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Trading on embellished, conjured melancholies of Somalis: the international media and aid agencies business
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| By Omer Redi (WIC Staff Editor) For those of us who have had the chance to read a segment of Graham Hancock’s best seller LORDS of POVERTY: the power, prestige, and corruption of the international aid business, just only that among other such divulging publications, it wouldn’t be any surprise to read reports by those aid agencies and news by the international media depicting some conflict zones and, sometimes, even peaceful countries in Africa as equaling nothing but hell. It is not a surprise only because it is wrong to expect them to do otherwise as trading on callous deeds has become their source of income and means of “survival”: meaning sustain their lavish life style. Somalia, for nearly a decade and a half, particularly has been a multi billion dollars case for such organizations. They have been inexorably producing embellished and conjured reports, news and articles about miseries of Somalis using remote controlled pens while they live lavishly in world class villas in Nairobi with swimming pools in their backyards. Funny these multi million dollar guys never publish first hand information as they are too fragile to go to Somalia even now, leave alone then; isn’t it? Recent developments in Somalia seem to have threatened their “survival”. Despite the challenges, the TFG, in collaboration with Ethiopia and Ugandan peacekeepers is strengthening its control of the country. Statehood is a growing trend thus calling for accountability on the part of the multi million dollar guys to the TFG and their multi billion dollars business to go through the new born respective Somali government institutes. Traders on callous deeds thus have come up with the idea of erroneously portraying the situations and figure of internally displaced Somalis. Bear with me to see how that ended.
The people sheltering in the dozens of ad hoc settlements and camps that have sprung up along the Mogadishu to Afgooye road have finally been counted. The number came to just 44,182, together with 400 militia whose job is to keep order in the two main camp areas of ‘Eelasha and Lafole. The count, carried out by UNDP officials together with officials from the Transitional Federal Government and the Benadir Administration took place in the first week of December. It followed reports of large-scale movements of people out of Mogadishu over the previous weeks. In fact numbers have clearly been continuously exaggerated and inflated. Since March, UN agencies, NGOs and journalists in Nairobi, have been claiming that hundreds of thousands have been fleeing fighting in Mogadishu. UN officials and aid agencies asserted that as many as 200,000 people fled in October and November alone, adding to an alleged 400,000 that journalists and other Islamic Courts’ supporters in Nairobi claimed had fled from earlier fighting in March and April. The UN also said 20,000 to 25,000 were regularly leaving every month. When John Holmes (UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator), visited Mogadishu at the beginning of December, he spoke of 600,000 people (supposedly 60% of its population) having fled the city; and of 200,000 or more visible along the Afgooye/Mogadishu road. He visited one of these village settlements, Hawa Abdi, on December 3. Agencies and journalists covering his visit reported the number of IDPs in Hawa Abdi to be 24,000 people. When the numbers were actually counted a few days later, there were only 300! None of the estimates and figures so widely quoted over the last few months have been even remotely accurate. Privately UN officials admit they have been well aware there have been exaggerations, but as one official put it: How can we persuade the international community of the need unless we claim to be worse than Darfur; if we don’t go over the top, we won’t get anything; there’s only a small cake; getting even a small slice for Somalia is impossible unless we exaggerate. Exaggerate they have; and UN and aid agencies, like the TFG itself, accept the exaggerations. All want as much aid as possible. Certainly, there is a crisis. This year’s cereal harvest has been very poor, and food production in the Wabi Shebelli valley was seriously affected by flooding last year. Terrorist attacks in the city, and security force responses, have hampered the restoration of administration, and impeded food arrivals and distribution of food aid. With the current significant improvement in security, the flow of aid is improving, but there remains a serious and very considerable need for food aid, and medical support, especially for those in these settlements. As John Holmes noted at the beginning of the month, however, humanitarian responses are beginning to arrive and are clearly visible: water trucking; distribution of plastic sheeting for shelter; vaccination campaigns and feeding for the malnourished, are all under way. There’s a similar need for those displaced in 2006 by the military activities of the Islamic Courts and by floods, drought, food shortages and locusts over several years, in other parts of the Wabi Shelbelli valley. Christian Balslev-Olesen, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, estimates there have been “roughly 450,000 people displaced by the fighting this year”. This he suggested brings the total of displaced people to over 800,000. Over all, he claims more than 1.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection. That may be, but given this difference between UN claims and the actual numbers along the Afgooye/Mogadishu road, it’s hard not to be skeptical. It’s not just the numbers of people fleeing the city that have been exaggerated. Fighting in Mogadishu, both in March/April and again last month, has always been on a far smaller level than the former Islamic Courts’ leaders, now in Eritrea, have claimed, or journalists, usually secure in Nairobi, have happily repeated. Much of the film of fighting even appears to have been posed. Aljezerra’s stock pictures, much provided by al-Shabaab participants, include numerous examples of youngsters jumping out from behind walls to fire into the distance while grinning at the camera, with no sign of any responding fire. There has, of course, been heavy fighting and there have been heavy civilian casualties, but terrorist attacks, random, and often aimed at civilians, have been mostly confined to small areas and specific districts. So have the responses by TFG security or Ethiopian soldiers. People forced to leave their homes, and of course many have, have mostly gone to relatives, to members of their own clan elsewhere in the city. Those who have actually left Mogadishu are from marginalized clans or from distant areas with no clan support in or around Mogadishu. The fighting has never covered more than four districts (out of 16), and never at any one time. Every where else, residents have been carrying on as normally as they have been able to during the last 16 years. The Mogadishu administration hasn’t yet managed the restoration of electricity and water supplies, but private operators are trying, with considerable success, to fill the gap. There’s some street cleaning; people go to work; schools are open; most markets are functioning; food is available, if not always plentiful; small shops are open; coffee shops are numerous. Since January all the district police stations have been opened and staffed – though they have become a target for al-Shabaab terrorists, as have police officers. Mogadishu certainly has problems, but equally certainly, its inhabitants aren’t ghosts; it’s very far from being a “ghost town”. |
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