Every now and then life
throws a curve ball at Somalia.
Disaster strikes the country again,
and the world community, as we know
it, drag its feet to help the
drought-stricken people of Somalia. It
seems to have come to a sudden halt.
Drought combined with unending clan
warfare blows the people in a larger
scale, effecting thousands and even
millions of the long suffering people.
Such is the case
when severe drought struck several
regions in Somalia and the Somali
inhabited Northern Frontier Province (NFP)
of Kenya.
The footage stunned
the world as the media shared the
events with many Somali websites in
the Diaspora in the weeks that
followed the appalling event. We
grieved as the death climbs. We
expected an overwhelming response from
the world community, for the most part
from the oil-rich countries in the
Arab world, but they refused to open
their fat wallets to do whatever they
could to assist the survivors, even
after Al-Jazeera showed the extend of
the drought. In its prime time
footage, it showed the few surviving
ones who lost something they can never
get back-family, loved ones and
livestock. Also several Western news
agencies, like Reuters, AFP and others
highlighted the plight of the victims,
but as usual there were no response
from the wealth countries.
I am certainly not
fan of foreign aid, but there are all
kinds of humanitarian agencies, or
NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations),
that deal with disasters, give them
emergency food aid, clean drinking
water, temporary shelters and
medication in order to create a health
environment.
It should be
remembered that Somalia has been prone
to all kinds of disasters, drought,
wars, man-made famine, cyclone and
flooding since independence in 1960,
but the civilian governments of the
day, despite sucking up the gravy, and
few blunders, they at least got it
right by acting quickly and appealing
to the world community for relief for
the thousands struck by the notorious
drought dubbed as Abaartii Daba-dheer.
The military regime
led by General Mohamed Siyad Barre did
more or less the same as soon as
subsequent disasters hit the country.
Now the hare-brained
"leaders" meeting in Baidoa,
the City of Death, 1991/1993,
relegated the prevailing drought in
many regions of the country to the
back burner and the survivors are left
to die en mass.
There are, of
course, points on which the NGOs and
real citizens frequently rise-lack of
security which hampers emergency food
aid to the needy, after one of their
expatriate workers was recently
kidnapped near Af-madow by freelance
gunmen. He was later released after
local elders interceded.
We must raise
awareness that tree cutting and coal
burning are the root cause of the
frequent recurring drought and famine
in Somalia and the rest of the Horn of
Africa. The coal-exporting czars are
the ugly warts that suck millions of
dollars at the expense of the already
fragile environment, and continue
incessantly to denude the country.
I was outraged after
learning that gunmen loyal to one of
the coal-exporting czars kidnapped a
visiting environmentalist from the
United Nation Environmental Program.
He was later released, unharmed.
"I think this could be
exceedingly disastrous slap on
Somalia," says the UNEP official
on arrival in Nairobi. "That the
environment could be derailed by one
individual is a strike against a
country that's already reeling from
wars and men-made famine," the UN
official moaned.
The Transitional
Federal Government had better take
notice and correct this instead of
squabbling over trivial matters. The
irony of this is that while people are
dying of hunger and lack of primary
medical care in the drought effected
regions, Kenya exports to Somalia the
drug Qaad or khat and cigarettes as
well as expired medicines worth more
than 50 million dollars annually. The
Qaad and cigarette, like the
coal-exporting czars, are laughing all
the way to their Nairobi banks.
Along the way the
Somalis in the Diaspora could make a
lot of difference in their mother
country by launching a competent and
clan-free fund raising scheme. Of
course, the monthly remittances to
their families have been a welcome
gesture, but they could also open
their wallets to assist the
drought-hit families in the process.
I urge the TFG and
the legislators (some of them are the
czars mentioned above) to find an end
to their meaningless bickering and
backbiting, and focus their attention
fully on the drought victims.
It's time to
accomplish results.
Commentary
By M.M. Afrahİ 2006
COMMENTARY By M. M. Afrahİ
