AHN:
Somalia, Puntland sign cooperation agreement
The leaders of Somalia and the country's semi-autonomous Puntland region have reached an agreement to improve ties between the two governments.
The two sides agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding designed to end their lengthy squabble and start a new page of history...
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“The president went to visit Puntland under pressure from United Nation’s Political Office for Somalia,“ said a senior government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The presidential visit was also related to the upcoming Somali Consultations on Peace and Reconciliation meeting that Farole was pushing to be held in Garowe. However, the Somali president and prime minister succeeded in persuading the Puntland president to hold the first phase of the meeting in the Somali capital.
In the memorandum of understanding, the two sides agreed to:
Improve ties and strengthen cooperation
Implement the Galkacyo Accord of August 23, 2009 and security cooperation signed between the TFG and Puntland in April 2010
Fight against terrorism, piracy, illegal immigration and strengthen security
Provide equipment and security training to Puntland
Reconsider reconstructing the navy
Renovate and build the ARMO Police Academy
Promote political and economic development
Share and distribute donations equally
Promote and protect human rights
Complete the federal constitution.
From Michael Weinstein's latest analysis,
The “Transition” Takes a Detour Through Puntland:
U.N. News reported that Sh. Sharif’s visit to Garowe had been “facilitated” by U.N.P.O.S. Mahiga was quoted as “praising the statesmanship” of Farole and Sh. Sharif. The special representative added that the agreement reached by the two presidents “opens the way for the advancement of national reconciliation in Somalia,” which “is particularly critical as the Somali leadership and their partners prepare for the Consultative Meeting to adopt the Roadmap defining priority tasks for the next 12 months as agreed in the Kampala Accord.”The “donor”-powers/U.N. had swung their deal and the “transition” was set to re-start, but they had paid a price. The Consultative Meeting, which is to be chaired by Mahiga, will clearly be “owned” by the “donor”-powers/U.N.
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..the MoU appears to be a new version of the Galkayo Accord, embodying many of the same provisions favorable to Puntland. In 2009,the “donor”-powers/U.N. stood on the sidelines while the T.F.G. failed to implement and violated the “Accord.” At that time, Farole understandably became distrustful of the “donor”-powers and certainly of the T.F.G. In the days leading up to Sh. Sharif’s visit to Garowe, Farole had become even more disabused of the “donor”-powers/U.N. and the T.F.G., having had his expectations that the Consultative Meeting would be held in Garowe frustrated. The MoU was Puntland’s compensation for getting with the “donor”-powers/U.N.’s program. He expects that this time the agreement will be honored. He has put himself in a politically vulnerable position and will be constrained to drop cooperation with the “donor”-powers/U.N. and the T.F.G. (as he did with the T.F.G. in January 2011) if Puntland’s interests are not addressed as the MoU promises that they will. Puntland’s gain would be the T.F.G.’s loss in the zero-sum game that the two sides play. Will there now be resistance from the T.F.G.’s side, as there was after the Galkayo Accord was signed? Or is the T.F.G. sufficiently weakened by the lack of “donor”-power/U.N. diplomatic support for it that it will cede to Puntland’s interests? The “donor”-powers/U.N. proceed into the Consultative Meeting laden with Puntland’s expectations and the T.F.G.’s resentment at having been forced to cede to Puntland’s interests. Have the “donor”-powers/U.N. tilted toward Puntland, or is the MoU another set of empty promises? The so-called “dual-track policy” pursued by Washington and by the other “donor”-powers, in which they deal with the T.F.G. and with regional administrations such as Puntland, is viable as long as hard choices between the two tracks do not have to be made. Once such choices crop up, the “donor”-powers have to take sides, or evade the choices and have the “transition” go on interminably, as it has done up until now.
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The “donor’-powers own a prcess that they have not yet found the will to control. Everyone else reacts to them according to their own respective interests, which is to be expected because the “transition” is not a Somali-owned process. What else are the Somali actors supposed to do? They are not the decision-makers for any general solution. Not only do the “donor”-powers own a process that they do not have the will to control, but they are determined to pretend that it is a Somali-owned process. That is not so much hypocrisy as it is evidence of irresolution and weakness. What will they do now that they have led themselves and everyone else into a political swamp? What will they do to save their expedition/adventure?
A closed source in the Horn of Africa reports that the “donor”-powers are pleased that Garowe will host the constitutional meeting, because they have decided that the fastest way to get the “transition” over with is to use the constitution, drafted by a Somali committee that met in Djibouti and was funded by and presided over by the “donor”-powers/U.N., as the basis for a permanent constitution. The Djibouti constitution embodies a federal political formula for Somalia, which is favored by Puntland, and has languished because of opposition by the T.F.G., elements of the Hawiye clan family, and nationalist-minded intellectuals and politicians. Conflict is nearly inevitable on the fundamental question of the form of a permanent Somali state. Are the “donor”-powers/U.N. ready for the fight?
If the source is accurate, “donor”-power/U.N. backing for the Djibouti constitution does signal a tilt toward Puntland. If so, that tilt is not based on a principled or even interested affirmation of federalism, but on getting the “transition” over with by 2012. Puntland is, perhaps, the current beneficiary of “donor”-power/U.N. eagerness to tack a state-form onto Somalia, but Puntland has been left in the lurch before. Indeed, all the Somali actors are keenly aware that the “donor”-powers/U.N. are unreliable and unsure of themselves, despite their proclamations and directives.
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Islamist rebel group invite Al Jazeera to cover their Eid celebrations in Somali capital in exclusive report Al-Shabab, Somalia's Islamist rebel group, have given Al Jazeera exclusive access to film them in Mogadishu during the end of Ramadan.
Despite their withdrawal from the capital, they say the move is purely tactical and they were able to celebrate Eid in the city. Shabab members told Al Jazeera that the group remains "fully in control" in some parts of the capital and that they have secretly infiltrated others. Al Jazeera's Rosie Garthwaite reports.
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Now that TFG-aligned militias are getting some elbow room in Mogadishu...
Shabelle Media:
Govt forces clash with armed militias in Mogadishu The forces of Somali interim federal government forces clashed armed militias dressed in government military uniform who have checkpoints in the war weary Mogadishu by taking illegal money from public buses. The government forces including police and military on Saturday morning launched a security crackdown in parts of the capital in a bid to clear out all checkpoints manned armed militiamen. Local residents said heavy firefight rocked parts of Wadajir district southwest of the Somali capital. ... But, after hours of taking over the checkpoints, Somali soldiers came under counter attack from the militias, erupting fierce fighting there.
However, there have been casualties but not known so far the number of dead people and injuries. Meanwhile, the district commissioner of Mogadishu’s Wadajir told Shabelle that government forces attacked civilian people in the district, looting properties. But he declined to give further details about the casualties.
Press TV:
Food aid looting kills 15 in Somalia At least fifteen people have been killed and several others wounded after a gunfight broke out between Somali government forces in southern Mogadishu, Press TV reports. Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops turned on each other in Maka al- Mukarama Road of Mogadishu's Kilometer 4 district on Tuesday evening as some TFG soldiers tried to steal aid portions for famine-hit Somali families, a Press TV correspondent reported on Wednesday. The two sides exchanged heavy gunfire during the fighting. Nine government soldiers and six civilians were killed as a result. Nineteen people were also injured in the skirmishes. Somali ambulance workers transported the injured to Medina and other hospitals in Mogadishu.
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