Under the stewardship of Yusuf Garad, the BBC Somali service’s reporting on Somaliland has become so biased it prompted the doyen of Somali studies, I.M. Lewis, to dub it the “Arta Faction mouth piece.” About 4 years ago when Yusuf Garad was named the editor of the BBC Somali Service, he became the first Somali to hold such a position. Unfortunately, since the commencement of preparations for the Arta peace conference in early 2000 and the subsequent enthroning of Qassim Salad as president of the now-defunct TNG, the Somali Service of the BBC seems to have departed from the BBC’s standard policy of fair, objective and accurate reporting. Of particular concern is a pattern of omission and distortion of developments taking place in this country and the harshly anti-Somaliland fervor consistently emanating from the Somali Service broadcasts.

Here are a few of the latest sins of omission and commission perpetrated by the BBC’s Somaliland Service:

On July 28, the International Crisis Group issued one of the few serious reports ever written on Somali affairs since the downfall of Siyad Barre’s dictatorship in 1991. A Somalilander living in London had informed the BBC’s Somali Service as well Haatuf newspaper in Hargeisa about the ICG report. While a summary of the report was later published by Haatuf and its sister newspapers the Somaliland Times and Arabic Al-Haatef, the Somali Service with a much wider audience, has until now refrained from informing its listeners about the ICG report.

The report mainly dealt with the issue of democratization in Somaliland, including a critical review of the electoral processes that the country has witnessed recently. It also contained an extensive amount of analysis and commentary on social, political and security issues of deep concern to Somaliland and Somalia. Obviously, somebody within the Somali Service must have an interest in suppressing information on the peaceful progress made by the people of Somaliland towards democracy, and the growing understanding and sympathy among the international community for Somaliland’s demands for recognition.

Moreover, the Somali Service still calls Abdiqasim Salad Hasan the president of the TNG as if Salad’s term had not expired and the TNG didn’t cease to exist as of August 13. Last Wednesday, Mr. Yusuf Garad himself indulged in this habit of portraying Abdiqasim Salad Hasan as the head of a working government while he was being interviewed by the Somali Service on the occasion of his recent return from Mogdisho. By contrast, it is a taboo within the Somali Service to call Somaliland by its name without adding to it such terms as the self-proclaimed or self-declared republic.

There is also the deafening silence of the BBC’s Somali Service about:
1- Human rights violations in Djibouti
2- The huge areas of land expropriated by Abdiqasim Salad Hasan’s clan militia in southern Somalia.

The BBC Somali Service has done great damage to the reputation of the BBC, and something must be done about it before it 's too late.

 

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