Ending Conflict and Building Peace in Africa

The High-Level Panel on Fragile States in Africa released its report on 15 January 2014 titled "Ending Conflict and Building Peace in Africa: A Call to Action." 

The report identified the following as major challenges facing Afrca: youth employment, urbanization, governance of natural resources, climate change, poverty and inequality.  It recommended that African countries increase their focus on the following issues: develop new strategies for youth employment, create new instruments for supporting private investment, empower women, fund infrastructure that improves justice and security, and promote resilience through regional economic cooperation.

To read the report click here: Ending Conflict and Building Peace in Africa: A Call to Action

Western Sahara: Saharawi Minister Moulud Said Attends National Breakfast in Washington

Washington — At the invitation of the U.S. Congress, the Saharawi Minister Delegate for Asia Mr. Mouloud Said has taken part at the National Breakfast, held in Washington D.C. on the first Thursday of February each year.

The Breakfast has been presided over by the U.S. President Mr. Barack Obama.

It was an opportunity for the Saharawi official to meet the international guests, as to share with them information about the struggle of the Sahrawi people.

The event is a series of meetings, luncheons, and dinners in honour guests from many countries of the world.

The Breakfast, annually hosted by the U.S. Congress, has taken place since 1953.

Somaliland Security Officials Attend the 2nd Gulf of Aden Regional Counter-Terrorism Forum

United States Ambassador Geeta Pasi,

United States Ambassador Geeta Pasi, pictured, is leading the U.S. delegation as it co-hosts with the Government of Djibouti the Gulf of Aden Counterterrorism Forum in Djibouti

By Goth Mohamed Goth

A High level security team, led by the Assistant Minister of interior in charge of Security Hon Abdillahi Abokor and accompanied by the deputy commissioner of Police Brigadier-General Abdirahman Liban Ahmed “Foole” and the head of immigration department Col Mohamed Ali Yusuf “Ina Ambaro” were among top regional security experts participating in the 3 day 2^nd Gulf of Aden Regional Counterterrorism Forum US and co-hosted by Djibouti in Djibouti city.

The 2^nd Gulf of Aden Counterterrorism Forum has been taking place in Djibouti this week. The 3 day meeting which begun on Monday Feb 3-Feb 6 brought together at least sixty government and security officials from Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia and Yemeni, and from the United States, to discuss regional counter-terrorism challenges.

The Forum is follow-on to the previous meeting which took place in April last year.

Ethiopia, Egypt, Sudan and Nile Water

Al Jazeera published on 6 February 2014 an article titled "Egypt and Ethiopia Face Off over Nile Water" by Hassen Hussein, assistant professor at St. Mary's University of Minnesota.  Hassen, a critic of Ethiopia's internal policies, argues that Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan should be more concerned about internal issues than conflict among each other. 

Egypt’™s colonial-era veto power over the river’s bounties is untenable

The Blue Nile in Guba, Ethiopia. 

William Lloyd-George/AFP/Getty Images

by Hassen Hussein 

On Jan. 8, Ethiopia turned down Egypt’s demand that it suspend construction of its mega-dam on the Nile, further escalating tensions between the two states. Fearing that Ethiopia’s $4.2 billion project would reduce the river’s flow, Egypt calls for a halt in construction until the dam’s downstream impact is determined. Otherwise, it has vowed to protect its “historical rights” to the Nile at “any cost.”

While scoffing at Egyptian threats, Ethiopia has called for Cairo’s collaboration in negotiations and claims that the dam will have no adverse effect on Egypt. It would, in fact, decrease evaporation and improve water flow. Ethiopia hopes that the ambitious hydroelectric project, slated to be completed in 2017, would catapult the country out of poverty. Frustrated by what it described as Ethiopia’s stubborn stance, Cairo is threatening to take the issue to the United Nations Security Council.

Is this just standard diplomatic brinkmanship before an inevitable compromise, or a harbinger of a looming water war? Regardless, the lack of progress on the diplomatic front bodes ill for a quick end to a stalemate that has long gripped the region. Home to 600 million people, more than half of Africa’s total population, the Nile Basin is already traumatized by endless internal political strife and mounting pressures to feed a population growing at Malthusian proportions.

However, as ominous as it sounds, the collapse of the talks does not necessarily mean Egypt and Ethiopia will soon be locking horns. Despite suggestions to the contrary, this is simply the waning phase of a protracted diplomatic dance before an inevitable conciliation.

A dam for development

Although known as northeast Africa’s water tower, Ethiopia until recently had not bothered to utilize its many rivers. The inability to make use of the Nile has been Ethiopia’s age-old national lament. That changed in 2011, when the country announced plans for the construction of its so-called Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), designed to generate a staggering 6,000 megawatts of electricity. By situating the project only 19 miles from the Sudanese border on the vast Blue Nile gorge, where the land is unsuitable for agriculture, Ethiopia sought to reassure Egypt but ended up stoking its fears.

The design and impacts of the GERD are shrouded in secrecy. Observers cast doubts on its timely completion. In a flawed bidding process, Ethiopia granted the project to a Milan-based engineering company, Salini Costruttori, circumventing its own contract procedures and international standards on procurement. The construction is reportedly lagging behind schedule and faces several unresolved technical problems, one of which is how long it takes to fill the dam. Ethiopia claims the project is on course and dismisses facing any technical hurdles.

One of Africa’s fastest-growing non-oil economies, Ethiopia has embarked on a state-led development fashioned after the economic miracles in South Korea and the rest of the so-called Asian tigers. Ignoring warnings from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank that such a massive publicly funded infrastructure project would starve private investments, Ethiopia is forging ahead. To wit, when Egypt used its influence with international financiers to choke off funding, Ethiopia declared it would finance the project with domestic resources.

The founding myths of many ancient civilizations center on famous rivers — the Euphrates and the Tigris (Babylon), the Yangtze (China) and the Ganges (India), to name a few. However, not many are as inextricably dependent on a single river for their livelihood as Egypt is on the Nile. Egypt’s history is defined as much by the flooding and drying beds of the Nile as by the pyramids. For a country described by Herodotus as “the gift of the Nile,” control over the majestic river has been an existential Egyptian preoccupation since antiquity.

The world’s longest river is made up of a maze of tributaries. Nineteenth-century explorers went on a wild goose chase to locate the mysterious river’s murky origin before tracing it to Lake Tana in Ethiopia and the Great Lakes in Central Africa. Two of the river’s main tributaries are the Blue Nile and the White Nile. The Blue Nile, accounting for upwards of 80 percent of the Nile waters, originates in northern Ethiopia. It makes a steep descent from Ethiopian highlands — carrying brown silt — before it joins the White Nile in Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, augmented by several large rivers from southwestern Ethiopia. The White Nile originates in Burundi and flows northward from the Great Lakes region, crossing Tanzania, Uganda, and South Sudan.

Who owns the Nile?

The Nile’s origin being outside its borders did not prevent Egypt from getting the lion’s share of its waters. The claim for exclusive ownership of the Nile waters is premised on a 1929 treaty between Egypt and Britain’s East African colonies, Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. These colonies gained independence from Britain in the 1960s. The treaty awarded 57 percent of the waters to Egypt while also requiring other nations to clear with Cairo before launching any major water project on the river. Another treaty, signed in 1959 between Egypt and Sudan, raised Egypt’s share to 66 percent. The two signatories, divvying up virtually all of the Nile waters, did not even consult Ethiopia, the main source of the river. After the 1959 accord, both Egypt and Sudan built mega-dams to exploit the water for irrigation.  

For years, upstream Nile Basin countries — Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda — nursed misgivings about the colonial-era accord, in which they had no say. However, they grudgingly acquiesced mainly because, unlike Egypt and Sudan, whose arid lands are watered by the lone river, they are not wholly reliant on the Nile. But, finding the challenge of feeding their growing populations on rain-fed subsistence farming unbearable, upstream countries initiated negotiations in 1999 to find an equitable and reasonable way to share the Nile waters. The decade-long negotiations resulted in the 2010 Cooperative Framework Agreement, known as the Entebbe Agreement. The landmark accord, signed by the six upstream countries, was rejected outright by both Egypt and Sudan. Touted as “an African solution for an African problem,” the agreement calls for the creation of a commission to oversee development projects on the Nile. It needed ratification by the legislatures of each of the signatory countries. But its implementation is in limbo until another Nile Basin country — for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which is now sitting on the fence — signs it.

Ethiopia’s diplomatic coup

In a further blow to Egypt, its alliance with Sudan faltered in 2012 when Sudan, which gets 35 percent of the Nile water according to the 1959 treaty, rescinded its initial opposition to Ethiopia’s renaissance dam. Khartoum’s change of heart is attributed to a still-secret report by a panel of international experts that concluded the dam would neither significantly affect downstream countries nor fundamentally alter the flow of the river. But Sudan’s internal vulnerabilities presumably played a crucial role.

The High Aswan Dam in Egypt. 

AFP/Getty Images

In 2011, Sudan saw a huge chunk of its land mass secede to form Africa’s newest state, South Sudan. Ethiopia’s support for the former rebels of South Sudan (currently embroiled in a power struggle of their own) was instrumental in forcing Sudan — Egypt’s loyal ally — to accept the divorce. An international warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in connection with the conflict in Darfur has made the country an international pariah. Sudan could not afford to alienate its increasingly assertive neighbor to the south and eventually threw its weight behind Ethiopia’s colossal undertaking. Although it has yet to sign the Entebbe Agreement, which loosens Egyptian and Sudanese dominion over use of the Nile waters, Sudan’s new stance hands Ethiopia a diplomatic coup.

‘Egypt’s ill designs’

The most recent Egyptian president to threaten war to protect Egypt’s “inviolable” rights over the Nile was the Muslim Brotherhood’s Mohamed Morsi. Last June, in a secret all-party discussion chaired by then-President Morsi, which was “mistakenly” broadcast live on state TV, Egyptian lawmakers suggested arming Ethiopia’s political opponents to obstruct the construction. The tension subsided with the military takeover in Cairo. However, after a brief interlude in which it appeared that diplomacy was to replace the menace of war, the military regime is now raising the ante. The high brass knows full well that a food shortage resulting from a significant reduction in water volumes means riots in Egyptian cities.

The last time Egypt staked its claim militarily over the Nile and the Red Sea was in 1876, when it invaded Ethiopia. The two armies met at Gura, now an Eritrean territory. Egypt’s army was nearly wiped out by an ill-equipped and ragtag Ethiopian side that would, two decades later, go on to hand Italy a humiliating defeat at the battle of Adwa. Although it never ruled out direct military confrontation with Ethiopia, Egypt has since reverted to proxy wars.

For centuries, Muslim Egypt supplied the head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church, a state religion until the 1974 revolution. The imperial regime of Haile Selassie found itself under political pressure to leave the centuries-old arrangement intact following the 1959 Nile accord that excluded Ethiopia. Despite this historical relationship, Ethiopia’s official historiography is replete with Egypt’s ill designs over it. In the 1970s, Ethiopia blamed Egypt for fanning the Republic of Somalia’s irredentist claims over the Somali-inhabited Ogaden region of Ethiopia. The two countries went to war twice over the Ogaden.

Egypt is also faulted for its role, with Sudan as its accomplice, in precipitating Ethiopia’s loss of access to the Red Sea with Eritrea’s independence. Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 after 30 years of civil war.

Internal fragility

Official rhetoric notwithstanding, both Egypt and Ethiopia are represented by shaky regimes presiding over brittle states and divided societies. Given their internal vulnerabilities, neither country can afford to go to war — a war whose outcome is uncertain.

While Ethiopia saw its economic fortunes rise over the last decade, its internal cohesion has not kept pace. Ethnic and religious cleavages as well as a border dispute with Eritrea (over which the two states fought a bloody war from 1998 to 2000) are constant reminders of its enduring fragility. Ethnic Tigreans, estimated at 6 percent of the population, have been in power since 1991. They dominate the country’s politics, military, security and economy. This is resented by both the Oromo, Ethiopia’s majority population, and the Amhara, its traditional rulers. Over the last two years, the country’s otherwise docile Muslim population, long marginalized despite accounting for a sizable portion of the population, has been increasingly restive. Ethiopia’s single-party leadership has not fully recovered from the death in 2012 of its strongman of two decades, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The new prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, a Protestant and from another minority group, does not hold as much clout as his predecessor and is seen as a temporary figure.

The opening of a Sudanese hydroelectric dam on the Nile at Merowe, north of Khartoum.

 Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images

Khartoum’s woes did not end with the secession of South Sudan, either. Its army is struggling to contain rebels in the Nuba Mountains. Muffled though they appear, Sudan’s troubles in Darfur are far from over. Alienated by former allies, his capital rocked by Arab Spring–inspired unrest over the last two years, Bashir’s three-decade hold on power is tenuous. He also has to dodge the arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Egypt is facing far more serious calamities. It fired the imagination of the world’s youth with its peaceful 2011 revolution. With the military wresting the reins of power back from its nemesis, the Muslim Brotherhood, and clamping down on dissent, the country has clearly slid backward.  Pursuant to the overthrow of Morsi, its first democratically elected president, Muslim-Christian relations have soured. The elevation of a trigger-happy general to the presidency would heighten Egyptian vulnerabilities. In short, with Sudan now squarely in Ethiopia’s camp, Egypt could not stage a ground attack on the dam. War by proxy has run its course. An airstrike is still possible but fraught with risks.

The dam’s long-term effect on the ecosystem upon which hundreds of millions depend for their livelihood is the greatest unknown. 

The tensions over the Nile, however, are not simply an old-fashioned competition for a scarce resource. They are rather symptomatic of deeper underlying schisms. The Nile marks the divide between black sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab Maghreb, and forms the fault line between Christian, Muslim, and indigenous Africa.

Moreover, the rhetoric of water wars over the Nile misses the crucial voice of marginalized indigenous populations — whose lives are altered by these state-sponsored megaprojects. While the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt and a smaller one in Sudan have enabled the two countries to develop thriving agro-industries, they caused wanton destruction to the Nubian people’s ancient way of life.  As a result of the secrecy surrounding the Nile discussions and the lack of tolerance for political dissent in all three countries, there is little discussion of the dam’s impact on indigenous communities and the horrendous environmental consequences.

The dam’s long-term effect on the ecosystem upon which hundreds of millions depend for their livelihood is the greatest unknown. There is a widespread charge that studies of the dam’s environmental impact are as faulty as they are insufficient. It is unclear whether the justifications for such megaprojects are even grounded in economic rationality, let alone environmental sensitivity. And why not multiple smaller dams with sound economic, technical and environmental rationales rather than one humongous project? Ethiopia has not yet answered.

The way forward

A satellite image of the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam in 2012.

DigitalGlobe/Getty Images

While the specter of a global water shortage is real, talk of the Nile Basin becoming the first battlefield in the coming water wars is a bit of a distraction. This does not mean that war over the Nile is to be ruled out. In fact, despite rampant vulnerability, indeed because of it, the countries may find it impossible to compromise on their maximum demands. To Egypt, water security equals national security. To Ethiopia, the dam has become a matter of national pride. As much as the Aswan High Dam stood as a monument to Gamal Abdel Nasser’s quest for grandeur, the GERD symbolizes Zenawi’s shot for a place in the history books as well as a ploy to spruce up the ruling party’s patriotic credentials. By casting the project as Ethiopia’s renaissance, Ethiopia risked that Egypt would see the project as its relapse. Facing water shortages amid a growing population, Egypt has actually been asking to increase its share of the Nile waters to 95 percent.

With positions so widely apart, the risk of conflagration is not entirely rhetorical. However, one thing is clear: The greatest sources of danger staring down at each of Africa’s oldest states — Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan — are internal rather than external.

While realizing that the old status quo that left it with a veto over the Nile’s bounties is untenable, Egypt’s future lies not in saber rattling but in returning to the aborted revolution’s democratic path. Owing to the increasing volatility of the rains, Ethiopia would inevitably need to use its rivers to feed 94 million hungry souls. Devoid of democratization, Ethiopia’s regime needs to realize that economic development alone won’t resolve the country’s woes. At the same time, antagonizing as important a player as Egypt is not in Ethiopia’s long-term interest. An Egyptian airstrike can turn the clock back on the dam. Although Ethiopia lacks the means to respond to such an attack in kind, Egypt risks earning the international community’s wrath and seeing its relationships with sub-Saharan Africa strained.

Compromise offers the only way out for both. Yet it is likely to be years before a durable peace built on a win-win replaces rancor over the Nile. While the latest collapse of talks is a diplomatic circus, it should be noted that dueling regimes, lacking democratic mandates, may indeed overreact to external threats, real or imagined, to win domestic legitimacy. Since a conflagration in the Nile Basin bears global repercussions, the international community must not be oblivious to the inherent dangers.

Hassen Hussein is an assistant professor at St. Mary's University of Minnesota, a longtime democracy activist and a leader of Ethiopia's largest ethnic group, the Oromo.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera America's editorial policy.

Spain nervous with Catalonia says it will not interfere with Scotland's referendum

Spain has no intention of interfering in Scotland’s push for independence and is willing to consider an eventual Scottish application to join the EU as a separate state, foreign minister García Margallo said in an interview with the Financial Times.

García Margallo also warned Catalan leaders about a unilateral declaration of independence

The newspaper said that while he refused to comment directly on whether Spain might veto Scottish accession to the EU after an independence vote, he insisted the cases of Scotland and Catalonia were “fundamentally different”.

Madrid would continue to resist a Catalan plan to hold its own referendum on independence less than two months after the Scottish vote in September, he told the FT.

García-Margallo also warned Catalan leaders in particular not to go down the route of a unilateral declaration of independence.

“A state born through a unilateral declaration of independence would have no international recognition whatsoever. It would be absolutely isolated in the concert of nations. Such a state would not have access to the United Nations system or to the World Bank or the IMF,” he said in the interview.

The Spanish official drew a parallel with unrecognized break-away regions such as South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Somaliland, all of which he said remain in “international limbo”.

Source:  en.mercopress.com

Shirkadda Hormuud oo gebi ahaan Hakisay Adeega Mobile Internet

Shirkadda Isgaarsiinta ee Hormuud ayaa maanta oo khamiis ah gebi ahaan hawada ka saartay adeega Internet-ka ee mobile-ka.

Dadweynaha Muqdisho ee ku xirnaa adeegaan ayaa inoo xaqiijiyey in tan iyo maanta aanu shaqeynin adeegaan iyadoo Shaqaale ka tirsan Shirkadda ay xaqiijiyeen hakinta adeegaan.

Ururka Al-Shabaab ayaa bilowgii bishii lasoo dhaafay ee Janaayo soo saaray Bayaan ay ku amrayaan Shirkaddaha bixiya Internet Mobile in ay ku joojiyaan adeega haddii kale talaabo laga qaadi doono, waxaana uu goor sii horeysay ka dhaqan galay gobolada Koonfureed oo ay ka taliso kooxda.

Qaar kamid ah Shaqaalaha Hormuud oo la hadlay warbaahinta ayaa sheegay in ay duruufo awgii u hakiyeen adeegaan balse ma aysan sheegin si cad in ay la xiriirto amarkii kasoo baxay Al-Shabaab.

Dowladda Federaalka ee Soomaaliya ayaa hore uga digtay Shirkaddaha in ay fuliyaan amarka kooxda Al-Shabaab, waxaana ay sheegtay in talaabo ka qaadi doonto haddii ay joojiyaan adeega. Weli masuuliyinta kama hadal arrintaan.

Shacabka ayaa si weyn uga dhiidhiyay amarka Al-Shabaab kuna tilmaamay mid caburis ah maadama ay si weyn ugu xirnaayeen adeegaan oo ay kula xiriiri jireen qoysaskooda iyo asxaabtooda ku kala nool dunida.

Horseed Media

Sexual Harassment and Third Culture Kids

By RACHELPIEHJONES 

When I tried to find statistics, information, or simply personal stories about sexual harassment and Third Culture Kids or expatriates, my own blog post about it came up in the top five of most searches I entered and few of the other sites directly addressed expatriate kids and sexual harassment. A few addressed the issue in the context of boarding schools and that was the end of my search.

In other words, the sexual harassment experienced while living as an expatriate isn’t being talked about often. At least not online.

While I do have children in boarding school and so must be aware of sexual harassment and bullying in that environment, what about in the day to day life of Third Culture Kids in their host countries?

A CNN iReport about the sexual harassment endured by American college student RoseChasm (her iReport name) during her three-month stay in India went viral a few months ago. Responses poured in. Condolences and apologies. Defenses of Indian men who don’t harass women. Accusations that she brought it on by making poor choices. Frustration that yet again a white woman harassed by brown men draws viral attention while the day-to-day harassment experienced by Indian women goes relatively unnoticed (barring the trial of the men accused of gang-raping an Indian woman in a bus, a horrific attack which resulted in her death).

I, for one, applaud RoseChasm for her courage in speaking honestly. I don’t read her essay as an attempt to vilify a nation or a nation’s men. I don’t blame her for any of the things that happened to her. I don’t believe she was attempting to write a scholarly, or even journalistic, piece about harassment and race. She told her story, and it is hers. She owns it and she can tell it.

I also am thankful to her for this courage. It reminds me that I need to speak about sexual harassment. I, too, experience it often. But I don’t hear it discussed often among expatriates. And if adult expatriates aren’t talking about it, I highly doubt our children are talking about it, or being helped to talk about it well.

I am raising three children, sometimes in America, sometimes in Kenya, most often in Djibouti. No matter where we live, I need to talk to them about sexual harassment. I need to tell them my stories, to let them tell me theirs. I need to give them words to describe what they see, what they feel, what they hear, and why they don’t want to walk past a group of high school aged boys, or girls. I need to help them respond bravely in the moment, brokenly when the humiliation sinks in, and with redemptive healing as they walk away from that moment.

My own stories are really hard to talk about. How much harder when my kids begin to share.

My reactions have ranged from swearing, crying, quietly ignoring the advances, praying, speaking calmly, shouting, asking for help from people nearby, slapping the offender, throwing stones, and burning with anger. Some, clearly, are better responses than others.

While sexual harassment is always awful, shaming, and wrong, experiencing it as a foreigner carries the added dimension of isolation and uncertainty and experiencing it as a foreign kid is especially traumatic.

• Not understanding the words or the hand gestures.
• Not knowing how to respond in the local language.
• Not knowing who to turn to for safe assistance.
• Already wrestling through question of identity, acceptance, and belonging.
• Feeling targeted by nature of skin color or different clothing.
• Different cultural boundaries, attitudes, and expectations.

These are not just experienced by white Americans living in the Horn of Africa. These are experienced by both genders of all colors, when a person is living outside their passport country.

I am learning to share my stories, at the proper times, with my daughters and son, to the extent that their ages can handle it. I want to demonstrate how to bear up under the sometimes straining difficulties of being a woman in a world where we are still viewed by some as sex objects, as less than human, as unworthy of dignity. I want to give them words, to be an example of courageous vulnerability, and to show them some possible responses.

Because if we can’t talk about it home, where will they talk about it?

And I also want them to hear the stories about the men who have protected me, defended me, apologized to me on behalf of others, the men who have helped restore the dignity others stole.

Moms and dads, I don’t believe we will be able to raise our children in a world free from sexual harassment or violence no matter what country we live in. But I do believe we can, and must, raise our children to not be the perpetrators of it. That is obviously the first step. We must also face the inevitability that they will endure harassment at some point and so we must instill in our kids a deep conviction of their dignity. We must raise our children honestly and courageously, raise them to bear up under trials with grace, dignity, compassion, and humanity.

This article on What’s Your Brave gives helpful suggestions for raising this topic with teenagers and pursuing the conversation.

If you know of other helpful links regarding sexual harassment and Third Culture Kids, please share in the comments.

Investigating genocide in Somaliland: "Hargeisa is a graveyard," said Jose Baraybar, a forensics expert who manages the Investigation team.

As many as 200,000 people were buried in mass graves in the 1980s under Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.  Khadar Ahmed Like, 64, inspects the site of a mass grave on the edge of Hargeisa [James Reinl/Al Jazeera] James Reinl

Hargeisa, Somaliland - Frankincense wafts through the air of a quiet building on the outskirts of Hargeisa, in the self-declared republic of Somaliland. It masks the odour of the remains of 38 men, whose skeletons are packed into cardboard boxes. The tattered containers will be opened this month with the arrival of a forensics team on February 10. Somaliland officials want to show that the men were victims of a clan-based killing spree carried out by Somalia's government in the 1980s. Boxes with the remains of 38 men killed during a government crackdown in the 1980s [James Reinl/Al Jazeera] They say as many as 200,000 men, women and children were executed and buried in mass graves. They accuse Somalia's late dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre, of atrocities and want to put his alleged henchmen on trial. "Everybody is missing a relative. Fathers, mothers, brothers, cousins," said Khadar Ahmed Like, who runs the territory's War Crimes Investigation Commission. "It is about getting the perpetrators in court. Unless we learn lessons, heads of state can do what they want." This month's post-mortems mark the latest bid to secure justice for Somaliland's victims. The atrocities date back to when Somaliland was part of Somalia and governed by Barre from the capital, Mogadishu. In the 1980s, his increasingly authoritarian regime cracked down on the rebel Somalia National Movement (SNM) and targeted members of the Isaaq clan from northwestern Somalia who had created the group. National forces arrested Isaaq clansmen suspected of having links to the SNM between 1984-88, commissioners say. Men, women and children were bound and frogmarched to the edges of towns and executed. Somalilanders recount gruesome stories of Isaaq schoolchildren being killed and having their blood drained to provide transfusions to injured soldiers. Grisly crackdown Yusuf Mire, 58, is still angry about what happened. He points to the amputated stump of his left arm, where he was shot by Somali national forces during a crackdown in the central Somaliland town of Burao in 1988. Somaliland's mass graves look like little more than patches of dirt and weeds [James Reinl/Al Jazeera] "My relatives were taken from the house to be slaughtered," he told Al Jazeera. "We want recognition that genocide took place in Somaliland. We will send this to the UN and get the right to be separated from the rest of Somalia." In 1988, Barre sent aircraft and troops to the SNM stronghold of Hargeisa, killing more than 40,000 people and reducing the city to rubble. But the campaign backfired and consolidated the opposition forces, which took Mogadishu in January 1991. Four months later, Somaliland broke away from Somalia. While Somalia collapsed into more than two decades of civil war, Somaliland gradually developed better security, a livestock trade, its own currency and democratic elections. Evidence of atrocities emerged in May 1997, when heavy rains washed away dirt to uncover skeletons from Hargeisa's mass graves. But efforts to raise the profile of the atrocities failed to gain traction beyond the isolated region. "We are now going to bring this to the international arena," Somaliland's Foreign Minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis, told Al Jazeera. "The perpetrators are hanging around, living a normal life. Those who are living in the West, we must go after them." This latest drive, funded by the US-based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), saw the 38 bodies exhumed in September 2012. This month's visit by an eight-person team will study the skeletons for evidence of systematic killings and will excavate a second site.   Yusuf Mire still feels pain in the arm that was amputated after he was shot by a Somali soldier [James Reinl/Al Jazeera] "Hargeisa is a graveyard," said Jose Baraybar, a forensics expert who manages the team. "Some say there are 200,000 bodies under the ground. Others say 60,000. Nobody really knows. That's why we have to get the record straight." Gathering evidence They will look for bindings, close-range headshot wounds and other signs of systematic killing, said Baraybar, who has worked on probes in Haiti, Bosnia and elsewhere. Evidence that victims hailed from the same clan could indicate genocide, rather than mass-murder. The three-year project will train locals to unearth Somaliland's 226 known mass graves. The commission has listed 33 suspects for prosecutions. They include Barre's son-in-law, Mohamed Said Hirsi, better known as "General Morgan". But there the project hits a snag, because Somaliland is not recognised by other countries. Officials in Hargeisa lack the clout to push for a UN-backed tribunal, such as those that prosecuted the criminals of Rwanda and Yugoslavia. Legally, Somaliland is part of Somalia, which has not joined the International Criminal Court. "They are a long way from launching prosecutions," said Baraybar. "All of the killers have left Somaliland - they're in Somalia, the US and Europe. Prosecution is very difficult for a country that is not a country yet." Down south in Mogadishu, there is little appetite for war crimes tribunals - either for Barre's brutality in Somaliland or any other atrocity that has occurred in years of violence between rival clans, Islamists and foreign forces. Like, a 64-year-old father-of-eight who lived in exile in the 1980s, said the suspects include members of Somalia's government and parliament - although he declined to reveal their names for fear of repercussions. Some live in Somalia, but others are in Kenya, Europe and the US, he said. Prosecutions must begin soon because the atrocities started almost 30 years ago, and some of the masterminds have already died. "Hargeisa is a graveyard. Some say there are 200,000 bodies under the ground. Others say 60,000. Nobody really knows. That's why we have to get the record straight."- Jose Baraybar, forensics expert Not all perpetrators have escaped justice. In 2012, seven Somali victims secured a $21 million judgement against Mohamed Ali Samantar, a Barre-era prime minister, for planning the torture and killing of Isaaq clansmen, in a US court. It was one of three civil cases that the CJA has helped bring against Somalis who migrated to the US, using a statute that provides civil remedies for overseas abuses. But such cases fall short of the criminal tribunal that many in Somaliland want. 'We remember' The bombing of Hargeisa and other atrocities cast long shadows across the breakaway region. Few Somalilanders want to rejoin Somalia, despite recent security gains under a UN-backed government in Mogadishu. Somaliland parents tell their children stories about the cruelties. The cash-strapped government spends $50,000 on the war crimes commission each year, and is building a $300,000 museum to showcase skulls and weapons from the bloody era. "When the former Somali government controlled the country, many Somaliland people were killed," said Mohamed Jamal Emil, a 21-year-old who lives in a hut on the outskirts of Hargeisa. "It was a long time [ago], but we remember. My parents told me." Somaliland diplomats are in talks with counterparts from Mogadishu over long-term autonomy and independence. The atrocities and prospects for a tribunal could feature in the negotiations. For Baraybar, the war-crimes sleuth, there is more to this probe than the prosecutions it may yield. "While perpetrators die, the dead remain where they are. As long as they remain where they are, they tell us a story. That story has a healing power. Hearing that story is the right of those who survived, and of future generations," he said. "The grandchild must know what happened to his grandfather." Follow James Reinl on Twitter: @jamesreinl Source: Al Jaziira