^I enjoyed the Montana governor's speech-entertaining guy.

^He has no respect for the stooges.Makes you wonder what actaully transpires when he summons the stooges to Addis. He does know Somali and their mentality. He once asked in interview with newsweek if Somali nationalism would revived as result of Ethio occupation, he replied it's actually lack of nationalism that's actually Somalia in this mess.

The TFG got its marching orders. Get your act together or will abandon you for the next willing Idi*t. It looks like uncle's dollars are drying up too.

August 21, 2008 Meles Zenawi, the prime minister who has led Ethiopia since the rebel movement he belonged to overthrew dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991, spoke to Barney Jopson, FT East Africa Correspondent, at his office in Addis Ababa on August 21, 2008. The following is a transcript of the interview. Financial Times: The president and the prime minister of Somalia are here in Addis Ababa and have been here for the last few days. There’s been a lot of talk about a rift between the two of them. I wonder if you could give me your perspective on that and what affect it is having on the situation in Somalia? Meles Zenawi (MZ): Well, there is still some rift between the key political leaders and inevitably that does tend to undermine the joint effort of all of them to achieve peace and fight terrorism. They’re all here. We have provided a space for them to be able to talk to each other outside of the daily hustle in Mogadishu and my hope and expectation is that they will sort out their problems. FT: How exactly are those problems getting in the way of the effort to find peace? MZ: All of them need to pull together and that is not happening to the extent that we would all like to see. It is not having an immediate and direct impact on the [peace] talks in Djibouti. As you know they have progressed well, but that’s only one aspect of achieving peace albeit an important aspect, and therefore the efforts of everyone in the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] are required for us to make progress in the right direction. FT: What’s your understanding of the underlying causes of these disagreements? MZ: I’m not privy to their discussions but I would be surprised if the usual problems amongst Somali politicians were to be absent. FT: Meaning clan issues? MZ: Clan issues. FT: Of course you’ve still got troops in Somalia. How close or far away are you from being able to bring them back home? MZ: Well, as I said in the past technically we could bring them back home tomorrow. We feel we have done what we planned to do in terms of preventing a total takeover of Somalia by a jihadist group. We have done what we could to help an alternative framework so technically we could remove our troops any day, but we have obligations including to the African Union to hold the rein until they are able to deploy their troops and they have been hindered by all sorts of problems, but most particularly, logistical ones. So we feel we need to continue to hold the ring until the African Union is able to deploy actional troops and hopefully the Somalis sort out some of these lingering problems amongst them so that they can take care of their own security requirements together with the African Union. FT: So would you want to see a full Amisom [African Union Mission to Somalia] force of 8,000 people before you take your own soldiers out? MZ: We would preferably want to see a full deployment or as close to full deployment as possible. FT: When you think about withdrawal, do you see a stable and functioning TFG as a precondition or would you be willing to take your troops out even if the TFG is not functioning as well as it might? MZ: We will try everything in our capacity to create an environment where our withdrawal would not seriously disrupt this process in Somalia but that is not necessarily precondition for our withdrawal. Our obligation towards peace in Somalia is only one aspect. There are also requirements of our own including financial requirements. The operation has been extremely expensive so we will have to balance the domestic pressures on the one hand and pressures in Somalia on the other and try to come up with a balanced solution. FT: But that means that you could withdraw even if that withdrawal then left the TFG in danger. MZ: We would try to avoid that but our legs are not joined at the hip. FT: It’s 19 or 20 months since your troops came in. When you came in nobody seemed to expect that the troops would remain for this long. Looking back were there things that you think you didn’t anticipate, or things that developed in a way that was unexpected, which explain why you’ve been there for quite so long now? MZ: We didn’t anticipate that the international community would be happy riding the Ethiopian horse and flogging it at the same time for so long. We had hoped and expected that the African Union would be able to intervene much quicker and that the international community would recognise that this is a unique opportunity for the stabilisation of Somalia and capitalise on it and act quickly. FT: You mean by providing financial assistance? MZ: By providing financial assistance and providing peacekeepers and so on. That hasn’t happened. Problems amongst Somalis could perhaps be anticipated and there may not be any surprises in that regard. FT: People often compare the situation in Somali with Ethiopian troops to the Americans in Iraq. Do you see any sensible parallels there? MZ: No. In the case of Ethiopian intervention in Somalia, it was purely defensive. The jihadists who had taken over southern Somalia had declared war publicly against Ethiopia. And we had been invited by a proper government, the TFG, which was recognised by United Nations among others, to intervene, and our task was very limited. We didn’t have a mission of transforming Somalia in one way or the other, just to prevent a jihadist takeover in Somalia. Now having done that, it was perhaps reasonable on the part of the international community and ourselves to try and capitalise on the opportunities opened up by that intervention to try and help the Somalis stabilise the situation. That is what kept us there for so long. The original mission had been completed let’s say, within a few weeks of our intervention and we could have withdrawn in a month or so. FT: Are you using the possibility of withdrawal to put some pressure on the Somali president and the prime minister here? Is that one of the levers you can use? MZ: No. We don’t need to use any levers. This is their country. They are more interested in peace than anybody else outside of their country and in the end only a solution that they are comfortable with can be sustained. External pressure may give the impression of short term movement in the right direction, but it does not provide a lasting solution so we do not need any such leverage and we do not think any such leverage would be helpful. What I’m telling you is first that we would do everything in our capacity to stay as long as possible to help them out. Hopefully our withdrawal will come as a result of more progress in peace in Somalia and more deployment of the African Union, but given past practise we could never be sure when the African Union could deploy in any meaningful sense and so it doesn’t make sense for any government to say that we have an open ended commitment until the international community, in its own good time, decides to relieve us of that responsibility. So what I’m saying is we do not have an open-ended commitment. FT: You mentioned the financial cost and to use an over-used metaphor it would seem Ethiopia is at the centre of a financial perfect storm, funding Somalia on the one hand, while dealing with the consequences of a drought, and the consequences of food and fuel price inflation on the other. Could you tell me a little bit more about where all that leaves the government finances? MZ: Government finances in terms of the budget deficit and so on and so forth have been reasonable as the IMF would tell you but of course there is what the economists would call opportunity cost. Every dollar we spend in Somalia could have been spent elsewhere in dealing with issues of a domestic nature. And that is what I meant. That’s why I said that our commitment to Somalia is not open-ended. As far as the economic situation here is concerned, some people see a perfect storm. I don’t. I see a bit of a rough stretch, but not the perfect storm. The perfect storm has the risk of wrecking the ship or the boat, or at least that is my assumption. There is no risk here of shipwreck. The economy on balance is growing very well and we expect it to continue to do so, however the fuel prices have very significantly undermined our balance of payments situation. The increase in food prices has pushed a significant number of Ethiopians, particularly among the urban poor and in some pastoralist regions and areas of drought, to the brink and so these are very serious challenges even though they do not pose an extensive threat. FT: There’s been a lot of discussion about hunger in Ethiopia and I’m interested in putting this in the context of agricultural development. In the past few years of course, the agriculture sector has been performing well and indeed it’s been driving GDP growth, but what we’ve seen this year is that when the rains fail, problems emerge again. So it strikes me that whereas people thought agriculture was getting stronger in the last few years, maybe it was just getting lucky and maybe there are some underlying structural things that keep the sector vulnerable. What would you say to that? MZ: Well, I think it’s very important to look at the macro issues and local specific issues. When we look at the macro issues, agriculture has been growing at double-digit rates for five years now. Now the chances of being lucky five years in a row, of growing at double digit growth rates, is not that high. FT: But they have been five good years of rains as well, have they not? MZ: We have always had good rains in some parts of the country and droughts in other parts of the country. What has happened is in the areas where we normally have good rains we have had sustained growth in productivity, and in those parts of the country millions of people have seen very significant improvements in their lives. Agriculture has been the key driver of growth as a whole and of export growth in particular so the macro situation as far as agricultural growth is concerned is very good. Now we have two groups that have been hit by the dramatic increase in commodity prices including agricultural prices and hit negatively. But by the way, there are more people in Ethiopia who have benefited from the high food prices than those who have lost out from them. Farmers selling their own products have benefitted enormously and there are many more of them than those who have been damaged, but of course the purpose of government is not to hail those who have succeeded. The purpose of government is to support those who have not. What has happened is the pastoralist areas have not benefitted from the agricultural development activities because most of our agricultural development activities are based on settled farming. These are pastoralists and as pastoralists they will always be vulnerable to any change in precipitation. The pastoralists regions have the main problems as far as the rural areas are concerned. There is an exceptional problem in the south. The exceptional problem in the south is that we have had two failed crops: the first one because there was too much rain, the second one because there was too little rain, and the loss of two harvests was well beyond the capacity of the farmers to cope. If you remove this freak event of two consecutive failures, then you see the structural problems. The structural problems are that the pastoralist areas have not been involved and have not benefitted from the growth that has happened. The second structural problem in our growth has been in the urban areas where the growth has not been such as to provide adequate employment opportunities to the urban poor. When agricultural prices moved against consumers who in any case were on the precipice many of the urban poor suffered, so the structural problem is related to how fast we can create jobs in the urban areas and how quickly we can integrate the pastoralist regions in the economic growth process. The problem in the south is in the short term a very serious problem but it is a freak event. It does not show a basic trend. The basic trends are the ones that I mentioned. FT: But some people would say that there are also structural problems with arable farming in the south, namely that productivity remains low compared to neighbouring countries and that the population growth is such that the land simply cannot support the people. MZ: I am told that many journalists feel that Ethiopians are procreating at a faster rate than is healthy for them. We have had programmes to deal with that and there has been a very significant reduction in the population growth rate. The latest data that some journalists are bandying around is that there are about 80m people living in Ethiopia. The census of 2007 seems to indicate that we have significantly less than 80m, about 6m less, and the population growth rate, which was close to 3 per cent has been sliding towards 2 or 2.5 per cent and I think it is continuing to slide. So those who think that Ethiopians are procreating with abandon because they are being given food assistance, assuming that is what they are saying, are getting their facts wrong. FT: What about the productivity issue though? MZ: The productivity issue is a challenge. Productivity was extremely low and has been growing very significantly throughout the five years of growth that we have had. Interestingly, fertiliser prices have gone through the roof but fertiliser consumption during the rainy season now has also gone up and interestingly again in many of the surplus-producing regions of our country farmers, unlike in the past, were not given credit to buy fertiliser. They bought with cash so the fact that many millions of farmers were able to buy fertiliser at such high prices cash is very encouraging just as the fact that there are many Ethiopians who do not have enough to eat on a daily basis is a very serious challenge. FT: Yes. But in the context of commodity price inflation it looks unfortunate that the government was encouraging a shift from growing food to growing cash crops, because if people had been growing food perhaps they would not have to deal with the problem of buying very expensive goods in the market. Are you thinking about that shift any differently nowadays, given that food has become so expensive? MZ: The point is the farmers should make the decision and the farmers should make that decision on the basis of the net benefit to them. If it is beneficial for them to produce sesame and sell it at $2,000 per ton and buy wheat at $400 per ton, if they find the productivity difference between sesame and wheat is such that it makes sense to produce and export sesame and buy wheat from the Ukraine, then I see no reason why this should be a problem. There is no reason why every person has to produce whatever he consumes. Actually our programme was designed to commercialise small scale farming so that these market pressures will result in more efficient allocation of land, labour and so on, and would result in improved livelihoods for those who are producing. The fact is that those who did not face the challenge of the pastoralists, those who did produce have benefitted enormously. So the way to help the urban poor is for us, for example, to use the foreign exchange earned by the farmers to buy wheat and we are doing this. We have already bought about 150,000 tonnes of wheat in Europe and we are distributing it through the market. We completed a contract for another 150,000 tonnes of wheat and that will help us dampen the prices in the urban areas and that’s the way it should be. FT: One comment I’ve heard from several people about agriculture is that the government has been focusing very much, as you said, on commercialising small-scale farms. But these people say is you should be focused on big-scale farming and creating large commercial enterprises, because that’s the way to prevent a recurrence of the food shortages. Why have you decided to focus on the small scale rather than go big? MZ: Because the alternative is patently ******. FT: Why is that? MZ: Let’s look at two factors. The first factor is the availability of capital and savings in this economy. There are very, very low savings and very limited capital availability. If we were to invest in large-scale, commercial, mechanised farming, then we would have to deplete whatever savings we have in establishing these large-scale farms, and what do we get in return? We get in return some employment, but not much. If we were to focus on the commercialisation of small-scale farming, we wouldn’t need that much capital. We would be using the excess resource we have, which is labour and land, and we would be combining these two without too much capital to produce more. Secondly, we would be employing millions of people on their farms and giving them income. The problem that we face this year is not about production. It’s about income distribution and income distribution in Ethiopia is not going to be improved by abandoning small-scale farms and concentrating on large-scale farms. Fortunately in our case, to the extent that capital can be imported from abroad, we can do both because we have unutilised land in the lowlands where there is not much labour and we can combine that with foreign capital to supplement the small-scale farming. Such supplementary large-scale commercial farming is part of our strategy, but it is not the central piece of our strategy. FT: And this is why you were meeting a delegation from Saudi Arabia a couple of weeks ago? MZ: Yes, and many other investors including those who are involved in flower farms, horticulture and so on. FT: They will be given land which is not being farmed at the moment? MZ: Yes, and we have quite a bit of it, in the western lowlands and part of the eastern lowlands. We have a shortage in the central highlands and that’s where 70-80 per cent of the population live. FT: But your strategy remains focused on the small scale? MZ: Yes, because the small-scale farms are where we have the 9m households and what happens there determines their income. Large-scale commercial farming is not going to create millions of jobs and without those jobs, even if we had mountains of food in the country, it would not mean that people had access to that food. FT: Because they wouldn’t have money to buy it? MZ: They wouldn’t have the money to buy it and that has been the real problem here. It is not the availability of food. It’s the availability of money in the pockets of individuals Hiiraan.com

Zenawi's discontent with fractured entity with no compatent leaders All of them need to pull together and that is not happening to the extent that we would all like to see. It is not having an immediate and direct impact on the [peace] talks in Djibouti. I’m not privy to their discussions but I would be surprised if the usual problems amongst Somali politicians were to be absent We will try everything in our capacity to create an environment where our withdrawal would not seriously disrupt this process in Somalia but that is not necessarily precondition for our withdrawal . Our obligation towards peace in Somalia is only one aspect. There are also requirements of our own including financial requirements. The operation has been extremely expensive so we will have to balance the domestic pressures on the one hand and pressures in Somalia on the other and try to come up with a balanced solution. We would try to avoid that but our legs are not joined at the hip. web page

NGONGE...I remember during the initial Ethoipian assualt on Mogadisho a group of us together to raise awareness and raise funds for the displaced. Only two of us put so much hard to rally the community to come the together.We went to everyone that matter-people that could get others on board.Within days of initial effort, the talk of the town was we were collecting money to fund Al-Shabaab or clan militias. And within week, the whole thing dissipated. Then I just went to do the only thing I could. Write to my senators and congressmen and everyone else might even consider listening. Anyway Saaxib, point taken though. The other thing that I'm trying people to understand to be critical of leaders and movement they support. This blind loyalty serves no body. Even Yeey and Cadde their own deluded way somewhat their mistakes though it seems that they were chided to admit their failures. Labada Mas'uul ee ugu sareysa dowladda Madaxweynaha iyo Ra'iisil Wasaaraha ayaa waxay si wada jir ah u sheegeen in ay aad uga xun yihiin in khilaafkooda ay ku xaliyaan dalka Itoobiya web page

This guy told he is half Jamacian and half black. Not too be outdone, I told him I was half Somali and half Somalian. Of course he wasn't amused.

Pathetic!

^Maybe she needs to see you in macawis with dagger on the side

^^ And Why do you assume it's Somali man she's drooling over?

^Here I was considering to offer my service free of charge.

^Send The Point to Kandahar for reeducation

Catholic Press, Dear Father NGONGE, I want to thank first for exposing child sex abuses in our parishes.As result of your investigations, many bishops that preyed on children have been dismissed and brought to trial. Our children are safer today mainly due to your efforts. With that said, I will like to bring your attention to another issue that so prevelant in parishes and is threat to the very foundations of our church. This is about bishops/clergymen dating nuns. This new phenomena causes nuns to wear unholy attires and bishops to wistle in the middle of the services. I even seen a nun and bishop holding hands or others texting each other franctically. I must also inform that there are rare cases of nuns dating Imams-yet another troubling trend facing our church.I trust you to address this issue in your next publications. Anonymous

^LooooooooooooooooooooL

LooooooooL@JB I could see Pucca with machette.

NGONGE...I have never actually paid any Qaraan except for diya though I refused to pay the last one since I saw no point supporting the same habit.I do appreciate the point you to make. It's real and big part of the problem. Anyway my dear sir, you have habit of debunking ideas, what alternatives would you suggest. BG...There's none worthy mentioning. That's why we need to step up. And I'm not attacking the good Sharif, but it just seems what ever that has been failed miserably. Fresh outlook is needed instead supporting same men who obviously can't deliver anything.

LooooooooooL@Sayid Somali...It's all blame and useless faan. Nuune...The world is not black and white. P.S. There is not even an ounce of compassion from those blaming this poor woman.

Duke-Why would Somali leaders need to consult others about their country's internal affairs. Doesn't this strike you as being odd? Can't the TFG settle differences on its own? ?

Someone else probably feels the same way about you though, but you barely acknowledge their existence. One wonders who feels this way about Unknown Cara...One could only imagine what's your first and last worst feelings in the list.

^I was only talking about the women. They put the Brazilian carnival to the shame. The guys are only shirtless.

^Is that the Carib carnival. They had this weekend here in Boston/Cambridge. I guess it falls on the same day. P.S. I don't know booty hanging. Over here, they are practically naked.

^Why would your 'leaders' need to consult others about their country's internal affairs. Doesn't this strike you as being odd?

^Adiga dadka xaa kaa reebe?

^You still wanna bunch that guy eh. B-Geeljire...The first thing to finding alternatives is identifying the problems. There are two major issues one being lack of geniune leadership and other being Somali apathy. I'm not really sure what we could do about the latter. We seem to be so indifferent to our plight but we could start with individuals like you and I who realises and appreciatates the problems at hand but never come together to find a solution. I do believe if few like minded people with defined goals come together, something could be done. As for the leadership issue, I don't think we could crop a new leadership over night but we could (and I'm talking to those diasporo since we have no real influence on the ground) is to hold these so called leaders accountable for words and actions. People more interested in seeing stable Somalia and less obsessed in promoting clanish agendas can persuaded to come together. We need an entity that documents and disseminates the deeds, actions and the broken promises of these so called leaders.We could use the media not just to the daily massacres in Somalia but the role these men play in perpuatating those massacres. In time, we can build enough strenght and consensus within the Somali community and the larger international community to hold these men accountable. The problem is these men fear nothing, are recieving monetary funds from abroad and aren't restricted in their movements. P.S. I do realise the deep divisions and mistrust within our society and how hard it's to get any two Somalis to sit down and talk logically.

Ramadan Kariim Y'll