By Mohamoud Hassan
Much has been written over the past years about the demise of the objectivity and impartiality of the programmes of the BBC Somali Service since Yussuf Garaad was appointed its editor in the late 1990s. It was the hope of all those concerned about the decline of standards that the BBC management at Bush House would eventually heed their concerns and complaints and do something to restore the credibility of the Service. Sadly, Yussuf Garaad’s bosses at the BBC had instead chosen to turn a deaf ear to all that.
In the meantime, the editor, never one to miss an opportunity when he sees one, has, not surprisingly, interpreted the BBC’s permissive stand on the running of the Somali Service as giving him a blank cheque to run the Service according to his whims and wishes. One has to give the devil his due and that goes also for Yussuf Garaad too. He is not only very clever and shrewd in a devilish manner so to speak, but he is also an opportunist par excellence. He knows what he wants and he would do what it takes to get it no matter how. For him, the end justifies the means and his vision, like many people of that type, does not go beyond his personal and clan interests.
I had worked for the BBC Somali Service longer than any one else among its staff – apart from Abdullahi Haji and had come to know its professional standards over the years as well as all its past and present managers and Somali staff, including Yussuf Garaad. It is true that the Service has expanded from two transmissions a day as it used to be in the past to four transmissions a day as it is now. But in broadcasting, it is not the duration of the programmes that matters most as the quality, objectivity and impartiality of the programmes. It is not the quantity that matters but its quality. Never had I known a time such as now when the BBC Somali Service has come to be used in a way contrary to the much-vaunted BBC standards of objectivity and impartiality. Sadly, the brazen bias of the BBC Somali Service under Yussuf Garaad has reached a level that shames a Service that was once the icon of Somali broadcasting services at home and abroad.
For those whose memory is short, Yussuf Garaad joined the BBC Somali Service in the early 1990s. As a highflier, he soon became at a time when much of Southern Somalia was in the hands of warlords. Mr. Yussuf Garaad is not only a supreme opportunist, he is also a shrewd strategist. To achieve his aims of running the Somali Service as his own shop, he had to ensure for himself a re-structured BBC Somali Service that conforms to his designs. His first well-calculated and well-executed move was to win the unquestioning support of his boss, a lady who was then head of the African Service. That close link with his boss enabled him to proceed to his second goal, namely to have a staff who were mostly of his choosing and compliant to him. In this regard, he fired almost a dozen staff and replaced them with his appointees almost all from his clan. Only a handful staff with permanent contracts that he could not remove remained in the Service. Once he had achieved his twin strategic objectives, everything else was plain sailing for him. The BBC Somali Service has since become synonymous with Yussuf Garaad and the whiz-kid has become the king-maker in Somali politics with almost all aspiring politicians chasing his coveted favours.
In the struggle for power that followed the collapse of the Siyad Barre government, the BBC Somali Service, at his behest, had brazenly thrown its support behind those warlords who were from his own Hawiye sub-clan, warlords such as General Aideed and Osman Aato, over Ali Mahdi who hails from another sub-clan of the Hawiye. This is in spite of the fact that most people in Southern Somalia and certainly much of the international community saw Ali Mahdi as the rightful president having been chosen in Djibouti by a gathering of notable Somalis broadly representative of Somalia’s clans and regions. Yussuf Garaad’s addictive appetite to manipulate the Service for his own ends was thereon established. Like a chameleon, he would change his political alignments in response to the shifting political landscape in Mogadishu and Southern Somalia in which he would sponsor those who happen to be his closest in terms of clan among those contesting for power.
When fellow clansman, Abdulkasim Salaad Hassan, was running for presidency at the Somali Conference in Arta, Djibouti, Yussuf Garaad provided the BBC Somali Service as a platform to support him. That support continued after Abdulkasim’s election and in particular in his struggle with the notorious Mogadishu warlords who had little trouble to prevail over him, rendering him president only in name but not in power.
When President Abdulkasim’s term ended and was replaced by Abdullai Yussuf, hailing fom a diffent clan, Yussuf Garaad had once again transferred his support to the warlords of Mogadishu who once again succeeded to fend off the new government and forced it to remain in exile outside the capital.
When the warlords, acting as mercenaries for the CIA, launched their misguided war against the Islamsts, Yussuf Garaad once again mobilized the BBC Somali Service but this time on the side of the Islamists. This was not because he cares in the least about their claimed Islamism or nationalism- his Islamic credentials and Somali nationalism are null as all those who know him closely will vouch for it. It was simply because the Islamist movement was overwhelmingly spearheaded by his own immediate sub-clan with Sheikh Aways as its spiritual mentor and leader.
Once the warlords were defeated and chased out of their strongholds in Southern Somalia, the struggle for power shifted to one between the Islamists and the TFG based in Baidhawa. The BBC, under Yussuf Grand, had went out of its way to support the Islamists by giving them unrestricted access to the BBC.. Rarely is the government given a fair hearing.
The Friday discussion on important national issues gives the clearest example of the bias of the BBC Somali Service. To ensure his total control of this programme, Yussuf Garaad has appropriated the chairmanship of the discussions as his personal preserve even when there are other equally capable staff, if not more so, such as Abdullahi Haji and Abdulsalam Hareri just to name two. Most of the listeners’ phone-in contributions are vetted beforehand through the emails they had earlier sent. As such, most of the respondents selected for the programme are clearly those whose views converge with that of Yussuf Garaad, except for few who manage to slip through the net.
When it comes to the struggle for power between the Islamists and the government, it is only to be expected that the public would hold different opinions about the two parties. There will be those who would be ardently pro the Islamists and point out to what they consider as their impressive positive achievements in ridding Somalia of the warlords and in establishing peace and order thus far in the areas under their control. On the other side of the political spectrum, there are those others who see the Islamists as nothing more than clannists under the guise of Islamic camouflage. Similarly, there will be those who would consider the TFG as the only legal and internationally recognized government which should merit all our undivided support and loyalties. On the other hand, there are those who see its leaders as puppets totally beholden to Ethiopia with little concern for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Somalia.
People are entitled to hold different views. But the BBC Somali Service should have been an impartial forum where different shades of opinion are given a fair hearing. It is not supposed to take sides as is the case now and has been in the past. Some people may argue that it should support the “good” side against the “bad” one. But who is “good” and who is “bad” is in the eye of the beholder. Each side in the power struggle sees itself as the one having legitimacy whether national or international. Even if one does not like the TFG and what it stands for, it is still entitled to a fair deal from the Somali Service in line with the well-known BBC standards, namely impartiality and objectivity, as the guiding principles of all programmes.
The Friday programme of the BBC Somali Service is not the only attack aimed at discrediting and weakening the TFG. There are also the daily dispatches from the field by stringers in hog to Yussuf Garaad, often reporting on anti-government demonstrations that are obviously staged for the BBC microphone; or when high -profile personalities are solicited for interviews that everyone expects them to shower praise on the Islamic Courts Union. You only have to recall those interviews with Prof Abdi Ismail Samatarl, Prof. Ali Khalif Galaid, and the omnipotent Somali politician from Kenya -just to name a few. It all adds up to raise the stocks of the Islamists in the public eye and conversely deepen the demise of the TFG. All this should not be taken as if I am a supporter of the TFG. Nothing could be far from the truth. All I am calling for is a fair levelled playing field at Bush house.
Another key plank of Yussuf Garaad strategy is to sew clan hatred and warfare as a way of destabilizing the TFG and bringing about its downfall in the hope of replacing President Abdullahi Yussuf with one of his own clansmen– Abdulqasim or perhaps Aways. More than any other place or region in Somalia, Baidhawa, the government’s tenuous and shaky base, provides Yussuf Garaad the ideal breeding ground for hatching his sinister plots against Abdullahi Yussuf and Gedi. Any unfortunate incident in Baidhawa that in some way involves the government and the host communities is immediately blown up as a potent clash between Digil/ Mirifle on one side and the Darood on the other side. Such an occasion arose the other day when a number of local security personnel at Baidhawa airport were killed allegedly by government forces.
To his credit, the Prime Minister, Gedi, had acted promptly and responsibly by immediately setting up an enquiry committee to look into the circumstances and facts surrounding the incident and in the meantime calling for calm and prudence. One would have expected the BBC Somali Service, under a different head, to heed this advice and refrain from sensationalising the incident. Instead, Yussuf Garaad had allowed some members of the local community, understandably too emotional over the incident, to make highly inflammatory statements in which one of them, the deputy mayor, accused the incident on the Darood while another one, a minister in the government (Haabsade), upped the ante by calling for the removal of the government from Baidhawa.
It is not as if these statements were broadcast live in which the BBC could claim they had no technical control to stop them. These statements were made via the phone and hence must have been recorded in which case they could have been either dropped altogether or else edited and made suitable for broadcasting. This was therefore not an unfortunate, innocent, oversight but rather a deliberate decision sanctioned by Yussuf Garaad, knowing fully well that he was inciting clan hatred and warfare -something that Somalia had thankfully come through after long bitter experience. It is not also an isolated case but forms part of a wider pattern. If such clan wars were to happen in the region, it would be of no concern to him as long as it serves his agenda and so long as he is safe in his comfortable studios in Bush House in London.
Another region where Yussuf Garaad is stoking up clan warfare, apart from Baidhawa, is between the regional administrations of Puntland and Somaliland over the ownership of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn. It is only over two years ago they fought over these areas and their armies are now facing one another at Adhicadeeye, not far from Laascaanood. Rather than letting the matter to rest, Yussuf Garaad keeps on raking up the dispute by regularly inviting prominent Somaliland personalities and letting them accuse Puntland, and in particular the Majeerteen, of having occupied their “rightful” regions and keeping its people under duress, forcibly adjoining them to Puntland against their will. As most Somalis know, this is just sheer bullshit -if you pardon the expression.
Never has Yussuf Garaad deemed it proper to sound out the views of the representatives of these regions and invite them to respond to these preposterous claims. Instead, he eggs on the Somalilanders to make threatening noises against Puntland, with President Riyale and opposition leader, Faysal Ali Waraabe, a neo-fascist hothead, recently outbidding one another as to which one of them can make Somaliland reach its colonial borders.. Faysal Ali Waraabe claims that he can do it in three months given the chance. He means Riyale’s job. Unless the Somalilanders are as crazy as him, hopefully he will never get the chance..
Given the unfettered leeway Yussuf Garaad has come to enjoy, he has turned the Somali Service as his own personal fiefdom, unaccountable to no one, where he pursues his personal or clan agenda rather than faithfully follow the BBC’s broadcasting values. What puzzles me, and no doubt many other Somalis, is why the editor has been allowed all this leeway even when it is clearly against Britain’s interest, never mind that of the Somali listeners? That is a secret that neither Yussuf Garaad nor the BBC have shared with any one I know.
Lest anyone should accuse me of personal vendetta against the editor, let me remind readers of the letter of complaint sent to the BBC over a year ago signed by close to 20 former BBC Somali Service announcers (including myself,) all coming from every region and clan of Somalia and who had worked for the Service from its beginning to the year 2000. Since that collective complaint was made, things have gone for the worse – a reason which prompted me to write this article. For those of us for whom the BBC Somali Service represents the best part of our life, to be silent in its current state of affairs is to be culpable by default. The least we can all do is to speak up – loud and clear. At least, the BBC can not construe our current silence and passivity as indicative of our content with the way things are with the BBC Somali Service.
Mohamoud Hassan
Email: [email protected]
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