Waa kuma Musharaxxa Madaxweyne ee Puntland 2014, Mudane Cali Xaaji Warsame?

Halga ka akhri: http://www.alihajiwarsame.com/Biography.pdf

10 Reasons To Quit Your Job This Year

James Altucher

Financial Columnist and Managing Director, Formula Capital

Posted: 04/05/2013

This was going to end badly. I would play chess all day in my office with the door locked. My boss would knock on the door and I would put my headphones on and ignore him. People would complain that the software I wrote didn't work. My boss would say, "where were you yesterday" and I would say, "it was a Jewish holiday" even though there was none and he would say, "well...tell us next time if you leave." It was bad behavior. I was a slave trying to escape but I didn't know how. I wanted to start a business but I didn't know what. I wanted to create something but I would play games all day, burning up the fuel in my brain.

You can't make money without selling something real. You can't make something real without first imagination manifesting itself in your head. You can't have imagination without surrendering yourself to an idea that you want to create something of value to other human beings.

And now it's too late. Now the course of history has finally written it's next chapter. There's no more bullshit. I'm going to tell you why you have to quit your job. Why you need to get the ideas moving. Why you need to build a foundation for your life or soon you will have no roof.

1) The middle class is dead. A few weeks ago I visited a friend of mine who manages a trillion dollars. No joke. A trillion. If I told you the name of the family he worked for you would say, "they have a trillion? Really?" But that's what happens when ten million dollars compounds at 2% over 200 years.

He said, "look out the windows". We looked out at all the office buildings around us. "What do you see?" he said. "I don't know." "They're empty! All the cubicles are empty. The middle class is being hollowed out." And I took a closer look. Entire floors were dark. Or there were floors with one or two cubicles but the rest empty. "It's all outsourced or technology has taken over for the paper shufflers," he said.

"Not all the news is bad," he said. "More people entered the upper class than ever last year." But, he said, more people are temp staffers than ever.

And that's the new paradigm. The middle class has died. The American Dream never really existed. It was a marketing scam.

And it was. The biggest provider of mortgages for the past 50 years, Fannie Mae, had as their slogan, "We make the American Dream come true." It was just a marketing slogan all along. How many times have I cried because of a marketing slogan. And then they ruined it.

2) You've been replaced. Technology, outsourcing, a growing temp staffing industry, productivity efficiencies, have all replaced the middle class. The working class. Most jobs that existed 20 years ago aren't needed now. Maybe they never were needed. The entire first decade of this century was spent with CEOs in their Park Avenue clubs crying through their cigars, "how are we going to fire all this dead weight?". 2008 finally gave them the chance. "It was the economy!" they said. The country has been out of a recession since 2009. Four years now. But the jobs have not come back. I asked many of these CEOS: did you just use that as an excuse to fire people, and they would wink and say, "let's just leave it at that."

I'm on the board of directors of a temp staffing company with $600 million in revenues. I can see it happening across every sector of the economy. Everyone is getting fired. Everyone is toilet paper now.

Flush.

3) Corporations don't like you. The executive editor of a major news publication took me out to lunch to get advice on how to expand their website traffic. But before I could talk he started complaining to me: "our top writers keep putting their twitter names in their posts and then when they get more followers they start asking for raises."

"What's the problem?" I said. "Don't you want writers that are popular and well-respected?"

When I say a "major news publication" I am talking MAJOR.

He said, "no, we want to be about the news. We don't want anyone to be an individual star."

In other words, his main job was to destroy the career aspirations of his most talented people, the people who swore their loyalty to him, the people who worked 90 hours a week for him. If they only worked 30 hours a week and were slightly more mediocre he would've been happy. But he doesn't like you. He wants to you stay in the hole and he will throw you a meal every once in awhile in exchange for your excrement. If anyone is a reporter out there and wants to message me privately I will tell you who it was. But basically, it's all of your bosses. Every single one of them.

4) Money is not happiness. A common question during my Twitter Q&A, asked at least once a week, is "should I take the job I like or should I take the job that pays more money".

Leaving aside the question of "should I take a job at all", let's talk about money for a second. First, the science: studies show that an increase in salary only offers marginal to zero increase in "happiness" above a certain level. Why is this? Because the basic fact: people spend what they make. If your salary increases $5,000 you spend an extra $2000 on features for your car, you have an affair, you buy a new computer, a better couch, a bigger TV, and then you ask, "where did all the money go?" Even though you needed none of the above now you need one more thing: another increase in your salary, so back to the corporate casino for one more try at the salary roulette wheel. I have never once seen anyone save the increase in their salary.

In other words, don't stay at the job for safe salary increases over time. That will never get you where you want - freedom from financial worry. Only free time, imagination, creativity, and an ability to disappear will help you deliver value that nobody ever delivered before in the history of mankind.

5) Count right now how many people can make a major decision that can ruin your life. I don't like it when one person can make or break me. A boss. A publisher. A TV producer. A buyer of my company. At any one point I've had to kiss ass to all of the above. I hate it. I will never do it again.

The way to avoid this is to diversify the things you are working on so no one person or customer or boss or client can make a decision that could make you rich or destroy you or fulfill your life's dreams or crush them. I understand it can't happen in a day. Start planning now how to create your own destiny instead of allowing people who don't like you to control your destiny. When you do this count, make sure the number comes to over 20. Then when you spin the wheel the odds are on your side that a winning number comes up.

6) Is your job satisfying your needs? I will define "needs" the way I always do, via the four legs of what I call "the daily practice". Are your physical needs, your emotional needs, your mental needs, and your spiritual needs being satisfied?

The only time I've had a job that did was when I had to do little work so that I had time on the side to either write, or start a business, or have fun, or spend time with friends. The times when I haven't is when I was working too hard, dealing with people I didn't like, getting my creativity crushed over and over, and so on. When you are in those situations you need to plot out your exit strategy.

Your hands are not made to type out memos. Or put paper through fax machines. Or hold a phone up while you talk to people you dislike. 100 years from now your hands will rot like dust in your grave. You have to make wonderful use of those hands now. Kiss your hands so they can make magic.

One can argue, "not everyone is entitled to have all of those needs satisfied at a job." That's true. But since we already know that the salary of a job won't make you happy, you can easily modify lifestyle and work to at least satisfy more of your needs. And the more these needs are satisfied the more you will create the conditions for true abundance to come into your life.

Your life is a house. Abundance is the roof. But the foundation and the plumbing need to be in there first or the roof will fall down, the house will be unlivable. You create the foundation by following the Daily Practice. I say this not because I am selling anything but because it worked for me every time my roof caved in. My house has been bombed, my home has been cold and blistering winds gave me frost bite, but I managed to rebuild. This is how I did it.

7) Your Retirement Plan is For Shit. I don't care how much you set aside for your 401k. It's over. The whole myth of savings is gone. Inflation will carve out the bulk of your 401k. And in order to cash in on that retirement plan you have to live for a really long time doing stuff you don't like to do. And then suddenly you're 80 and you're living a reduced lifestyle in a cave and can barely keep warm at night.

The only retirement plan is to Choose Yourself. To start a business or a platform or a lifestyle where you can put big chunks of money away. Some people can say, "well, I'm just not an entrepreneur ."

This is not true. Everyone is an entrepreneur. The only skills you need to be an entrepreneur: an ability to fail, an ability to have ideas, to sell those ideas, to execute on those ideas, and to be persistent so even as you fail you learn and move onto the next adventure. Or be an entrepreneur at work. An "entre-ployee". Take control of who you report to, what you do, what you create. Or start a business on the side. Deliver some value, any value, to any body, to somebody, and watch that value compound into a carer.

What is your other choice? To stay at a job where the boss is trying to keep you down, will eventually replace you, will pay you only enough for you to survive, will rotate between compliments and insults so you stay like a fish caught on the bait as he reels you in. Is that your best other choice? You and I have the same 24 hours each day. Is that how you will spend yours?

8) Excuses. "I'm too old". "I'm not creative." "I need the insurance." "I have to raise my kids". I was at a party once. A stunningly beautiful woman came up to me and said, "James, how are you!?"

WHAT? Who are you?

I said, "hey! I'm doing well." But I had no idea who I was talking to. Why would this woman be talking to me? I was too ugly. It took me a few minutes of fake conversation to figure out who she was.

It turns out she was the frumpish-looking woman who had been fired six months earlier from the job we were at. She had cried as she packed up her cubicle when she was fired. She was out of shape, she looked about 30 years older than she was, and now her life was going to go from better to worse. Until...she realized that she was out of the zoo. In the George Lucas movie, THX-1138 (the name of the main character was "THX-1138″) everyone's choices are removed and they all live underground because above ground is "radioactive". Finally THX decides better to die above ground than suffer forever underground where he wasn't allowed to love. He wasn't free.

He makes his way above ground, evading all the guards and police. And when he gets there, it's sunny, everyone above ground is beautiful, and they are waiting for him with open arms and kisses. The excuse "but it's radioactive out there!" was just there to keep him down.

"This is easy for you to say," people say to me. "Some of us HAVE to do this!" The now-beautiful woman had to do it also. "What are you doing now?" I asked her. "Oh, you know," she said. "Consulting." But some people say, "I can't just go out there and consult. What does that even mean?"

And to that I answer, "Ok, I agree with you." Who am I to argue? If someone insists they need to be in prison even though the door is unlocked then I am not going to argue. They are free to stay in prison.

9) Its ok to take baby steps. "I can't just QUIT!" people say. "I have bills to pay". I get it. Nobody is saying quit today. Before a human being runs a marathon they learn to crawl, then take baby steps, then walk, then run. Then exercise every day and stay healthy. Then run a marathon. Heck, what am I even talking about? I can't run more than two miles without collapsing in agony. I am a wimp.

Make the list right now. Every dream. I want to be a bestselling author. I want to reduce my material needs. I want to have freedom from many of the worries that I have succumbed to all my life. I want to be healthy. I want to help all of the people around me or the people who come into my life. I want everything I do to be a source of help to people. I want to only be around people I love, people who love me. I want to have time for myself.

THESE ARE NOT GOALS. These are themes. Every day, what do I need to do to practice those themes? It starts the moment I wake up: "who can I help today?" I ask the darkness when I open my eyes. "Who would you have me help today?" I'm a secret agent and I'm waiting for my mission. Ready to receive. This is how you take baby steps. This is how eventually you run towards freedom.

10) Abundance will never come from your job. Only stepping out of the prison imposed on you from your factory will allow you to achieve abundance. You can't see it now. It's hard to see the gardens when you are locked in jail. Abundance only comes when you are moving along your themes. When you are truly enhancing the lives of the people around you.

When every day you wake up with that motive of enhancement. Enhance your family, your friends, your colleagues, your clients, potential customers, readers, people who you don't even know yet but you would like to know. Become a beacon of enhancement and then when the night is gray, all of the boats will move towards you, bringing their bountiful riches.

Don't believe me. Stay with a boss that hates you. A job that is keeping you locked on a chain around your neck, tantalizing you with incremental increases in pay and job title. Stay in a culture that is quietly replacing the entire middle class. This is not anyone's fault. This is the tectonic plates of economics destroying an entire suburban culture that has lasted for almost 100 years.

Until you choose yourself for success, and all that choice entails, you will be locked into the prison. You will stare into your lover's eyes looking for a sign that he or she loves you back. But slowly the lights will fade, the warmth of another body will grow cold, and you will go to sleep dreamless in the dark once again.

This article originally appeared on James Altucher's blog.

Understanding the drivers of conflict in Somalia

Posted by Managing Editor for YaleJournal.org • April 2, 2013  

by Tuesday Reitano*

 Introduction

2013 might just be Somalia’s year.  A confluence of events – the successful end of the political transition, the formation of a promising new government headed by a new guard of civil society leaders, and the rollback and significant weakening of the militant terrorist group al Shabaab – offers the best hope for a peace that Somalia has had in decades.  But the challenges remain immense, and recent achievements can be easily reversed.   Without an effective central government since 1991, parts of the country have been torn apart by decades of conflict, chronic poverty, inequality, food insecurity, and public health challenges.  State institutions, where they exist, are a patchwork of colonial legacies that were never fit for the purpose of governing a sovereign state and delivering services to its people.

Any analysis that attempts to identify the underlying and precipitating causes of conflict in Somalia wades into turbulent waters.  There are numerous competing narratives and differing interpretations of a complex and contentious twenty-year conflict.  What is clear, however, is that the best chance of sustaining the peace in Somalia will be through ensuring the legitimacy of leadership and by addressing some underlying causal dynamics.

 Understanding the drivers of conflict in Somalia

The root causes of the Somalia crisis can be traced to three phenomena: colonialism, Cold War politics, and the Barre dictatorship, perpetuated by a combination of both greed and grievance.  The interaction of these forces in the post-colonial state ushered in the clan conflict of the 1980s and the two decades of perpetual violent anarchy that followed.

Two other actors that have been drivers in the conflict in Somalia are the criminal elements in the country and radical ideologies.  Somalia’s extended coastline, – the longest in Africa – its strategic location as the gateway to the Gulf States, and the poor government controls have made the country very vulnerable to trafficking, smuggling and organised crime.  The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)[1] observed that established trafficking routes in the Horn of Africa expand elastically to smuggle or traffic all manner of illicit goods from people to weapons to illicit drugs.  Somalia further serves as a quasi-free-trade zone with its neighbours, most notably Kenya, on a wide range of licit and contraband goods that, despite being smuggled, are still cheaper than buying domestically.  Local criminal networks are quick to facilitate these kinds of illicit activities for any product for which a buyer can be found, and have used funds to infiltrate key trade and political sectors, using violence and intimidation to safeguard criminal activities.   For these groups, which in some cases include powerful provincial leaders, armed militia groups, and business elites, there has been a vested interest in perpetuating conditions of lawlessness and disorder.

Al Shabaab, the extremist ideology that splintered off of the Ethiopian-funded Union for Islamic Courts movement at the beginning of the Millennium, has become the largest and most powerful Somali militia force in the country, controlling much of the South and, up until 2011, Mogadishu.  Up until this time, Somalia’s civil war had been largely free from radical ideologies, but al Shabaab’s on-going insurgency against the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has been the main source of armed conflict in the last five years[2].  However, the goals and actual grievances of al Shabaab are unclear, and have become more so since the self-proclaimed terrorist group has increased its international linkages to al Qaeda and other foreign extremist groups[3].  While on paper the group subscribes to the same long-term goals as international al Qaeda (namely global jihad), in reality al Shabaab leaders have focused on Somali priorities, evicting AMISOM and deposing the former Transitional Federal Government (TFG), and the agendas of international figures remains opaque[4]. This seems to suggest that while ideological extremism has been suggested to be a primary driver in the conflict in Somalia, in fact it is less ideology than control over strategic locations which may be at play here.

 What hope for peace?

The perceived legitimacy of the state and its ability to provide security and deliver services to its people are absolutely critical to building a peaceful society.  Furthermore, having robust legitimacy in place will decrease the likelihood that insurgent, terrorist or militant groups will attract mass support[5].  It is for this reason that the recent election of the new government may prove to be the key to breaking the protracted conflict, moving Somalia down the path to peace, security and development.

The selection of the three most pivotal positions in government – the President, Vice President and the Speaker of the Parliament – was, in part, the result of a civic mobilization by a coalition of “constructive elites” associated with the establishment of universities, schools, hospitals, charities, and businesses in Mogadishu over the past twenty years.  Analysts consider it a positive indication that the 2012 Government of Somalia is being built around prominent civil society figures who have stayed in the region and who are part of network of civic and private sector actors with a real interest in promoting peace and governance,[6] as opposed to members of the old TFG guard.   As emphasised at the high-level London Conference on Somaliain February 2012, ensuring peace dividends for the population, and introducing basic services into areas liberated from Al-Shabaab will be an important tool to reinforcing the new government’s position.

The protracted conflict in Somalia should also be understood as part of an inter-related web of conflicts that blight the Horn of Africa.  Over the past two decades, external actors have frequently and increasingly been central protagonists in Somalia’s armed violence.  This has taken numerous forms – international peace enforcement, protection forces, occupying armies, proxy wars, covert operations, smuggling of both commodities and illicit goods across borders, and as the source of policies or development resources that have inadvertently fuelled local conflicts.[7]  There is little doubt that the actions of these external actors, whether positively or negatively intentioned, will continue to have considerable impact on the future of Somalia and the success of its state-building transition.

In particular, the on-going competing interests of neighbouring powers Ethiopia and Kenya continue to play out within Somalia’s borders, with financial interests coming quickly to the fore.  A recent article in The Economist highlighted the growing unrest in the recently liberated port of Kismayo in South-Central Somalia.  Formerly a bastion and primary resource generator for Al-Shabaab, the port was liberated by AMISOM in September 2012 and “is now run by a chaotic security committee on which Kenyans, Ethiopians and several competing Somali factions joust.  A presidential delegation from Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital … was turned away when it tried to visit.”  Kenyans are jockeying with local militia for control of the port (which generated an estimated $50 million in taxes under Al-Shabaab), as well as for the stockpile of illicit charcoal (estimated in the region of $40 million), in what threatens to become another episode in the Somali conflict.

As a potentially more positive example, the role of the diaspora as they engage with post-conflict Somalia is a variable in the country’s stability.  Somalia has a very large, dynamic, and dedicated diaspora community.  $1.3-2 billion are remitted into the country annually,[8] equivalent to approximately one third of the country’s GDP.  Analysts who have examined the role of diaspora in conflict have broadly concluded that, historically, countries with large diaspora show a greater propensity towards armed conflict.[9]  Indeed, the Somali diaspora has played a role in both fuelling armed conflict and supporting the peace in the past,[10] and is likely to continue to do so as the diaspora dominates large swathes of Somalia’s political and civic life, including the central government, provincial governments, Al-Shabaab, business communities and civil society groups.[11]

Similarly, while the international community seeks to support Somalia’s transition and to provide humanitarian relief and development dividends to its people, lessons must be learned from the past.  Since Barre, the delivery, distribution of aid in Somalia has been a flashpoint for conflict.  One of the most notorious cases was Operation Provide Relief, an airlift of 48,000 tonnes of food aid by the United States in 1992, which attracted armed militia from across the region and resulted in 80 per cent being looted and more than 200,000 famine related deaths.[12]  Every effort should be made by the international community to ensure that the injection of external resources does not provoke conflict and exacerbate instability, and the growing presence of emerging donors such as Turkey and China will need to be monitored.

To avoid the new government being overwhelmed and marginalizedby international aid, funding should be channelled through legitimate state institutions in such a way that it builds local and national capacity to deliver services and maintain the rule of law.[13]  Given the incredibly weak capacity of Somali institutions, some innovative solutions may be required.  For example, a new trust fund established jointly by the British and the Danish, the “Somaliland Development Fund”, takes a shared governance and fund management model that will support the provincial government to meet its developmental priorities, improve service delivery capacity and support public financial management reforms, whilst at the same time ensuring transparency, accountability and limited international oversight.[14]  The OECD International Network on Conflict and Fragility (INCAF) is piloting an approach by which national and international partners enter into “transition compacts” as a modality to better align international financial support to country-specific priorities and strengthen mutual accountability.

The quiet success of the provincial governments of Somaliland and Puntland in managing conflict and shifting into relative stability has offered insights into what a more universal model of state-building might look like.  Somali communities in these provinces have developed an impressive array of informal systems to manage and mitigate conflict, and to provide citizens with modest levels of security and stability.[15]  These have been most effective and resilient when built around hybrid coalitions of clan elders, women’s groups, professionals, clerics and business people.  To offer one noteworthy example, community pressure has served to eject pirates from some coastal towns in Puntland.  This coalition-based approach has also proven its utility in overcoming clan politics.  The analogy of the “wagon train” was used by a senior EU official in an interview with the author in Hargeisa in May 2012, describing significant infrastructure investments that have been made even in contested areas, with all clans and factions paying a share, so that no single group would “shoot down the wagon train”.  The potential for this kind of collaborative, mutually advantageous coalition turns clan politics from a zero-sum game into a positive sum game, and thus can and should be harnessed at the national level to create a compact towards a more stable future.

The most ubiquitous source of conflict management in Somalia is customary law, or xeer, which is applied and negotiated by traditional clan elders and dedicated peacemakers and, much like the examples given above, relies on a principle of collective responsibility.[16] In an effort to build state institutions and accelerate Somalia’s road to development, the international community needs to use caution in imposing modern civil law.  Traditional community structures have legitimacy that derives from people’s shared beliefs and traditions, rather than from Western state models. Therefore, reinforcing support to such community structures and processes can help to safeguard against peace spoilers, and also prevent the growth of weak transitional state structures with the potential for greater corruption and exploitation by criminal actors and vested interests.

 Conclusion

This analysis of conflict drivers and potential for peace-building concludes that while there is good reason to have hope for a brighter future for Somalia, this transition period will be characterised by enormous ambiguity, uncertainty and potential for a reversion to conflict.  The willingness of both local and external actors to act in good faith and with a common purpose will be crucial to building a culture of trust and transparency.

The cornerstone of the debate rests with the new government, and whether they can break the greed-grievance cycle perpetuated by the governments that have gone before.  If they can remain committed, and are empowered, to build a genuinely open, accountable and citizen-centric set of state institutions, then this might indeed be Somalia’s year.

-- Scott Ross was lead editor of this article.

 *Tuesday Reitano is an Assistant Director at STATT, a boutique consulting firm that specialises in fragile states and transnational threats.  She is a senior research associate at the Institute of Security Studies, and has ten years of experience as a policy expert within the United Nations.   She is currently focused on research on the impact of organised crime on democratic governance and statehood across Africa, as well as globally.

Protect Displaced People at Risk

REPORT

from Human Rights Watch

Published on 27 Mar 2013 

 Protect Displaced People at Risk

New Government Should Tackle Past Injustice, Abuses

(Nairobi) – Members of state security forces and armed groups have raped, beaten, and otherwise abused displaced Somalis who have arrived in Somalia’s capital fleeing famine and armed conflict since 2011, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The new Somali government should urgently improve the protection and security of Mogadishu’s internally displaced population.

The 80-page report, “Hostages of the Gatekeepers: Abuses against Internally Displaced in Mogadishu, Somalia,”details serious violations, including physical attacks, restrictions on movement and access to food and shelter, and clan-based discrimination against the displaced in Mogadishu from the height of the famine in mid-2011 through 2012. Interviews with 70 displaced people documented the ways in which government forces, affiliated militia, and private parties, notably camp managers known as “gatekeepers,” prey upon the vulnerable community.

“Instead of finding a safe haven from fighting and famine, many displaced Somalis who came to Mogadishu have found hostility and abuse,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “The new Somali government should quickly remedy the failures of the previous government, improve protection of displaced people, and hold to account members of the armed forces and others responsible for abuses.”

Somalia is slowly emerging from two decades of conflict. In 2011 a combination of fighting involving Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government and African Union forces (AMISOM) against the armed Islamist group al-Shabaab, unrelenting drought, and obstruction of civilian access to humanitarian assistance caused a devastating famine. Tens of thousands of people fled south-central Somalia for Mogadishu where many are living in camps.

Rape and sexual abuse of displaced women and girls, including by government soldiers and militia members, has been an enormous problem in the unprotected environment of the camps, Human Rights Watch found. Many victims of sexual violence don’t report their experiences to the authorities because they fear reprisals from their attackers, are wary of the social stigma, and have little confidence in the justice system. The father of a young woman who was allegedly raped by four soldiers told Human Rights Watch, “We didn’t try to go to justice, because the commander was harassing us at the time my daughter was raped. So how I can trust anyone here? We must keep silent.”

Gatekeepers and militias controlling the camps have also diverted and stolen food aid intended for famine-stricken camp residents. A 30-year-old camp resident described her family’s dire situation: “There is nothing worse than the situation we are in. Now all we want is to get a car and return to our villages, because if I can die here because of lack of food, I might as well die in my village, because death is death.”

Gatekeepers sometimes have kept camp residents from leaving to attract greater humanitarian assistance, which the gatekeepers would then siphon off for their own benefit. One woman told Human Rights Watch: “If we try to move from the camp, she [the gatekeeper] takes the tents from us. We don’t have a plastic sheet, we don’t have other shelter, and we don’t have a place to sleep. So until we get rescued we must stay there as hostages.”

The communities from the regions most affected by the famine, the Rahanweyn and Bantu, have been particularly vulnerable to abuses. Gatekeepers and members of armed groups, including government-affiliated militias, treat them as second-class citizens, beat and insult them, and otherwise treat them repressively.

The Transitional Federal Government was primarily responsible for the failure to protect the displaced and to hold accountable those responsible for abuses, but donor governments involved in Somalia have not made these issues a priority. International donors, including humanitarian agencies, should be ensuring greater accountability of their assistance.

“The new government should turn the page on the transitional government’s failures and provide accountable protection to the displaced, who are among Somalia’s most vulnerable citizens,” Lefkow said. “Donors should stress that holding the security forces accountable for abuses against displaced people is key for improving security and the rule of law in Mogadishu.”

The new Somali government, which replaced the Transitional Federal Government in August 2012 following a United Nations-sponsored election process, announced plans to relocate the capital’s tens of thousands of displaced people in 2013. The government should ensure, in accordance with international law, that relocations are voluntary, that they are conducted safely and with dignity, and that competent police forces can provide security at the relocation sites.

Humanitarian organizations estimate that between 180,000 and 370,000 displaced people are in Mogadishu but precise data is not available because the displaced people were never officially registered. The lack of information about the displaced community heightens the need for the government, the UN, and aid agencies to carry out a profiling exercise to determine people’s needs. The effort should identify the most vulnerable people – such as female-headed households, unaccompanied children, the elderly, and the disabled – before any plans for relocation and resettlement are carried out.

The government’s response to the key issues affecting the displaced has so far been mixed. While high-level government officials, including President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, have made commendable public commitments to tackle abuse, including rape by government forces, these commitments have yet to be translated into concrete action. The criminal prosecution in recent weeks of a displaced woman – who alleged that she was raped by government soldiers – and of a journalist who interviewed her sent a deeply troubling message.

The government’s stated aim of completing relocation of displaced people by August 20, the one year anniversary of the end of the transitional government, despite the tremendous challenges of providing assistance and protection at the new resettlement sites, will put the displaced at greater risk of abuse and neglect.

“The government faces daunting challenges, though it appears committed to tackling the dire situation of the displaced in Mogadishu,” Lefkow said. “But if the rights, needs, and wishes of the displaced themselves are not addressed, then they are likely to face even more suffering and abuse.”

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