The Head,
Africa and Middle East Region
BBC World Service, Bush House
London, UK

Dear Sir,

I had sent you the present letter more than a year ago, but since I have not received even an acknowledgement, let alone a reply from your part, I’m now publishing it (with some updating) in order to share it with your world-wide audience in general and your Somali listeners in particular:

First of all, I am sorry to tell you that, having been one of the devotee listeners of the BBC-Somali Service (BBC-SS) for almost 50 years, I have now decided to boycott it due to its deviation from its previously well-known, and dearly earned, qualities of objectivity, impartiality and balanced reporting. This has been the case ever since its current Head, Mr. Yusuf-Garaad O. Ahmed, had assumed its leadership about 10 years ago – a man who has only a 1-point agenda, i.e., to attack the present Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) and discredit it constantly either rightly or wrongly. Earlier, he used to support and make naked propaganda – and still does – for TFG’s opponents, i.e., the extremist outfit known as the Islamic Courts Union (Al-Shabab), whose leader, the so-called Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys (a former loyal prison guard during Siad Barre’s dictatorial communist regime) has been designated as an international terrorist, and who fights against the West’s interests everywhere. Before that, Yusuf-Garaad used to support and make free publicity for the now eliminated unscrupulous and very greedy Somali warlords. Moreover, it is an open secret that the current Head of BBC-SS has, during his long tenure, been recruiting announcers as well as stringers for that service not on the strength of their qualifications in terms of education and experience but purely on the basis of sheer nepotism and favoritism. Some of the staff he had hired have no good voices that are suitable for radio broadcasting, they at times translate the news from English to Somali language very poorly, and their reading of such news from written Somali is very slow and boring.

I have written to the BBC World Service management, including your goodself, on several occasions, drawing their attention to the present inferior quality of BBC-SS. But, unfortunately, my complaints as well as sincere advice and suggestions have fallen on deaf ears. (I am sure that Yusuf-Garaad had convinced you that those of us who criticize him do so for clannish reasons. Nothing else could be farther from the truth. And after reading some of the replies that the BBC had sent me, I got the distinct impression that my complaints had been forwarded to him and that what I was reading was just his illogical, poorly formulated self-defense).  

 I don’t mind my complaints/suggestions being ignored by you and the rest of the BBC able leadership because, as a member of the tiny minority of educated Somalis, I have other good alternative radio programmes to listen to, namely, the 24-hour BBC World Service (in English), BBC’s Focus on Africa, BBC (Arabic), BBC Afrique (in French), Voice of America or VOA (both in English and Somali), and Radio France Internationale (RFI) among other sources of modern media. But I'm just attempting here to defend the interests of your ordinary Somali listeners, the greater majority of whom are illiterates or semi-illiterates.

Some time ago, I wrote to you commending on the very good and balanced coverage by BBC-SS during the brief but fierce fighting period between the now defunct Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and the forces of TFG supported by Ethiopian troops in December 2006. I thought the reason for that was the fact that, perhaps, Yusuf-Garaad was at the time away from the BBC headquarters in London, and a more rational person may have replaced him temporarily. However, in your reply you told me that you had sent him to Nairobi to cover the raging war from such a close distance. But the information I got from some other reliable sources was that Yusuf-Garaad strongly believed at the time that ICU would crush their opponents and would easily win the war. Consequently, he traveled to East Africa mainly to make a great journalistic scoop by reporting on ICU’s tremendous military victory from cities like Mogadishu, Bossaso and Hargeisa (the latter two being the main cities of Puntland and Somaliland, respectively) after their triumphal conquest of the whole of Somali Republic! This shows how naïve, highly biased and ill-informed he is on Somalia’s current affairs.
                                                                                                                    
            We, Somalis (both educated and illiterate), are very lucky because VOA started about a year ago an excellent daily 3-hour programme in Somali language – thus bringing a badly needed end to BBC-SS’s total monopoly which lasted for half a century. This new commendable service is now headed by a good, professional Somali and ex-BBC-SS staff member by the name of Mr. Abdirahman Yabarow. In terms of truthfulness, impartiality and balanced reporting, VOA-Somali (VOA-S) is, in the opinion of many Somali listeners, much superior to the current BBC-SS. That is why it has attracted a considerable number of your audience. Because of its excellent programmes and good, even-handed leadership, VOA-S has also been able to attract some of your own good announcers and stringers, with excellent radio voice, such as Mr. Abdisalam Ibrahim "Harari", Ms. Asha Ibrahim "Oud", Mr. Mohmed Omar "Haidara" and Mr. Yabarow himself, who now work for it. I'm sure some of the remaining announcers at BBC-SS would also leave you if they get a similar chance.

To give you an example as to why VOA-S is much more interesting than BBC-SS, I wish to inform you that, after giving the most up-to-date and impartial news of the day about Somalia and the rest of the world, they air daily a roughly 10-minute debate on current Somali affairs among at least two educated and experienced Somalis (both male and female) with two opposing points of view- something that BBC-SS does not undertake more than once a week. In addition to that, VOA-S conducts a similar but much longer debate every Sunday. For instance, some time ago VOA-S had carried out - with the participation of four Somali intellectuals - a lively discussion as to why Somalia's ruinous civil war could not be ended after almost 18 years, as compared to other African countries such as Angola, Burundi, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and the like, who had ended their own civil strife? The participants also discussed the equally relevant question of: What are the possible solutions for bringing Somalia's tragedy to an end? To the best of my knowledge, BBC-SS has never engaged in such a relevant, positive and constructive undertaking. All it does is to deliberately fan the flames of civil war in Somalia and to seize every opportunity to attack and vilify the current Somali Government - the latter representing the best solution or consensus that the major Somali politicians and clan leaders could come up with after a national reconciliation conference, lasting more than two years, that was held in neighboring Kenya several years ago. In this connection, the question that I'd like to put to you is this: Does the indefinite continuation of Somalia's nightmare serve any useful purpose for Great Britain from strategic or ethical point of view? UK may not currently have any meaningful strategic interest in Somalia, but it definitely does have such an interest in our neighboring countries such as Kenya, and the long bloody anarchy in Somalia will, surely, have a serious spill-over effect on Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and other neighboring countries.

From now on I won't be bothering you with my complaints regarding Yusuf-Garaad, because he has, in my view, already inflicted enough damage on BBC's credibility. He can stay where he is for the rest of his life because, apparently, he is offering the BBC some other great services unbeknownst to us. But if they don't like to replace him - preferably with a neutral British national - the least BBC management could do is to set up a highly professional and unbiased editorial board for BBC-SS to offer us a more balanced reporting, and not leave us at the mercy of this “Big Brother”.  Alternatively, BBC management could set a maximum 2-term limit of five years each for heading BBC-SS. That way the latter service would breathe a fresh air every 10 years, and its lost credibility could be restored. Otherwise, the British taxpayer’s considerable amount of money for funding the said service would be a total waste, if the status quo is maintained indefinitely

Finally, I am enclosing herewith two recent articles, objectively criticizing BBC-SS, that were written by some concerned Somali listeners and posted on some leading Somali websites. One of these writers, Mr. Mahamoud Hassan, is a well-known Somali broadcaster who had worked in BBC-SS for nearly 25 years.

Sincerely yours,

Mahamud M. Yahye, PhD
e-mail: mm44yahya@hotmail.com

cc:   BBC Monitoring Service

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