UNREPORTED WORLD
Somalia: Last Haven
February 2002 – 25 minutes
00 04
You don’t go anywhere in Somalia without protection. Every inch of this African country is fought over by rival warlords.
00 15
As if all this wasn’t enough America now accuses Somalia of offering shelter to Al Qaeda fighters after their defeat in Afghanistan.
Juliana: Ten years of civil war have reduced Somalia to anarchy and rubble. Now the US are threatening with air strikes…Will Somalia become Africa’s Afghanistan?
TITLE: THE LAST HAVEN
[Leave aircraft]
00 46
I’d hitched a lift on a plane taking cloth to Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
00 56
At first glance this Islamic country, just a short ride from the middle east, seems a dream for terrorists.
Juliana: This airport is just amazing. We’ve just landed. It’s just a piece of beach. There’s no immigration, no passport control, you just get off the plane, walk out and you’re in Somalia.
01 25
A car from my hotel was waiting.
1 31
They’d brought protection. Two pickups crammed with bodyguards.
Juliana: This is the Somali version of a package deal – the price of the room includes ten gunmen. You don’t get a cocktail at the beginning, you get picked up at the airport with ten gunmen.
1 56
Ten years ago the civil war brought famine, and American troops came as peacekeepers.
2 04
The Americans left after 18 soldiers were killed in Mogadishu on a single day - the subject of the new Hollywood film Black Hawk Down.
2 16
The war continues. These buildings are full of freelance gunmen.
Conversation: So the only reason they don’t want money from us is that we have our own militia?
[Bank]
2 30
My bodyguards took me to the headquarters of Somalia’s main bank Al Barakaat.
2 38
It was under siege.
2 40
Three quarters of Somalis survive on money sent by family working abroad. But they can’t get their cash
2 49
The Americans have frozen the bank’s assets. They say they have intelligence it’s help fund Usama Bin Laden.
Juliana: This is the building that actually used to be the Al-Barakaat bank. There are computers sitting around, no business being done. The whole company is being closed down.
3 07
Upstairs I found two of the Bank’s directors. Their names are on America’s wanted lists of terrorists.
Juliana:This is a United States Government list about companies that have links to terrorist organisations, to bin Laden and al Qaeda. And you probably know that both your names are on this list
3 29
Abdullahi Hussein Kahiyeh said the Americans should produce their evidence.
Juliana: Mr Kahir is saying that the American accusations are absolutely unfounded and not true.
3 42
Abbas Abdi Ali said they were the victims of injustice.
Juliana: He is inviting the US Government over and saying if you have any questions why don’t you come to us and investigate our affairs and we’ll show you the books.
4 00
Last year businesses that don’t involve killing and kidnapping began to make a comeback in Somalia.
4 10
All that’s at an end.
4 13
These traders told me, ‘If the bank doesn’t reopen, our businesses are finished.’
Juliana: So these gentlemen are giving me their savings certificates and saying those were the entire savings they had and the United States has stolen our money. We can’t feed our money. This was all the money we had and we relied on.
04 37 The US believes the closure of al Barakaat has hurt al Qaeda. It’s also killed the faint hope of normality returning to Somalia, stone dead.
Juliana: The people here are saying this was just like the Hiroshima bomb that was sent by the Americans. The Americans bombed Hiroshima, everybody there died. And they said this is the equivalent. It’s like a financial bomb. They’re withholding our money and now we’re all going to die.
5 05
This part of town is run by the Government. It controls Southern Mogadishu and not much more.
5 14
Just where I was sitting was a bullet hole.
Juliana: They kidnapped foreign people?
Unicef people?
How many unicef people?
They kidnapped nine foreigners and four Somali people.
5 40
The government hasn’t paid its officials since al barakaat closed. But a Saudi Arabian charity had stepped in with money for a competition to find out which schoolboys could recite the Koran most beautifully.
5 58
The minister for religion, Mohamud Omar Farah, was on hand to judge the winners. At stake prizes each worth about two pounds.
6 21
America won’t deal with the minister’s government. They claim it’s penetrated by members of al Itihaad, a Somali group with links to Al Qaeda
6 32
I asked if al Qaeda was using its links with al Itihaad to regroup on government territory. We won’t allow that he said. You’ve seen our problems. The last thing we need is bombing.
Juliana: It’s another request for help. Please don’t be aggressive but instead come and co-operate with us.
7 00
We gave a lift to the seven year old boy we’d filmed.
7 07
Mahamud had won a prize. The organisers said he’d be robbed if he walked home.
7 33
His mother Rukia invited me back for supper.
Actuality I’m Juliana
Fade to Black
7 49
I returned with some bread and fish. Rukia’s husband worked far away, in northern Somalia. Times were hard.
So Ruki’a actually one of the women who’s been really affected by the closure of al barakkat and the closure of all the money remittance offices because her husband used to send her money through that money transfer company but ever since they’ve been closed you say you haven’t been able to get any money from him for how many months – two months –yes.
8 20
She and her three children were living in fear of starvation.
We showed her a picture of Bin Laden. The Somali Government has banned publication of his picture here.
Have you ever seen this picture?
Never she said.
[Port]
8 46
The next morning I dashed to the beach that that serves as Mogadishu’s port
8 53
I’d heard fishermen had spotted an American invasion fleet.
9 00
I soon realised it wasn’t true. But this man told me an aircraft had just passed overhead. ‘It’s choosing targets for the bombers’ he said. The whole place was in turmoil.
This country’s just such a rumour mill at the moment. This morning there was a very small plane that was flying over the port and immediately people were talking about possible US flights and possible US attacks and everyone just lives in a state of fear at the moment.
9 34
A boat started to unload. By chance it was called the Usama Bin Laden.
We’ve just been asked to leave. I’m not quite sure what’s going on but they’ve said we should just leave now.
9 50
The port’s owners had panicked when they saw the boat’s name.
9 56
They feared our pictures would bring American bombs.
10 11
The war lord who rules the north of Mogadishu had a score to settle. He wanted to show me proof that his old enemy the government was sheltering terrorists.
10 25
At the edge of his territory his gunmen were waiting.
We’ve just picked up a second car load of militia who are ruling the north of Mogadishu and that’s an area where our militia wouldn’t be respected so we need two car loads of gunmen now.
10 42
More joined us.
10 47
Even by Somali standards, the war lord, Musa Sude Yalahoo, has a fearsome reputation
10 51
This place actually feels really really different from all the other places we have visited, it really does feel like a warlord’s camp. There’s so much militia milling around everywhere, heavy, heavy guns, it’s just got a really funny feel about it.
11 20
He said he was the man to lead Somalia’s version of the Northern Alliance.
Musa Sude is just saying in 1995 when the American’s left Mogadishu they met three leaders and he is one, he is actually the last leader he was met by the Americans and talked to before they left and he’s saying he’d like to be the first leader who the Americans meet again and he would like to cooperate with them further.
11 51
In fact he wanted US firepower to help his forces attack the Somali Government in the South of the City.
Musa Sude is saying that the current government is a shambles because it’s got terrorist links and because it’s actually financed from Afghanistan.
12 11
As for proof, he had an American newspaper article.
The Americans always know more about this and the journalists say there is fundamentalism in Somalia so they must be right. He’s saying that’s the base of his allegations against the current government. And he doesn’t really want to say much more about it and he wants to leave it – and I think this is the end of the interview.
12 48
Suddenly I heard voices speaking English.
12 56
But it wasn’t the CIA, just a UN delegation checking if it was safe for its workers to return to Musa Sude’s territory.
[Driving
13 08
But was the CIA on the ground elsewhere in Somalia ? They would certainly find eager allies in other warlords willing to talk up terrorism in return for added firepower.
Ajoos, we’re going to the catherdral, ja?
Yeah
Is that the place where they attacked the other journalists
Yes, that was two weeks [ago] Now it’s settled, we understand each other.
I hope you gave them enough money for today..
[Cathedral]
13 39
Early in the civil war the cathedral was systematically demolished .
13 48
It’s one place where you can see evidence of Islam at its most militant.
In this part of town no one’s in charge.
14 08
The cathedral was destroyed when this part of the city was controlled by al Itihaad , the Islamic group the US government fears might offer shelter to al Qaeda.
IV WITH AJOOS Ajoos: This was destroyed by the group al-Ittihaad, six years ago JR: So the Muslim fundamentalists al-ittihaad
No Comm over pan and crucifix
14 30
It wasn’t enough to tear down the walls. They even blasted bullets into Christ on the cross
14 42
I asked if there were al itihaad gunmen around I could talk to. They said not anymore.
It seemed four years ago al itihaad lost its territory and its members scattered to the winds. It was in no position to help al Qaeda refugees.
15 01
Then it was time to go.
They’ve just admitted to not controlling the area one hundred percent, even these guys that we’re with and who we’ve paid, so … we just said it’s better if we get out of here.
15 15
But what I’d heard about al Itihaad’s collapse, and its inability to help al Qaeda, chimed with what United Nations officials had told me before I went into Somalia.
15 30
In this country you have to be ready for the unexpected
PTC: We’ve just had a complete change of plan. there was an incident at the market today and one of our security guards actually shot somebody’s eye out and we’re really worried about retaliation by the victim’s clan. And we’ve decided to leave town for a little while and try to come back when the whole thing has calmed down and we’re safer.
16 00
My bodyguards were even more anxious to leave than I was.
16 09
They suggested that we left for the town of Merca. It had been an al itihaad stronghold, but for the moment the government controlled it.
Actuality+map – where it is
16 54
Merca has a reputation as a bastion of fundamentalism. I soon heard something I hadn’t heard in Mogadishu.
PTC:
One of the guys there was shouting Osama Bin Laden. Can we just find out who…?
“If Americans come in our country we will kill them one by one. We remember the thousands they killed in ‘93. We support Osama Bin Laden because he is a real Muslim. We are not supporting the Arab leaders.”
17 49
I set out to find the town’s leading fundamentalist intellectual lived here. I got directions to the school he runs.
18 05
Sheik Salim admitted he and many others in Merca wanted a true Islamic state. But, he said, neither the town nor Somalia was a haven for terrorists.
Sync: He doesn’t know of any terrorists in Somalia and he would like the Americans to come and present proof that there are such people here.
No Comm
It’s a question of retaliation. The Americans were defeated in the early nineties and now they have a bill to settle, a score to settle.
18 42
But Sheik Salim has an opponent in his struggle for the Islamic soul of the town. I’d arranged to meet her.
18 59
Her name is Starline Arush
ORPHANAGE
19 07
She runs this orphanage with the help of an Italian aid agency.
Boys and girls play football, dance and sing.
19 20
Fundamentalists don’t like it. Recently someone threw a grenade into the compound.
19 28
Starlin doesn’t believe her opponents are sheltering terrorists. They get money from the Middle East, she said, but they’re using it to take over the town’s schools. Because most Western organisations have pulled out, they face little opposition.
STARLINE SYNC:
Somalis are destroyed. They are completely down. There are no jobs. There is no hope. So everyone with a plan coming here can have success. That is why if extremists come here with a plan and intention, they can succeed – because there is no alternative.
20 07
Starlin sent me to a struggling Koranic school she and her Italian backers support.
20 17
The owner admitted a local fundamentalist had just offered him a lot of cash if he’d change allegiance. CHECK THIS
PTC He says they’re waging a war on who they call infidels, they’re funded by Saudi Arabian countries, the gulf countries and he says they’re undermining Somali society with intolerance.
20 45
There’s a battle for hearts and minds going on here.
20 59
And the fundamentalists are outspending their opponents. For the moment they have the upper hand.
21 08
News came that it was safe for us to return to Mogadishu. $700 in blood money had changed hands.
21 31
It was Friday and President Abdul Kassim had been praying in the mosque.
21 53
There were fresh rumours that the Americans were about to bomb.
21 59
I had an invitation to tea with President Kassim and his cabinet.
22 13
All of them dismissed the idea that there were al Qaeda terrorists in Somalia, although some of the ministers spoke wistfully of the $25 million dollars on bin Laden’s head.
22 34
The President arrived. I’d spoken to him earlier without a camera
22 40
He wanted to explain his conviction that any US military action will backfire
PRESIDENT: If anyone tries to harm this country every sort of radicalisation will take place, every kind of extremist will come pretending to help the samalis, because of this or that religion and doing his own business in the meantime. So we don’t want to see that at all. We want to see the friendly hand. From the Europeans from the west as a whole and from the international community.
23 17
At our hotel the owner was doing what he does every Friday: handing out alms to the poor.
23 25
I’d found no evidence that this country is a true haven for the al Qaeda network.
But Somalia is the sort of neglected corner of the world which might, one day, become a base for terrorism. We can’t afford to ignore its problems.
But no one ever said the war against terrorism would be easy.