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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Somali Pirates Free Indian crew members on Stolt Valor who return home

As reported on NDTV media in India, Prabhat Goyal, the captain of the Japanese cargo vessel Stolt Valor, and the rest of the crew of the ship who weren't back on Monday, reached home on Tuesday.

"I would like to thank the media. We are 11 people who arrived here now, and the rest are already in Mumbai," said Goyal after reaching Delhi.

The crew members of the Japanese cargo vessel have been returning in batches after the ship docked in Muscat on Saturday.

On Monday, five of the 18 Indian sailors landed in Mumbai. The sailors were held hostage for 2 months by Somali pirates.

The world is grappling with what the sailors called 'maritime terrorism'. Seven other Indians are still captive on an Iranian ship. On Monday, the tankers' association that owns 5 per cent of the world's fleet demanded a blockade of Somalia.



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British taxpayer funds Somali police force for regime accused of war crimes(Rob Crilly in Nairobi )

Millions of pounds of British taxpayers' money is being used to support a government in Somalia accused of human rights abuses and war crimes. The money is supposed to be used to strengthen security and democracy, but The Times has learnt that it is financing a police force filled with militiamen and led by one of the country's most notorious warlord, Abdi Hasan Awale Qaybdib. At various times he has fought US forces or been given American money to fight Islamic extremists. Now he is being funded to keep the peace.

Donors privately admit that they cannot control where their money is going but say that there is no alternative. "An element of a leap of faith is required," one Western diplomat said. "Otherwise we have to walk away." Somalia's interim Government took control of Mogadishu in December 2006 when Ethiopian troops defeated the forces of the Islamic Courts Union, which had held most of southern and central Somalia for six months. Since then the fragile regime has fought Islamist insurgents and clan gunmen, and an estimated one million people have fled Mogadishu.

The Government survives on foreign donations, channelled through the UN Development Programme. The British Department for International Development (DfID) is the second-largest donor – behind the European Commission – to UN programmes supporting the Transitional Federal Government, having committed £11 million to date.

More than £10 million, including £2.5 million of British money, is being used to refurbish government buildings, cover running costs and provide technical assistance. Members of the Somali parliament, many of whom earned their seats through military muscle, receive a monthly stipend of £600. But the biggest chunk of donor cash – some £15 million, including £3.2 million from the DfID – is being spent on rule-of-law programmes. This is meant for the police as salaries and to buy radios and vehicles.

The police are controlled by Brigadier-General Qaybdib, whose militias once fought US and UN forces in Mogadishu. In 1993 his capture by US special forces launched the events that led up to the so-called First Battle of Mogadishu and was portrayed in the film Black Hawk Down. Since then, however, he has been seen as an ally in the War on Terror and admits receiving thousands of dollars from the US to fight Islamic insurgents in Mogadishu during 2006. He is now police commissioner and one of several warlords who hold positions within the transitional Government or its security arms.

UN monitors say that police officers, far from keeping solely to peace duties, have fought alongside Ethiopian troops and have been accused of looting, firing indiscriminately into crowds, and torture. A report published last week by the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia cited numerous allegations that the police had recruited clan militias so that they could collect salaries provided by international donors.
The money for police wages, thought to run into hundreds of thousands of pounds, was given in a lump sum to Brigadier-General Qaybdib and his deputies last year after he insisted that a UN proposal to pay officers directly undermined his authority. No money has been paid this year.

The report also gives details of three occasions when police took part in military engagements, and claims that officers are collecting fees and "taxes" at roadblocks. In some cases, the report says, they have sold weapons at Mogadishu's main arms market. Other UN reports detail allegations of torture, indiscriminate shooting of civilians and harassment of journalists. In an interview with The Times, Brigadier-General Qaybdib denied that his officers had been involved. "I am not a warlord, although I have had my own militia. I did fight UN forces but that was only because my clan was being treated unfairly."

A spokeswoman for the DfID said officials were concerned by reports of mismanagement. But she added it was up to Somalis to decide who should lead their police and that British money was only given to agencies with robust accounting mechanisms. "We can only work within the existing conditions in Somalia, far from ideal as these may be."

  

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Ethiopian Occupation Debacle in Somalia Bankrupted America! By: Dr. M. Omar Hashi

Ethiopian Occupation Debacle in Somalia Bankrupted America!

Dr. M. Omar Hashi
wadijir@hotmail.com

Recent financial reports by both the IMF and World Bank—two of the leading pillars of Western economic imperialism in the world— declared, rather dejectedly and nervously, that the current American-instigated global financial crisis meltdown will continue to punish both Western economies (USA, EU) and their citizens in general, but also the military-industrial war machine in particular, well beyond the Bush regime.

In other words, the Western disaster- capitalism- gone wrong (i.e. the ongoing massive unemployment, regional displacements, homelessness, rampant crime, global anger and resentment at the US-EU) is here to stay. Initially, the "disaster capitalism model" was first intended to destabilize the non-Western Muslim and Third World economies and societies after the end of so called Cold War in 1990s. It was also to further institutionally block the economic and intellectual advancement "real liberation" of the non-Western populations- which actually was the stated aim of both the failed medieval Crusades and the recent late 19th to mid 20th century European colonialism.

What is Disaster Capitalism?

In its raw form Disaster Capitalism consists of the dual interlocking socio-economic and military-political destabilizations of non-Western societies.

It's prime features include but are not limited to: 1) the initial destabilization of a settled society ( for instance, Afghanistan in 2001, Iraq in 2003, ICU-led Southern Somalia in 2006) through combination of Western supported invasion-occupation, concomitant localized genocide and war crimes; related economic upheaval as agricultural production of basic foodstuff is intentional halted by United Nations in partnership with foreign occupation forces, therefore, causing widespread malnutrition and famine in the domestic population— all in the context of continual Western murderous efforts to impose weak, criminal illegitimate puppet dictatorship (either clan, sectarian and tribal based ).

 Furthermore, as Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq clearly show Disaster capitalists further destabilize the occupied society through meticulous igniting of civil wars and strife (either through clannish or ethnic/sectarian based dictatorship) or via the foreign occupation army's own wanton war crimes against targeted resistant communities.

After decades of using this disaster capitalism, rather effectively at that, to destroy countless national economies and societies in the Muslim and Third world; the predatory American disaster capitalists have now gone out of control to ravage their own economies for quick profit. Consequently, this has resulted in the spiraling decline of Western power and further loss of confidence in the whole Western financial system by the world.

 Moreover, the current financial crisis will not only force the US and EU to shrink their large military war machines budgets; but also continue to jeopardize related militarist multi-national corporations ( since they largely serve as the research and development base for the military war machines operations in the Third World); as well as making it all the more costly( and now "dangerous" in light of China and resurgent Russia ) for the US-EU powers to further wage the futile genocidal wars in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and throughout the Muslim-Third world.

However, what Western policymakers, geo-strategists and the American and European governmental media outlets (propaganda machine) will not ask (for very good reasons) are:

1) How did this global financial meltdown happen in the first place in 2008? And more importantly 2) Who or what is responsible for it continuing?

 Ethiopian Occupation Debacle in Somalia Bankrupted America!

Clearly, American and European powers have been off-set by a whole combination of self-inflicted failures both domestically and internationally in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq arising directly out of the so called ideological War on Islam. However, it is only in the West's Ethiopian proxy occupation war debacle inside Southern Somalia which stands out as the only continuous failure for the West, one which will continue to eat away at the US treasury and Pentagon for many years. Basically, regardless of who becomes the next US President the Western powers cannot extract themselves from the failed War in Southern Somalia easily nor can they divert the ongoing catastrophic outcome for Ethiopian dictatorship. Unlike the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Somalia is a "totalizing protracted war" that will not be resolved so easily.

First, the Horn of Africa has been in a state of utter continual war for the last 110 years (irrespective of a Somali state existing) solely because of the Western colonial "Crusader" created Ethiopian concentration camp. It has been a futile endeavor for the British, Italian, and French and before them the Portuguese conquistadors, who even tried miserably and failed to colonize southern Somalia in the 16th century.

 Secondly, for minimum peace to come to Somalia and the Horn of Africa region altogether the Western powers will have to deal with central underlying internal contradictions caused by "Ethiopian " regime's invasion of Somalia; these internal majority-minority contradictions inside Ethiopian concentration camp which have been exemplified by the Somali war must be truly dealt with.

Moreover, these contradictions have been exposed in the war in Somalia because of the largely conscript army of the oppressed Oromo and non-Habesha nationalities being used as cannon fodder- basically summarily destroyed by idiot Meles regime in the endless protracted war against the Hawiye people's Resistance. The conscript army and their home communities feel the sufferings, millions of hungry people within the Ethiopian concentration camp have realized that they will either continue to die in the hundreds of thousands for nothing for many years to come in Southern and central Somalia or they will have to rise up and topple the US-EU backed minority Tigrinya regime, who is the one shackling their necks to the Somali inferno.

Regardless of the oppressed Ethiopian captive populations freeing themselves or not, what matters is the consistent Hawiye Resistance forces inside Somalia will literally hit home the urgency of regime change inside Ethiopia via the endless protracted war. Meles dictatorship knows this as much as the valiant Hawiye freedom fighters in Mogadishu.

Meles dictatorship and losing the Somalia War: The bottomless pit!

Therefore, the only question left is how long will America and EU powers realistically afford to financially subsidize the Meles regime inside Ethiopia with zero results? Ethiopian regime is losing War in Somalia despite everything, specifically, now in the context of the constraints imposed by current financial meltdown.

The Occupation War in southern and central Somalia not only strains the Meles dictatorship to the core, but brings Ethiopia itself more nearer to actual disintegration. The more money US-EU powers pour into the Occupation of Somalia "bottomless pit", the more the Hawiye Resistance forces in fact become all the more stronger in Somalia! Yet, still the Ethiopian dictatorship all the more desperate and homicidal.

If dictator Meles got $2 billion dollars to invade Somalia in December 2006 along with being given the extraordinary exemption from US sanctions (not even conferred on trusty US ally Israel) to purchase tanks, artillery BM rockets, including chemical warfare agent white phosphorus from North Korea regime to fight Hawiye clans in Southern Somalia- and still that war continues— really what will another $2 or $3 or $10 billion of US military and financial assistance do for the Ethiopian army?

The logical answer is: Ethiopian Occupation can only further bankrupt Washington and Brussels and ensure the implosion of the Ethiopian concentration camp into pieces, from the inside out actually- since the Hawiye people's Resistance fighters have nothing but the Occupation to lose. And as every US $ dollar spent on fighting Somalia only means deficit spending for the West, while China and Russia continue to steadily build-up their enormous military-industrial sectors, Western policymakers might find out to their utter shock and amazement that it was Somalia which was that proverbial "straw that broke the US camel's back". In other words, it will be the Ethiopian occupation debacle in Somalia which in fact has triggered the collapse of the whole Western hegemony itself!


 
 

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 Additional Somali Sources

Af Soomaali blog | Somalia Blog | YouSomali | Number 1 Somali Blogs |  Mogadishu News | Current Somali News  |  Somali News Articles | United Islamic Courts Blog | Somali News Blog | Somali By Somalis | Somali Cities Blogs | US Agenda In Somalia | Somali Music

Other Somali Sources Amin Arts Discussions | Somali News and Blogs 




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