UK Accused of Training and Supporting Deadly Somaliland Counter-Terrorism Unit

The UK is providing training and support to a Somaliland counterterrorism unit accused of unlawful killings and political intimidation, according to members of Somaliland’s parliament.

The Rapid Reaction Unit (RRU), a Somaliland paramilitary counter-terror squad established in 2012, was deployed by President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud’s administration on November 15 to prevent opposition members of parliament (MPs) from entering parliament in order to influence a vote, members of Somaliland’s parliament told VICE News.

A report by Somaliland’s Human Rights Center, published Tuesday, also blamed the RRU for the deaths of at least two demonstrators after soldiers allegedly fired at a group of them indiscriminately. MPs confirmed that the RRU had been accused of killing protestors at demonstrations.

Citing “security reasons,” the UK Foreign Office will not confirm or deny to VICE News whether it provides assistance to the RRU. However, the British government has previously released details of support, including security equipment, vehicles, a UK-built headquarters, and a pretrial detention facility — all “gifted” as part of its counter-terrorism program.

Abdirahman Mohamed Jama, a Waddani party MP, accused the president of using the paramilitary unit as a personal task force, and said that British forces are regularly witnessed training the RRU at a camp in Hargeisa.

“I have seen with my own eyes that they were training them how to shoot,” he said. “I saw them learning how to shoot bullets a month ago at a camp in Hargeisa.

“It’s not a secret,” he added. “Everybody in Somaliland knows that the British are funding the RRU.”

An annual report by the Somaliland Human Rights Center released on Tuesday said that the number of soldiers in the RRU has doubled from 50 to 100 in the last two years.

The RRU uses “unnecessary force” against civilians and “sometimes beat suspects,” the report claims.

On December 28, 2013, police and RRU forces opened fire on civilians protesting water shortages in Hargeisa, resulting in the deaths of two demonstrators, the report said.

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On November 15, Jama says that he and 28 opposition MPs were denied entry to parliament in an apparent attempt to influence a vote on a new speaker of the house. RRU and other state security forces numbering around 400 had occupied the building.

Jama described the November 15 incident as “the final demolition of the Somaliland democracy process.”

Warning shots were fired, five members of parliament were arrested, and two were “badly beaten” by police, Jama says. All were released without charge several hours later.

“They were trying to prevent people from voting,” he said.

The pre-arranged vote did not go ahead after MPs inside the House left in protest, and a quorum was not present.

The speaker of the House of Representatives told VICE News that the security forces attempted to disarm his bodyguards and refuse him entry as he approached parliament.

“Maybe a kilometer away from the House there was a checkpoint with a large number of security forces including the RRU,” Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi said. “In order to avoid a clash I decided to continue to my house. They are powerful now. Everybody is afraid.”

“We were very lucky we weren’t hurt,” Jama told VICE News. “The ruling party was very angry of the support we had in parts of Somaliland.”

Protests followed the military occupation of parliament, which, according to Jama, led to the deaths of at least three people.

“Whenever there is a protest in Somaliland, they don’t use water cannons, they don’t use rubber bullets. They use live bullets to disperse a crowd. Bullets kill people,” Jama said. “They fired indiscriminately into the crowds.”

Jama, who is also a British citizen and former teacher at a number of schools in the London borough of Harrow, said he was “ashamed” of the use of taxpayer money to fund the “oppressive” force.

“I urge the UK government to review its funding and support to the RRU,” he said.

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Britain’s counter-terrorism operations have recently come under scrutiny following an investigation by Al Jazeera that unearthed allegations by Kenyan anti-terror police that the UK provided training, equipment, and intelligence to an assassination squad that has carried out nearly 500 extrajudicial killings.

Somaliland receives millions in aid from the UK. The country declared independence from Somalia in 1991 and has been cautiously celebrated as a beacon of democracy within the fragile state, following five elections.

The UK government’s Department for International Development (DfID) describes it as “more stable than the rest of the country,” but states that development needs “remain high.” Journalists are regularly arrested and detained.

VICE News contacted Somaliland’s ruling Kulmiye party for comment but did not receive a response.

“We are not able to provide detail on our counter-terrorism program funding for operational security reasons, however any HMG funding is delivered in line with HMG’s Overseas Security and Assistance Guidance and is regularly reviewed to ensure compliance with international human rights,” a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson said. “We believe that respect for human rights is an integral part of any effective approach to counter-terrorism.”

Follow Ben Bryant on Twitter: @benbryant

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Somaliland: Liyuu Police Massacres Civilians

Somaliland: Liyuu Police Massacres Civilians


Even camels fear the Liyuu police"We had nowhere to take the injured who were loaded on wheelbarrows" M/s Fatimah Hussein

By: Yusuf M Hasan

HARSHIN (Somalilandsun) – The Hargeisa group hospital is flooded with injured people from the Ethiopian town of Harshin.

According to hospital sources, some of the patients brought in the morning are suffering serious bullet wound injuries.

The injuries occurred after the Liyuu police run amok in Harshin town killing 17 residents and injuring 28 others through unprovoked brutal use of heavy weapons.

The paramilitary force, which is under the control of Ethiopia's Zone five Somali region president, started its massacred of Harshin Civilians by killing four people and arresting a yet established number, whose whereabouts is still mysterious.



Following the wanton killings and arrests residents armed themselves and managed to evict the Liyuu police killer unit from their town.

Early Tuesday a column of ten armored vehicles entered the town and the heavily armed paramilitary soldiers started spraying machine gun bullets injuring 28 and killing another 13 civilians most of them women and young children.

According to elder Ali Mohamed Aden, it is suspect that the figure of dead and injured is much higher because the town is empty after residents escaped to seek safety in various directions.

"We do not know what raised the wrath of the hated Liyuu police against the peace loving residents of Harshin" Said elder Ali.

Information received by Waheen and Somaliland.org from an eyewitness M/s Fadumo Hussein; indicate that the massacre ensued after five residents armed themselves to defend the town against the Liyuu police that had just killed a local religious teacher.

"Once the Ustadh (Teacher) was killed a heavy battle ensued between five residents and the killer unit which escaped after another four killings," said M/s Fadumo.

The homemaker, who managed to escape with some of her children after the Liyuu police returned with fury, said she counted 28 injured before she run away from the town less her husband and two children whose whereabouts are unknown.

Said she, "I counted 28 injured people loaded on wheelbarrows and 17 dead before I left the town"

M/s Fadumo Hussein added that before she escaped the injured laying in wheelbarrows could not be assisted since paramilitary officers with fingers on their guns triggers were stationed outside every house in the town"

"Even making a telephone call became impossible"

Despite the large number of killer police guarding the houses, unyielding determination by some residents resulted in the collection of the injured and subsequent cross-border transport to Hargeisa group hospital where they are receiving treatment.

By the time of going to press the situation is stable following the arrival of a large number of troops dispatched by the Ethiopian Federal government in Addis Ababa.

Though it is yet to be made clear on the reasons behind the massacre perpetrated on Ethiopians of Somaliland origin by the tribal Liyuu police, it remains to be seen what the international community would react.

For perusal of past transgressions and similar acts by the Liyuu, police visithttp://somalilandsun.com/index.php/in-depth/1339-somaliland-incessant-overt-incursions-by-ethiopias-liyuu-police-goes-on-unimpeded

Somaliland: Stop Deporting Ethiopian Refugees

Somaliland: Stop Deporting Ethiopian Refugees
Dozens, Including Women, Children, Forced Back to Ethiopia
SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/04/somaliland-stop-deporting-ethiopian-refugees 

Rounding up and deporting asylum seekers is not the way to treat vulnerable people seeking Somaliland’s protection. Somaliland authorities should instead ensure that Ethiopian asylum seekers are registered and given the protection and assistance to which they are entitled.
Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director.


(Nairobi) – The Somaliland authorities should immediately stop deporting Ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers to Ethiopia. On August 31, 2012, dozens of Ethiopians, mostly women and children, were forcibly returned to Ethiopia in violation of international legal prohibitions against sending people to places where they might face persecution or threats to their lives.

The Somaliland authorities deported Ethiopians arrested after police raids on August 30 and 31 on an informal settlement known as the Social Welfare Centre in Somaliland’s main city, Hargeisa, where several hundred asylum seekers and migrants from Ethiopia have lived for almost a year. The exact number and immigration status of those returned is unclear, but a witness estimated seeing around 100 people sent across the border. In late December 2011, Somaliland attempted to forcibly return 20 Ethiopian refugees and asylum seekers and tried to close down the Social Welfare Centre.

“Rounding up and deporting asylum seekers is not the way to treat vulnerable people seeking Somaliland’s protection,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Somaliland authorities should instead ensure that Ethiopian asylum seekers are registered and given the protection and assistance to which they are entitled.”

Human Rights Watch said deporting registered refugees and asylum seekers constitutes refoulement, the unlawful return of anyone to persecution or to a place where their life or freedom is threatened. International law prohibits the deportation of anyone seeking asylum before they have received a fair determination of their claim.

Local sources told Human Rights Watch that on the morning of August 30 the owner of land surrounding the Social Welfare Centre told the Ethiopians living there to leave. When they refused, fighting broke out and police arrived. According to witnesses, police fired live ammunition during the ensuing struggle and wounded at least six Ethiopians, including one who was shot in the arm and the leg. The sources also said Ethiopians at the centre may have injured four police officers.

The police then arrested 56 of the Ethiopians, including the majority of those injured, and took them to different detention facilities in Hargeisa. 25 registered refugees and two asylum seekers were detained at the Central Police Station. One of those refugees told Human Rights Watch that six injured refugees had not received medical assistance for three days before they were released.

According to witnesses, police returned to the centre during the morning and early afternoon of August 31 and loaded dozens of people –mainly women and children –onto several trucks and drove them to the border town of Wajale. The same afternoon, the police drove 28 men they had detained on August 30 in Hargeisa to Wajale. The first two trucks, one carrying the men and another carrying primarily women and children, immediately crossed into Ethiopia and dropped the individuals off on Ethiopian territory.

According to the United Nations refugee agency, on the evening of August 31 staff members identified 72 refugees among the group still at Wajale, as well as one woman who had been driven across to the Ethiopian side of the border. The refugee agency returned them to Hargeisa.

However, Somaliland authorities prevented the UN refugee agency from assisting an unknown number of other individuals in Wajale, including registered asylum seekers, and the individuals who had already been brought across the border to Ethiopia. As of September 4, the location of the other Ethiopians returned to their country was unknown, Human Rights Watch said. An unconfirmed report said that 32 men were detained at the Ethiopian border post until the afternoon of September 1, when Ethiopian authorities transferred them to an unknown location.

“The Somaliland authorities should allow the UN refugee agency prompt access to Ethiopians facing deportation to give them a chance to seek asylum,” Lefkow said. “The ongoing deadlock in the asylum process in Somaliland is not an excuse for any abuses.”

Background
Since October 2011, hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers from Ethiopia – as well as migrants who have been unable to claim asylum since the Somaliland authorities suspended registration in 2008 – have lived in the Social Welfare Centre, which was leased by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Since the lease ended in late December 2011, the centre’s owner has pressed the authorities to forcibly evict those living there. In March 2012, the authorities destroyed part of a makeshift camp set up on the edge of the centre, saying it was part of a wider urban “clean-up exercise.”

Somaliland ended all registration of asylum seekers in October 2008 following a series of suicide bombings in Hargeisa. UNHCR estimates that there are at least 20,000 undocumented foreigners in Somaliland, including unknown numbers of Ethiopians and others who want to claim asylum but cannot do so because they cannot register. Since March 2012, UNHCR and the minister of interior have been re-registering asylum seekers who registered before October 2008, although it appears asylum claims have not all been reviewed. UNHCR says registration of all non-registered migrants is scheduled to resume in September 2012.

Large numbers flee Ethiopia to escape persecution every year. Refugees who are returned by force have frequently been detained by the authorities. Torture is common in Ethiopia's prisons.

Somaliland clashes with secessionists

Somaliland clashes with secessionists


By Mark Anderson

Feb 9 (Reuters) - The breakaway territory of Somaliland is battling its own secessionists in a dispute that has raised tensions with neighbouring Puntland, in an area of Somalia usually more peaceful than the rest of the country.

The fighting first erupted in January after the leaders of the northern regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn decided to band together into a new state called Khaatumo and declared they wanted to be an independent region within Somalia.

Somaliland's troops have since clashed with militia fighters loyal to Khaatumo, with reports of dozens of casualties. Puntland's President Abdirahman Mohamud Farole stepped into the row on Wednesday, accusing Somaliland of creating chaos.

"It is unfortunate that Somaliland is sowing seeds of insecurity in the peaceful towns of Puntland at a time the world is solving the entire country's violence," he told reporters, calling for Somaliland to pull its troops back.

The newly declared Khaatumo state is near the border with Ethiopia and is a disputed area that Somaliland seized from Puntland in 2007, though relations between the two territories have improved since.

The chairman of Khaatumo's foreign relations forum, Osman Hassan, has said unless the dispute is resolved "it is bound to escalate into a wider regional conflagration as other clans related to one side or the other take sides".

Both Somaliland and Puntland have enjoyed relative stability compared to the rest of the Horn of Africa country and international mining and oil exploration firms are prospecting in the region.

The fighting also comes ahead of a conference in London on Feb. 23 bringing together heads of government and international organisations to discuss ways to end the instability in Somalia.

Somaliland is an internationally unrecognised state that declared independence from Somalia in 1991.

Fighting between Somaliland forces and Khaatumo fighters flared up again on Wednesday near the border town of Buhoodle, after a week-long stalemate, forcing thousands to flee.

"Somaliland's national army has repulsed the attack by the Khaatumo militia, which attacked them in the early hours of the morning (on Wednesday), after the arrival of reinforcements," Somaliland's Minister of Defence Ahmed Ali Adami told Reuters.

Adami said three government soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in Wednesday's fighting.

Mohamed Yousouf, a member of Khaatumo's new administration, told Reuters by phone from Buhoodle, they had lost six fighters and 11 were wounded. He said they had captured four Somaliland soldiers, while seven of their fighters had been seized.

"Somaliland and Puntland claim that the Khaatumo region is part of their territory, but we want to be an autonomous region that is part of the Federal Republic of Somalia," he said.

"We have had no communication with the government in Puntland at all," Yousouf said. (Additional reporting by Hussein Ali Noor in Hargeisa and Abdiqani Hassan in Bosasso; Editing by David Clarke)

Kenya Warns Against Flights in Somalia Amid Arms Shipments

Bloomberg

Kenya Warns Against Flights in Somalia Amid Arms Shipments
By Sarah McGregor and Paul Richardson

(Updates with report Eritrean ambassador summoned in first paragraph.)

Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Kenya warned aircraft against flying over an area of Somalia where arms shipments may have been delivered to al-Shabaab, as it reportedly summoned Eritrea’s ambassador about allegations his country is supplying weapons to the militants.

At least three aircraft have landed in southern Somalia carrying weapons suspected of being for the al-Qaeda-linked militia, which is being targeted by Kenyan military forces that began an incursion into Somalia on Oct. 16. Two of the aircraft landed in Baidoa, 224 kilometers (139 miles) northwest of Mogadishu, army spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir said.

“We know Baidoa is being used to deliver weapons,” Chirchir said today in a telephone interview in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. “Every time we have a delivery, we are going to take that aircraft down.”

Kenya’s government accuses al-Shabaab of murdering a British tourist in Kenya and abducting at least four visitors and aid workers, damaging a tourism industry that is the East African nation’s second-biggest foreign-exchange earner. Al- Shabaab denies the charges.

While heavy rainfall has hampered the advance of Kenya troops, the military is targeting 10 Somali towns, including the port of Kismayo, which is a main supply route for al-Shabaab, and warned residents there to be cautious.

Chirchir said last month Kenyan forces are “willing to celebrate Christmas” in Kismayo if it takes that long to arrive there. The army hasn’t provided any schedule for its planned advance or details on the size of its force.

Al-Shabaab Fight

Al-Shabaab has been fighting Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s United Nations-backed government, which is supported by a 9,500-member African Union force, for four years and controls most of southern and central Somalia.

“All aircraft are hereby warned not to land in Baidoa,” Chirchir said in a statement on his Twitter account yesterday. “Anyone violating this will be doing so at their peril. Further unauthorized flying over the region will be considered a threat.”

Two aircraft that landed at Baidoa may have departed from Eritrea, the Nairobi-based Standard newspaper reported on Nov. 2, citing unidentified websites in Somalia that quoted al- Shabaab. A third aircraft may have also originated in Eritrea, the Daily Nation, based in Nairobi, said yesterday.

Eritrea denied it is supplying arms to al-Shabaab and said there is no evidence it has any military involvement in Somalia, according to a statement e-mailed by the country’s Foreign Ministry on Nov. 2.

Ambassador Summoned

“We don’t know what the source of the shipment is,” Chirchir said today.

Eritrean Ambassador Beyene Russom met Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister Moses Wetangula after the diplomat was summoned to discuss allegations his country was involved in shipping arms to al-Shabaab, the Daily Nation reported today, without citing anyone. Russom wasn’t immediately available for comment on the report, an assistant at his Nairobi-based office who declined to be identified in line with embassy policy, said by phone.

Eritrea may be providing financial and logistical support to armed opposition groups in Somalia and other countries including Uganda, Djibouti and Ethiopia, according to a July report by the United Nations Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.

Nairobi Bombings

Kenya’s navy yesterday intercepted a skiff carrying suspected militants, killing all 18 people on board, Chirchir said. Al-Shabaab has threatened to retaliate against Kenya.

Last month, two bomb blasts in Nairobi killed one person and injured 28 in attacks the government said were inspired by al-Shabaab. A man arrested in connection with the bombings, Elgiva Bwire Oliacha, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to charges including engaging in organized criminal activity and of being a member of al-Shabaab.

Chirchir also warned Kenyan livestock traders not to sell donkeys to al-Shabaab militants, who are using the animals to carry weapons.

“The locals use donkeys to fetch water for domestic use, however, due to the heavy rains water-fetching is not feasible,” he said. “Any large concentration and movement of loaded donkeys will be considered as al-Shabaab activity.”

--Editors: Karl Maier, Vernon Wessels, Heather Langan

To contact the reporters on this story: Sarah McGregor in Nairobi at smcgregor5@bloomberg.net; Paul Richardson in Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Louis Meixler at lmeixler@bloomberg.net

Somalia: Sierra Leone to Send Troops

Somalia: Sierra Leone to Send Troops
By JOSH KRON- Newyork Times 

Sierra Leone will send 850 soldiers to an African Unionpeacekeeping mission inSomalia, a military official said Thursday. The official, Lt. Col. Ronnie Harleston, Sierra Leone’s military attaché to the United Nations, said the troops would deploy in the middle of next year. They will join approximately 9,000 peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi, who are currently trying to secure the Somali capital, Mogadishu, from Islamist rebels. Djibouti plans to contribute 850 troops to the force this month. The force has a mandate for 12,000 peacekeepers, but African Union officials say they would need 20,000 to try to pacify the entire country, which has been in a state of civil unrest for roughly 20 years.