AP_Somali_Fighters

Fresh fighting erupted in Somalia’s main capital, Mogadishu, between the government forces backed by the Africa Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Hizbul Islam terror group. Reports say that at least 13 people have died and 40 others were injured in the ensuing battle amidst plans by the AU to boost its troops levels. Media sources are reporting 11 deaths but sources in Mogadishu confirms 13 deaths to AfrobeatRadio’s East Africa correspondent, Abdulaziz Bilow.

“Hizbul Islam carried out simultaneous attacks yesterday on the presidential palace in the north of the capital, Mogadishu, and in an area, south of the city known as Tarabunk Junction.” said Sheikh Mohamed Osman Arus, a spokesman for the militant group. Arus was quoted as saying that “We burned a government armored vehicle and we inflicted many losses, we have cleared out many enemy positions.”

Most of the casualties are said to be women and children who were killed when a stray shell landed in the central Bakara market, said Ali Muse Sheikh, a paramedic for Nation link and Lifeline Africa. Separately, Colonel Saed Abdi Hassan, a spokesperson for the Somali government forces, said yesterday’s fighting lasted about half an hour. “The terrorist elements attacked our positions but they lost many people in the battle, none of us were hurt in the battle.” Said Saed.

The African Union plans to send an additional batch of 2,000 additional peacekeepers to Somalia to boost its existing contingent of 6,100-strong force, a move welcomed by the United Nations as a sign that there is “heightened concern” at the continental body about the Somali conflict.

Augustine Mahiga, the UN Special Representative for Somalia, said in a statement on the UN’s website yesterday that the deployment will take place within the next 40 days and troops will be airlifted by U.S., European Union and Algerian aircraft.

TFG spokesperson Abdulkadir Mohamoud Walayo, spokesman for the transitional federal government, said, “Their decision is a lifeline for the transitional government and is good not only for security in Somalia but for security in neighbouring countries,”

The weak AU/UN transitional federal government of Somalia has been battling two insurgents Al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam groups for the past three years.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

The president of the semi-autonomous region Abdirahman Mohamed Farole also said that his forces captured some of the al-Shabab fighters and were now in their custody. He vowed to defend peace in the region from Al-Shabab and other terrorist groups. He also vowed to capture the group’s new leader Sheikh Mohamed Atam who has led the attack since Monday morning.

The president accused the radical militant group of Al-Shabab of trying to grab the mountains in Puntland and the areas bordering the Gulf of Aden so the extremist can ship more foreign fighters into bullet riddled Somalia. At least two members of Puntland’s security forces were also killed in the clashes in the mountains near Galgalo.

Puntland is semi-autonomous from the rest of Somalia but is allied to the embattled, UN-backed government in Mogadishu. Meanwhile, fresh fighting also broke out in the north and south of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

Somalia has been without a functional government since 1991 after warlords toppled Siad Bare’s regime leading to an all out war and the emergence of dangerous rebel groups like Al-Shabab and Hizbul Islam.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

Those killed were reported to have been drinking moonshine laced with methanol at a popular drinking den in the slum for the better part of Sunday. Community workers at the Kibera Laini Saba of Soweto East Location were busy trying to locate missing persons on Monday afternoon, after word went round that more people, mainly young men who live alone may have died in their houses at night.

“So far, we have recovered eight bodies, these are people who failed to wake up from their houses and when we opened we found them dead,” one community worker who only identified himself as Elkana said.

AfrobeatRadio correspondent, Abdulaziz Billow accompanied the community workers to four of the houses located within a distance of about 200 meters where seven bodies were found. One of them included that of a 24-year-old man and a 37-year-old woman who was identified only as Bretha. “She went drinking last night in the company of her friends, we did not see her until at about midnight when I heard her passing outside my house, and this morning she did not wake up that is when we got curious,” a neighbour Christine Omolo said.

Area chief Clement Ombati, told journalists that four other victims had died while being taken to hospital. “The situation here is pathetic, there are more than ten people who have been taken to hospital but their situation is not very good, we only hope for the best,” Mr Ombati said.

At least ten people were blinded after consuming the bootleg locally known as chang’aa which police believe was laced with an industrial chemical police believe to be Methanol.

“We have submitted samples of these brews to the government chemist and we are waiting for the results, we are currently questioning one of the women picked up from the house where the brew was being sold,” Nairobi PPO Anthony Kibuchi said.

Kenya is not new to such cases. Three months ago, 12 people died after consuming similar illicit brew in Nairobi’s Shauri Moyo estate where more than 20 other people were blinded. And in June 2005, 49 people died in Machakos after they consumed illicit home-made brew suspected to have been laced with a poisonous substance.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

According to a statement issued by Seychelles Department of Legal Affairs, eight of the pirates sentenced were convicted of piracy, while three others were convicted of aiding and abetting piracy, for trying to hijack the patrol boat. Four of them were less than 18 years old. “Their conviction is a historical milestone as it is the first time that a piracy trial is successfully prosecuted in the Seychelles,” said the statement.

“These convictions will serve as a deterrent for prospective Somali pirates who would otherwise have thought they would have come into Seychelles waters with impunity,” the Department of Legal Affairs said. The only two nations that agreed to take pirates are only Kenya and the Seychelles but both nations have recently complained about the burden of trying and jailing pirates in their countries.

Kenya has memoranda of understanding with EU, United States, Canada, Denmark, China and Britain whereby it takes in suspects intercepted at sea and prosecutes them in courts in Mombasa.

The agreements allowing foreign naval powers to hand over suspects to Kenya instead of taking them back home for prosecution. Ransom hunting pirates have continued to cause havoc at the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean despite the presence of NATO, EU, Russia, China, South Korea and India naval forces in the region to protect cargo and cruise ships against piracy.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

When two days later, the New York Times published an article saying that Fèmi saw the show on Tuesday night, I marveled at the 180 degree turnabout. Was he in cahoots with the producers and the media in some kind of publicity stunt? It was an express and perplexing turnaround. Was it not the Kuti family who sold the rights to their father’s legacy to the American producers? If Fèmi was involved, surely he should have known what that entailed. All further creative and business decisions are in the hands of the buyer.

The second New York Times article went on to explain that Fèmi’s decision was based on a promise by one of the producers [Steve Hendel, whom he met the night before] to bring the play to Lagos before the end of the year. Now Fèmi owns and runs the rebuilt Shrine. He’s supposed to be a businessman. That’s why I found his change-of-mind stunning in its naiveté. In his place, if I was serious about my stance, I would have had my lawyer draw a contract for the show to come to the Shrine. He should not have capitulated to see the play based on promises by producers who are very likely to be seasoned negotiators.

First of all, producers and investors of Broadway plays aim for long runs for a play to be successful and to recoup investments. I doubt that the Lagos public will be able to sustain such a goal. I’m not sure that a sense of appreciation for theatre has been developed in the populace. Why, it was not so long ago that the city did not even have a functioning movie house. If the producer promised a one off, I do wonder how cost effective that would be. It would involve taking cast, crew, lighting and all logistics associated with the play, to Lagos. Just for one show? I don’t think so.

In any event, whether it’s a one off or an extended run, the vengeful, petty and criminal Nigerian authorities will be sure to put every hurdle in their way, from power cuts, to road blocks to bribery. It will be a nightmare. I wait to be proven wrong. But back to Fèmi. During the intermission, he was interviewed by a journalist from Sahara Reporters and did not acquit himself in a professional manner at all.

The now viral video of the interview has done more to damage his image and polarize opinions about him. The reporter asked Fèmi why is it that he was not fighting against the corrupt system the way his father did. It was an unfair and possibly provocative question. His father would have handled it with humor and used the opportunity as a teachable moment to gently school the reporter.

Fèmi went all angry Nigerian ghetto on the reporter and disrespected him in a way that he would not have done had the same question been posed by a white reporter. Sad and arrogant were my thoughts on seeing the video. Judge for yourself.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Written by Akenataa Hammagaadji.
Akenaata Hammagaadji is an African music expert and cultural critic. He is the radio host of First World Music; an African music programme broadcast from WVKR. His insightful music reviews, which goes beyond music into cultural dissections, can be found in his weekly First World Music Newsletter, now a blog on afrobeatradio.net

Moses Wetangula

Kenya’s foreign affairs minister has urged the African Union (AU) to take strong actions against the Somali militant group following the July 11^th Kampala bombings. Moses Wetangula was speaking at the opening of the Executive Council of the African Union Friday in Uganda’s capital Kampala. He called for strengthening the AU military operation in Somalia, AMISOM, from “peacekeeping to peace-making.”

He specifically called for the AU to strengthen the East African Standby Brigade, in order to bolster the regional response to the security threats from Somalia.The minister expressed his sincere heartfelt condolences toward the victims who lost their loved ones at the twin blasts that rocked the capital Kampala at a rugby pitch and at an Ethiopian hotel leaving 81 people dead and scores injured.

Wetangula said the twin attacks were worrying because they represented a departure from attacks directed toward western interests and represented a “new and worrying” threat of violence by Africans on Africans. The official theme for the summit which is “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa” has been overshadowed by the heightened security following last week’s Uganda bombings.

Heads of States expected to attend the very important summit include Sierra Leone’s President Ernest Bai Koroma, Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, Ghana’s President Atta Mills, South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma and Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Somalia has been without a functioning government for close to two decades and has degenerated into total lawlessness with armed militias and pirates causing havoc in the region.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh

Source: Reprint of the post titled Africa and Democracy posted on Ogbunwezeh blog in 2009 by Dr. Emmanuel Franklyne Ogbunwezeh. He is a Nigeria-born social and economic ethicist and philosopher interested in politics, society, ecology, social and economic ethics, history, human development, African issues, global governance/sustainability issues, and human rights. He is based in Germany. Dr. Ogbunwezeh is also the African Section’s director at the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR), Frankfurt Germany.

Africa and Democracy

We have seen the theoretical promises of democracy. But to confront African problems with alien conceptual schemes has not availed much in terms of concrete, actionable results. The conclusions have long approved themselves that vivisecting Nigerian problems with theories is really a blind approach. The safest path has always remained viewing the problem without prefabricated prejudices or theoretical scaffolds, as one would eventually be disappointed by them. Nigeria, nay Africa has defied every known sociological or economic theory. For instance, in other climes, democracy has paid its dues in the coinage of progress, development, social welfare, economic well-being, and qualitative standard of living, for those nations that really patronized it; learning and applying its lessons, as their societies evolved. In those climes, it occasioned as well as nourished a great semblance of order, social equilibrium, economic progress and the respect and exercise of fundamental freedoms. In these instances, democracy has been the driver of renaissance that has underwritten the voyage to progress.

But in contemporary Africa, democracy has due to a complex conglomeration of factors refused to function. This is against the backdrop of the fact that Democracy was not a Greek invention (Keane, 2005) . The etymology may have been very Greek. But it was a human invention. It was not a western gift to Africa. Ndiigbo of southern Nigeria were running an egalitarian society, quite democratic, and quite independent of ancient Greece, at the time when many other civilizations were slumbering in primitivity. What is practised today almost all over Africa in democracy’s name is an abomination; a hyper-repulsive aberration.

Although 70% of African countries could technically qualify as democracies, African democracy has been an aberrant hybrid of despotic kleptocracy and rogue Machiavellian manipulative statecraft (Ogbunwezeh, 1999). This manifests all the characteristics of Hitlerist megalomanic vision, shorn of its territorial expansionistic and eugenic content. For Fela, Anikulapo Kuti, the late Nigeria Afro-beat exponent and social critic, this version of democracy is the “demonstration of craze”. In this embrace, a quasi-police state edged on by political anarchy masquerades as democracy. Here politics lacks ideology; institutions of state are non-existence, or where they exist, are patronized unto dysfunction with unparalleled dereliction. Free speech and free press are partially discountenanced to maintain the democratic façade. Fundamental liberties are greatly circumscribed. Executive recklessness reigns. Primordial allegiances are consulted to manipulatively rule over the state in the Machiavellian fashion. The power of incumbency is shamelessly deployed to eviscerate opposition into submission or self-destruction; paving way for a one-party state headed by a midget tyrant, whose word is law. Separation of powers only graces the statute books in such constructs. In such states, there are no political parties, only a conglomeration of petty interests of primeval provenance; bent on peddling influence and trading on their offices for individual profit. This is made possible by the absence of state institutions that would have been the engine driving a democratic state.

Zimbabwe circa 2007 under Robert Mugabe, represents a perfect example of a dysfunctional democracy on its way to full blown anarchy. Africa is replete with other contextual examples. One wonders if Nigeria in 2009 could be said to be ruled by its people when Yar Adua was imposed on them, by Obasanjo in an election that personified fraudulence and everything that election was not supposed to be.

The failure of democracy in Africa and in Nigeria has equally cast doubt on the suitability of democracy for the African clime. Is democracy the problem or do Nigeria, nay Africa need a redefinition? This constitutes the fundamental questions that must be posed and resolved, before we can effectively grapple with who the institutions of state like the security forces should owe allegiance to. Democracy may not be functioning because we are not ripe for democracy, or that we are operating a non-democratic type of democracy. It may have repeatedly failed because we have been unable to resolve the fundamental problems that have kept defining our existence as well as the trajectory of our progress. A look at what democracy is in Nigeria, nay Africa will actually expose the need for a resolution of these questions before we can actually question the loyalties of the servants of the state.

However, the fact must be reiterated that democracy functions where there is a state. It can never function in a pseudo state, or a state on the road to becoming a failed State. Democracy can never be a cure for dictators, if the structures of state make dictatorship a lucrative option for adventurers. It can never cure economic depression in a land where corruption and economic sabotage has been elevated to a fine art. It cannot cure civil wars where primitive allegiances are allowed to erode national identities, and inspire a hate-filled campaign to wipe out those considered to be inferior to our genetic, racial or tribal acquaintance. It cannot cure poverty, where feudalistic exploitation is the norm, or where leadership genuflects in timid subservience to elitist greed. It cannot equally do that where a dynasty of calibrated and indentured rogues populates the leadership corridors, and pursuant to that are busy constructing monuments of atrocity, while masquerading as leaders. It cannot produce a productive populace, where laziness is a tradition. It cannot empower innovation or underwrite enterprise, where fear and risk aversion are cultural constants. It cannot make a people out of a motley crowd of amorphous interests, or create a nation out of entrenched solipsistic social amphictonies constructed by impervious tribalism.

Democracy is tool. And how this tool is used greatly affects the outcomes it confers on a society. It is a means to an end, and not an end in itself. To this end, democracy is a process, which evolves in line with the social nourishments it receives, which it reinforces. Democracy is much more than voting on Election Day. It is a culture of governance, established upon the fundaments of liberty and the rights of the people to rule themselves or mandate people of their choice to rule and answer to them.

African Democracy Series is compiled by Mark Bajkowski.

Mark, born in Poland, is a Jack of all trades, master of none, who lives in New York since 1979. Mark has an unusually wide range of interests and is known to relate well to the people half of his age. Since his early childhood, he felt a curious relation to Africa, which unavoidably brings up the controversial subject of multiple-life experiences.

In a press conference in the bullet riddled capital, the spokesman said that “The soldiers made the ultimate sacrifice of their life for ensuring peace and stability in Somalia. We are very proud of them”.

After the Kampala attacks, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni vowed to eliminate Al-Shabab, saying the AU would send 20,000 troops to Somalia – up from the current force of 5,000. Only Uganda and Burundi have contributed troops to the AU force so far. Other countries have failed to deliver on promises to send peacekeepers to Somalia, which has been in a state of anarchy for two decades.

The UN has agreed in principle to take over the mission but has not yet set a date. Somalia has been without a functioning government for close to two decades and has degenerated into total lawlessness with armed militias and pirates causing havoc in the region.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

AMISOM Armored Troops

The head of the African Union on Friday has said that two more countries will send troops to join the African Mission for peacekeeping in Somalia (AMISOM). Mr Jean Ping AU commission president said that Djibouti and Guinea will both send troops to the ravaged country to boost the overwhelmed contingent of Uganda and Burundi forces, bringing the estimated troops levels to 10,000. The AU mission currently has about 6,000 troops from Uganda and Burundi in Somalia.

The announcement for the new deployment came during a meeting of African Union leaders in Uganda, which suffered twin bombings July 11, 2010 during the World Cup final that killed 76 people at a rugby club and a restaurant. Al-Shabab, Somalia’s most feared militant group, claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they were in retaliation for civilian deaths caused by AU troop.

“Guinea is preparing a battalion to be sent to Somalia immediately. Djibouti prepared a battalion six months ago. Guinea’s commanders are in Mogadishu preparing for the arrival of their troops,”  Ping said. However, Ping did not specify the number of troops Guinea plans to send. A battalion may consist of between several hundred to more than 1,000 troops .

The weak U.N. backed Somali government is fighting an Islamist insurgency that is itself riven by divisions. The strongest insurgent group, al-Shabab, has pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, and the U.S. State Department says some of its leaders have links to al-Qaida.

The transitional government, which has long promised to launch a major offensive against al-Shabab, controls only a few streets of the capital. Al-Shabab, along with a number of other anti-government groups, controls much of southern and central, as well as most of Mogadishu. At least 21,000 civilians are believed to have been killed in the violence over the last years, while 1.5 million have been forced to flee their homes.

The EU and the U.S. are spending millions of dollars to train 2,000 Somali government soldiers at bases in Uganda. Human rights groups have accused Guinea’s armed forces of severe abuses, including the massacre of over 150 opposition supporters in 2009 and several gang rapes.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow.
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

Click here to view the embedded video.

He is seen in the footage above at a rvolutionary rally in Washington, DC. Chesser attended one of the best high schools in the US, Oakton High School in Vienna, Fairfax County, Virginia, where he played American football on the school team. He attended college at George Mason University. Zachary Adam Chesser lives with his mom in Fairfax County.

First interviewed by the FBI in May 2009 about his jihadist Internet postings, Chesser was under surveillance when he tried to board a flight to Uganda with his son on July 10 at New York’s JFK airport. He was denied check-in and told he was on a no-fly list. The suspect was allowed to remain at large until his arrest on Wednesday. “This case exposes the disturbing reality that extreme radicalization can happen anywhere, including Northern Virginia,” said US Attorney Neil MacBride. “This young man is accused of seeking to join the Al-Shabab, a brutal terrorist organization with ties to Al-Qaeda. These allegations underscore the need for continued vigilance against home grown terror threats.”

Chesser said that the training for the militants will begin in a two months time, from now to after the holy month of Ramadhan. He added that he would likely be recruited as a “foreign fighter” and placed with the media branch in Mogadishu, Somalia, where he would still get to serve on the “front line.” “We can’t fight terrorists alone,” FBI assistant director Shawn Henry said in a statement on Wednesday on Chesser’s arrest.

Al-Shabab has been battling to oust the transitional federal government of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and put the entire country under their rule.

News Report By Abdulaziz Billow. Additional research by W. Jacobs.
Abdulaziz Billow is AfrobeatRadio’s correspondent for East Africa.

Abdulaziz Billow is a Kenyan born Somali Journalist based in Nairobi, Kenya. Growing up, his desire was to be a well known journalist in and outside his country. Abdulaziz Billow has a strong desire in learning more from other people and cultures. He finds it most interesting and gratifying working with peoples  of diverse cultures, races and religions.