´Ethiopia´ and TFG in Somalia: Nazi Soldiers and Collaborators Against Allies in WW II Europe
Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
December 12, 2008
On the chapter ´Abuses by Insurgent Forces´, I commented extensively in a separate article entitled ´HRW Report Weak Point - Somalis´ Religion Cannot Be an Alibi for Anti-Somalism´ (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/hrw-report-weak-point-somalis-religion-cannot-be-an-alibi-for-anti-somalism.html).
With the present article (Appendix and Acknowledgements), I complete the re-publication of the enlightening Report that should become the basic set of guidelines of a total reconsideration of the American policy for East Africa.
Appendix: Direct Donor Support to TFG Security Forces
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76418/section/16
Appendix: Direct Donor Support to TFG Security Forces
One of the most compelling recent examples of the flaws in the broader policy approach of donor governments and multilateral bodies to Somalia has been the United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) direct financial support to the TFG police force through its Rule of Law and Security (RoLS) program. Poorly conceived from the outset, UNDP has now suspended its payments to the police as it reviews financial safeguards and mechanisms in place in order to ensure accountability and to prevent it funding human rights abusers. However, the pressure UNDP has come under from certain donors, particularly the European Commission, to continue paying possible human rights abusers underlines the broader flaws with much of the international engagement with Somalia.
Since 2007 UNDP has provided training, equipment, and salary payments to officers of the Somali Police Force.[273] The program's backers have argued that its support improved both the conduct of police officers and their capacity to provide a more secure environment for Somali citizens.[274] Some 2,800 police officers have undergone UNDP-sponsored training and have then received monthly stipends through RoLS until December 2007. RoLS has also provided double-cabin trucks, radios, and other equipment to the police force.[275]
However, Somali police personnel have committed widespread human rights abuses with impunity. The commissioner of police, Abdi Qeybdid, is himself a former warlord who has been implicated in serious human rights abuses that predate his tenure as commissioner.[276] These realities alone have given rise to widespread misgivings about the approach donors have taken through RoLS.
UNDP, and the broader policy of providing donor support to the Somali Police Force, has come under considerable fire for some time. An April 2007 letter from a European Commission security expert to Eric Van der Linden, then head of the European Commission delegation in Nairobi, warned that:
T]here arise urgent questions of responsibility and potential complicity in the commission of war crimes by the European commission and its partners, specifically with regard to the current and ongoing financial and technical assistance being provided by the EC to any of the parties who may have committed war crimes.[277]
Likewise, a 2007 internal European Commission memorandum obtained by Human Rights Watch warned that the Commission could suffer "legal consequences" as an accomplice to ongoing police abuses; that the program could well "constitute a violation of the [UN] arms embargo" on Somalia; and that the program "could not be considered as support to a professional, civilian and community-based police force…but rather as assistance to counter-insurgency efforts."[278]
UNDP has also been unable to effectively track stipend payments to individual police officers to ensure that they reach their intended recipients. In 2007 some of these payments were delivered in the form of cash payments to the commissioner of police. One official with knowledge of the program told Human Rights Watch that many of the receipts given to RoLS to account for the distribution of stipend payments in 2007 were obvious forgeries.[279]
Largely because of this lack of financial transparency and uncertainty over the police credentials of individuals collecting stipends, and also because of increased complaints of SPF human rights abuses, UNDP and donors have put the brakes on any further stipend payments until a reliable mechanism can be found to ensure the transparency of their delivery. In 2007 UNDP decided that no stipends would be paid beyond the first quarter of 2008 until such a mechanism is put in place. One official told Human Rights Watch that unless this was done "there is a danger this money would fall into the hands of militias and their leaders and that some of the money designated for police will not go to real police."[280]
Remarkably, some of the donors who fund RoLS reacted to this prudent step by putting enormous pressure on UNDP to immediately recommence stipend payments and to dramatically expand their scope in ways that would only build upon the program's flaws. Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, wrote to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in July 2008 asking that he instruct UNDP to recommence the stipend payments immediately-and also to expand the program "to cover the salaries of an additional 4,000 police."[281]
In the face of repeated warnings from commission experts themselves and the obvious lack of accountability and transparency associated with the payments and the recipients, this proposed expansion of stipend payments was a reckless request. None of those 4,000 receiving salaries had undergone the UNDP-sponsored training (which includes instruction in basic human rights and community policing principles) that was a prerequisite for the payment of stipends to other police officers.
Many may not be police officers at all. Out of the group of 4,000, 1,000 were absorbed into the police force after undergoing a secretive training program in Ethiopia. The Ethiopian government forbade donors, including the European Commission and the UN, from observing the training or having access to the curriculum it employed. But a document circulated to donors by Ethiopian officials asking them to fund the training program acknowledged that one of its areas of focus was "counterinsurgency" training.[282] Most Ethiopia-trained forces returned from the training course as soldiers, and many of them have been involved in serious human rights abuses during operations in Mogadishu-often while operating under the command of Ethiopian military officers.[283] Roughly 900 others are Presidential Guard military forces-Majerteen clan militiamen with no police training who are loyal to TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf. The remainder are reportedly a mix of reactivated police officers from the Siad Barre regime and militiamen loyal to TFG Police Commissioner Abdi Qeybdid.[284]
The apparent justification for this proposal lies in the view among some donor officials that they should honor a 2008 request by TFG Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein to provide him with funds to pay for militias under his direct control or that of his allies. Asked by Human Rights Watch to explain the European Commission's demands that UNDP pay the salaries of the 4,000 Ethiopian-trained forces, Georges Marc-Andre, a Special Envoy of the Commission to Somalia, replied that the Prime Minister Hussein had asked them to do so. "Based on the hope and trust we have in the prime minister," he said, "our response was, we want to take the risk of supporting you because we know what you want is to establish the rule of law and peace in Somalia."[285]
Some current and former donor officials told Human Rights Watch they believed the reason the European Commission and other donors wanted to make police stipend payments through UNDP was that doing so bilaterally would be too politically embarrassing. One senior diplomatic official accused the European Commission of trying to "disguise" their actions by "having the UN do it for them."[286] Certainly the potential for political embarrassment is real. The UK government's Department for International Development (DFID) stopped supporting police stipend payments in 2008 after a television documentary called attention to British links with abusive TFG officials. The Times of London wrote about the program that "millions of pounds of taxpayer money…is financing a police force filled with militiamen and led by one of the country's most notorious warlords."[287]
Meanwhile, the same donors who are pushing for more direct UNDP support for TFG armed forces have failed to confront TFG officials about allegations of serious abuses involving the police. No effective mechanism exists, through UNDP or bilaterally through RoLS' donors, to ensure that financial support for the police is tied to meaningful efforts at ensuring prevention of and accountability for police abuses.[288]
In October 2008 an agreement signed between TFG and ARS officials in Djibouti called for the formation of a joint police force of 10,000 to maintain security in Mogadishu following an envisaged relocation of ENDF troops from much of the city. The agreement requested UNPOS to cover the "financial needs" of the force and at the time of writing the European Commission was considering providing this funding through RoLS.[289]
In Human Rights Watch's view there is very real cause for concern that donor pressure will again mount on UNDP or another donor mechanism to financially support this new force of 10,000 whether or not they have any training as police, whether or not mechanisms are put in place to ensure the financial transparency of payments, and whether or not effective mechanisms are put in place to ensure an effective response to human rights abuses involving members of the new force.
Notes
273] RoLS also includes support for the judicial system, mine action, and community security in separate programming areas for Somaliland, Puntland, and South/Central Somalia.
274] Human Rights Watch interviews with donor government and other diplomatic officials, Nairobi, September 2008.
275] One diplomatic official acknowledged to Human Rights Watch that double-cabin pickup trucks were chosen because they cannot easily be turned into "technicals"-the pickups mounted with antiaircraft guns that have been a feature of Somali conflict since the early 1990s. Human Rights Watch interview, Nairobi, September 2008.
276] See above, Human Rights Abuses by Transitional Federal Government Forces.
277] Letter on file with Human Rights Watch. See also Xan Rice, "EU Given War Crime Warning over Somalia Aid," The Guardian, April 7, 2007, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/07/eu.warcrimes (accessed October 17, 2008).
278] Memorandum on file with Human Rights Watch.
279] Human Rights Watch interview with senior diplomatic official, Nairobi, September 20, 2008.
280] Human Rights Watch interview with senior diplomatic official, Nairobi, September 20, 2008.
281] Letter from Louis Michel, European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid, to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, dated July 30, 2008 (on file with Human Rights Watch).
282] Communication on file with Human Rights Watch.
283] See above, Human Rights Abuses by Transitional Federal Government Forces.
284] Human Rights Watch interview and email correspondence with senior diplomatic official, Nairobi, September 20 and October 25 2008; Human Rights Watch interview with independent analyst, Nairobi, September 21, 2008.
285] Human Rights Watch interview with George Marc-Andre, a Special Envoy of the European Commission to Somalia (appointed June 8, 2007), Nairobi, September 22, 2008.
286] Human Rights Watch interview with senior diplomatic official, Nairobi, September 20, 2008.
287] Rob Crilley, "British taxpayer funds Somali police force for regime accused of war crimes," The Times, June 2, 2008.
288] A European Commission official told Human Rights Watch that Commission officials regularly raised concerns about police abuses with the office of the TFG Prime Minister but that while the prime minister deplored such incidents he was powerless to stop them. Human Rights Watch interview, Nairobi, September 22, 2008. UNDP has sent formal inquiries about specific incidents of abuse to SPF officials but has received no adequate response to any of them. Human Rights Watch interviews with diplomatic officials, Nairobi, September 20 and 22, 2008.
289] Human Rights Watch email correspondence with donor agency official, October 28, 2008.
Acknowledgments
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/76418/section/17
Acknowledgments
This report was researched and written by Chris Albin-Lackey, senior researcher in the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. The report was reviewed and edited by Leslie Lefkow, special initiatives researcher and Horn team leader in the Africa Division; Andrew Mawson, deputy program director; and James Ross, legal director at Human Rights Watch.
McKenzie Price, associate in the Africa Division, provided production assistance and support. Grace Choi and Fitzroy Hepkins made possible the production of the report and Anna Lopriore assisted with the cover photograph. Yaron David designed the map of Mogadishu.
Human Rights Watch wishes to thank the many individuals who came forward to offer the testimony and other information that made this report possible. We also wish to thank the individuals who offered their assistance in facilitating this research and helping to review sections of the final report.
Note
Picture: There will be no place for warlords in Somalia – either the criminal gangsters of Abyssinia and their US accomplices want it or not. From: http://news.softpedia.com/news/Somali-Warlords-Saved-by-a-US-Ship-26875.shtml
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