International Women's day: 3 challenges women face around the world

It’s not always used as a platform to spread awareness about gender equality – Kazakhstan is known to have beauty pageants on International Women's Day, while Russian women get flowers that may be poor compensation for inequalities they habitually face. But International Women’s Day, March 8, is generally a moment to celebrate the kaleidoscope of roles that half the world’s population takes on every day.

Much of the news is good: Women continue to push into the higher echelons of the working world and get stronger legal protections, such as the just-renewed US Violence Against Women Act. But issues such as violence, inequality at work, and traditional expectations and cultural practices, such as child marriage, confront women on every continent around the world. Here is a sampling of challenges women faced this year:

Violence

In this undated file photo, Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old girl who was shot at close range in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan, reads a book as she continues her recovery at the hospital in a Britain hospital. (Queen Elizabeth Hospital/AP/File)

The UN declares an International Women's Day theme each year. This year’s focus? “A promise is a promise: Time for action to end violence against women.”

The story of Malala Yousufzai, the schoolgirl shot in the head by the Pakistani Taliban for advocating education for girls, reminded the world that the promise of girls’ education and safety in rural Pakistan - among other places - has not been met.

The Monitor’s Ben Quinn wrote that when Malala was transferred to a hospital in Britain for treatment, for some of the diaspora in the UK, the attack “struck a chord in parts of society where traditional attitudes, in particular those carried over from rural northern Pakistan, still manifest themselves through resistance – in a minority of families – toward education of girls.”
Not long after the world caught its breath from the Malala incident, gruesome news from India energized the international dialogue on violence against women:
 
The case of a young woman brutally gang raped on a bus and left for dead in New Delhi, brought the issue to the forefront in a way that may yet be a game changer for India and other countries.

In India, thousands of people protested and pressured the police and government to speed up the sluggish judicial system process in cases for rape, known to drag on for years. It also may have helped spur a movement in Indonesia – though still small – to take to the streets to protest offensive remarks from an Indonesian high court judge who “joked” that women might enjoy rape.

Much has been made in the past couple of years of the important role women can play in revolution. But there has been a dark side of that participation: In Egypt, women who dare to go out to protest the government, as the Monitor’s Kristen Chick reports, have faced profound threats to their safety:

Tahrir square has become a terrifying place for women as sexual assault becomes more common and violent. But fed up, civilians are making it their job to prevent it and rescue women from attacks.
Several groups have formed, organizing to prevent such attacks, rescue women who are attacked, and raise awareness about an issue that is not often openly addressed.

And encouragingly, hundreds of volunteers created an organized effort to respond to the escalation of assaults against women in Tahrir.
As women battle such violence across the world, what motivates change?
In Latin America, a region where emerging economies are increasingly paying attention to GDP output, Sara Miller Llana looks at whether a first-of-its-kind study that quantifies the intergenerational price tag of domestic violence could motivate policy-makers, where other efforts have failed.

Women in business

Women are breaking taboos and boundaries globally by forming businesses in the face of significant cultural resistance.

Female entrepreneurs like Myassar Issa in Ramallah, West Bank, are gaining a new sense of independence as the family breadwinner. Her husband has two other wives and can't provide for her and her three sons, reports the Monitor’s Christa Case Bryant.

Since Mrs. Issa’s shop opened with a microfinance loan of $1,400 two years ago, she has repaid that loan and gotten another, doubled her merchandise, and is saving money for her sons to get married.

Statistics of female participation in business are hard to come by, but estimates that women entrepreneurs are increasing in number and today represent 5 to 10 percent of business owners in the formal sector and 30 percent in the informal sector.

Still, they have a long way yet to go. The issue of equal pay for equal work, especially among educated women in the workforce, is a common battle:
Colombia-based Monitor correspondent Sibylla Brodzinsky reports:

Even with an educational advantage, women are still mostly employed in lower-paid occupations in Latin America such as teaching, healthcare, or the service sector, like restaurants. Comparing men and women of the same age and educational level, [an Inter-American Development Bank] study found that men earn 17 percent more than women do in Latin America. That number is actually down from 25 percent in 1992, but the pace at which the gap is narrowing remains slow.

When it comes to the higher-paying fields such as law, architecture, and engineering – where women hold just a third of the jobs – the gender gap widens to 58 percent.

Part of the problem is that the majority of the better-paying jobs available for high-school graduates in the region are culturally associated with men, says Isabel Londoño, an education and gender issues specialist in Bogota, Colombia.

In Europe, Italian women are more likely to get a temporary contract than a male with the same education level, reports the Monitor’s Giulia Lasagni, And since women are overrepresented in temporary jobs, which were the first to be slashed during Europe’s recession, they typically have suffered more.

Entrenched perceptions

Despite significant progress, selling social reform to large segments of the population can be a major problem in many countries. In Afghanistan, even after 10 years of various education and political efforts as well as investing millions of dollars into the country to sell social reform, the status of women remains low.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a call for change with a report in 2012 that highlighted the ongoing issue of women who are arrested and imprisoned for fleeing abusive family situations.
The authors advocated that the Afghan government stop imprisoning such women. Putting women in jail for this is not supported by the Afghan penal code or Islamic law, HRW officials argued at a press conference for mostly Afghan journalists. The threat of imprisonment also discourages women from reporting abuse or trying to leave dangerous situations.
That human rights officials were met by a few concerning responses from journalists, considered to be among the most educated in the country, highlighted just how high the hurdles may be, Tom Peter reports:

One local reporter asked, “If this is not considered a crime and it becomes rampant in the society and everyone does it, don’t you think that in a society like Afghanistan it will lead to a kind of anarchism here and everything will get out of control? What will be the consequences?”

And still, women and advocates for women’s rights press on, lead by example, and win small victories, even in very traditional societies. In Nepal, for example, the custom of chaupadi forces menstruating women to sleep outside of their homes:

For generations here, menstruating women have slept outside of their homes, in small sheds or in the family stable. They are considered impure and untouchable, so they cannot enter the house or touch communal water or food. The activist, Dhurbar Sunar, is not having it: “I think this is a social crime in terms of women’s rights,” he says.
Mr. Sunar is the Project Coordinator at Samabikas, a local organization pushing to abolish chaupadi here in Achham district and elevate women’s status. They work village by village, declaring them “chaupadi free” as they go.

Another small victory, reports Christa Case Bryant from Saudi Arabia, is the effect of sports on girls in the very traditional country. Though girls are not permitted to play in the presence of men, and it’s still very much kept quiet:

"Sport is ... a small window [into change]," says businesswoman Lamya Al Abdulkarim, who recently helped launch a new girls' soccer program in Saudi Arabia.
The official and societal resistance stem from concerns that female participation in sports will erode Saudi norms, including modest dress and segregation of the sexes.
...
The skills the girls are learning on the field have translated into bigger wins: One player has been recruited by a female investment fund manager, who says that the strategy, tactics, and quickness honed on the soccer field would be key assets in reading the stock market.

And it’s a broad shift in attitude that is being cited as one of the keys to a quietly promising drop in the rate of violence against women in the US. The rate of partner-to-partner violence dropped 64 percent between 1994 and 2010, according to a US Justice Department report, The Monitor’s Whitney Eulich reports:

“Many in the field cite a broad shift in attitudes that began in the 1980s and '90s, crediting public awareness campaigns, national legislation protecting victims, and subsequent training of police and prosecutors to recognize intimate partner violence as a crime, rather than as a private matter.

Read here an In-depth Facts & VIDEO: US COURT Case AGAINST Somali Dictator General Mohamed Ali Samantar

In a landmark victory, CJA litigated the first case to consider the “common law immunity” of foreign officials to a decision that both denies absolute deference to the executive branch and denies immunity for human rights abuses like torture and extrajudicial killing. On November 2, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit once again sided with our clients against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar.

The long and thoughtful opinion rejects absolute deference to the executive branch in determining immunity for “official acts.” Even more powerfully, the opinion holds that egregious human rights abuses cannot be considered “official acts” shielded by immunity: “Under international and domestic law, officials from other countries are not entitled to foreign official immunity for jus cogens violations, even if the acts were performed in the defendant’s official capacity.”

In other words, immunity for “official acts” cannot extend to torture, extrajudicial killing, or any other universally recognized human rights violation because no foreign official has the authority to commit these international crimes.

The Fourth Circuit’s decision marks a crucial step forward in the fight against impunity. On August 28, 2012, U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema awarded $21 million in compensatory and punitive damages against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar. In a hearing before Judge Brinkema on February 23, 2012, General Samantar had accepted liability and responsibility for damages for torture, extrajudicial killing, war crimes and other human rights abuses committed against the civilian population of Somalia during the brutal Siad Barre regime, the military dictatorship that ruled that country from 1969 to 1991.

This judgment marks the first time that anyone has been held to account anywhere in the world for atrocities committed by General Samantar and the military dictatorship that ruled Somalia for over 20 years. BACKGROUND During the 1980s, General Samantar presided over an increasingly repressive military that committed horrific atrocities with particular harshness in the northern part of Somalia, and particularly against people who were of Isaaq heritage. In response to this brutality, a pro-democracy resistance movement emerged, calling itself the Somali National Movement, or the SNM. The SNM drew its strength from the Issaq. Though the SNM also committed human rights violations, the overwhelming number of atrocities were committed by Somali government soldiers. As the SNM’s strength grew, the Somalia Armed Forces retaliated with increasing brutality against unarmed civilians.

The Somali Armed Forces killed and looted livestock, blew up water reservoirs, destroyed homes, and tortured, imprisoned and summarily executed civilians accused of supporting the SNM, including businessmen, teachers, high school students and nomads simply tending their herds

During this time, defendant Mohamed Ali Samantar served as Vice President and Minister of Defense (1980-1986) and Prime Minister of Somalia (1987-1990).  In June 1988,  the Somali government's brutal counterinsurgency war against the SNM culminated in an indiscriminate aerial and ground assault on Hargeisa, the nation's second largest city.  The attack struck civilian neighborhoods the hardest and leveled most of the city; over 5,000 residents were killed.  In an interview with the BBC in 1989, Samantar admitted to giving the final order approving these operations.  Listen to that interview here or read the transcript here.

The plaintiffs are survivors of these widespread human rights violations:

In the early 1980s,  Bashe Abdi Yousuf was a young businessman in the northern Somali city of Hargeisa.  He volunteered his time and donated money to improve education and health care.  In November 1981, he was abducted by government agents, accused of being part of a subversive organization, taken to a detention center, and tortured repeatedly over a period of several months.  Among other things, Yousuf was subjected to electroshock treatment and a stress-position torture called “the MIG,” in which Yousuf ’s hands and feet were tightly bound together behind his back so that his body was pulled into a U-shape with his limbs high in the air.  The torturers then placed a heavy rock onto his back, producing excruciating pain and causing the ropes to cut deeply into Yousuf’s arms and legs.  Yousuf was interrogated about his friends, alleged to be the members of his “organization” and told that the torture would end if he falsely confessed to anti-government crimes.  Over the course of several months, Yousuf was interrogated numerous times and subjected to torture including water-boarding.  Eventually convicted of membership in an illegal organization in a trial that lacked basic due process, Yousuf spent the next six years of his life in prison, almost entirely in solitary confinement.  Fleeing Somalia after his release, Yousuf arrived in the United States in 1991, and later became a naturalized United States citizen.

In 1984, Buralle Salah Mahamoud and his brothers were arbitrarily detained by Somali government forces and convicted without due process of collaborating with the Somaliland National Movement.  Sentenced to death, he managed to escape with his life, but his brothers were killed in a mass execution with approximately 40 other Isaaq  men.

In June 1988, during the Somali Armed Forces’ attack on the city of Hargeisa, a group of government soldiers entered Aziz Mohamed Deria’s childhood home and abducted his father, brother, and cousin at gunpoint.  The soldiers threatened that they going to kill their detainees.  After their disappearance at the hands of government forces, Mr. Deria and his family never saw them again.  Mr. Deria later heard from released detainees that the three men were executed.

In June 1988, Ahmed Jama Gulaid,  then a non-commissioned officer in the Somali National Army,  was arrested along with other Isaaq soldiers and transported to an execution site.  John Doe II was shot by a firing squad in a mass execution and dumped in a mass grave.  His wounds were not fatal, and he managed to crawl out from beneath a pile of bodies and escape to safety. 

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS

Complaint

CJA filed the complaint with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on November 10, 2004.  Samantar—who now lives in Fairfax, Virginia—was served at his home.  Brought under the ATS and the TVPA, the suit alleges that Samantar had command responsibility for extrajudicial killing; arbitrary detention; torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; crimes against humanity and war crimes carried out by his subordinates during this period.  In response, Samantar claimed head-of-state immunity.

Solicitation of the State Department’s Opinion

In January 2005 the court stayed the proceedings in order to give the State Department an opportunity to weigh in on the question of immunity.  The court requested that Samantar provide regular updates on the State Department’s position.  For two years, Samantar reported each month that the request was “under consideration.”

State Department Refuses to Comply with Subpoena

Despite the stay, District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema allowed the plaintiffs to subpoena documents from the U.S. Government. CJA served a subpoena on the State Department that requested documents relating to human rights and military issues in Somalia.  The Bush administration objected to all attempts to enforce the subpoena, arguing that the government is not bound by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 45, which governs the enforcement of subpoenas, because it is not a "person" under the rule.  CJA filed a motion to compel the State Department to comply with the subpoena, but the District Court for the District of Columbia agreed with the U.S. government position, holding that the subpoena was invalid.

Appeal of Lower Court’s Subpoena Ruling

On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the District Court’s decision on June 15, 2006. The appeals Court held that the U.S. Government is required to comply with subpoenas for documents in private lawsuits, even when the Government is not directly involved in the case.  The appeals Court sent the case back to the District Court to enforce the subpoena against the State Department.

Case Dismissed on Statutory Immunity Grounds

After receiving no Statement of Interest from the State Department, the Court reinstated the case on January 22, 2007. Shortly thereafter, Samantar filed another motion to dismiss, arguing that he was shielded from civil liability by  the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). On April 27, 2007, the District Court granted Samantar’s motion.  The Court held that the FSIA provides immunity from civil lawsuits to foreign states and to their agencies and instrumentalities.  Judge Brinkema wrote that, although the FSIA makes no direct mention of individual officials, individuals acting in an official capacity should be treated as an agency or instrumentality and should likewise benefit from immunity.  Thus, the plaintiffs were barred from bringing suit against Samantar.

Appeal to the Fourth Circuit

The plaintiffs appealed the District Court’s ruling to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that:

• the FSIA does not apply to individual officials, only to foreign states or their agencies or instrumentalities;
• even if the FSIA did apply to individuals, such persons would only be immune if they were agents or officials at the time of the filing of the suit;
• in any case, FSIA immunity cannot possibly attach to illegal acts such as torture, which are outside the scope of authority of foreign officials;
• furthermore, at the time of the filing, there no longer was a “state of Somalia” that could qualify as a foreign state under the FSIA.

Two amicus briefs were filed in support of the plaintiffs' appeal.  One brief was prepared by the International Human Rights Clinic at Harvard Law School and submitted on behalf of Dolly Filártiga, Sister Dianna Ortiz, and a diverse group of religious groups, human rights organizations, and non-profits providing health and social services to torture survivors.  A second brief, focusing on congressional intent, was prepared by the Human rights Clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law and was signed by UVA professors and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee.

Fourth Circuit Overturns the Dismissal

On January 8, 2009, the Fourth Circuit reinstated the case against Samantar. The Fourth Circuit panel held that (1) the FSIA does not confer jurisdictional immunity on individual foreign government officials and (2) even if the FSIA did apply to individuals, it would only apply if they were officials at the time of the filing of the suit. The Fourth Circuit remanded the case to the District Court for further proceedings. Samantar petitioned for rehearing en banc by the entire Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, on February 2, 2009, the Fourth Circuit denied Samantar's petition.

Supreme Court Grants Cert Petition

In June 2009, Samantar filed a petition for writ of certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to review the Fourth Circuit's decision rejecting his claim of immunity under the FSIA.  On September 30, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the Fourth Circuit's decision. The key issues under review will be (1) whether the immunity from civil suits applicable to foreign states extends to individual foreign officials and (2) if so, whether this immunity extends to former officials, like Samantar, who no longer hold office at the time of suit.

Briefing and Oral Arguments

On November 39, 2009, Samantar filed his merits brief.  On January 20, CJA filed a brief for the Respondents. On January 27, 2010 a broad array of supporters filed amicus curiae briefs in support of respondents, including the U.S. government, Members of Congress, former U.S. diplomats, former U.S. military professionals, Holocaust survivors and groups doing anti-genocide work, human rights and religious organizations, experts on Somali history, the Foreign Minister of Somaliland, and highly respected law professors.

Oral argument was heard on March 3, 2010, with U.S. based clients, Aziz Deria and Bashe Yousuf, in attendance.

Samantar chiefly contended that because a state acts through its individual officials, those officials should enjoy the same immunity that the FSIA provides for the state itself. A suit against an official, he contended, is merely a suit against the state under a different label.

In response, CJA and Supreme Court counsel Patricia Millet argued that the Fourth Circuit correctly interpreted the FSIA to apply only to states and their agencies and instrumentalities--legal categories which, under standard rules of construction, do not include individual officials. Any possible immunities for individual officials would be governed by common law principles, which were not superseded by the FSIA. Moreover, even if Samantar were correct that a suit against the official is a suit against state, Samantar would no longer be shielded since he, as a former official of a defunct political entity, is no longer ‘the state.'

And crucially, immunity cannot shield those responsible for torture and extrajudicial killing, because under international law, no official has the lawful authority to violate these universal human rights norms. Torture and crimes against humanity are not privileged official acts, meriting the protection of the courts.

  

Supreme Court Rules Unanimously Against Immunity for Samantar

By a 9-0 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal's decision that Samantar is not shielded from suit by the FSIA, holding that the FSIA does not immunize individual officials. The Court did note that common law immunities may still apply and remanded the case for proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.

CJA and our clients would like to thank the many people and organizations who helped make this victory a reality.  In particular, we would also like to thank our Supreme Court counsel Patricia Millett of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, LLP and co-counsel Cooley Godward & Kronish, LLP.

Further Proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

With the case remanded to the District Court, Samantar filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in November 2010, arguing that he was entitled to common law immunity and head of state immunity.  He also argued that the case was barred by the political question doctrine, the statute of limitations and that the plaintiffs had not stated enough facts in the complaint to support the claims against him.  We opposed the motion to dismiss and the Samantar filed a reply.  The court initially set a hearing date of January 14, 2011.

On January 6, 2011, the U.S., on behalf of the State Department, filed a Notice of Potential Participation stating that it was considering the immunity issue and asking the court to give it until January 31 to render a decision.  The court agreed to continue the case to give the government time to state its position.  On February 14, 2011, the U.S. filed a Statement of Interest stating that Samantar was not entitled to immunity in the case.  The filing is significant because the U.S. rarely intervenes in litigation where it is not a party, and it is extremely uncommon for the government to intervene to state that a defendant is not entitled to immunity.  Based on the State Department’s filing, the very next day, the court ruled that the Defendant’s common law immunity claim is not viable. 

Following oral argument on the remaining issues in the motion to dismiss on April 1, 2011, the Court denied Samantar's motion to dismiss without prejudice and ordered full discovery.  Significantly, this means that Plaintiffs will be able to take Samantar's deposition and ask him why he directed a systematic attack on unarmed Somali civilians, including torture, rape and mass executions of countless victims.  The Court also denied Samantar's motion for reconsideration of his common law immunity claim.  On April 29, 2011, Samantar filed a notice of interlocutory appeal to the Fourth Circuit of his claim of common law immunity.  Judge Brinkema issued a scheduling order on May 3 and denied Samantar's motion to stay the scheduling order on May 18, certifying his interlocutory appeal to the Fourth Circuit as frivolous.

Defendant filed a motion for summary judgment on November 21, 2011 which the court denied in December.

Trial was scheduled to begin February 21, 2012.  After filing and losing two more motions to stay the proceedings (one at the trial court level and one at the 4th Circuit), on the evening of February 19, Samantar filed for bankruptcy, which by operation of statute deprived the trial court of jurisdiction and imposed an immediate stay of the proceedings.  Attorneys from CJA and Akin Gump flew into action, filing and winning an emergency motion to lift that stay on February 21, and securing a new trial date of February 23.

On the morning of February 23, Samantar personally appeared in court to enter his default, conceding both liability and damages.  Significantly, Judge Brinkema questioned Samantar directly regarding his entry of default on all of the claims against him.  Read the transcript here.  After finding Samantar liable for the plaintiffs’ injuries, Judge Brinkema proceeded with a hearing on damages. CJA and Akin Gump attorneys presented the testimony of all our plaintiffs and several other key witnesses, as well as documentary evidence in support of compensatory and punitive damages.  Read transcripts of the damages trial here [vol. 1] and here [vol. 2].  Read the Court's judgment and $21 million damages award here.

 Fourth Circuit Denies Immunity Again

After losing his bid for immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act at the U.S. Supreme Court, Samantar had filed and lost another motion to dismiss the case, arguing that he was entitled to common law and head of state immunity.  Samantar appealed this decision to the Fourth Circuit, but after the U.S. Department of State yet again weighed in on the Plaintiffs’ side, the trial court certified the appeal as frivolous, allowing the case to move forward to trial in February 2012.  Oral argument before the Fourth Circuit was heard May 16, 2012. 

On November 2, 2012, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit once again sided with our clients against former Somali General Mohamed Ali Samantar.  In this landmark victory, CJA litigated the first case to consider the “common law immunity” of foreign officials to a decision that both denies absolute deference to the executive branch and denies immunity for human rights abuses like torture and extrajudicial killing. The Fourth Circuit’s decision marks a crucial step forward in the fight against impunity. 

Somalia: The Moral Bankruptcy of Somalia's Prime Minister

By: Ahmed Ali Ibrahim Sabeyse

Somalilandsun - Throughout the history of mankind the teachings of the Holy Prophets emphasized unequivocally the sanctity of the human life. From that back drop, a critical evaluation of Mr. Shirdon's immunity request regarding the civil case against Mohamed Ali Samatar is in order. Without Prejudice to the parties in the Civil Action No. 04-1360. This case is based on a solid legal ground in conformity with the following International Human Rights Conventions:

• The Nuremberg Military Tribunal of 1945
• Convention on the Non-applicability of Statute of Limitations on War Crimes
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• Convention on Civil and Political Rights
• Optional Protocol to the Convention on Civil and Political Rights
• Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights
• Convention against on Torture
• Convention against Genocide
• Geneva Conventions and subsequent Protocols
• Convention on the Rights of the Child
• Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
• The Charter of the United Nations
• African Charter on Peoples' and Human Rights

On the record, General Mohamed Ali Samatar had admitted his role in the atrocities of Somalia's military government against the civilian population of Somaliland. His orders resulted in the death of over 70,000 non-combatants and by virtue of his position of command and control, he is culpable for any resultant damages under international law.

Granting diplomatic immunity to a mass murderer is a travesty of justice. At his Command post at Hargeisa Airport, General Samatar gave the final instructions on the aerial and artillery bombardment of the city five miles north of the Airport. For three months the Somali air force relentlessly target practiced on this densely populated city and the civilian casualties were very high.

In its 1987 yearbook Amnesty International had documented the scorched earth tactics of Siyad Barre's regime. Even the life stock did not escape the heavy machine guns of the Somali air force. To this day tens of thousands of Somalilanders are suffering the lingering mental and psychological trauma of the war. While the International Court of Justice has set up special Tribunals for the war criminals of Rwanda and the former Yugoslav Republic, the mass murderers of Somalia are still free waiting to be brought before justice.

Having said that, and in response to the letter of Somalia's prime minister, here is the first paragraph of the said letter:

"Dear Secretary of State Kerry:

The Federal Republic of Somalia presents its compliments to the Department of State. On behalf of the Government of the Federal Republic of Somalia, I, Abdi Farah Shirdon, Prime Minister of Somalia, have the distinct honor and high privilege, by this letter, of requesting urgently, pursuant to the powers vested in me by the Federal Republic of Somalia Provisional Constitution, adopted 1 August 2012, that you use your good offices to obtain immunity for Mohamed ali Samater, the former Prime Minister of Somalia, from 1987-1990, and the Defense Minister and First Vice President of Somalia, from 1982-1986, in respect of certain civil litigation brought against him before the United States District for the Eastern District of Virginia, styled as Bashe Abdi Yousuf, et alii, versus Mohamed Ali Samatar, Civil Action No. 04-1360("the litigation").

From the wording of this paragraph, we can surmise that the original was drafted in Somali and subsequently a literal translation of the text was performed. Therefore, the apparent lack coherence and unity of the central idea.This sort of cumbersome wording is counter productive because the text has lost its original form, fit and function in the translation. Regardless of the subject matter, unity, coherence, and the logical sequence of the ideas are paramount to captivate the intended recipient.

Now, assuming that the following segment is the central idea of this paragraph,

" ..I, Abdi Farah Shirdon, Prime Minister of Somalia, have the distinct honor and high privilege, by this letter, of requesting urgently, pursuant to the powers vested in me by the Federal Republic of Somalia Provisional Constitution, adopted 1 August 2012, that you use your good offices to obtain immunity for Mohamed Ali Samater,..."

the emphasis is on

"..that you use your good offices to obtain immunity for Mohamed Ali Samater,..".

As it is, this sort of language is very undiplomatic and is indicative of the Somali prime minister's complete ignorance of international relations. For one thing, influence peddling is a taboo subject in diplomacy.

The honourable Prime Minister of Somalia or the Federal Republic of Somalia, Mr. Abdi Farah Shirdon, as a novice politician needs a lesson or two on the working dynamics of the United States Government and its constitution. Perhaps, the Somali Prime Minister needs to understand that the three branches of the government of the United States of America-The Executive, the Judiciary, and the Legislature operate independently under constitutionally mandated jurisdictional spheres and as such, this is were the concept of checks and balances and transparency comes into play.

Furthermore, any case brought before the courts of the United States takes its course through judicial process without intervention from the other two branches of government. Interceding on behalf of an indictable war criminal is an affront to the norms of civility.

On an intellectual level, the Somali prime minister has a skewed sense of priority and his letter to the United States Secretary of State is nothing but an embodiment of the sublime evil incarnated in a human form.

On another level, the paragraph consists of two sentences. Count the punctuation marks to make any rational sense out of what the Somali Prime minister has to say.There are three full stops/periods, one quotation mark, and eighteen commas! The comma is unfairly overused at the expense of the other thirteen punctuation marks.

To say the least, the eighteen commas in the sentence destroyed the meaning of the paragraph and the American Secretary of State will require the service of an English language professor to decipher the Somali prime minister's letter.

The prime minister's letter is nine paragraphs long and the response to the remaining eight paragraphs will follow in installments.

God bless the nation of Somaliland, and the uncountable victims of General Samantar's Somali National Armies.

Somaliland: Somalia Arms Embargo Lift Too Hasty

The UN Security Council decision to end the 21-year-old arms embargo has raised concerns in Somaliland on the preparedness of the Federal Government.

Below is an article published by All Africa:

The north western breakaway region of Somaliland, expressed discontent over the UN Security Council decision to partially lift the 21 year old arms embargo ban on Somalia, Garowe Online reports.

The Somaliland government's Foreign Affairs Minister, Mohamed Abdullahi Omar, spoke to BBC Somali Service on Thursday [7 March 2013] and stated that the Security Council did not evaluate the consequences of the partial lift.

"We [Somaliland] recognize the decision by the Security Council as a decision that was not properly examined nor assessed. And we believe it is ill-timed an decision that could bring insecurity to East Africa," said Minister Omar.

In the Britain proposed resolution passed on Wednesday [6 March 2013], the Security Council member state reasoned that it 'recognized' that the SFG "has a responsibility to protect its citizens and build its own national security forces."

The Minister cited Somaliland's concern was that the SFG's reach is limited and that regions' forces are not integrated into a Somali National Force.

"The Government in Mogadishu is a new administration, it hasn't passed Mogadishu. There isn't a national military that operates in all of Somalia; Jubaland, Puntland, Baidoa and Somaliland have their own military forces," said Omar.

The Minister stated that the arms embargo lift for the SFG could cause insecurity in other regions in Somalia.

"The [arms embargo lift] has to be equally administered and the regions and states need to take part in the process. But the Mogadishu administration is in its infancy and hasn't gained the affirmation of the other regions," stated Minister Omar.

Amnesty International expressed its concern over the arms embargo lift stating that it was "premature".

The humanitarian group said that the partial lift could send Somalia into a greater conflict without the proper safeguarding mechanisms.

Last month [February 2013], Puntland stated that an arms embargo lift could carry serious implications for Somalia if measures are not taken to ensure proper use.

The Somali Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) will continue monitoring arms being brought into Somalia and will report monthly on the status of the partial arms embargo lift. The SEMG reported last year that there was a proliferation of arms into Somalia despite the 21 year ban.