War as a result of Yemen's support of Iraq has exacerbated unemployment (Fandy, 1995). Food prices are rising, and poverty is increasing.

     

    While on the one hand many households are becoming increasingly dependent on income from qat (Dr. Abd Al-Rahman Dubaie, pers. comm. with authors, Nov. 1994); on the other hand low- and mid-income qat chewers most certainly contribute to their own impoverishment. For example, Mahdi, an English-language teacher at a rural school 40 km west of San'a, in 1994 earned 9,000 Riyals a month, and spent 250 Riyals each time he chewed qat. He chewed three or four times a week, thus spending 33 to 44 percent of his salary on qat. We witnessed Mahdi asking for a cash advance from the local school administrator - not to buy food but to purchase qat. This codependency between producer and consumer is perhaps fragile. Since qat is not a physiologically addictive drug, one hypothesis suggests that most households will ultimately choose to eat rather than to chew qat. An opposing hypothesis contends that since some qat chewers are already willing to subject themselves to malnutrition, a possible scenario is that more will choose to do so, particularly because qat effectively reduces appetite. If the first hypothesis dominates, the demand for qat will diminish, pushing prices down. The question then is, how will producers react? Will they plant more qat in an attempt to maintain their income, or will they allow the reduction in price to stimulate demand as suggested by classical economics?

     

    While the latter response of producers is bad, because it does not address the issue of how Yemen can break out of the grip of qat, the former is worse. Since the enhanced supply would contribute to keeping market prices low, ever-increasing areas of land would be locked up in qat, and the tapping of water resources intensified. National food security would diminish, since it is always the best, most-productive lands that are converted to qat. The government will have to spend ever-larger sums of hard currency on food imports just to maintain the status quo, contributing to the inflationary spiral and increasing poverty levels. In the face of predicted population growth, malnutrition levels may greatly increase. And as we indicated above, malnutrition enhances the adverse effects of qat. In such a weakened physiological state, we speculate that many Yemenis would be unlikely to survive sustained, drought-induced food shortages that could occur at any time. Qat, then, is unquestionably beneficial to the households that grow it, but we believe it is severely damaging the national weal.

     

    http://ag.arizona.edu/~lmilich/yemen.html

  14. Posted

    By Riaan Manser

     

    I've missed my second Easter egg hiding session. I guess my routine of hiding Easter eggs in the garden for my dogs to uncover will have to wait until next year.

     

    Because Djibouti is a predominantly Muslim country Easter is not even mentioned. Not that these guys need any more holidays - they have probably the laziest existence I've yet encountered.

     

    For 80 percent of the male population, this is what an average day would look like.

     

    Slowly start work at about 8.30 or 9.00am, until 12.30. Then scramble to find your supply of the narcotic leaf "qat". Qat (pronounced "cat") is chewed for hours while reclining in a chair or sprawled on the ground.

     

    One cheek will be crammed with these chewed leaves, making the user look like a hamster with sunflower seeds stored in its mouth.

    The fine pulp of the chewed leaves makes its way on to the front teeth and is sprayed out in greeting. It's an undignified sight.

     

    The qat chewing takes up to four hours and people return to work at 4.30pm for three more hours. That adds up to a gruelling day of six and a half hours.

     

    Many people return to the "qat dens" after work to continue chewing this addictive drug.

     

    Adding insult to the productive, capitalist mindset that many of you may have is that Thursday afternoons and Fridays are write-offs for getting anything done.

     

    Hardly a soul moves on Friday morning, although more people seem to rise the closer it gets to the afternoon prayer time.

     

    Qat consumption is a serious problem that has received national and international attention. Studies have found that people living below the bread line in countries where qat is available spend about 10 percent of their income on this leaf.

     

    A supply of good quality qat for an afternoon session will cost around R30.

     

    Qat is flown in daily from Ethiopia and receives priority clearance before many other important consignments.

     

    I have seen people chase after the trucks that bring qat into town for distribution. :D

     

    A story doing the rounds here is that when then-United States secretary of state Colin Powell visited Djibouti before the Iraqi war in 2003, he was mobbed by angry locals.

     

    Many believed that they were demonstrating against the US and its policies, but this is untrue.

     

    Powell's flight had taken precedence over all air traffic coming into Djibouti International.

     

    And, you guessed it, the Ethiopian flight carrying the qat was circling above while the Djiboutians were going into withdrawal and Powell was handing out "God bless America" T-shirts. :D:D:D

     

    But what sort of person would I be if I merely criticised?

     

    I carried out some first-hand research and found women were the main distributors of qat. It didn't take me long to find a "dealer" who could supply me with a bag of the Ethiopian leaves.

     

    I found some locals I knew and ordered the customary cup of tea and a sheet of cardboard to sit on.

     

    The leaves taste very unpleasant and I had to laugh thinking about the goats that were walking around us - they were eating plastic and here was I eating their food - leaves. :D:D:D

     

    There were no fireworks for me, although I did have some cold shivers, even as the mercury was hitting the high 30s. I also found it very difficult to sleep. And, to top it all, I had a souvenir headache to start the following day. Some locals told me to use qat while cycling home to South Africa.

     

    One old (wise?) man asked me how many kilometres I cycled a day. Before I could answer, he said. "Don't worry, just add a zero to that. That's how much you can cycle with qat."

     

    Tempting! But quite honestly I don't understand it. Why would people, in such large numbers, be so fascinated by this drug? The greatest ally a dictatorial regime needs is a big distraction like war, religion or qat! ;)

     

    But other people's lives, so different from our own, are guaranteed to be interesting.

     

    I wish I could write more, because Djibouti was an eye-opener. For more information about qat and how it has affected peoples' lives, look up: http:/ag.arizona.edu/~lmilich/yemen.html

  16. Posted

    A rising China counters US clout in Africa

     

    Trade drives political role ahead of Zimbabwe's election.

     

    By Abraham McLaughlin | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

     

    HARARE, ZIMBABWE – The Chinese economic juggernaut and its thirst for minerals and markets has increasingly brought it to Africa, including here to Zimbabwe. The fertile hills of this Southern African nation are rich with gold and the world's second-largest platinum reserves. In Sudan, Angola, and along the Gulf of Guinea, the Asian giant is guzzling the continent's vast oil supply.

    But lately the Chinese are digging on a different front, one that could complicate the Bush administration's efforts to promote democracy here: African politics.

     

     

    Last year, China stymied US efforts to levy sanctions on Sudan, which supplies nearly 5 percent of China's oil and where the US says genocide has occurred in its Darfur region. And as Zimbabwe becomes more isolated from the West, China has sent crates of T-shirts for ruling-party supporters who will vote in Thursday's parliamentary elections.

     

    In addition, China or its businesses have reportedly:

     

    • provided a radio-jamming device for a military base outside the capital, preventing independent stations from balancing state-controlled media during the election campaign;

     

    • begun to deliver 12 fighter jets and 100 trucks to Zimbabwe's Army amid a Western arms embargo; and

     

    • designed President Robert Mugabe's new 25-bedroom mansion, complete with helipad. The cobalt-blue tiles for its swooping roof, which echoes Beijing's Forbidden City, were a Chinese gift.

     

    China is increasingly making its presence felt on the continent - from building roads in Kenya and Rwanda to increasing trade with Uganda and South Africa. But critics say its involvement in politics could help prop up questionable regimes, like Mr. Mugabe's increasingly autocratic 25-year reign.

     

    "Suffering under the effects of international isolation, Zimbabwe has looked to new partners, including China, who won't attach conditions, such as economic and political reform" to their support, says a Western diplomat here. Of China's influence on this week's elections, he adds, "I find it hard to believe the Chinese would push hard for free and fair elections - it's not the standard they're known for."

     

    Indeed, Mugabe often praises China and Asia as part of his new "Look East" policy. He responded to tough questions from an interviewer on Britain's Sky News last year about building his $9 million new home, while millions of Zimbabweans live on the verge of starvation, by saying: "You say it's lavish because it is attractive. It has Chinese roofing material, which makes it very beautiful, but it was donated to us. The Chinese are our good friends, you see."

     

    China is becoming good friends to many African nations, as the US has been. Between 2002 and 2003, China-Africa trade jumped 50 percent, to $18.5 billion, Chinese officials say. It's expected to grow to $30 billion by 2006. US-Africa trade was $44.5 billion last year, according to the Commerce Department. As the world's largest oil importer behind the US, China has oil interests in Sudan, Chad, Nigeria, Angola, and Gabon. The US is also hunting for oil in Africa, with about 10 percent of imports coming from the continent.

     

    Not all of China's activities in Africa are controversial. Under the auspices of the UN, the China-Africa Business Council opened this month, headquartered in China, to boost trade and development. It has peacekeepers in Liberia and has contributed to construction projects in Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Zambia, though critics say it is using these projects to garner goodwill that it can tap into during prickly issues like Taiwan's independence or UN face-offs with the US.

     

    Here in Zimbabwe, China also may be helping to support one of Africa's more oppressive regimes. The radio-jamming equipment that has prevented the independent Short Wave Radio Africa from broadcasting into the country is Chinese, according to the US-funded International Broadcast Bureau.

     

    Reporters Without Borders, a group dedicated to freedom of the press, based in Paris, had this to say about the jamming: "Thanks to support from China, which exports its repressive expertise, Robert Mugabe's government has yet again just proved itself to be one of the most active predators of press freedom."

     

    A Chinese diplomat here insists the equipment didn't come from China. And he says the T-shirts, which reportedly arrived on Air Zimbabwe's new direct flight from Beijing, were "purely a business transaction." But he adds that China-Zimbabwe relations have recently "been cemented in the field of politics and business."

     

    In return for its support, China has received diplomatic backing on Taiwan's independence, as it has from many African nations.

     

    Ultimately, China's expansion into Zimbabwe and Africa is more narrow than the 1800s colonization by European powers, when "Christianity, civilization, and commerce" were the buzzwords. For China, it's all about economics. "They've said: 'If you agree to privatize and sell to us your railways, your electricity generation, etc. - we will come in with capital," says John Robertson, an economist based in Harare.

     

    With an economy that has shrunk as much as 40 percent in five years, Zimbabwe's government uses these promises to put off critics. "The government says, 'The Chinese are coming, and they'll bring in billions of dollars in investment, and soon everything will be fully restored,' " Mr. Robertson says.

  17. Posted

    China and the Final War for Resources.

     

    Our vacation in the west is soon over ladies and gentlemen, all of us need to pack our bags and head home as soon as possible. Because when these wars starts, we are either simple-minded nomads we once were when we where colonised or fully educated nomads ready to protect what little recourses we have. These atheists, resource hunger nations will come and colonise us for our resources when they have nothing left. Instead of setting on our comfortable western homes and chit chat about never-ending Somali/Qabill topics, we need to go home and help rebuild our homeland and be primed citizens, ready to defend our land.

  18. Posted

    Interesting but false, the people of Mogadishu are not savages and I never said that. I have family in Mogadishu and Hobyo who I love, I know I said that.How you forget..

     

    As for calling a war in Juba, no sorry I was reporting on the battles going on between Morgan and Hiiraale, me and Horn took sides but neither of us created those battles and I dont remember advocating that war be made on the people of Juba.

     

    I am opposed to warlords, people who hide behind clans and those who oppress my Somali people.

    I which you could see what you write when juma gets on your nerves Duke :D

    Reporting is one thing but with good intentions isn’t something neither of you did Duke.

  19. Posted

    Actually my payment was in a form of a grad few years back. Sky.african or WD or what ever you call yourself these days, if I were you I would worry about when SOL banns public proxy servers.

     

    DUKE!

    Grown and educated man whom constantly boasts about how nationalistic he is can’t even take the higher road and leave the nonsense clan debates with juma.

     

    Instead of trying to show us the brotherly love of Somaliweyn and all the beauty that comes with it, you show us the very thing we hate.

     

    LoL we are your brothers when thinks go your way isn’t? One day you praise the capital city and its people, another day you call them savages. You praise Warlords when they follow your uncle and denounce them when they don’t.

     

    You say you are saddened by the loss life and the fighting in hobyo, it was not too long ago when you were advocating for war in Jubba. Your double standards are crystal clear Duke

  23. Posted

    SOMALIA: Interim government to relocate to Baidoa and Jowhar

    22 Mar 2005 11:36:12 GMT

     

    Source: IRIN

     

    NAIROBI, 22 March (IRIN) - The interim Somali government, based in Nairobi, Kenya, is to relocate to the towns of Baidoa, 240-km southwest of the capital Mogadishu, and Jowhar, 90-km north of the capital, an official told IRIN on Tuesday.

     

    "The cabinet has decided that the government will temporarily relocate to Jowhar and Baidoa," Abdirahman Nur Dinari, a government spokesman, said. It would operate simultaneously from the two towns, he added.

     

    The move, he added, was backed by 64 of the 74 ministers present during a council of ministers meeting on Monday. However, other sources said 10 ministers, including key Mogadishu-based faction leaders, walked out of the meeting in protest. These included Usman Hassan Ali "Atto", Muse Sudi Yalahow, Umar Mahamud "Finish" and Muhammad Qanyare Afrah.

     

    The leaders who walked out, between them, control most of the capital city and wanted the government to move there directly. They had asked for three months "to prepare and secure the city" for the government, according to a Somali political source.

     

    Dinari said the faction leaders had failed to prepare the city and it had remained "insecure and extremely dangerous".

     

    "This is why the government found it necessary to relocate elsewhere," he told IRIN. "There is no split within the cabinet. A vote was taken and the majority view prevailed."

     

    The spokesman said the government would open an office in Mogadishu "to monitor the situation and once it is decided that the capital is ready, the government will move there".

     

    A member of parliament however criticised the decision to relocate to the two towns instead of Mogadishu, terming it unconstitutional.

     

    "The move to change the capital even temporarily is a constitutional matter and can only be decided by the full parliament," Ali Bashi Omar, told IRIN on Tuesday. "The cabinet on its own does not possess the constitutional power to change the capital."

     

    The new government, which includes several faction leaders, has so far failed to move to Mogadishu, citing security considerations. However, it has come under increasing pressure from the Kenyan government and western diplomats to relocate from Nairobi.

     

    Dinari told IRIN that now that a decision had been made to relocate to the two towns, the government would move very rapidly on it.

     

    "No specific time has been decided, but as soon as funding becomes available, we will be ready," he said.

     

    Somalia's transitional federal parliament elected Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed as president on 10 October 2004, at the end of a two-year reconciliation conference sponsored by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. He later appointed a prime minister, Ali Mohammed Gedi, who in turn named the cabinet

  24. Posted

    President Dahir Riyaale’s South African Connection

     

     

    Democracy Action Group (DAW) Somaliland: President Dahir Riyaale’s South African Connection

     

    The South African media, not known for giving adequate coverage to both Somalia and Somaliland in the past, began reporting about developments in Somaliland by 2000. In addition to the media coverage, the South African politicians, through the well connected Mvelaphanda founder, Tokyo Saxwell, availed the necessary political platforms for Somaliland politicians and citizens to promote their cause. The South African government also supported and financed South African election monitors to oversee both the Council elections and the presidential elections held in Somaliland in 2002 and 2003 respectively. South African delegations also delivered limited aid to Somaliland.

     

    Apart from this new relationship spurred by business interests, Somaliland had a past with South Africa. Somaliland played a big role in the struggle against apartheid in the seventies and eighties. The honorable Abby Farah, originally from Somaliland, led a UN fact-finding team to South Africa in 1989, which met with leaders such as the late ANC stalwart Walter Sisulu. South Africa also provided medical assistance for the late President Mohamad Ibrahim Egal (Rahmatullah Alayh) who died on May 3, 2002.

     

    South Africa’s recent announcement in November 2004 recognizing the right for self determination for the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic gave additional hope to Somaliland which already enjoyed a favorable stand with the South African government. President Dahir Riyaale, emboldened by this favorable environment, declared his visit to South Africa to promote the country’s cause. In a pub;ic just before his departure, President Dahir Riyaale announced that his the purpose of his visit to South Africa was primarily to get acquainted with South Africa’s democratization process. But reliable sources inside Somaliland claim that his visit was intended to further his business investments and gain political kudos that could give his party the upper hand in the upcoming parliamentary elections. These sources claim that the composition of the presidential delegation reflects the president’s real agenda. Excluding the Foreign Minister, who had a previously scheduled speech at a South African university, the Information Minister and the Minister of Fisheries and Coastal Development were the only senior members in the presidential delegation.

     

    Many political observers are of the opinion that the president’s visit was motivated by a business agenda rather than a political one, considering the suddenness of the trip and its 11 day span, an uncommon diplomatic privilege for the head of an unrecognized state. These views were further strengthened by the president’s only speech after his return. President Riyaale, in a short speech to the nation upon his return to the country on February 12th, 2005 summarized his trip to South Africa in a single statement: “ Three South African companies will soon invest in Somaliland and create more jobsâ€. In his speech the president promised that the Minister of Information will issue a detailed statement, but Somalilanders are still waiting to be briefed.

     

    In an exclusive interview with Benedicta Dube on 28 February 2005 and posted on Business in Africa Online on March 5th, 2005, President Dahir seemed to be emphasizing the business aspects of his trip. President Dahir Riyaale dandled the carrot of potential oil, gas, coal, gypsum and marine resources to interest Malaveland; a strategy which could adversely affect Somaliland due to the lack of governmental transparency policies, a non-inclusive approach towards national issues the lack of an effective and independent auditing.

     

    Though President Riyaale met with local South African politicians and religious and civil society leaders, he spent most of his visit in meetings with the business elite of Mvelphanda and other subsidiaries. He met with Tokyo Saxwell, the controversial founder of Mvelphanda, Jonathan Oppenheimer of the Ppenheimer family who owns the giant De Beers diamond company, Mr. Vusi Mavimbela, Director of Business Strategy in charge of driving the continental expansion strategy of the company and other business executives. Mavelphanda, one of South Africa’s investment powerhouses and a leader in and mineral exploration in South Africa, announced in January Oppenheimer of the De Beers Diamond Giant 2005 that it is planning to spearhead South Africa’s ambitious oil explorations into African countries including Mozambique, Angola and Somaliland “The South African Business DayJanuary24, 2005".

     

    Tokyo Saxwel, the founder of Maveland and a veteran ANC leader, is mired in controversies since the consolidation of the company in 1998. In January 2004 the US and the UN declared that his company had been among 270 individuals, organizations and companies that had received oil allocations and vouchers from Saddam Hussein, in violation of the UN imposed embargoon Iraq. Many South African businessmen also accuse him of benefitting from his close friendship with the South African Prime Minister, Thomas Mbeki.

     

    President Dahir Riyale had also a brief meeting with Mr. Vusi Mavimbela, the company’s Director of Business Strategy. Mr. Mavimbela was South Africa’s Director General of the National Intelligence Agency from 1999 till late 2004. He joined Mvelaphanda in January 2005 to spearhead the company’s expansion strategy into Africa. Mr. Mvimbela is one of the closest political, security and intelligence advisors to the South Africa’s president, Thabo Mbeki, since 1994. Immediatelt upon his appointment as the Director of the National Intelligence Agency, the South African government was accused of spying against the German Embassy and the opposition Democratic party. Many in South Africa saw this as the blueprint of operandi for the new intelligence director. During his directorship of the South African spy agency, NIA, Mr. Mavimbela did not hide his belief the any country’s intelligence resources must be used to promote its government policies and the objectives of the business corporations.

     

    This cozy relationship between the government, the corporations and the intelligence services worried democracy advocates in South Africa. Similarly, political observers and democracy activists inside Somaliland rightly worry about the close relationship between Mr. Vusi Mavimbela and President Dahir Riyaale; both career intelligence officers before becoming business and political leaders respectively.

     

    The first phase of the push into Somaliland by Mvelphanda is already underway with the blessing of President Dahir Riyaale. In his speech at a dinner hosted by the Muslim Judicial Council in Cape Town, President Dahir Riyaale said “ We appreciate how South African companies such as Mvelephanda Holdings have attained our oil concessions, how your well placed mineral companies such as Plat Min are beginning gem stone mining and how South Africa’s telecommunications sector have installed satellite technology, which gives us broadband, 24-hour internet access at times faster than some homes in Cape Town or Pretoriaâ€. “Somaliland Government Press Release, February 1st, 2005".

     

    What the president failed to mention is that he already owns considerable shares in Anglo Platinum of South Africa, the world’s leading Platinum producer. Anglo Platinum is closely connected to the De Beers diamond (owns 45% of De Beers shares) company run by Jonathan Oppenheimer who met President Dahir Riyaale while in South Africa.

     

    Business sources inside Somaliland also claim that president Dahir Riyaale secretly met with a business executive from Mvelaphanda to diversify his investment portfolio in South Africa. The president’s investments in South Africa were initiated by President Omar Gelle of Djibouti who convinced him to diversify into the lucrative South African business markets instead of concentrating on real estate in the Gulf, Europe and North America.

     

    Ismail Omar Guelleh initiated the first South African business investment on behalf of President Dahir Riyaale in the summer of 2002 in Durban, South Africa. This coincided with President Guelleh’s meeting with UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan during the later’s visit to South Africa on July 6th, 2002 to attend the OAU/AU general meeting. Throughout 2003 President Guelleh was the defacto business consultant of President Dahir Riyaale in all South African business transactions.

     

    This mutual partnership continued despite President Guelleh’s declared anti-Somaliland stand. In an interview with IRIN in Djibouti on 29th October 2003, when asked about his relations with Somaliland, he responded: “It is going the same way as the south – there are now fundamentalists who want to destabilize the situation. Unless the south is stable, Somaliland cannot be stable, contrary to what they think… And of course we support a united Somalia. We cannot allow ourselves to advocate secession.†To contain President Guelleh stand against Somaliland, President Dahir Riyaale paid him a visit on November 14th 2003 but to no avail. The anti-Somaliland stand of President Guelleh did not affect his business partnership with Somalilan’s president. On the contrary, it flourished and extended into the South African markets.

     

    President Guelleh’s investments and business dealings in South Africa increased significantly by 2003. In mid 2005 he became infuriated over being implicitly tied to enquiries in France in the mysterious death of the French magistrate Bernard Borrel in October 1995. As a result of the Frenchs stand on the case, President Guelleh further increased his business involvement and indirectly mounted an assault on French interests ib Djibouti and South Africa. He started his assault with the French company; TotalFinaElf by buying into a rival South African company who competed for mineral prospecting in South Africa.

     

    The French company lost the bid as a result of President Guelleh’s aggressive investment in the competing South African mineral resource company with aid of additional funds from President Dahir Riyaale’s allocated investment funds. With President Dahir Riyaale’ recent visit to South Africa, his meeting with Mavelaphanda and Dee Beers tycoons, many observers expect that both Ismail Omar Guelleh and Dahir Riyaale will expand their investment portfolio beyond the South African resource company to include other investments in France and Abu Dhabi.

     

    Many Somaliland observers and concerned citizens also worry about the implications of this Mavelphanda-Riyaale connection. In his speech to the Muslim Judicial Council in Cape Town, President Riyaale mentioned that South African oil companies including Mvelphanda, already have oil exploration concessions. The president also mentioned that other South African companies are already into the satellite telecommunication sector in Somalilnd, while other South African companies are already investing in mineral exploration including platinum, gem stones and other rare metals in Somaliland “Somaliland Government Press Release, February 1st, 2005".

     

    Neither the details of these investments and oil and mineral resource explorations, nor the involvement of Mvelphanda with the blessing of the president, were ever mentioned, discused or debated inside Somaliland’s House of Representatives or the Senate.

     

    Therefore, many Somalilanders believe that President Dahir Riyaale MUST clarify the scope of his involvement with Mvelaphanda, the details of the oil and mineral resource exploration agreements and the whether he have investments or vested interests in South African companies who were granted concession rights in Somaliland?

     

    Why Jonathan Oppenheimer, considered to be the richest man in Africa “ The Economist July 15th, 2004" and the scion of the De Beers diamond dynasty that controls 60% of the world’s $US8.3 billion market share in rough diamonds, would easily entertain an audience with President Riyaale of Somaliland?

     

    Many in the trade and several countries including the US consider De Beers's system of doing business highly secretive “The Cartel isn’t Forever, The Economist July 15th, 2004". Would President Riyaale succumb to this conditional secrecy of doing business with De Beers and leave Somaliland’s democratic institutions and the public in the dark? And at what cost to his political future?

     

    Regarding the oil exploration concessions, oil industry investors are aware of the exploration licenses granted to Conoco, along with Amoco, Chevron, Phillips and Shell in 1986. All sought and obtained exploration licenses for northern Somalia from Siad Barre's government. Somalia was soon carved up into concession blocs, with Conoco, Amoco and Chevron winning the right to explore and exploit the most promising ones.

     

    What are the implications of granting the same rights to Mvelaphanda of South Africa? What are the details of these new concessions and what adverse implications they might have on Somaliland’s integrity in the international markets in future oil explorations negotiations?

     

    The public and the country’s institutions deserve to have answers for these questions from President Dahir Riyaale.

     

    Source:

    Mohamad Doaleh

    mdoaleh@yahoo.com

    Democracy Action Watch/ Somaliland

  25. Posted

    Somali MPs in peacekeeper brawl

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    "Bleeding wounds

     

    According to the BBC's Caroline Karobia in Nairobi the scuffles began after the parliament speaker asked MPs to raise their hands in the vote.

     

    More than half of them were against sending regional troops to Somalia".

     

     

    "Meanwhile, the regional body Igad, has warned the new Somalia transitional government that time is running out for it to re-locate from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi back to Mogadishu."