Outcast of Somalia head for new hope in US

HAWIYA ABDI ADEN does not speak a word of English. She has never seen a washing machine, a flush lavatory or a commercial airliner.

But soon she will complete an epic migration out of Africa that will see her “lost” people swept across distance and culture from some of the poorest parts of the world to 21st-century America.

Mrs Abdi Aden, 37, a Somali Bantu who has seven children, has known little but conflict and hardship throughout her life. Now nearly 12,000 Bantus — long a persecuted minority in their homeland — are to be resettled in towns and cities across America. They are looking forward to their new lives, but few have the least idea what to expect.

“American people are interested in peace, so I like Americans. There I will have peace, a life and education; education I need because at the moment people like that have to translate for me,” she said nodding towards her interpreter — a young Somali man in dark sunglasses and a T-shirt emblazoned with the words Black Yankees.

Before Somalia’s civil war the Bantu were farmers, despised by Somalia’s primarily nomadic clans, along the Jubba River. With no clan system to protect them, these former slaves were robbed, raped, bullied and chased into exile in neighbouring Kenya when the country descended into anarchy after the 1991 overthrow of the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre. Many bore the brunt of the devas- tating famine that followed.

“We are a lost people, but now we hope our children will learn something and become very good,” Abdi Muhammad Direy said. The Bantus will be scattered across the United States and will find out exactly where their new homes will be only a few days before departure. It is certain that families will not be separated.

Last year a group of Sudanese “lost boys” were settled in places from the chilly Dakotas to sweltering Virginia. Others went to Cincinnati, Chicago and Texas. US officials say that the Bantus will go broadly to the same destinations.

Officials of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees agree that Mrs Abdi Aden and others of her generation will not perhaps adapt to the Western world.

“It will be tough for this generation, but it is still worth doing. The children will benefit and the end is now finally in sight for a group of people who have been discriminated against for years,” Boniface Kinyanjui, a protection officer at Kakuma camp, said.

The first stage of the journey to America is a dusty three-day, 930-mile trip from Dadaab refugee camp, near the border with Somalia, across Kenya’s bandit-ridden northeastern provinces to this sprawling refugee camp close to Kenya’s northern border with Sudan, where there are few rival Somali groups. It is a huge logistics exercise costing up to £500,000. They will be taken by road to Nairobi and then flown to the United States.

Officials from the International Organisation for Migration and the UN refugee agency, which are organising the joint operation, decided on the transfer for fear of jealousy from other Somali groups. Some — who cannot understand why the US is favouring this group — could disrupt the process and cause security problems.

Each convoy carries between 250 and 300 passengers. The organisation for migration has provided nurses, wayside watering points and places for overnight stays, and, in collaboration with the Kenyan authorities, taken security precautions. About 30 police officers in their own vehicles travel with the convoy as it moves through some of the most dangerous zones.

The Somali Bantus’ presence in Somalia, where they have always been treated as second-class citizens and deprived of basic rights such as education, can be traced back to the slave trade of Zanzibar’s Arab sultans during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of the Bantus’ ancestors were captured by the sultans’ raiding dhows and taken to the Zanzibar slave market for sale and onward transport to the Arab world. Vessels wrecked in monsoon winds would pitch their hapless human cargoes on to the Somali coast.

The UN refugee agency initially approached Mozambique and Tanzania, but both countries lacked the means to take them and eventually the United States agreed to take them.

As a group, the Bantu have no desire to return to Somalia and they would be persecuted, if not killed, if they did. Their homes were long ago seized by Somali clans.

The system of discrimination was even perpetuated in Dadaab refugee camp, a settlement of some 120,000 mainly Somali refugees, further emphasising their special status for Washington.

“We could not go and collect firewood, our children could not even sit at a desk with other Somali children. They had to sit on the floor. Our women would be raped if they went into the bush and if our men went to protect them, they would be killed,” Mr Direy said, recalling the daily grind of life in the camps.

Since convoys began late last month, more than 1,000 Bantus have arrived in Kakuma, where they will live in temporary accommodation until all the bureaucratic details of the US immigration process are completed. That could take up to a year, although the first groups to leave could do so by December.

“This is a very compelling caseload, so we would hope a high percentage will be accepted (for resettlement),” Charles Fillinger, of the US Immigration and Naturalisation Service, said.

The reception and interview centre is ringed by barbed wire. Immigration officials feared that non-Bantu Somalis would pose as Bantus and even threaten some Bantu families to say that they were fellow members in order to get the prized resettlement papers.

“Resettlement is a very sensitive issue. Everyone in the camp would like to go to America. It is a dream,” one worker from the UN refugee agency said.

The Bantus are also given a two-week crash course in cultural orientation and basic survival skills that will help them to cope in the West.

“These are people who have never seen an aeroplane, so everything needs to be explained, from a boarding procedure to how the social security system works over there,” Muhammad Abdikadir, the migration organisation’s local operations manager, said.

Asked about the Somalis’ reputation for not integrating into new “host” countries, Mrs Abdi Aden does not hesitate. “Anywhere we get peace, we will follow the rules,” she said.

Bold emphasis is mine.

This story goes along very well with the case of the woman who is being deported after her husband died on 9/11

As long as they want peace and something better for their children, and are willing to embrace our culture, I say GOOD, and welcome Bantus! It sounds like they will be happy to be here and should love our land as much as we do.

And just how do you suppose these illiterate primitives with no job skills or prespects are going to support themselves in the US? How bout if they move in with YOU since you seem so enthused....

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