Internet in Ethiopia’s Somali region shut down after regional violence

Wednesday August 8, 2018

Authorities have shut off Internet access in eastern Ethiopia amid an outbreak of violence there, residents said on Wednesday, a sign of the challenges facing reformist Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in containing ethnic tensions in parts of the country.

The residents, one speaking from Oromia region and the other from the city of Harar, said the connection had been down for three days — the first time access has been cut off since parliament lifted a state of emergency in June.

Ethiopian government spokesman Ahmed Shide did not immediately respond to a phone call and a text message seeking comment on the shutdown, which was reported on Tuesday by digital rights group Access Now.

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Violence broke out on Saturday in Jijiga, the capital of Ethiopia’s Somali region, with mobs looting properties owned by ethnic minorities. Security officials shot dead four people, a witness told Reuters.
The government said unrest had been stoked by regional officials.

The residents in Oromia and Harar said they were concerned the violence could spread from the Somali region into other parts of eastern Ethiopia, in part because tit-for-tat ethnic reprisals were one part of the unrest that roiled the country for three years until the resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn in February.

The government had imposed emergency rule in February, a day after Hailemariam’s resignation after three years of street protests and violent unrest.

Since replacing Desalegn in April, Abiy has turned politics and the economy on its head in the country of 100 million people but continuing ethnic violence poses a challenge to his reform drive.

Nearly 1 million Ethiopians are currently displaced from their homes due to ethnic violence in the Somali and Oromia regions and elsewhere, according to the United Nations.
The government’s move to shut down the Internet amid the latest violence over the weekend suggests a continuation of a knee-jerk reaction to unrest in recent years.

Abiy, a 41-year-old former army officer, has pledged greater freedoms. In the four months since he took office, the government has released political prisoners and lifted a ban on opposition groups.

During the protests before Abiy took office, the government frequently switched off the Internet, sometimes for several months at a time, in Oromia, a large region that surrounds the capital Addis Ababa and extends east all the way to the Somali region.

Halting the ability of young people to organize demonstrations or strikes online or on social media, using smartphones, was a strategy used to contain protests.

Ethiopia, a country of 100 million people, is one of the few countries in the world that still has a state telecoms monopoly, which makes shutting off the internet more simple than if there were multiple telecoms providers.

Federal Government Says Killers Of Young Entrepreneur Mohamed Sheikh Have Been Gunned Down

Monday August 6, 2018

Somalia’s Information Ministry said, security forces gunned down the suspected killers of the recently slain young entrepreneur, Mohamed Sheikh, who was killed on August 2.

Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle, stated the security forces shot dead the suspected assailants responsible of the recent drive-by shooting incidents in the capital.

Minister Gelle said, they have enough evidence that the slain suspects were indeed the perpetrators of Mohamed’s murder,  and added the police seized the vehicle they were driving and weapons.

Two occupants of the vehicle were killed and the driver escaped unharmed. A government soldier was also shot dead in the exchange of gunfire.

Separately, the minister condemned an incident in Mogadishu where a member of the police force was killed inside a mosque by suspected Al-Shabaab militants – terming the killing horrific.

The development comes amid a public outcry over the rise of the number of assassinations in Mogadishu recently.

Protesters yesterday took to the streets to condemn the killing of Mohamed Sheikh and demanded justice for him.

President of Ethiopia’s Somali region resigns

Monday August 6, 2018

The Minister for Information for the Somali region of Ethiopia Idris Ismail has confirmed to the BBC Somali Service that regional President Abdi Mohamud Omar has handed over power and has agreed to step down.
This follows days of tension in the Somali region as the Federal Military were deployed to the region.

It’s believed that he has been pressured by the federal government to step down following protests and fighting between Somali and Oromo communities.

Reports say that more federal troops have been deployed to the regional capital, Jigjiga

A BRIEF WONDROUS LIFE

By Abdilatif Dahir

Mohamed Mohamoud

The news of the attack was revealed first on Twitter.

On Aug. 2, Mohamed Mohamoud Sheik, 31, an entrepreneur and youth activist, was assaulted by unknown gunmen near the Benadir junction in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. He was later pronounced dead after undergoing surgery at a local hospital.

Mohamed’s death dealt the country and its people a big blow. He was a pioneer, a believer in a better Somalia, a passionate advocate for Mogadishu, and a rebel determined to create a better future out of the rubble of a devastating civil war. His story, his work, and his ultimate killing represent the tragic fate of a city struggling between a brutal past, an uncertain present, and the urgent need to redefine its future.

In 2012, aged 25, Mohamed came into the limelight when he opened Somalia’s first dry cleaner in decades. Forever curious, he got the idea after noticing businessmen and government officials taking their suits abroad to get them cleaned. A year later, he opened the city’s first flower shop—a much-needed, hopeful, and romantic injection into a nation taking baby steps out of over two decades of war.

To boost local businesses, he founded Startup Grind Mogadishu, an affiliate of the Google-powered global startup community aimed at encouraging entrepreneurs. He was also a judge on the Inspire Somalia television show, which gave budding entrepreneurs the chance to pitch and bring their dreams to fruition. Through his actions and ambitious business plans, Mohamed was an exemplar of a buoyant city, showing those in and out what could be done to revive war-torn Somalia.

As he said during his TEDx Mogadishu talk in 2013, for him it wasn’t “only about opening up a business, it’s about bringing something that people need.”

Small city. Big dreams.

Mogadishu is a dense city: 91 square kilometers (35 square miles) with a population of over 2.5 million people, according to urban city index Demographia. Shaped like the head of an ax, it hugs the waters of the Indian Ocean even as it arcs back into dozens of tiny, sand-filled alleys, several tarmacked roads, 17 districts, numerous open-air markets, before offering itself up to the rest of mainland Somalia and the Horn of Africa.

With its white and gray architecture hemmed in by the blue horizon of the ocean, it was once described by the renowned Somali author Nuruddin Farah as “one of the prettiest” cities in the world. But the capital and its cosmopolitan culture became unmoored after 1991: after 20 years under the grip of a tyrant, looting militias, marauding tribespeople, and most recently terrorists, left it dispossessed for another three decades.

Yet that hasn’t stopped Somalia’s young from struggling to restore their nation. Since 2011, there have been efforts to revive tourism, rebuild the ruins of war, rehabilitate child soldiers, and use technology and innovation as a way to create employment opportunities.

When I last met Mohamed in June in Nairobi, he spoke about some of these endeavors, the audacity and unity among the young, about his work with female techies at Bilan Codes enterprise, and laughing through his tooth-gaped smile, about the city’s new pastry shops and cheesecake variety. But he was also miffed by the traffic-clogged streets of Mogadishu and lamented the continuing deadly attacks on hotels and restaurants.

In a conversation that lasted till 1 am, Mohamed spoke about how urban renewal in Mogadishu was less about shiny new apartments and pizza parlors, but about the newfound energy to change lives for the better. There was still a long way to go, he said, but men and women, locals and diaspora, intellectuals and students were all yearning to contribute and heal the city step by step. Mogadishu was on a winning streak.

Happier times at the Somalia Premium Laundry in Mogadishu.

Uncertain future

The great urban activist Jane Jacobs once wrote: “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.” This clarion call for strength in diversity was what made Jacobs the doyen of urbanism and a passionate advocate for building and sustaining vibrant cities. By standing up to New York city supremo Robert Moses, she rallied against the erasure of experiences and memories, argued for self-preservation, and championed the cause of the self-regulating communities who keep an eye out for each other and manage the convenience stores and the laundry shops. Remove them, she warned, at your own city’s peril.

Which is why the salvo of bullets that killed Mohamed—and many, many others—means only one thing: that the visible signs of progress in Somalia were coming at a huge cost. The bullet, not the bulldozer, is Mogadishu’s way of displacing its best and gentrifying its streets. The bullet is there to scare, to stymie progress, to force many to leave and others to cower behind barricades, to declare that entropy is and will remain the norm.

Through Mohamed’s loss, Mogadishu has been deprived of one of its best advocates, one who knew that it was more than the sum of its occupants, businesses, and new structures. Mogadishu has lost an icon. And the question now remains: How do you rebuild a capital when “everybody” isn’t there?

Encourage Private and Public sector Partnership for Mandera County.

What are Public Private Partnerships?

Public Private Partnerships must be at the heart of the upcoming Mandera County government’s to jam start our ruined public services infructure in Mandera County.
I will picks through the jargon to explain the bewildering benefit of private sector involvement in the public sector.

What is a Public Private Partnership?

Any collaboration between public bodies, such as local authorities or central government, and private companies tends to be referred to a public-private partnership .

The upcoming County Government must encourage to expand the range of private public partnerships because i believes it is the best way to secure the improvements in public services that encourage investor to our nobbled County.

I believes private companies are often more efficient and better run than bureaucratic public bodies.In trying to bring the public and private sector together, County Government will take advantage that the management skills and financial acumen of the business community will create better value for money for taxpayers.

Many however, remain skeptical – and may be are particularly concerned about the extension of the private sector into new areas like schools and hospitals which have traditionally been publicly run but evidence from other countries gives a good flavours of encouragement.

The county Government must embraced the concept of private-public partnership with enthusiasm as the building blocks to jam start the infrastructure that need utmost careful development to widened the concept of public-private co-operation.

If privatisation represents a take-over of a publicly-owned commodity, i will suggest, then Public-private partnership is more like a deliverable merger, with both sides sharing the risks and, hopefully, seeing the benefits.

Given that the health, Transport and education sectors represent 30% of the Mandera county budget the potential rewards for industry of opening up the public sector to private finance are huge.

However, now that the County government is even none existent, how far it wants to go in these areas in the face of the new brand of politics and government systems is in a murky and not clear as yet.

But the upcoming county government must determine to involve the private sector in managing our none existing infrastructures like roads, technological advances, education and mineral research institutions.

What are the arguments for private-public partnership?

As an advocate of public-private partnership i will suggest that we need desperately infrastructure like roads, state of the arts hospitals, and public sector alone cannot make us realise this ambition unless encouraged thorough private finance – relying on the public money alone simply is not a solution available. two way partnership will lead to a dramatic increase in the quality of public services and develop the county infrastructure.

However, the county Government must create Performance-related penalties that will be built into most privately acquired contracts that ensure a continuing improvement in standards, far in advance of anything that could be achieved in the public sector.

The central government has not and never staked its reputation on delivering better public services in Mandera County but it is also aware that there is a limit on how far taxes can be raised and redistributed.

private finance is a fast, effective – and in the short term at least – cheap way of getting new facilities built.

There are some areas where public-private schemes may ultimately prove unsuitable but like County of mandera where even basic services lack the capacity and lagging behind stone age, private finance is only the medicine that we must encourage to cure.

In my opinion the upcoming County government must look at this idea because public-private investment programme will demonstrate to skeptics that it is the only way to revamp the county’s ailing public services and Zero infrastructure that need starting from scratch.