http://www.italosomali.org/Rifiuti.htm
Bettino Craxi e Mohamed
S.Barre a Roma
The Red Jolly, omonima of the ship been involved in the transport of the
toxic refusals.
Somalia's secret dumps of toxic waste washed
ashore by tsunami
From
Jonathan Clayton in Johannesburg
Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18690-1509979,00.html
March 04, 2005
 THE
huge waves which battered northern Somalia after the tsunami in December are
believed to have stirred up tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste illegally
dumped in the war-racked country during the early 1990s.
Apart from killing about 300 people and destroying thousands of homes,
the waves broke up rusting barrels and other containers and hazardous waste
dumped along the long, remote shoreline, a spokesman for the United Nations
Environment Programme (Unep) said.
“Initial reports indicate that the tsunami waves broke open containers
full of toxic waste and scattered the contents. We are talking about
everything from medical waste to chemical waste products,” Nick Nuttal, the
Unep spokesman, told The Times.
“We know this material is on the land and is now being blown around and
possibly carried to villages. What we do not know is the full extent of the
problem.”
Mr Nuttall said that a UN assessment mission that recently returned from
the lawless African country, which has had no government since 1991,
reported that several Somalis in the northern areas were ill with diseases
consistent with radiation sickness. “We need more information. We need to
find out what has been going on there, but there is real cause for concern,”
he added. “We now need to urgently send in a multi-agency expert mission,
led by Unep, for a full investigation.”
An initial UN report says that many people in the areas around the
northeastern towns of Hobbio and Benadir, on the Indian Ocean coast, are
suffering from far higher than normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth
ulcers and bleeding, abdominal haemorrhages and unusual skin infections.
“The current situation along the Somali coastline poses a very serious
environmental hazard not only in Somalia but also in the eastern Africa
sub-region,” the report says. Toxic waste was first dumped in Somalia in the
late 1980s, but accelerated sharply during the civil war which followed the
1991 overthrow of the late dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Local warlords, many of them former ministers in Siad Barre’s last
government, received large payments from Swiss and Italian firms for access
to their respective fiefdoms.
Most of the waste was simply dumped on remote beaches in containers and
leaking disposable barrels.
Somali sources close to the trade say that the dumped materials included
radioactive uranium, lead, cadmium, mercury and industrial, hospital,
chemical and various other toxic wastes. In 1992, Unep said that European
firms were involved in the trade, but because of the high level of
insecurity in the country there were never any accurate assessments of the
extent of the problem.
In 1997 and 1998, the Italian newspaper Famiglia Cristiana, which
jointly investigated the allegations with the Italian branch of Greenpeace,
published a series of articles detailing the extent of illegal dumping by a
Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso.
  The European Green Party followed up the revelations by presenting to the
press and the European Parliament in Strasbourg copies of contracts signed
by the two companies and representatives of the then “President” — Ali Mahdi
Mohamed — to accept 10 million tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for $80
million (then about £60 million).
Abdullahi Elmi Mohamed, a Somali academic studying in Sweden, told The
Times that this worked out at “approximately $8 per tonne, while in
Europe the cost for disposal and treatment of toxic waste material could go
up to $1,000 per tonne”.
Mr Ali Mahdi, who then controlled north Mogadishu and who worked closely
with the UN during its disastrous 1992-95 humanitarian mission to the
country, has always refused to discuss the issue even though an Italian
parliamentary report subsequently confirmed many of the allegations.
Source:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18690-1509979,00.html
Somalia: fears over tsunami toxic waste
Mar 4, 2005
The UN said the situation also poses a serious environmental hazard for
neighbouring countries.
http://www.itv.com/news/world_1081975.html
http://www.stpauls.it/fc98/4798fc/4798fc84.htm
http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992a/11/mm1192_03.htm.save
Somali Waste Imports
1. The Issue
During the Somali civil war hazardous waste was dumped in this
African nation by industrialized countries. The alleged
perpetrators were Italian and Swiss firms who supposedly entered
into a contract with the Somali government to dump waste in the war
ravaged African nation. The issue of dumping in Somalia is two
fold in that it is both a legal question and a moral question.
First, is there a violation of international treaties in the
export of hazardous waste to Somalia. Second, is it ethically
questionable to negotiate a hazardous waste disposal contract with
a country in the midst of a protracted civil war and with a
government that can best be described as tenuous and factionalized?
2. Description
With the abdication of President Siad Barre in 1989, the
country of Somalia was thrown in a state of anarchy. The country
is currently ruled by a series of warlords each holding a small
section of the country. The rival factions have been at war with
each other since the mid-eighties and a mission by the United
Nations to stabilize the country has now ended in apparent
political failure. The war led to a serious famine that was solved
by the intervention. Less publicized was the exploitation of the
Somalian crisis by firms who specialize in the disposal of
hazardous waste.
In the fall of 1992 reports began to appear in the
international media concerning unnamed European firms that were
illegally dumping waste in Somalia. By most reports, several
thousand tons of waste, mostly processed industrial waste, had
already been dumped there. It was also reported that waste was
seen being dumped off the Somali coast into the Indian Ocean. To
further compound the country's environmental problems, a storage
facility in northern Somalia filled with pesticides had been
destroyed during the war. The spilt chemicals and resulting fire
poisoned one of the few sources of drinking water in the famine
ravaged country.
What caused controversy in 1992, however, was reports of a
contract established between a Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an
Italian firm, Progresso, with Nur Elmy Osman, who claimed to be the
Somali Minister of Health under an interim government headed by Ali
Mahdi Muhammad. Osman had been a health official in the Barre
government, but allegedly was no longer recognized as a government
official by Ali Mahdi. Osman had supposedly entered into an $80
million contract in December of 1991, whereby the two firms would
be allowed to build a 10 million ton storage facility for hazardous
waste. The waste would first be burned in an incinerator to be
built on the same site and then stored in the facility at the rate
of 500,000 tons a year.
Reports of the alleged contract outraged the world community.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) investigated the
matter at the urging of Somalia's neighbors and the Swiss and
Italian governments. What ensued was a period of accusations as
both firms denied entering into any agreement, Osman denied signing
any contract and the Swiss and Italian governments said they had no
knowledge of the two firms activities.
As a result of the UNEP's investigation, the contract was
declared null and the facility was never built. Still it became
apparent to the UNEP's director Dr. Mustafa Tolba that the firms of
Achair Partners and Progresso were set up specifically as
fictitious companies by larger industrial firms to dispose of
hazardous waste. At one point Dr. Tolba declared that the UNEP was
dealing with a mafia.
Source:
http://www.american.edu/TED/SOMALIA.HTM
Behind the Lines Toxic Trade Scuttled
A DECEMBER 5, 1991 DEAL allowing the Swiss
company
Achair to annually export 500,000 tons of hospital and industrial waste
to
Somalia was scuttled in September when one of the contract’s signers was
discredited by the self-declared Somalian presdient Ali Madhi Mohamed. The
agreement, signed in Rome between Achair and a man claiming to be Somalia’s
health minister, would have authorized the export of waste from Italy to a
10-million ton disposal site in Somalia over the next twenty years.
The $80 million contract was signed by Nur
Elmy Osman, who described himself to Achair executives as the state health
minister in Ali Madhi Mohamed’s interim government. The deal was called off
after the overthrown Somalian dictator Mohamed Siad Barre found out about
the arrangement and brought it to the attention of Somalis in Kenya in an
apparent attempt to discredit those who ousted him. Ali Madhi Mohamed, who
controls only part of the Somalian capital of Mogadishu, says that Oman is
no longer part of his "cabinet" and that he was given no authority to sign
on to the toxic trade deal.
Somalia, currently the focus of
international attention due to widespread starvation resulting from famine
and civil war, has been the victim of illegal toxic waste trafficking prior
to the attempted Achair deal. According to the environmental organization
Greenpeace Italy, the Italian waste broker Progresso, which served as an
intermediary between Oman and Achair, had already dumped 22,000 gallons of
pesticides and agrochemicals in northern Somalia, near the country’s border
and the Red Sea state of Djibouti.
Jim Valette, toxic trade campaigner for
Greenpeace, comments, "As long as industrial countries have open borders for
waste export, these types of schemes will create another layer of tragedy in
desperate parts of the world."n
- Julie Gozan
SOURCE:
http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992a/11/mm1192_03.htm.save
GREENPEACE REVEALS NAME OF ITALIAN COMPANY ILLEGALLY EXPORTING
TOXIC WASTE TO SOMALIA
Rome, 9 September 1992 ---- Greenpeace today revealed that
the Italian company PROGRESSO s.r.l. is the waste trader behind
the illegal trafficking of toxic waste to Somalia.
Greenpeace said the agreement for the scandalous deal was signed
in Rome, on 5 December 1991 , and authorizes the Swiss company
ACHAIR and PARTNERS to annnually export 500,000 tonnes of
hospital and industrial waste from Italy to Somalia over the
next twenty years. The waste is to go to a 10 million ton
disposal site.
UNEP director Dr Mustafa Tolba this week publicised the deal, but
was told the media that he was afraid to reveal any details of
the company involved, describing the parties involved as
"mafia".
One of the founding members of ACHAIR, Pierre Andre RANDIN,
has already been prosecuted for illegal trade in information
technology to Eastern Europe between 1981 and 1982. Last spring
he co-founded, together with Marcello GIANNONI, a company called
"MANAWASTE", for waste exports to the Third World. GIANNONI now
is a director of PROGRESSO.
"This Somalian toxic waste export scandal underlines the failure
of the 1989 Basel Convention to control waste trade, and the
urgent need for a total ban on hazardous waste exports to
developing and Eastern European countries" commented Greenpeace
Italy's Roberto Ferrigno.
The case also shows how Italian companies circumvent the
prohibition of hazardous waste expor s from EC Member states to
Somalia, as provided in the LOME IV Convention between the
European Community and a group of 69 developping countries
amongst which Somalia.
Dr Tolba publicised the agreement this week after the Basel
Convention Secretariat was notified of it. Under the terms of
the Basel Convention it is perfectly legal to export hazardous
waste from Switzerland to Somalia as long as both
governments agree to do so.
"We absolutely have to get to a total ban of all waste exports
from all industrialized countries to the Third World and Eastern
Europe" Ferrigno concluded.
ENDS
Source:
http://www.etext.org/Politics/Somalia.News.Update/Volume.1/snu-1.13
Somalia's new environment minister, Mohamed Osman Maye address a news
conference in Nairobi, Kenya, Wednesday, March 9, 2005 where he asked the
United Nations (news
-
web sites) to assemble a team to investigate possible hazardous waste
that was washed ashore by last year's tsunami and may be causing illnesses
among local people. Maye said strange objects were washed ashore all along
his country's coastline, the longest in Africa, when a tsunami struck on
Dec. 26, 2004.(AP Photo/Sayyid Azim)
Somali men walk past unidentified garbage washed on to the
beach in Hafun in north eastern Somalia, Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 after the
devastating tsunami hit the area in late Dec. 2004.Somalia's new environment
minister, Mohamed Osman Maye, asked the United Nations (news
-
web sites) on Wednesday to assemble a team to investigate possible
hazardous waste that was washed ashore by last year's tsunami and may be
causing illnesses among local people.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)
Somali men wait for a fisherman to come ashore at the beach
in Hafun in north eastern Somalia, Monday, Jan. 31, 2005 after the
devastating tsunami hit the area in late Dec. 2004.Somalia's new environment
minister, Mohamed Osman Maye, asked the United Nations (news
-
web sites) on Wednesday to assemble a team to investigate possible
hazardous waste that was washed ashore by last year's tsunami and may be
causing illnesses among local people.(AP Photo/Karel Prinsloo)
A Somalian walks by rubbish left by tsunami on the beach in Hafun, northeast
of Somaila's Puntaland region in this picture taken by the International
Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) on February 8, 2005. Somalian members of
parliament called on Saturday for international help to clean up tons of
hazardous waste dislodged by the Asian tsunami, which they say is causing
breathing problems and skin infections in Somalia. A United Nations (news
-
web sites) Environment Programme (UNEP) report released last month said
the tsunami had dislodged hazardous materials in Somalia, which for years
had been used as a dumping ground by other countries for their nuclear
waste. Picture taken February 8, 2005. REUTERS/HO/IFRC/Lydia Mirembe
A Somalia fisherman collects fishing nets from the rubbish
left by tsunami on a beach in Hafun, northeast of Somalia's Puntaland region
in this picture taken by the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC) on
February 8, 2005. Somali members of parliament called on Saturday for
International help to clean up tons of hazardous waste dislodged by the
Asian tsunami, which they say is causing breathing problems and skin
infections in Somalia. A United Nations (news
-
web sites) Environment Programme (UNEP) report released last month said
the tsunami had dislodged hazardous materials in Somalia, which for years
had been used as a dumping ground by other countries for their nuclear
waste. Picture taken February 8, 2005 REUTERS/HO/IFRC/Lydia Mirembe
A general view of the aftermath of the tsunami on the town
of Xaafun along Somalia's coast. Very toxic waste washed on to Somali's
coastline by the tsumani have spawned diseases bearing symptoms of
radioactive exposure in villagers along the shorelines.(AFP/File/Str)
"Garowee Bosaso" e i bidoni
occultati
Ilaria Alpi e Miran Hrovatin (foto: Raffaele
Ciriello)
Una equipe formata dall'inviato del
settimanale di Famiglia Cristiana, Luciano Scalettari, da uno degli ideatori
del Premio Ilaria Alpi, Francesco Cavalli, dal deputato dei Verdi, Mauro
Bulgarelli e l'operatore Alessandro Rocca, e' tornata dopo 7 anni sulla
strada Garowee Bosaso.
La strada cioe' dove passarono Ilaria Alpi e l' operatore Miran Hrovatin
durante il loro ultimo viaggio in Somalia e dove effettuarono lunghe riprese
prima di tornare a Mogadiscio dove persero la vita. Al chilometro 140, lungo
la strada l'equipe ha rilevato con un magnetometro la presenza di metalli
interrati, presumibilmente fusti contenenti rifiuti tossici, come ha
raccontato un autista somalo che li aveva trasportati in quel posto.
Di tutto questo, delle patologie riscontrate tra i pescatori dei villaggi
della costa , dove sono stati trovati i bidoni con i veleni strappati ai
fondali marini dall'onda dello Tsunami nel dicembre scorso, ma soprattutto
dell'interesse che Ilaria aveva mostrato per questo traffico di rifiuti tra
i paesi industrializzati e il corno d'Africa , trattera' lo speciale di
Rainews, che cerchera' anche di ricostruire, attraverso documenti
provenienti da inchieste giudiziarie, il contesto in cui avvennero quei
traffici.
http://www.rainews24.it/ran24/speciali/ilariaalpi2005/body.asp
De Capua Interview with Somali minister Mp3
De Capua Interview with Somali minister RA
Listen to De Capua Interview with Somali minister RA
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2005-03-09-voa31.cfm
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http://www.italosomali.org/Rifiuti.htm
http://www.etext.org/Politics/Somalia.News.Update/Volume.1/snu-1.31
http://www.stpauls.it/fc98/4798fc/4798fc84.htm
http://gurukul.ucc.american.edu/ted/somalia.htm
http://www.rsf.org/rsf/uk/html/europe/cplp/lp/170300.html
http://www.american.edu/ted/ice/somwaste.htm
http://marian.typepad.com/marians_blog/2005/03/europes_nuclear.html
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