Readout of Under Secretary Sherman's Meeting with Ahmed Silanyo, President of Somaliland Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 26, 2013 Share on facebookShare on twitter Yesterday, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman met with Somaliland administration President Ahmed Silanyo. Under Secretary Sherman and President Silanyo discussed issues of mutual concern, including stability, democracy and governance, and the need to combat al-Shabaab. The United States expressed support for continued dialogue between the Government of Somalia and Somaliland authorities, as took place in Turkey on April 13. The United States reiterated its strong support for a peaceful and united Somalia. http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2013/04/208055.htm[ PRN: 2013/0471

Readout of Under Secretary Sherman's Meeting with Ahmed Silanyo, President of Somaliland Media Note Office of the Spokesperson Washington, DC April 26, 2013 Share on facebookShare on twitter Yesterday, Under Secretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman met with Somaliland administration President Ahmed Silanyo. Under Secretary Sherman and President Silanyo discussed issues of mutual concern, including stability, democracy and governance, and the need to combat al-Shabaab. The United States expressed support for continued dialogue between the Government of Somalia and Somaliland authorities, as took place in Turkey on April 13. The United States reiterated its strong support for a peaceful and united Somalia. PRN: 2013/0471

Three states in southern Somalia are keen to become an autonomous region known as Jubbaland. http://www.scribd.com/doc/138297750/Somalia%E2%80%99s-Jubbaland-conundrum

Halkan ka daalaco sawiradii Banaanbaxii ka dhacay madasha US State Department maanta oo ah May 17, 2012. Thank you for the beautiful pictures. SAWIRADII

Somalia’s arduous twenty-year odyssey is fast approaching a defining moment. The long running national nightmare will soon reach a clearly marked fork in the road. Contrary to the witty Yogi Berra’s line, however, you can’t just “take it”; one has to make a conscious choice as to which way to proceed. The choices before Somalis, in this regards, are two and their differences are easy to recognize: one way is the continuation of the perilous passage to nowhere that the nation has been on since the fall of the central government in 1991. It is a particularly circuitous road that is full of hazardous twists and turns; a virtual dead-end leading to no destination that the long-suffering Somali people would want to go. Its journey has been and remains to be strewn with the ill-effects of all manner of destructive and anti-social behavior that rendered the Somali Republic the failed state by which all others are judged. The resultant dysfunctional system gave us brutality of warlordism, blinkered religious fanaticism, pirate activities, and political corruption; the kind of pathologies that, if not checked, could in due course spell certain doom for any nation. As a result, Somalia has, during the last two decades, been to the edge of an abyss a couple of times precisely because of that kind of systemic failure. The guides of this hellish road were bad political leaders lacking in knowledge and devoid of the kind of wisdom without which human society is lost. Typically, these are unethical folks given to power trips and are unabashedly narcissistic. They are the kind of individuals that are incapable of learning lessons from their mistakes. So this dangerous side road is not new to the Somali people. They have been forced to traverse it by those same corrupt politicians, longer than they would care to remember. The corrupt politicians, who are still very much with us, are folks who seem to know next to nothing about how to help restore hope and dignity to Somalis and who in all probability care even less. Consider their callous behavior during past 20 years—years of utter disorder and Confucian, much of it their own making. To this day, many of these politicians are unfazed by all the massing killings of innocent lives, the destruction of much of the nation’s property, including things that were fastened to the ground. Equally, odious is their continuous rejection of all efforts that could possibly lead to veritable reconciliation and national redemption. As the politicians’ world view is marked by endless despair, the other branch of the road heads the diametrical opposite direction—of hope. With minor tweaking, the Road Map can, Allah willing, be an arterial road charted to put Somalia on the path to restoration of full national sovereignty, reconciliation and redevelopment. It can also serve as an access road for the long subdued Somali national aspirations. And it can potentially become a thoroughfare to self-rule for communities and regions as well as to full citizenship rights for individuals. The Road Map has other pieces of good fortune associated with it. It has the full backing of the regional states, the AU, the UN and the International community. This has not happened before. And so it behooves Somalis not waste this unique opportunity but rather capitalize on the universal support and the commitments of all the various, important players. The Road Map will end the unworkable, eight-year transition period that functioned as black hole of available meager resources without corresponding achievements in security or social development to show for. The only growth industry during the anguished transition period has been escalating corruption and runaway sectarianism. Somalia can ill-afford the continuation of this unhappy process. It needs to end abruptly come August, 2012. Finally, the claim that the process that led to the Road Map was not perfect is not entirely without merit. But it is overplayed for sinister purposes. And that is unacceptable. In the initial stages the process, this writer, like many other Somalis had certain misgivings and the process and raised questions accordingly. As the process went on it became clear to most the stakes two high, the nation was too exhausted and the opposition was unnecessarily dismissive of the entire course of action that it became imperative that the Road Map had to reach its destination. The nation cannot continue to engage in the usual, incessant didactic arguments and endless debates that always end with certain politicians opposing change. Such a practice is a luxury that the country cannot afford at this critical juncture. Somalis should not have the perfect be the enemy of the good. Rather people of goodwill from throughout the country should support the Road Map and the Draft Constitution. There will, insha Allah, be plenty of time to tweak the draft constitution towards a more perfect system of governance that would make all Somalis proud. The alternative to the Road Map is bust! And that is, quite frankly, unacceptable. Source

Hustler;818008 wrote: Saxib somaliland socotay soona noqonmaysee salaama Keep dreaming.

However, it is important to note that operative Paragraph 6 of the communiqué of the London Conference calls for negotiations between ‘Somaliland and the TFG’, not between ‘Somalia and Somaliland’ as some die-hard secessionists claim.The import of this operative Paragraph is that the talks should take place in the context of the Unity and Territorial Integrity of Somalia. DETAILS .

Rebuttal by Unionist [http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_2011/August/16_Consequences%20of%20Somaliland_unionist.pdf

This paper is prepared by a group of unionists hailing from the NW region of Somalia (former British Somaliland). It is a critique of a discussion paper, titled "AFRICAN Game Changer? The Consequences of Somaliland's International (Non) Recognition", which was presented to The Brenthurst Foundation in South Africa on May 2011 by a group of academics following their "factfinding" mission to "Somaliland" Read the whole paper at this link: http://www.wardheernews.com/Articles_2011/August/16_Consequences%20of%20Somaliland_unionist.pdf

Come on Xaaji. You know what he is talking about. Remember Xadkii baanu soo xidhayna

In Search of Solutions for Somalia: Prescription of A Unitary System, A Federal System And A Draft Constitution. By Ismail Ali Ismail Introduction In the year 1995 the European Union undertook a study whose purpose was to illuminate the field of options for Somali ‘politicians’ and ‘leaders’ (popularly known as ‘war-lords’) in so far as structural solutions to the country’s problems were concerned. They came up with four systems: the confederal; the federal; the unitary; and the consociational(1). They explained each of them and provided extant examples of countries using it. But, there were three things I did not like about the study: first, it wrongly assumed that Somalis were unaware of such systems, its approach, therefore, being didactic; secondly, while it explained the virtues of each system it was unbalanced in that it gave no warnings as to its pitfalls; and, finally, there was an underlying but fundamentally wrong assumption that Somalia’s internecine conflict within itself was such that it was amenable to structural solutions. Nothing could, of course, be farther from the truth. However, given the nature of the hostilities and the depth of rancor there was a clear and growing trend towards federalism, and in the wake of the failure of the Cairo Conference at the end of 1997 Puntland was created in the following year as an autonomous ‘first state’ of a would-be federal Somalia. ‘Somaliland’ had already declared its secession in 1991, barely five months after the collapse of the State. By the time the Djibouti Conference of the year 2000 was held federalism was widely accepted and indeed adopted in that conference. At that point, I wrote a paper on it pointing out its multifarious complexities and the challenges they posed.(2) My purpose in writing that paper was two-fold: to kick off a debate that would inform both the faction leaders and the public, especially those participating in reconciliation conferences; and to underscore the fact that even the simplest system would fail, as exemplified by the failure of the unitary system in Somalia, which brought about the demise of democracy to usher in a dictatorial military rule, and ended up with an implosion and the collapse of the State itself. My position then was, as now, that any system would fail if it is not properly managed. I do not deny that it is more difficult to manage a more complex system such as federalism, but the point about management as the determinant of success and failure is nevertheless valid. That point (which most astonishingly continues to escape the attention of many of us writing on systems of government with a view to recommending one or the other as a solution for Somalia’s problems) was seen more than two hundred years ago; and I always quote, in this connection, a relevant and illuminating couplet from Alexander Pope (1688 – 1744): “For forms of government let fools contest; Whatever is best administered, is best” With the foregoing partly in view, I shall now proceed to discuss a few assertions and recommendations made by some Somali professors and other intellectuals in an effort to guide their compatriots to choose a form of government that would, presumably, ensure political instability. I shall also point out a general but misguided criticism of the federal system. Read the complete analysis http://wardheernews.com/Articles_11/Feb/Geeldoon/05_In_Search_of_Solutions_for_Somalia.html

Cape Town journalists Chris Everson and Anton van der Merwe, who were arrested by security police in Somaliland as suspected mercenaries and detained for 10 days, arrived back yesterday saying they had simply “been in the wrong place at the wrong time”. The experienced film crew, who covered violence in the Cape Flats in the 1980s and conflict in the Gulf, Afghanistan and Pakistan, say with hindsight they should have found out more about their filming assignment in Puntland, a semi-autonomous region in northern Somalia. “We weren’t briefed on the assignment really except that it was about training of security guards. We got to Entebbe and were told ‘jump on this charter’, which had a Russian crew. We didn’t even know what was on board the plane. It was a big learning curve”, sound man Van der Merwe said from his Tokai home yesterday. The two often work for the American television network CBS’s 60 Minutes. But this assignment was commissioned by a friend and former CBS producer, Shawn Efran, who has his own film company. They flew Kenyan Airways to Entebbe on December 8 and were due to leave on the Russian Antonov charter the same day, but were told to wait until December 10 for cargo to arrive on an SAA flight. Everson said: “The only others on board were the six Russian crew, who couldn’t speak English. We didn’t know the flight plan, only that it was a nine-hour flight via Addis Ababa. After about three hours we landed in Hargeisa in Somaliland to refuel. “The back of the plane was down and we were waiting. Some guys in uniform arrived and they searched our stuff, then the cargo. In the boxes were T-shirts and boots and instruments for looking under cars, innocuous stuff, not military. I didn’t know what was in the boxes; they came off the SAA plane. Then suddenly they said we were under arrest,” Everson said. The security police took them to a hotel, confiscated their cellphones, laptops and satellite phone, and instructed the hotel staff not to allow them to make or receive any calls. “They said the T-shirts and boots were military stuff,” Everson said. The South Africans and Russians protested that hey they knew nothing about the cargo, but to no avail. “We had no way of letting anyone know what had happened, but then Anton remembered he had a cheap throw-away cellphone he had bought in Kurdistan. There was a little store next to the hotel and we bought a sim card and airtime, so we were able to phone our families, which was golden,” Everson said. “There was a New Zealand guy in the hotel and I scribbled a letter and said please believe me when I say what I am and I’ve got a CBS card and ID, and e-mail this to my wife.” They were restricted to the hotel, and if they went too near the gate, soldiers with AK-47s ordered them back. “Sadly, we’d left two bottles of whiskey on the plane, because that place is dry.” Days later, Matt Bryden, co-ordinator of the UN Security Council’s Monitoring Group on Somalia, arrived to question them, at the request of the Somaliland authorities. Bryden said there was a UN embargo on transporting military goods into Somalia and the clothing on the aircraft was considered military goods. “He said: ‘You’re under arrest and you’ve been charged. If I don’t agree with your story, I will report back to them precisely that. If I say you are what you say you are, I will say that, and the problem will be solved.’ After an hour-and-a-half he said he was satisfied with our story. ‘I can see you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and I will communicate that to the Somali authorities. You should be out of here soon’. Then he left. “We heard nothing until the next night; the CID guys came back and took us to an appaling place that was dark, dirty, smelly, with a bare bulb on a cord and said: ‘This is where you are staying.’ “We were at a pretty low point as clearly things had taken a turn for the worse.” But after a short while, they were marched out of the building to the Safari Hotel where they were left for eight days. “We made friends with the waiters, fine guys, and they brought us the best pawpaws and mangoes.” Meanwhile Bryden had travelled to South Africa and was in contact with the South African and Somali authorities and both men’s families. “He was keeping us all sane. He’s the most amazing man,” he said. Ten days after their arrest, they were told they could leave. Asked about reports that they were to film counter-piracy operations run by Saracen International, headed by Lafra Luitingh of the defunct South African mercenary company, Executive Outcomes, Everson said: “We have no connection with them at all. We were doing a legitimate story about security training in Puntland. I’m quite sure that the people being trained were in some way connected with the piracy threat, but we don’t know who was training them.” Source: http://www.capetimes.co.za/held-at-gunpoint-in-somalia-1.1004052

The purpose of this paper is to discuss reality-based politics and how that essential feature is peculiarly missing from our political discourse. Meanwhile, I will not to turn this short piece into didactic and moralizing dissertation. It is common knowledge that beyond crisis, Somalia is in dire straits in all aspects of the country’s societal life. So there is no need to dwell on that. What I am interested in discussing is the apparent gaping hole that the Somali intellectuals habitually tiptoe around when thrashing out issues related to Somali politics. Specifically, the very notion of trying to reach for plethora of quotes of long dead men and ancient parables from cultural milieus far removed from Somalia in terms of social organization and history. Often the treatises put forth make for good reading as they are well crafted, even elegant. Their problem lies in the absence of much substance in bringing about clarity to the pressing issues of the day. The best of them identifies a well- known villain as stocking horse and rides it to death. In fact, if some of these pieces were food that one had to consume to get energy, their nutritional value would in all likelihood not be any better than the empty calories found in popcorn. Why? Because in the author’s rush to wax eloquent about amorphous philosophical concerns and far flung strategies, key elements including the reality on the ground, the historical record and the dictates of pragmatism, to say nothing of the imperative for fair play in social engineering are ignored. And, beyond the need to manage the present-day crisis, this issue of social engineering or its lack thereof is at the crux of Somalia’s political failure. The Need for Crisis Management In crisis situations, disputants are often forced to make important decisions. When an aggrieved party to an on-going political fiasco realizes what was a long brewing conflict is getting out of hand, the last thing this party needs to do is to delay corrective action. Under normal circumstances, strategic thinking is employed towards an optimum resolution. But when an entire society is lurching from crisis mode of operation to precipitously dysfunction, snap decisions are not only inevitable but in some cases necessary. Waiting until the situation is totally unmanageable is akin to pursuing fool’s errand. Imperative of Power Sharing Power sharing is too important a field to be left to debating societies given to chasing after idle exercises and trivial pursuits. Nor can the dimwitted policies of failed regimes such as the TFG in Mogadishu be expected to be magic potions or cure-alls; to many Somali communities they represent more like poison pills! In the civil war wracked Arab country of Iraq, even the recent relatively successful election failed to diminish the struggle for power between the various communities. As in Somalia, the shaping of the draft constitution remains a major bone of contention. This is because its outcome will determine the formula by which resources will be shared between the regions and allocated within the purview of the central government. Equally important, it will delineate the degree to which communities will retain self-rule to be able to manage their own affairs. This is the reason why contending communities require having adequate voices in the corridors of power so that their issues of interest would be heard and acted upon satisfactorily. In Iraq, the parties are all on record agreeing to a “federal system of governance that preserves the unity of the state, advances the aspirations of the ethnic and sectarian groups, and is administratively viable”. In other words, the federal states would control all affairs not explicitly assigned to the national government. No such luck in Somalia, which indicates that the situation is really as hopeless as it seems. Hence, self-interested obfuscation or over simplification will not lead to real solution; it can only delay the day of reckoning! Still, in many ways, Somalia’s situation is not dissimilar to that of Iraq. All one has to do is to substitute sunni and Shi’a Arabs for the extant Somali clans and you get the picture. What is called for, therefore, is for commentators to have the presence of mind to be able to examine the situation with the objective reality in mind. That’s all. No need to fulminate ad infinitum about unspecified offenders and tangential, free-wheeling issues of all stripes. There is a lot at stake. Not too many Somalis of good conscience would, under the current environment of excessive political corruption, be willingly to leave the fate of their communities to the tender mercies of the avaricious cabal in and around Villa Somalia. This is not so complicated a matter to appreciate. And no amount of over intellectualizing could conceal the simple truths that situation reveals about the low ebb into which the Somali society has fallen. Nor can we Somalis blame the whole sordid affair of repeated societal failures on Ethiopia’s reviled, ruling Tigre, minority regime—a community of mere three million members at best. (Somalis throughout the Horn of Africa and elsewhere are estimated to be over 20, 0000,000 strong). Congenital Problem Overlooked Somalia’s self-styled politicians have become renowned for deceptive practices interspersed with hastily contrived unilateral decisions that are typically presented to the public on take it or leave it propositions. This is dangerous in a land without institutional checks and rampant abuse of power. The habit of entrenched mendacity on the part of the present ruling clique, aka, TFG has gone on far too long. This is in part because on a number of occasions, aggrieved communities decided not to challenge their set up in the interest of national unity or in the hope of helping to bring about a genuine reconciliation. That gesture of moderation allowed the foregoing problem to continue unabated. As a result the corrupt practices began to develop longer tentacles, greased by bribes. If these practices are not cut root and branch, they would choke the life out of not only specific communities but the society as a whole (sooner rather than later). Conclusion By engaging in unrestrained indulgences of malfeasance and misfeasance, the two Shariifs, their minions, diaspora enablers and sympathizers are all but ignoring the predicates of true national reconciliation, namely equitable distribution of power. Is it any wonder then that the wretched state of affairs wrought by the two wicked Shariifs and their surreptitious diaspora supporters failed repeatedly to engender confidence in the Somali people. This is another compelling reason why no one in his right mind would find fault with the communities at the receiving end of the cabal’s abuse of power, such as it is, for rejecting out of hand their latest proposed administration—a team some of the key members of which were recruited directly from Sheikh Shariif’s personal staff—to prolong the current TFG misrule. In this context, the exemplar role played by people including Awad A. Ashare, MP, deserves praise for talking truth to power or, in this instance, to those wishing to usurp the power that belongs to the Somali people, collectively. Mr. Ashare along with other courageous colleagues reminded the would-be emperors masquerading as national leaders that they have no clothes. Finally, it has been said that geography is destiny. If corruption and mischief is going to be the order of the day in Somali politics for the foreseeable future then the Somali nation state will wither in the vine and may not make it to when and if sanity returns to the Somali peninsula. So it may very well become de rigueur that, to unite the Somali clans one day organically into a cohesive national polity, they may be justified to go their own separate ways (at least for the time being). Ali A. Fatah Source

Here is the details of the indictments: Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, August 5, 20107 Fourteen Charged with Providing Material Support to Somalia-Based Terrorist Organization Al-Shabaab Two Arrested in Minnesota in Connection with the Charges WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced that four separate indictments were unsealed today in the District of Minnesota, the Southern District of Alabama and the Southern District of California charging 14 individuals with terrorism violations for providing money, personnel and services to the foreign terrorist organization al-Shabaab. In the Southern District of Alabama, prosecutors unsealed a superseding indictment charging Omar Shafik Hammami, a U.S. citizen and former resident of Alabama, with providing material support to al-Shabaab. Separately, prosecutors in the Southern District of California unsealed an indictment charging Jehad Serwan Mostafa, a U.S. citizen and former resident of California, with providing material support to al-Shabaab. In the District of Minnesota, prosecutors unsealed two indictments. One indictment charges Amina Farah Ali and Hawo Mohamed Hassan with providing funds to al-Shabaab . These two defendants, who are naturalized U.S. citizens and residents of Minnesota, were arrested today. Separately, prosecutors unsealed a third superseding indictment charging 10 men with terrorism offenses for leaving the United States to join al-Shabaab. Seven of these defendants had been previously charged by either indictment or criminal complaint. The remaining three defendants had not been charged before. The arrests and charges were announced by Attorney General Eric Holder and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller, III, as well as David Kris, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; B. Todd Jones, U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota; Kenyen R. Brown, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama; and Laura E. Duffy, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California. “The indictments unsealed today shed further light on a deadly pipeline that has routed funding and fighters to the al-Shabaab terror organization from cities across the United States,” said Attorney General Holder. “While our investigations are ongoing around the country, these arrests and charges should serve as an unmistakable warning to others considering joining terrorist groups like al-Shabaab – if you choose this route you can expect to find yourself in a U.S. jail cell or a casualty on the battlefield in Somalia.” “For those who would become terrorists, these cases send a strong message,” said FBI Director Mueller. “They underscore the need for continued vigilance against those who may seek to harm us and our way of life. Our agents and analysts will continue to confront this threat with a strong and coordinated effort as we work to protect all Americans.” Omar Hammami – Southern District of Alabama Today in the Southern District of Alabama, prosecutors unsealed a September 2009 superseding indictment against Omar Hammami, 26, a U.S. citizen and former resident of Daphne, Alabama, also known as “Abu Mansour al-Amriki,” or “Farouk.” The three-count indictment alleges that Hammami provided material support, including himself as personnel, to terrorists; conspired to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, al-Shabaab, and provided material support to al-Shabaab. Hammami faces a potential 15 years in prison for each of the three counts of the indictment. He is not in custody and is currently believed to be in Somalia. Jehad Mostafa – Southern District of California In the Southern District of California, prosecutors today unsealed an October 2009 indictment against Jehad Serwan Mostafa, 28, aka “Ahmed,” “Emir Anwar,” “Awar,” a U.S. citizen and former resident of San Diego, California. The indictment alleges that Mostafa conspired to provide material support, including himself as personnel, to terrorists; conspired to provide material support to al-Shabaab; and provided material support to al-Shabaab. Mostafa faces a potential 15 years in prison for each of the three counts of the indictment. He is not in custody and is currently believed to be in Somalia. Amina Ali and Hawo Hassan – District of Minnesota Earlier today, FBI agents arrested Amina Farah Ali, 33, and Hawo Mohamed Hassan, 63, both naturalized U.S. citizens from Somalia and residents of Rochester, Minn. Each is charged in an indictment unsealed today with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al-Shabaab from Sept. 17, 2008 through July 19, 2010. Ali is also charged in the indictment with 12 substantive counts of providing material support to al-Shabaab. Hassan is also charged with three counts of making false statements. The indictment alleges that, as part of the conspiracy, Ali communicated by telephone with people in Somalia who requested financial assistance for al-Shabaab. Ali, Hassan and others allegedly raised money for these individuals by soliciting funds door-to-door in Somali communities in Minneapolis, Rochester and other locations in the United States and Canada. In addition, the defendants allegedly raised money by direct appeal to individuals participating in teleconferences that featured speakers who encouraged donations to support al-Shabaab. Ali also allegedly raised funds under the false pretense that such funds were for the poor and needy. The indictment alleges that Ali and others transferred funds to al-Shabaab through the hawala money remittance system. Ali and others allegedly used false names to identify the recipients of the funds to conceal that the funds were being provided to al-Shabaab. The indictment lists 12 money transfers allegedly directed to al-Shabaab by Ali. The indictment alleges several overt acts to carry out the fund-raising conspiracy . For example, on Oct. 26, 2008, Ali allegedly hosted a teleconference in which an unindicted co-conspirator told listeners that it was not the time to help the poor and needy in Somalia; rather the priority was to give to the mujahidin. Ali and Hassan allegedly recorded $2,100 in pledges at the conclusion of the teleconference. On Feb. 10, 2009, Ali allegedly conducted another fundraising teleconference in which she told listeners to “forget about the other charities” and focus on “the jihad.” On July 14, 2009, the day after the FBI executed a search warrant at her home, Ali allegedly contacted an unindicted co-conspirator and said, “I was questioned by the enemy here . . . . they took all my stuff and are investigating it . . . do not accept calls from anyone.” The indictment further alleges that when Hassan was questioned by agents in an investigation involving international terrorism, she made false statements. The defendants are expected to make their initial appearances later today in federal court in Minneapolis. If convicted, they face a potential 15 years in prison on the conspiracy count. Ali also faces a potential 15 years in prison on each material support count, and Hassan also faces a potential eight years in prison on each false statement count. Third Superseding Indictment – District of Minnesota In addition to the two arrests, prosecutors in the District of Minnesota also unsealed a July 2010 third superseding indictment that charges Abdikadir Ali Abdi, 19, a U.S. citizen; Abdisalan Hussein Ali, 21, a U.S. citizen; Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, 33, a U.S. citizen; Farah Mohamed Beledi, 26; and Abdiweli Yassin Isse, 26 . These defendants are charged with, among other things, conspiring to and providing material support to al-Shabaab and conspiring to kill, maim and injure persons abroad. Faarax and Isse had been charged in a criminal complaint previously. Five other defendants who had been previously charged by indictment are named in the third superseding indictment. They are Ahmed Ali Omar, 27; Khalid Mohamud Abshir, 27; Zakaria Maruf, 31; Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, 22; and Mustafa Ali Salat, 20 . These defendants are charged with conspiracies to provide material support to terrorists and foreign terrorist organizations; conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim and injure persons abroad; possessing and discharging a firearm during a crime of violence; and solicitation to commit a crime of violence. The unsealed indictment alleges that the 10 defendants provided financial support and personnel, including themselves as fighters, both to a conspiracy to kill abroad and to the foreign terrorist organization al-Shabaab. Specifically, the indictment alleges that the five newly-added defendants traveled to Somalia in 2008 and 2009. In addition, the charges allege that Faarax solicited Salah Osman Ahmed, Shirwa Ahmed (now deceased) and Kamal Said Hassan to provide support to al-Shabaab, and that Faraax made false statements to the FBI in a matter involving international terrorism. The indictment also alleges that, in October 2009, Beledi committed passport fraud. An affidavit previously filed in the case alleges that, in the fall of 2007, Faarax and others met at a Minneapolis mosque to telephone co-conspirators in Somalia to discuss the need for Minnesota-based co-conspirators to go to Somalia to fight. The affidavit also alleges that Faarax attended a subsequent meeting in Minneapolis where he encouraged others to fight in Somalia and told them how he had experienced true brotherhood while fighting jihad in Somalia. Faarax was later interviewed three times by authorities and each time denied knowing anyone who had fought in Somalia or encouraging anyone to fight in Somalia. The affidavit also alleges that Abdiweli Yassin Isse encouraged others to travel to Somalia to fight. At a gathering of co-conspirators, Isse purportedly described his plans to wage “jihad” against Ethiopians in Somalia, and later raised money to purchase airline tickets for others to travel to Somalia for the same purpose. In raising this money, he allegedly misled community members into thinking they were contributing money to send young men to Saudi Arabia to study the Koran. The 10 defendants charged in the third superseding indictment are not in custody and are believed to be overseas. The charges against all the defendants in Minnesota stem from an ongoing, two-year investigation into the recruitment of persons from the United States to train with or fight for al-Shabaab. To date, a total of 19 persons have been charged in the District of Minnesota in indictments or criminal complaints that have been unsealed. Nine of these Minnesota defendants have been arrested in the United States or overseas, five of whom pleaded guilty. The remaining defendants are at large and believed to be abroad. * * * * The case in the Southern District of Alabama is being investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force in Mobile, Ala., and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean P. Costello, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Alabama, and Trial Attorney Sharon Lever of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The case in the Southern District of California is being investigated by the FBI’s San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force and is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys William P. Cole and Shane P. Harrigan of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, and Trial Attorney Sharon Lever of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The cases in the District of Minnesota are being investigated by the FBI’s Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force, with the assistance of the Dutch KLPD; the Dutch Ministry of Justice; the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs; the State Department, including U.S. Embassies in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen; the Hague in the Netherlands; and the Department of Defense. The cases are being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys W. Anders Folk and Jeffrey S. Paulsen, of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Minnesota, and Trial Attorneys William M. Narus and Steven Ward of the Counterterrorism Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. The public is reminded that an indictment contains mere allegations. A defendant is presumed innocent until he or she pleads guilty or is proven guilty at trial

Amnesty International has called for arms transfers to the Somali government to be suspended until there are adequate safeguards to prevent weapons from being used to commit war crimes and human rights abuses. In its latest briefing paper on the country, Amnesty International details US shipments of arms, including mortars, ammunition and cash for the purchase of weapons to the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). These transfers were made despite substantial risks that such types of weapons could be used in indiscriminate attacks by TFG forces, or diverted to armed groups opposed to the TFG, who also commit gross and widespread abuses. "International concern for the future of the Somali government has not been matched by an equal concern for the human rights of civilians," said Michelle Kagari, Amnesty International Deputy Director for Africa. "Mortar attacks continue to claim lives" it is time for international donors to apply tighter controls to their support for the government. Amnesty International’s briefing also details growing international programmes of military and police training for TFG forces, despite a lack of adequate oversight procedures. The training is delivered in Somalia itself and in Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti and Uganda. The European Union, France, Germany and Italy are involved, or have pledged funding for it. Amnesty International calls for all states providing, financing or planning military and police training for the TFG to provide training in international humanitarian law and on arms management. They should also press for the establishment of oversight procedures for TFG forces. A UN arms embargo on Somalia has been in place since 1992 but states can apply to the UN Sanctions Committee for exemptions to supply security assistance to the Somali government. Amnesty International is urging the committee to apply criteria for assessing the risk that exemptions to the arms embargo will contribute to war crimes and human rights abuses, and to deny authorisations on this basis. To be effectively implemented, Amnesty International argues that such criteria need to be enshrined in international law and universally applied to all arms transfers. The organisation calls on states to establish such common standards in an international Arms Trade Treaty. Background Somalia has been mired in armed conflict since the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991. Conflict intensified and unlawful killings of civilians increased after Ethiopian troops entered Somalia at the end of 2006 to help the TFG fight against several armed opposition groups from whom it has been seeking to regain territorial control. Despite a peace agreement between the TFG and one armed group, the appointment of a President issued from the former armed opposition and the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from Somalia, armed opposition groups have continued attacks against the TFG. In May 2009, they launched a major offensive against the TFG, which currently only controls a small part of the capital Mogadishu. In 2009, indiscriminate attacks by all parties to the armed conflict have resulted in thousands of civilians killed and hundreds of thousands displaced. The number of people internally displaced within Somalia is now 1.5 million and some 3.7 million are dependent on humanitarian assistance for their survival. Source

Trapped in unlikely fantasy of a political settlement and/or unified statehood, many Somali affairs scholars, policy makers, journalist and politicians seem to be locked in a failing approach to constitute a lasting settlement. This is in part because of their overemphasis on forming a unified, centralized, Somali National Government. It is a fanciful thing to dream about formulating a lasting solution to the protracted Somali crisis, particularly one that calls for a centralized national government. But analysts and scholars are not alone; in fact international policy makers tend to further similar goals without understanding and/or appreciating the fundamental social origins of the Somali problem. They justifiably but erroneously perceive Somalia as a single monolithic nation-state in need of international support to reconstitute a central authority. In the following paragraphs, I attempt to point out (1) the obsolete paradigm with which the Somali problem is often viewed and analyzed. (2) Rationality of collective clan behavior and its impact on statehood (3) the mismatch of clan based morality with statehood (3) and (4) Feasible policy options for the post collapse era. Since last 20-years, the clan social system and its political implication was either ignored or misunderstood. It may be misunderstood as is manifested by the power sharing schemes that were designed for Somali groups to share power since 1991 which only resulted in 15 failed governments). More importantly , policy makers and the international players may be using an obsolete model of Somalia. Perhaps Somalia of 2010 is not the same Somalia of 1990; Is this Theseus Paradox ? But prior to casting Somalia as an obsolete model let us examine how and what drives the evolution of Somali politics. Is it the clan system? Is it the need for a nation-state? Notwithstanding the contemporary socio-political evolution of Somali inhabited areas particularly the birth and demise of the short lived Somali Democratic Republic. There is no historical data proves the existence of a unified Somali entity or a long lasting Somali peace. The idea of peaceful unified state for all Somali inhabited areas has always been an imprecise, unattainable and fuzzy concept. Since the beginning of recorded Somali history, clan based rivalries and all out wars had unleashed worst of human nature in an endless fierce competition for everything material and non-material alike. All Somali clan conflicts embody an element of pride to uphold, revenge to conduct, clan interest to better, clan based morality to fulfill and resources to compete for. Clan empathy and clan based morality have always been the driving force behind most clan conflicts. Clan empathy and clan based morality assert an obligation that often supersedes any other form of social recognition and human virtue. It must however be admitted that clan conflict alone did not and does not preclude sense of nationhood. Somali people are known to unite often in defense of their common interest when and if such interest is realized. Yet, historically, each clan (or group of clans) preferred to govern their affairs. In fact pre-colonial Somalia is known to be a nation of many states with diverse forms of self rule and a form of governance that distributed authority among the clans. This traditional, decentralized system was also a mechanism for conflict resolutions that ensured transient but effective peaceful co-existence. Centralized governing structure in the Somali peninsula was first initiated by the European rulers. The fascist wars against Somali sultanates in central and northern Somalia (1922-1929) were the first attempts to centralize authority. The centralization of authority was later legitimized by the subsequent Somali governments between 1960 -1991. Rigidity of this imposed centralized control over clan affairs had rendered the clan based social interaction of Somali people so brittle that it eventually caused the demise of centralized authority and with it the sense of nation-state. It can also be argued centralization has produced some form of rent seeking behavior of clans on the expense of other clans. In spite of the popular claim that clan competition is a result of dictatorship (of Barre regime) or even a result of colonial era legacy, there is yet to be any empirically grounded finding that documents such claims (except of course few deductively attained conclusions). On the other hand, clan based rivalry and factionalism is historically and culturally ever-present (before and after the Barre regime). Clan conflict was very common in pre-colonial era, during the European rule and persisted throughout the short existence of Somali nation-state (1960-1991). Moreover, clan rivalries at times involve the use of missionaries, foreign powers to gain edge on other clans; a trend that continues till today. The modern manifestation of clan alliances with non-Somali entities includes the use of foreign basis to fight the last Somali government in 1980s. As is with the case everything Somali, the use of foreign power is either condemned or commended, depending on the clan, its interpretation and the prevalent clan morality at any given time. For instance the all clan based Somali faction SSDF, SNM, USC, SPM have used foreign basis primarily Ethiopia to fight against their unified nation-state. The supporters now defunct United Somali Congress tend to have whole heartedly supported the launching of cross border raids from Ethiopia on Somalia including bombing of civilian targets, movie theaters, postal stations and the like. These acts were justified on the basis of clan morality and indeed these campaigns eventually led to the overthrow of Barre government in 1991. This also was (at least partially) a cause for the ensuing massacre of civilian population in Mogadishu 1991 which again was justified through clan morality. It is this clan based moral value that allows one group to blame others when and if their clan interest is rivaled. For instance, the clans that supported USC’s alliance with Ethiopia in 1989-1991 seem to condemn SNF’s alliance with Ethiopia 1992-1994 to uproot extremist groups in the town of Luq Southwest Somalia. What is the rationality of morality based on clan interest? If it is not a residue form Somali evolution from primates, this clan based morality would be a self serving moral relativism that is most inconceivable and most intellectually debilitating for any sane human. Each clan’s action are noble to its own members! To each clan, its history is more glorified than all other clans. This is the constructed social reality of clan based morality. Indeed, this clan based morality supplants any other virtue including nationhood, statehood or even humanity. Therefore, policy makers must account for the realities of this society and the implications of clan social structure on policy, politics and a nation-state. This is particularly important when the international community wants to impose a common and unifying Somali nation-state Many policy makers and scholars tend to minimize the importance and/or the relevance of clan identity in Somalia’s protracted conflict. They claim that calling attention to the role of the Somali clan is simply a restrictive primordialist view (even though clan identity doesn’t necessarily disallow other constructivist and instrumentalist views). It is the clan that allows the emergence of clan politicians that could manipulate the clan (an instrumentalist view). Some scholars even argue that foreign powers are the reason Somalia could not constitute peace. Others argue that factors such as delivery of social service, justice and economic opportunity play far more significant role (in part to justify their attempts to constitute central authority). Yet, these scholars fail to explain the manifestation of clan based behavior amongst Somali populations in the west. They conveniently ignore or are perhaps unable to admit the role of the clan as observed in Somali communities in the west. For instance, clan identity is demonstrably and unmistakably most ubiquitous and most noticeable in all social realities of Somali communities in Northern America and Europe. It is the very factor of clan that drives social bond not to mention the role of the clan in business, civic and other associations. We now know that western social justice and economic opportunity cannot and could not do away with clan based morality, clan conflict and clan dynamics in general. In fact, clan affiliation exclusively governs the entire processes of social, political and civic transactions of Somali people. It is the single most significant factor to consider while addressing the Somali problem. It must not surprise anyone that even the religious extremism prevalent in Southern Somalia has an element of clan. Today’s religious fundamentalist do come from predominantly certain areas or are stronger in certain areas. Most of the extremism confirms to the dictates of the clan system in a subliminal manner. The recent conflicts in Jubbaland are clear indication of this fact In October 2009 while at a Somali related event, I was shocked by the claims of a prominent scholar who argued for the need to eliminate the Somali clan system (as if it is something that could be just casually deleted from the psyche of the society). Although, well meaning, purely logical analysis to find solutions for the Somali conflict often leads to impractical, overzealous solutions that have no local mandate or support from the very people it is intended to help The burning question is, do the Somali politicians and their international allies pay enough attention to the significance of the clan as a social issue (not a political one).? Do they asses the effect of this social reality on policy toward political settlement? I argue that most politicians and all the international players did not and do not understand the issue of clan based society as a social one with political implications. The solutions that the international communities and the Somali politicians devised since 1991 were solely political solutions to primarily a social problem. The focus I believe must not be a politically driven power sharing plan but rather a social program that facilitates a political settlement as I explain below. Historically, Somali clans constituted rule of law, self rule and governance of social and natural resources through a unique and distributed system of command and control that relied on consent of the clan groups. A form of a robust clan democracy that enabled Somali clans resolve conflicts, share resource and even rally for a nationalistic cause. One such clan sanctioned unity is the 1530s unity under Imam Ahmed AlGhazi which was purely based on clan understanding rather than a centralized control by far away authority The efforts of international community seem to focus primarily on constituting a central authority for all Somalia without any due attention to the underlying social realities of the post collapse or the social origins of the political question of Somalia. It seems that the clan reality is synthetically incorporated into the question but not in its natural format. For instance the 4.5 scheme used to assemble the interim Somali parliament is a measure intended to provide fair power sharing among clans, yet most of the current members of the parliament do not have local mandate from the regions they are supposedly to represent. (This is particularly true for the parliamentarians from Somaliland and Puntland). More over, the paradigm used to design policy is an obsolete one based one a unified nation-state with political rivalry. Unlike the 1980s and early 1990s, the Somali population in the horn of Africa has more of a clan based social, political and demographic re-alignment. The New York Times reported in the 1990s that nearly four hundred thousand residents of Mogadishu have been forcefully removed from their home in Mogadishu. Most of these immigrated to other parts of Somalia mainly to Jubbaland, Puntland and Gedo Region. Similarly commerce routes and trade relationships have been reconfigured since the collapse of the state. For instance Puntland has far more robust trade with the ****** region than with the Southern part of Somalia (mainly due to clan relationship/affiliations). These realities must factor in any policy design for the former Somalia. Most planners, analysts and international players face the Theseus Paradox when dealing with the issue of Somalia. Today’s reconfigured new realities are not fully recognized and appreciated by the interaction al community and Somali politicians alike. The State of Puntland and the Republic of Somaliland who have successfully in constituted a socially approved, clan facilitated social solutions to political problems in their part f the former Somalia. They represent new realities , a new dimension that must be recognized and awarded. Ignoring them will not result a better solution for the Southern Somali groups. Former warlords (now politicians) and their international allies must not impose a centralized unifying entity on Somali people. The international community should only facilitate regional settlements to address genuine grievances of Somalis against their fellow Somali. The international community must also respect the dominion of the clan group over administering their own affairs as they see fit rather than be a nuisance. There is no and there will be no central government without the approval and blessing of all Somali clans and that cannot begin with power sharing scheme like the 4.5 plan. It must begin with clan negotiations, local settlement, independent states and perhaps eventually a union of Somali states. Arguments on how to find a political solution for Somalia has become “argumentum ad infinitum” except that the arguments were always centered on national government for a unified Somalia. Perhaps the best way to save Somali people is to allow alternative approaches including the formation of regional groupings of self-administering states that could eventually unite in a confederation of Somali states. The idea of regionalism in the former Somalia is NOT an exactly episode of A Nightmare on Elm Street series. The Somali people are clan based society and perhaps the solution to their problems could only be achieved through genuine, robust, bottom-up, partitioned clan negotiation. If the last 20-years could serve as a historical lesson, continuing with the misguided approach of centralized, national unity government will produce and only guarantee more of clan based rivalry zeal and for further destruction. The alternative approach of regionalism and self-rule, on the other hand, has been an incredible success story in Puntland and Somaliland. It is time for the Somali people and the international community to move on and accept the reality. It is time to acknowledge that we all have been trapped in Theseus Paradox! Today’s Somalia is not the Somalia that once was. Abdul Ahmed III Email: abdul.ahmed@thoapi.org Contributor to The Horn of Africa Policy Institute www.thoapi.org

Heroes in a Land of Pirates LAST Monday, Somali pirates seized two more prizes in rapid succession: a British-flagged chemical tanker and a Greek bulk carrier, bringing the current number of captive ships to 12 and the number of hostage mariners to at least 278. Despite the presence in the region of three multinational naval task forces comprising about 30 warships, there were 68 successful pirate hijackings in 2009, compared with 49 one year earlier. If the New Year’s Day capture of an Indonesian tanker is any indication, 2010 will not herald an end to the attacks. As one Somali pirate told me last year: “Sometimes, we capture ships when [warships] are right around us. We don’t care about them. They’re not going to stop us.” Indeed, the pirates’ range has expanded to more than 1,000 miles off the Somali coast — as far as the Seychelles — and the futility of an exclusively naval strategy is increasingly apparent. The situation is not without hope. There might be another way to make greater strides against pirates. However, it would involve allying ourselves with a place that doesn’t exist: the autonomous region of Puntland, Somalia. To the ancient Egyptians, the land of Punt was a source of munificent treasures and bountiful wealth. Modern Puntland, a self-governing region in northeastern Somalia, may or may not be the successor to the Punt of legend. As I discovered when I first visited, last year, it contained none of the gold and ebony that dazzled the Egyptians, save perhaps for the color of the sand and the skin of the nomadic goat and camel herders who have inhabited it for centuries. I arrived in Puntland in the frayed seat of a 1970s Soviet propeller plane. The 737s of Dubai, with their meal service and functioning seatbelts, were a distant memory; the plane I was on was not even allowed to land in Dubai, and the same probably went for the unkempt, ill-tempered Ukrainian pilot. The state of the sole road running through Puntland’s north-south axis is symbolic of the neglect the region experienced under its former dictator, Siad Barre — who was overthrown in 1991 at the onset of the Somali civil war — and from the international community since. The three-decade-old Chinese concrete was crumbling and corroded, with craterous potholes turning my 150-mile journey from the airport into a four- or five-hour jolting ordeal. It was the dry season, and parched shrubs dotted the barren landscape; the dust clung to my skin until my shirt felt like fine sandpaper. I spent the next six weeks living in the regional capital, Garowe, amid the boom and bustle created by the recent influx of pirates’ wealth from nearby coastal bases of operation. Conducting research with a local journalist — who is the son of Puntland’s president, Abdirahman Farole — I gained an inside view into the workings of this fledgling and largely autonomous state within Somalia. Contrary to the oft-recycled one-liners found in most news reports, Somalia is not a country ruled by anarchy. Indeed, it is a mischaracterization to even speak of Somalia as a uniform entity. It is an amalgamation of quasi-independent regions like Puntland, which was founded in 1998 as a tribal sanctuary for the hundreds of thousands of *****-clan people fleeing massacres in the south. Puntland comprises one-quarter to one-third of Somalia’s total land mass (depending on whom you talk to) and almost half of its coastline. Straddling the shipping bottleneck of the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, it was the natural candidate to become the epicenter of the recent outbreak of Somali piracy. But inhabitants of Puntland enjoy a relatively violence-free existence, little troubled by the turmoil to the south. The region has experienced only one low-intensity civil conflict since its founding, a brief dispute in 2001 and 2002 between the presidential incumbent, Abdullahi Yusuf, and his challenger, Jama Ali Jama. In any serious attempt to combat piracy, Puntland must play an integral role. Yet it is not recognized as a legitimate actor in the region and has been financially abandoned by the international community, which continues to ignore the reality on the ground in favor of the flimsy transitional federal government, a 550-member parliamentary hodgepodge ruling over a few checkpoints in Mogadishu, hundreds of miles from any real pirate activity. A collection of ex-warlords and self-styled moderate Islamists, this is a government that does not govern; its M.P.’s have no constituents, its ministers no portfolios, and it exercises nothing close to control of the violence within its supposed borders. The perpetuation of this farce is inexplicable. At an April 2009 donor conference in Brussels, the international community pledged $250 million to finance, among other things, the training of a police force and the upkeep of the African Union mission in Mogadishu. This, despite the fact that politicians of the transitional government have a talent for making money vanish into thin air. A far better use of aid would be to augment Puntland’s paltry $18 million budget, which is almost exclusively derived from port taxes. Two weeks into my visit, I accompanied President Farole to Bossaso, Puntland’s sweltering northern metropolis (and largest city), on his first domestic tour since his election. Addressing an assembly of Somali businessmen one evening, he appealed for donations to pay for a list of absurdly modest projects: building a four-mile road from the livestock-inspection station to the port; replacing road signs on the lone highway, long ago stripped bare for the valuable metal; constructing a small hospital. As the members of the transitional government huddle in their Mogadishu barracks, waiting to collect their welfare checks, Mr. Farole is reduced to roaming the countryside, begging for alms. Despite Puntland’s limited capacity, Mr. Farole is committed to taking the fight to the pirates. Indeed, the government of Puntland has been advocating a strict policy of nonnegotiation with pirates since the beginning of the crisis. On those occasions that Puntland’s tiny (and now defunct) coast guard has been given the authority by shipowners to liberate hijacked vessels, the pirates have tended to melt away, content to keep their lives rather than their prize. Successful land operations in Puntland’s coastal towns have accompanied these marine assaults. One afternoon, while in Bossaso, the president personally led a sudden raid on a gang of pirates preparing to shove off into the Gulf of Aden. These would-be hijackers joined the more than 100 convicted pirates, many with life sentences, being held in Puntland’s lone prison. It is unclear if an all-out assault would have worked with the pirates on board a multimillion-dollar lottery ticket like the Saudi oil supertanker Sirius Star, which was released last year after a huge ransom was paid. But the effect of international shipping companies consistently giving in to pirates’ demands is clear: ransoms keep creeping steadily upward, highlighted by a reported $4 million paid to release the Chinese bulk carrier MV De Xin Hai on Dec. 28 — the highest publicly announced amount to date. Unless a concerted effort is made to prevent shipping companies from paying these ransoms, the hands of both international navies and the local authorities will be tied — and the pirates know it. Meanwhile, the Puntland security forces, at sea and on land, are woefully undermanned, underfinanced and underequipped. The terrain encompassing the eastern coastal towns, including the infamous pirate haven of Eyl, is rugged and roadless. Any land operation has to originate in Bossaso or Garowe, home to the only military bases in the region, and it would involve transporting troops up to hundreds of miles by four-wheel drive. The logistical difficulties in deploying such a response make successful results extremely rare, and almost entirely dependent on timely local intelligence gathering. Without ample international assistance, Puntland’s law-enforcement capacity is unlikely to improve. Buttressing Puntland will not bring an end to the piracy problem. Because of a combination of increasing government security sweeps, hostility from the local people and the growing preference of the pirates to work in the relatively vacant Indian Ocean (and not the heavily patrolled Gulf of Aden), the locus of attacks has begun to shift from Eyl to ports farther south, particularly Harardhere. But Puntland remains crucial, and success there might prove a model for similar action in in Harardhere, which is governed by another regional administration distinct from the turbulent south, albeit an extremely weak one. The way to begin is by siphoning to Puntland some of the money flowing into the bottomless coffers of the transitional government. If the international community is serious about ending Somali piracy, it must engage Puntland as a full-time partner. Acknowledging its existence would be a sound first step. Jay Bahadur is currently working on a book about Somali piracy. Source:

Mohamed Egal’s well written article posted in WardheerNews certainly makes good reading but otherwise his recycling of hackneyed secessionist mantra, albeit cleverly repackaged, adds little or nothing to unravelling the vexed political problems of Somalia let alone resolving it. Looking at Somalia as he does through his tainted secessionist lenses, Mr Egal sees as doomed all international efforts to “reconstruct” what he maliciously refers to as the “ex-ante” Somali State. From his perspective and those of his fellow secessionists, such “futile and counterproductive” initiatives as have been pursued by the international community, and that also include the denial of recognition to his one-clan based secessionist enclave in the north of Somalia, are at the heart of the country’s problems and the cause for the rise of Al Shabab and all associated terrorism in the country. Pontificating from his secessionist high horse, Mr Egal’s simple but disingenuous proposal to the international community is that the road to Somalia’s elusive salvation passes through his beloved kingdom and that all will be alright again if only Somaliland was to be recognised and the rest of Somalia put under five years of quasi UN “colonial” administration which could rely on his clan’s SNM militia to maintain law and order. The irony of inviting the outlaws as a Sheriff, or the unmistakable insult it entails for the Somali people, do not seem to have dawned on Mr. Egal. Even Somalia’s worst enemies could not have come up with such mischievous prescription but then the secessionists are clearly foremost amongst them. If there is much ground to rubbish Mr. Egal’s preposterous proposed solutions for Somalia, no less palatable are his partisan and at times shameless distortions of the real factors leading to the fall of Siyad Barre’s government and the subsequent collapse of the Somali State, with all the dire consequences these have unleashed to the present day. The following extract at the beginning of his article serves as a good foretaste to his pervasive falsification of the facts: “…the Somali National Movement (SNM) defeated the Somali army and expelled Siyad Barre regime from Somaliland in 1991, this decisive fact not only sounded the death knell for that dictatorship, but resulted directly in the disintegration of the erstwhile Republic of Somalia”. Without sounding pedantic, it is appropriate to set the record straight. The fact of the matter is that it was the southern United Somali Congress (USC) militia under General Mohamed Farah Aideed who overrun Mogadishu and forced President Mohamed Siyad Barre to flee his capital – an event that led to the fall of the government and the disintegration of the Somali national army throughout the country- north and south. It was this auspicious vacuum from the SNM’s perspective which enabled them initially to take over the principal Isaak-inhabited towns. Otherwise, this clan-based militia had never defeated the Somali army in any battle nor has it occupied any territory in the North except when it briefly occupied parts of Burco and Hargeisa, in a surprise offensive in the early 1980s. It was driven out soon afterwards by the national army admittedly at a high cost to the civilian population. So much as to who ousted Siyad Barre from power, brought down his government, or defeated his army. The fall of a government, as did that of Siyad Barre in January 1991, would not have been necessarily equivalent to the collapse of the State provided State institutions were still functioning at least in the capital, Mogadishu. Examples abound of other countries where governments have fallen and not replaced for long periods and yet the state continued to function thanks to its performing institutions. Unfortunately, that was not what happened in Somalia. The mainly ****** uprising against Siyad Barre in Mogadishu did not only bring down his government but also destroyed at the same time all government and state institutions thereby rendering the State defunct. What is worse, incessant intra ****** clan wars for power in Mogadishu, or the struggle for resources among the capital’s warlords, have thwarted to the present day all national and international attempts aimed at establishing a functioning national government or reviving the Somali State. This has left the rest of the people in Somalia helpless and hostage all these years to this state of affairs in Mogadishu over which they have little control or say. Thus, the epitaphs for the fall of the last functioning national government, the disintegration of the Somali national army and the collapse of the Somali State are all to be found in the ruins of Mogadishu and not Hargeisa. The rest of the people in Somalia have been buffeted by the actions of two clans whose intentions are different but whose consequences amount to the same, namely the continued existence of the moribund Somali State. One clan in the north is sworn to secession which they reckon can best be achieved by actively aiding and abetting the continued collapse of the State. And then there is another clan in the South which has no such intentions but all the same its actions since 1991 lead to the same thing. What is strange is that whereas the ****** would understandably shy away from admitting their role in the continued collapse of the Somali State, Mr. Egal seems to take profound pride in laying claim to this treacherous feat. Gloating over the fall of the Somali State and the misfortunes it engendered is a common pastime among the secessionists In his analysis of the collapse of the Somali State, Mr Egal asserts that “the glue holding the Somali state together was the nationalist, irredentist dream of uniting all the five geographic territories in to which the Somali people were divided during the colonial carve-up of Africa ….” That glue has been destroyed, according to Mr. Egal, by Siyad Barre’s dictatorial rule to the extent that “no community in Somalia or Somaliland has any loyalty or fealty to the Somalia that was”.-Mr Egal of course is free to speak for himself and his community (clan) but it is presumptuous of him to present himself as speaking for the rest of us in Somalia. Notwithstanding his wishful thinking, the glue holding Somalis together, apart from his minority clan-based secessionists in the north, is as strong and binding today as it has ever been. In pronouncing the death of Somali irredentism or “fealty to the Somalia that was”, Mr Egal has only one goal in mind: justify the break-up of Somalia and then make a case for Somaliland’s right to separation and recognition. The “Somaliland” he has in mind comprises his clan, the main backer for the secession, and the other majority clans in Awdal, Sanaag, Sool and Cayn. These non-secessionist regions/clans, the last three of which belong to the autonomous Puntland regional administration, consider themselves as part of Somalia and are recognised as such by the international community. All the same, they have been high jacked or occupied at gun point by the secessionists in the belief that recognition will be forthcoming once they are seen to be in control of the whole or most parts of former British Somaliland. If the irredentist, nationalist glue is something of the past and non-existent, as Mr. Egal would have us believe, this would mean that, in the absence of adherence to national identity, Somalis everywhere, including the north, will simply withdraw to their clan origin. .This is only true of the Isaak clan to the extent they want to de-link from the rest of Somalis and retreat to their former shell- the defunct former British Somaliland. One might therefore ask what other kind of glue is then holding together the disparate clans in the north (Somaliland) that is exclusive to them? None –to put it simply. Clearly, the glue holding together the dominant clan in the secessionist heartland is their clan identity, their common xenophobia towards other Somalis in the south and their aversion to the union. This is the rationale for the secession. The other card Mr. Egal has used as a possible back-up for Somaliland’s recognition is his scaremongering about the threat Jihadists like Al Shabaab pose for the current government of Somalia or to others in the region. Al Shabaab and other kindred groups are not a by-product of Western efforts to help Somalia as Mr. Egal claims, but foreign interventions in Somalia, notably Ethiopia’s creeping hegemony over Somalia, its transformation of the country into Bantustans, like Somaliland and Puntland, and the subsequent USA collusion with the warlords and with Ethiopia’s brutal invasion. The last Djibouti conference leading to the “election” of Sheikh Sheriff as president, only added fuel to the fire in its attempt to sideline the resistance movement who claim to have liberated the country from Ethiopia and who feel denied their due reward. Mr. Egal wrongly portrays Al Shabab as a southern phenomenon. On the contrary, they have widespread support in both Puntland and Somaliland. Many of the Jihadists fighting in the South are from Somaliland and Puntland. Mr. Egal has failed to mention for obvious reasons that the perpetrators of the suicide bombings in Hargeisa a year ago hailed from that area.. The solution for countering extremis and “terrorism” is the establishment of a broadly based government which includes moderate elements from Al Shabaab and other related groups like Hisbul Islaam. Certainly, no solution should ever include the recognition of Somaliland. To do so would only be another boon to the Jihadists who are bound to take its fighting to the North. Apart from Al Shabaab’s intervention, any conflagration in the North will also pit the non-secessionist clans against the pro-secession clan, a situation which will draw in Puntland and eventually Somalia –at a time when it is able to take its national duty and defend the unity and territorial integrity of the country. Recognising Somaliland’s secession is bound to serve as a precedent within Somalia and beyond. Inside Somalia, other regions could follow Somaliland’s example. Puntland seems well on that road. Outside Somalia, the recognition of Somaliland will most certainly affect adversely Somalia’s neighbours and far beyond. For all there reasons, there is nothing to be gained and everything to lose from recognising Somaliland. The stakes are too high and the international community should no longer sit on the fence and remain passive observers. It should everything possible to end the secession. The best way to do that is for sympathetic governments like Great Britain and all international aid organisations to cease pampering or hobnobbing with an illegal entity. Reviving a united and democratic Somalia, as it used to be in the past, is what its suffering people need most and what is in the interest of the international community in terms of countering terrorism. Source

A Response to Amb. Ahmed Hashara: Shake-off the old habits Two writers, one is career diplomat, has served his country of Mauritania well, has been in the UN circle, was recently appointed for helping the reconstitution of the Somali state, and so far he is struggling to make a sense for what has been the world’s ugliest civil war in Africa. His name is Ahmedu Ould Abdalla, a soft spoken man with great enthusiasm for the future of Somalia. His comments, a direct appeal to Somali Diaspora, have been a very passionate and sincere. , Ambassdors Ahmedou Ould Abdalla & Ahmed A. Hashi "Hashara" The other writer, also a career diplomat, has served Somalia at the UN, has been active during Arta government, has been a spoiler of peace, and was spotted at Eritrea in company with hardliners of what used to be the Court Union. His name is Ahmed Hashara. Mr. Abdalla wrote to us several times for ending the civil war and hence picking up the pieces, while Mr. Hashara played the old politics. Mr Aballa wrote to the world about the plight of the Somalis in Washington Post, Mr. Hashara dismissed this as lies and deceit from a man who lacks the basic understanding about the state of our affairs. Who is right and who is wrong and which path should the Somali people choose? This reminds me of that critical poet, Robert Forest, in his famous poem--Two roads diverged in yellow woods, and sorry I could not travel both, and be one traveler, long I stood…………and I, I took the one less travelled by. Could a Somali say to another Somali, enough is enough and our fate is in the hands of God with the help of foreigners? Perhaps the road less travelled by, however shameful it may be, is always better off than that long journey of the unpredictable behaviour of our fellow country man. Cries for political partisanship from unscrupulously political hustlers, often rallying behind group mentality (religious, clan or region) with out considering the depilated Somali populace, had forced the international community to look differently on Somali case in post East Timor UN trusteeship. Can this trend be reversed? Let us look some perspectives. If good Somalis are honest enough and if good Somalis believe justice, and if good and morally upright Somalis care millions of a destitute Somalis to have a state of their own, then a good Somalis should weigh the words of Ambassador Hashara. But today’s Somalis are not rational enough, not critical enough, and not caring enough to ask the Ambassador this simple question: Mr Ambassador, why would you need to convey yet another round of conference? In his piece posted on Somali websites, he justified the necessity to have for one more conference because Sharif government was formed “in exile in Djibouti”, while its members were “hand picked by foreigners including Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti”. The Ambassador goes on to say that Sharif is holed up and has no “constituent and territorial control”. According to the ambassador, the current government must fail because it lacks “security and essential services for its own citizen What the ambassador never declares is his bias toward Mr. Abdalla, the UN envoy, and Mr. Sharif, the current president based on his past political activities and membership. Furthermore, Mr. Hashara did not share with us about the facts on Arta and how it relates to the current regime. Arta government, which appointed Mr Hashara to the UN ambassador for Somalia, was formed in Djibouti, was an imposition government from the top, was “holed” up in some pockets of Mogadishu, had no constituent and territorial control, and was captive to powerful warlords who had the control of Southern regions as well as districts of Mogadishu. Rather than sharing his pain of the past and give advice to the current regime, he chose to become a spook for Eritrea, the very same regime that want to settle Abyssinian grudges in Somali soil. We Somalis are stakeholders of that great piece of land called Somalia. We do know that we are going through the most horrific part of our history, an ongoing conflict for more than two decades while our future is unclear: The looming departure of unilateral secessionist Somaliland, self declared autonomous Puntland, a vicious power struggle in Southern Somalia that has been mutating from clan to religious conflict, as well as a dead capital city with moral decay. Having seen all these, having been the victims in all these years, Somalis should have been more active and responsive to individuals, organizations and entities that want to derail peace, cantankerous for nothing but greed, inconsistencies for their political actions, and above all those who struggle for power to keep the status qua for their own benefits to the detrimental of the public benefits. The Ambassador’s new deal begs the question: who should Somalis listen, Mr Abdalla who tirelessly advocates for Somali unity, or the myopic thinking of the remnants of Arta who are confused and want to sell extremists whom they have no commonalities what so ever?. As fatalistic as his analysis is, one thing is clear, the Ambassador is not alone and there are many like minded individuals from Arta era, so nefarious that Somali quagmire has been sold to the world as the Ethiopian hegemony, permanent and Babylonian captivity of the Abyssinians. Free Somalia from Ethiopian colonialism slogan has been a dead politics, ravaged by Sheikh Aweys and his ilk, the killing machines of Mogadishu for power struggle and prestige. Had the Ambassador chosen to write history in post Arta Somali politics, we would have witnessed the later day Omar-the-pathologica l liar, the Somali fairy tale story that challenged the integrity of human security over sleaziness, the imagined wolf that became real. The wolf (Ethiopia) is coming is no longer sellable and marketers of this idea are bogged down with false nationalism in order to attain personal or group interest. I may also add to be fair for many academics----- your work and your analysis on Somali politics and Ethiopian factor are genuine, and should not be confused with my analysis on partisan Somali politicians, and I mean the Samatar brothers, Said Samatar and Faysal Roble. Thus, in my humble opinion, Mr. Abdalla is right to expose the ruthless Somali businessmen across Africa and Middle East for financing Mogadishu war. He is also correct to point out the piracy and criminal activities in our country, particularly in Puntland. More importantly, he is genuine on Somali reconciliations. In contrast to Mr. Abddalla, Ambassador Hashara is wrong to play old politics when Mogadishu is pleading. Politics has a taste when stability is the threshold, and partisan manoeuvre is permissible as an art to stage a regime change considering that the outcome is favourable. Yet Mr. Hashara knows that if and when he and his friends are selected for another trail of provisional government, the outcome would still be the same. So why a learned person, if he is not unconscionable, a ruthless opportunist, would crave for power. My best advice to Mr.Hashara, focus on the rebuilding of the country, which by and large became a prisoner of its own citizens, citizens whom anarchy became a norm and thriving. Source

Latest scoop is that the Somaliland guy chickened out of the hearing. Reports are they asked for a separate hearing and was denied. In the meantime Mr. Farole will be at the Woodrow Wilson International Center conducting a presidential briefing and taking questions. More info.

The Somali tragedy continues being played on the open stage of the Horn of Africa without an interlude. Of late, only the dramatis personae have changed: exeunt Abdullahi Yusuf, Nur Adde ,et al; enter Sheikh Sharief, Omer Abdurashid, et al. The new cast of actors are supposed to work under the label of “Transitional Federal Government” but prefer to call themselves a “Government of National Unity” – an empty claim that bears no relation to the reality on the ground and is devoid of any legitimacy derived from the inflated parliament, much less the ‘National’ Reconciliation Conference held in Djibouti early this year.The organizers of that conference, haughtily overconfident, dismissed outright some important players and ignored the administrations in Hargeisa and Garowe. Foreign hands were as ubiquitous as ever, and none was so ubiquitous as the hand of Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Somalia, and a previous protégé of Boutros-Ghali who called him an ‘eel’ in his memoirs, Unvanquished, and whose aide called Ould Abdallah (as related by Boutros-Ghali in the same memoirs) a ‘despicable turncoat’. The Somali people together with their politicians, warlords, TFGs and spectators of their drama have long lost confidence in and respect for the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS). They consider it a place where the considerable monitory assistance earmarked for building peace and advancing reconciliation in Somalia is mismanaged and misappropriated on a scale hitherto unseen; and where every effort – including bribery and corruption – is employed to thwart honest efforts in order to prolong the life of the goose that lays the golden egg on a regular basis. In fact, neither the UNDP office for Somalia nor UNPOS (both of which are based in Nairobi) has been spared the execration of enlightened Somalis. Ordinarily, Somalis have a soft spot for their co-religionists and had therefore high hopes at the outset that their brother, Ould Abdallah, would change the old ways and embark on a dynamic, fruitful course in order to push the peace process forward relentlessly and without fear or favor. His long diplomatic practice and his experience in similar situations in Burundi, the UN Office for West Africa and as a ‘Special Envoy’ to the Sudan on Darfur also suggested that he would apply some tested skills to the gnawing problems staring him in the face. His job, before all else, was to gain the trust of all parties and establish himself as a neutral, impartial arbiter; his method should have been the use of the force of persuasion; and his influence should have emanated from the force of his example. To do all this, a certain degree of detachment was required of him – not too close to anyone and not too distant from anyone. He was required to put himself far above the petty quarrels of his daily interlocutors on the Somali side, but far below the dizzy height of his exalted bureaucratic level. It is a difficult balance to maintain, given the intensity of interaction and the human capacity to love and loathe. READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Faisal Roble's research article, which was originally published in the Horn of Africa journal is republished in WardheerNews with permission from the editor of the Horn of Africa Journal. Read the full report here. Wardheer

Challenging Somaliland’s Claim to Sovereignty By Osman Hassan In a recent discussion on VOA Somali Service arch, Ambassador Abdullahi Adan (Congo) and Bashir Goth eloquently articulated Somaliland’s claim to sovereignty and presented some solid justifications for its secession. These broadly cluster around two distinct themes: first are the grievances against the injustices of the union, comprising the lopsided sharing of government posts and the crimes committed against their people; and secondly are the legal and historical back-ups in support of the secession. These include: the Charter of the former Organisation of African Unity (now the AU) and its provisions on borders; recourse to historical precedents of countries that were formerly united but subsequently broke up; the support of the people of Somaliland for the secession and their inalienable right to self-determination. These are the issues I will respond to in the following sections. 1. Blaming the union for the wrong reasons A number of complaints, some more bitter than others, are often presented by the proponents of secession as being the direct consequences of the union between the North and the South. As examined below, all these complaints have little bases. i) The unfair sharing of government posts For Bashir Goth, the beginning of the disillusionment with the union goes back to union day, and the obscene inequitable sharing of the top posts, in which the South grabbed all the top posts, thus making the union in their eyes not one between two equal partners but practically one between the dominant and the dominated. No doubt this misgiving about the distribution of posts on union is well-founded, but this inequity was as much due to the selfishness and insensitivity of the South as to the immaturity of the members of the days-old Somaliland transitional government headed by Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. A different outcome would no doubt have been possible if only the Northerners persevered and pressed their rightful claims in a more determined and business like manner and not let themselves carried away by the intoxicating rush for union. But you would rarely ever hear a fair, balanced apportioning of the blame. It is always the South, as the Somalis say “wixii xunba Xaawaa leh”. Proponents of secession are however selective about the ups and down s of Somalia’s political history. While they miss no opportunity to point to the downside and the initial raw deal meted out to the North, they rarely ever acknowledge the positive side and how two countries under different colonial administrations for nearly a century were able to integrate so quickly apart from initial understandable teething problems; or how the northerners came to dominate the top echelons of the civil service within a matter of few years; or the fact that Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Egal himself became the Prime Minister of Somalia in 1967, or that Mohamed Hawaadle Madar, another northerner, was Prime Minister in Siyad Barre’s last government. On this score, the North did not fare any worse than other regions or clans in Somalia. ii) Asymmetrical development Another complaint is that just as the South netted all the top posts, following the union, so they also took the lion’s share of development funds, whether domestic or international, leaving the North starved. It is true that most of the state enterprises established during the early years of Siyad Barre’s military regime were based in the capital. Most were managed by people from the North and whatever benefits accrued from them in terms of employment were open to the population of Mogadishu both southerners and northerners. The most important infrastructural development in the country was the Chinese-built road and that went across the North all the way to Berbera. Worth mentioning also was the cement factory near Berbera, What development can one point to in such regions as Mudug, Bari, Bay, etc.? The fact of the matter is that the country was equal in poverty and underdevelopment. iii) Atrocities against the North The more serious misplaced grievance against the union by its opponents in the North are the atrocities committed by Siyad Barreh’s regime which it is claimed has bushed the people of the North to the point of no return in their aversion to the union. No one in his right mind can fail to empathise with these sentiments and the emotions they raise. Indiscriminate use of force was one that the dictator has adopted in order to stamp any challenge to his rule. The North was not alone in being the object of this policy. The regions in the East were equally subjected to collective punishment for SODAF’s anti-regime activities. These stopped only when SODAF gave up the struggle. Any other region would have been treated similarly should any challenged the dictator was mounted from that quarter. Much as these crimes are heinous, it is not the Union itself which is on trial but those responsible for these crimes who deserve to be indicted at home or at the International Criminal Court. While the union has been a success, bad governance has been the ultimate cause for the collapse of the Somali State. For proponents of secession however, the union and the dictatorial misrule of Siyad Barre are inseparable. iv) Examples of other countries experiences Bad governance, atrocities, genocides and widespread human rights violations have been endemic in other African counties since the 1960s without resulting in secessions. The Hutus killed nearly a million Tutsi when they were ruling Rwanda, and the latter’s militia under Paul Kagame avenged themselves on the Hutus when they in their turn took over the country by force. Although internal fighting over power continues to the present day among these two tribes, neither has threatened secession let alone embark upon it. Mr. Milton Obote and Idi Amin, both former presidents of Uganda, have committed worse crimes against each other’s clan than Mohamed Siyad Barre ever did in Somalia, and still Uganda remains united. In 1980, soon after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Robert Mugabe’s army massacred nearly 20,000 civilians of the minority Matabele tribe, and since then literally destroyed the country and yet the Matebele tribe is as patriotic Zimbabweas as Mugabe’s Shone tribe. Except with few exceptions, each country in African below the Sahara has been dominated politically and economically by one clan or other with the rest marginalised. Unlike Somalia, none of these countries are blessed with a homogenous people, and yet none of their clans or region has sought secession as is the case with a dominant clan in northern Somalia. 11. Somaliland’s right to reclaim its former independence Bashir Goth and Ambassador Abdullahi justified Somaliland’s right to reclaim its former sovereignty on several grounds: recognition of its sovereignty on independence by numerous countries, its past existence as a former colony with recognised boundary; historical precedent of countries that were at one time united but later separated; and the existence of a people called Somaliland their right to self determination. i) Recognition of Somaliland’s sovereignty at independence Ambassador Abdullahi Adan, repeating a common claim among proponents of Somaliland’s independence, asserted that 32 so countries recognised Somaliland on its independence on 26 June 1960. If that was the case, the first country that would have recognised it would have been Britain, the colonial power. It did not do so for the simple reason that it hastened granting independence, in response to the wish of the Somaliland politicians, in order to expedite union with Italian Somaliland on the first of July. This is a simple matter to verify since the records are available in the archives of the Britain’s Ministry of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In those days, I was a student in the UK, freelancing for the BBC Somali Service and I definitely recall the Service announcing congratulatory messages sent by governments on the occasion of Somaliland’s independence, but nothing on recognition. These governments knew that British Somaliland would unite with its sister Italian Somaliland. in a matter of days and hence there would have been no point for them to recognise a state that would only exist a mere 4 days and thereafter disappear altogether as an independent separate country. ii) Colonial borders The Charter of the former Organisation of African Unity regarding the inviolability of colonial borders is often cited, as Bashir did, as giving Somaliland the right to reclaim its former borders and hence its separate status from Somalia. Article 111 para 3 of the OAU Charter adopted in 1963 by its member States calls for “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State for its inalienable right to independent existence”. This is further elaborated by resolution 16(1) on the border disputed between African States adopted by the OAU Assembly in 1964. Its operative paragraph 1 and 11 declare the following: 1. Solemnly reaffirms the strict respect by all member states of the Organization for the principles laid down in paragraph 3 of article III of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity; 2. Solemnly declares that all member states pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence. Both article 111 in the Charter and resolution 16(1) as cited above were addressed solely to member States. Clearly, the borders that are to be respected are those of the member States of the OAU (now the AU). Hence they do not apply retroactively to non-existent member States like Somaliland. It should be recalled that this specific article of the Charter and the subsequent resolution were initiated at the behest of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as a ploy to ward off Somalia’s claim to large parts of Somali-inhabited territory in Eastern Ethiopia. Haile Selassie was not thinking of Somaliland’s defunct border with Ethiopia but that of Somalia and his country. iii) Historical Precedents Examples of countries that were united at one time and then broke up are often cited, as Ambassador Abdullahi Aden did, as providing clear-cut precedents for Somaliland’s secession from the rest of Somalia. The break-ups of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria in 1957 and Senegambia between Senegal and Gambia in 1989 are the ones often mentioned. If Egypt and Syria, both Arab countries and sharing a common language and cultural ties, can break so can Somaliland from Somalia, as Ambassador Abdullahi put it. What the ambassador has left out, however, is as important if not more so than the similarities he drew case histories of these countries. Those countries voluntarily and amicably agreed to separate which is not the case with Somaliland and Somalia. Indeed, this is what the British Riyale and his delegation last wee when they met last week with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The background to the union of former British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland somewhat differs from those of the other countries cited. First, the compelling reason that propelled Britain to grant independence to Somaliland was to facilitate its union with Italian Somaliland. The birth of an independent Somaliland State,) with its own flag and constitution, recognised by other countries (more on this later) and preferably becoming a member of the United Nation was not one intended by Britain nor by the internal government of the time headed by Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. Secondly, Somaliland is neither monolithic nor inhabited by people with common aspirations. For a start, the SSC regions consider Somaliland as a defunct bygone colonial construct in which they were no party to it by written or oral agreement, as other clans were, and hence they have even less to do with it now in its revival. Thirdly, there is no possibility that any Somali government and Parliament will ever accede to Somaliland’s wish for secession, now or in the future. There is however room for dialogue on finding ways and means of addressing those genuine concerns of the North within the framework of democratic united Somalia. iv)The mythical Somaliland The names of Somaliland and Somalilanders are invariably invoked by the proponents of secession as if the people in their area are distinct from the rest of the Somali people in Somalia or in other Somali inhabited territories in the Horn. After all, it is only through colonial occupation that these clans found themselves under British rule. Though the ties between any neighbouring clans in former British Somaliland were strong as a result of intermarriage and long historical interactions, these may be secondary to the pull of the ties they hold with their kith and kin across the artificial colonial borders. The dichotomy among the clans in British Somaliland relate to their relations with the colonial power. While some clans had accepted British colonial rule though a protectorate agreement, those in the SSC regions fought them for nearly 21 years and even refused to enter into any agreement with the British. Unlike other counties, the end of British rule in Somaliland was not succeeded by the birth of a state to which its citizens declared their allegiance. Given the strength of Somali nationalism at the time, the immediate unity with Italian Somaliland was their common wish once British colonial rule ended rather than opting for a separate State. And as Britain did so, no Somaliland State has come to existence-only a transitional government headed by Mohamed Ibrahim Egal which disbanded itself after 4 days latler as it completed the union formalities. v) Support for the secession Defenders of Somaliland’s secession rarely ever acknowledge in public the fact that the SSC regions, representing in area almost half of former British Somaliland, are unionists who have no truck with the break-up of Somalia. And when these facts are pressed, their next line of defence is to claim that leading Garaads and other prominent personalities from these regions were participants at the Burco meeting and that they signed to the adoption of the secession declaration in May in 1991. This was also the position adopted by Ambassador Abdullahi Aden . It is true that the late Garaad Abdulqani, as well as Garaad Suleman, did attend the Burcao meetings but only in their own personal capacities and not as mandated delegates from all the clans and regions. As they explained on numerous occasions, they attended the meeting on the understanding that the objective was to restore peace and reconciliation among the northern clans and to consult as a region about their common position in negotiating with the South about the establishment of government that was to replace the ousted Siyad Barre regime Instead, the Burco meeting was high jacked by some extremist secessionist elements who forced on the delegates at gun point the adoption of the declaration of the secession from Somalia. This is of course denied by the advocates of the secession. Whatever the truth about the events that led to the declaration of the secession in Burcao the fact remains that the SSC delegation on their return to a shocked and incredulous public immediately disowned the Burco declaration. Everything they did since then was to distance themselves from the secession and reaffirm their unwavering commitment to the union and Somalia. The entire elders of the SSC, including Garaad Abdulqani and Garaad Suleemaan, played a leading role in the establishment of Puntland in which the SSC regions constitute a central pillar and the Arta TNG government. All this is beside the point as far as the defenders of the secession is concerned, and all that matters is the consent to the Burco declaration by SSC participants as if this consent under duress, as claimed, was cast in stone, representing an inviolable agreement between sovereign parties vi) The Right to Self-determination for secession Ambassador Abdullahi Aden, echoing similar thinking among proponents of secession, invoked the principle of the right to self-determination in support of Somaliland’s separation from Somalia. This right to self-determination is of course enshrined not only in the UN Charter but also in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee, self determination is “…exemplified by the liberation of peoples from colonialism and by the prohibition to subject people to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation.” In ending its colonial rule in line with this principle, Britain did end its subjugation, domination and exploitation of its Somali subjects when it granted them independence in 1960 for the purposes of uniting with their brothers in Italian Somaliland. But it would be a perverse interpretation or understanding of this principle to invoke it and claim that the people in Somaliland had been, or are presently being subjected to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation by their fellow Somali clans in the South The logical conclusion is that all Somali clans are alien to one another and each can in its turn invoke the principle of self-determination if it wants to go its own way. This is a prescription for the end of the nation state as we know it. Self-determination, if granted, is a double-edged sword, from which Somaliland has as much to gain from it as it may lose. Acting as the devil’s advocate, suppose, as could well happen, the Awdal region were to withdraw, from the current secessionist Somaliland, or a future independent one; will Somaliland then oppose it by force since it is on no moral or legal ground to reject it, being itself the product of self-determination an/or secession in the first place?. Some might consider the example of Awdal as a hypothetical exercise. I beg to differ. But if Awdal’s withdrawal from Somaliland is considered by some as far fetched, one could turn to a more realistic and closer case, namely the SSC regions. While Somaliland never tires to claim self-determination as if it was its own preserve, it would at the same time deny it to the SSC regions. Worse, it went to the extent of invading and occupying Sool and its capital Lascanod. Nothing could make a mockery of this principle than this blatant double standard. vii) Seeking SSC support through persuasion Somaliland had a choice between the use of force in capturing the recalcitrant SSC regions or relying on persuasion and patience in winning over the hearts and minds of its people. Given the realities in the SSC regions and the opposition to the secession, Somaliland was no longer willing to hold its cherished recognition hostage to the uncertainties of SSC public opinion. And so, in the end, it resorted to naked military force, and occupied Lascanod and much of the Sool region. Apart from the pursuit of short-sighted electoral shenanigans, the occupation of Lascanod was meant to send a message to the international community that it has full control of all the regional capitals of former British Somaliland, something it calculated misguidedly might satisfy the necessary condition for its recognition. It might be physically in control of Lascanod and much of Sool, but as long as the SSC people are opposed to the occupation and secession, even through non-violence, the clear message it conveys is that Somaliland may control or occupy territory but has no support from its population and this is the far more important factor. The international community is now fully aware that nearly 60 percent of Lascanod population are displaced; and that all the traditional leaders (Garaads and Isimos) are either in Garawe or mobilising their people in the interior. Ambassador Aden and Bashir Goth did not say a word about these realities but only a bizarre event which took place in Burco 18years ago. In the end, the will of the people in the SSC regions will trump the military occupation as it did elsewhere in the world. After nearly one and a half years of occupation of Sool, at huge financial cost it could hardly spare, and with the goal of recognition still as far as ever, the time has come for Somaliland to rethink it strategy and policies. For its own sake, and the rest of us, the best course for Somaliland is to undo the damage it did, and withdraw immediately from Sool and Lascanod. That would be more productive than a costly and open-ended occupation of Sool which could lead to war. If that was to happen, the gulf that would divide the SSC people from Somaliland would be unbridgeable for the foreseeable future, a sure way to forfeit a harmonious united people of the North. http://wardheernews.com/Articles_09/March/17_chall enging_somaliland_osman.htm

Challenging Somaliland’s Claim to Sovereignty By Osman Hassan In a recent discussion on VOA Somali Service arch, Ambassador Abdullahi Adan (Congo) and Bashir Goth eloquently articulated Somaliland’s claim to sovereignty and presented some solid justifications for its secession. These broadly cluster around two distinct themes: first are the grievances against the injustices of the union, comprising the lopsided sharing of government posts and the crimes committed against their people; and secondly are the legal and historical back-ups in support of the secession. These include: the Charter of the former Organisation of African Unity (now the AU) and its provisions on borders; recourse to historical precedents of countries that were formerly united but subsequently broke up; the support of the people of Somaliland for the secession and their inalienable right to self-determination. These are the issues I will respond to in the following sections. 1. Blaming the union for the wrong reasons A number of complaints, some more bitter than others, are often presented by the proponents of secession as being the direct consequences of the union between the North and the South. As examined below, all these complaints have little bases. i) The unfair sharing of government posts For Bashir Goth, the beginning of the disillusionment with the union goes back to union day, and the obscene inequitable sharing of the top posts, in which the South grabbed all the top posts, thus making the union in their eyes not one between two equal partners but practically one between the dominant and the dominated. No doubt this misgiving about the distribution of posts on union is well-founded, but this inequity was as much due to the selfishness and insensitivity of the South as to the immaturity of the members of the days-old Somaliland transitional government headed by Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. A different outcome would no doubt have been possible if only the Northerners persevered and pressed their rightful claims in a more determined and business like manner and not let themselves carried away by the intoxicating rush for union. But you would rarely ever hear a fair, balanced apportioning of the blame. It is always the South, as the Somalis say “wixii xunba Xaawaa leh”. Proponents of secession are however selective about the ups and down s of Somalia’s political history. While they miss no opportunity to point to the downside and the initial raw deal meted out to the North, they rarely ever acknowledge the positive side and how two countries under different colonial administrations for nearly a century were able to integrate so quickly apart from initial understandable teething problems; or how the northerners came to dominate the top echelons of the civil service within a matter of few years; or the fact that Mr. Mohamed Ibrahim Egal himself became the Prime Minister of Somalia in 1967, or that Mohamed Hawaadle Madar, another northerner, was Prime Minister in Siyad Barre’s last government. On this score, the North did not fare any worse than other regions or clans in Somalia. ii) Asymmetrical development Another complaint is that just as the South netted all the top posts, following the union, so they also took the lion’s share of development funds, whether domestic or international, leaving the North starved. It is true that most of the state enterprises established during the early years of Siyad Barre’s military regime were based in the capital. Most were managed by people from the North and whatever benefits accrued from them in terms of employment were open to the population of Mogadishu both southerners and northerners. The most important infrastructural development in the country was the Chinese-built road and that went across the North all the way to Berbera. Worth mentioning also was the cement factory near Berbera, What development can one point to in such regions as Mudug, Bari, Bay, etc.? The fact of the matter is that the country was equal in poverty and underdevelopment. iii) Atrocities against the North The more serious misplaced grievance against the union by its opponents in the North are the atrocities committed by Siyad Barreh’s regime which it is claimed has bushed the people of the North to the point of no return in their aversion to the union. No one in his right mind can fail to empathise with these sentiments and the emotions they raise. Indiscriminate use of force was one that the dictator has adopted in order to stamp any challenge to his rule. The North was not alone in being the object of this policy. The regions in the East were equally subjected to collective punishment for SODAF’s anti-regime activities. These stopped only when SODAF gave up the struggle. Any other region would have been treated similarly should any challenged the dictator was mounted from that quarter. Much as these crimes are heinous, it is not the Union itself which is on trial but those responsible for these crimes who deserve to be indicted at home or at the International Criminal Court. While the union has been a success, bad governance has been the ultimate cause for the collapse of the Somali State. For proponents of secession however, the union and the dictatorial misrule of Siyad Barre are inseparable. iv) Examples of other countries experiences Bad governance, atrocities, genocides and widespread human rights violations have been endemic in other African counties since the 1960s without resulting in secessions. The Hutus killed nearly a million Tutsi when they were ruling Rwanda, and the latter’s militia under Paul Kagame avenged themselves on the Hutus when they in their turn took over the country by force. Although internal fighting over power continues to the present day among these two tribes, neither has threatened secession let alone embark upon it. Mr. Milton Obote and Idi Amin, both former presidents of Uganda, have committed worse crimes against each other’s clan than Mohamed Siyad Barre ever did in Somalia, and still Uganda remains united. In 1980, soon after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Robert Mugabe’s army massacred nearly 20,000 civilians of the minority Matabele tribe, and since then literally destroyed the country and yet the Matebele tribe is as patriotic Zimbabweas as Mugabe’s Shone tribe. Except with few exceptions, each country in African below the Sahara has been dominated politically and economically by one clan or other with the rest marginalised. Unlike Somalia, none of these countries are blessed with a homogenous people, and yet none of their clans or region has sought secession as is the case with a dominant clan in northern Somalia. 11. Somaliland’s right to reclaim its former independence Bashir Goth and Ambassador Abdullahi justified Somaliland’s right to reclaim its former sovereignty on several grounds: recognition of its sovereignty on independence by numerous countries, its past existence as a former colony with recognised boundary; historical precedent of countries that were at one time united but later separated; and the existence of a people called Somaliland their right to self determination. i) Recognition of Somaliland’s sovereignty at independence Ambassador Abdullahi Adan, repeating a common claim among proponents of Somaliland’s independence, asserted that 32 so countries recognised Somaliland on its independence on 26 June 1960. If that was the case, the first country that would have recognised it would have been Britain, the colonial power. It did not do so for the simple reason that it hastened granting independence, in response to the wish of the Somaliland politicians, in order to expedite union with Italian Somaliland on the first of July. This is a simple matter to verify since the records are available in the archives of the Britain’s Ministry of Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. In those days, I was a student in the UK, freelancing for the BBC Somali Service and I definitely recall the Service announcing congratulatory messages sent by governments on the occasion of Somaliland’s independence, but nothing on recognition. These governments knew that British Somaliland would unite with its sister Italian Somaliland. in a matter of days and hence there would have been no point for them to recognise a state that would only exist a mere 4 days and thereafter disappear altogether as an independent separate country. ii) Colonial borders The Charter of the former Organisation of African Unity regarding the inviolability of colonial borders is often cited, as Bashir did, as giving Somaliland the right to reclaim its former borders and hence its separate status from Somalia. Article 111 para 3 of the OAU Charter adopted in 1963 by its member States calls for “respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of each State for its inalienable right to independent existence”. This is further elaborated by resolution 16(1) on the border disputed between African States adopted by the OAU Assembly in 1964. Its operative paragraph 1 and 11 declare the following: 1. Solemnly reaffirms the strict respect by all member states of the Organization for the principles laid down in paragraph 3 of article III of the Charter of the Organization of African Unity; 2. Solemnly declares that all member states pledge themselves to respect the borders existing on their achievement of national independence. Both article 111 in the Charter and resolution 16(1) as cited above were addressed solely to member States. Clearly, the borders that are to be respected are those of the member States of the OAU (now the AU). Hence they do not apply retroactively to non-existent member States like Somaliland. It should be recalled that this specific article of the Charter and the subsequent resolution were initiated at the behest of Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia as a ploy to ward off Somalia’s claim to large parts of Somali-inhabited territory in Eastern Ethiopia. Haile Selassie was not thinking of Somaliland’s defunct border with Ethiopia but that of Somalia and his country. iii) Historical Precedents Examples of countries that were united at one time and then broke up are often cited, as Ambassador Abdullahi Aden did, as providing clear-cut precedents for Somaliland’s secession from the rest of Somalia. The break-ups of the United Arab Republic between Egypt and Syria in 1957 and Senegambia between Senegal and Gambia in 1989 are the ones often mentioned. If Egypt and Syria, both Arab countries and sharing a common language and cultural ties, can break so can Somaliland from Somalia, as Ambassador Abdullahi put it. What the ambassador has left out, however, is as important if not more so than the similarities he drew case histories of these countries. Those countries voluntarily and amicably agreed to separate which is not the case with Somaliland and Somalia. Indeed, this is what the British Riyale and his delegation last wee when they met last week with the British Foreign Secretary, David Miliband. The background to the union of former British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland somewhat differs from those of the other countries cited. First, the compelling reason that propelled Britain to grant independence to Somaliland was to facilitate its union with Italian Somaliland. The birth of an independent Somaliland State,) with its own flag and constitution, recognised by other countries (more on this later) and preferably becoming a member of the United Nation was not one intended by Britain nor by the internal government of the time headed by Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. Secondly, Somaliland is neither monolithic nor inhabited by people with common aspirations. For a start, the SSC regions consider Somaliland as a defunct bygone colonial construct in which they were no party to it by written or oral agreement, as other clans were, and hence they have even less to do with it now in its revival. Thirdly, there is no possibility that any Somali government and Parliament will ever accede to Somaliland’s wish for secession, now or in the future. There is however room for dialogue on finding ways and means of addressing those genuine concerns of the North within the framework of democratic united Somalia. iv)The mythical Somaliland The names of Somaliland and Somalilanders are invariably invoked by the proponents of secession as if the people in their area are distinct from the rest of the Somali people in Somalia or in other Somali inhabited territories in the Horn. After all, it is only through colonial occupation that these clans found themselves under British rule. Though the ties between any neighbouring clans in former British Somaliland were strong as a result of intermarriage and long historical interactions, these may be secondary to the pull of the ties they hold with their kith and kin across the artificial colonial borders. The dichotomy among the clans in British Somaliland relate to their relations with the colonial power. While some clans had accepted British colonial rule though a protectorate agreement, those in the SSC regions fought them for nearly 21 years and even refused to enter into any agreement with the British. Unlike other counties, the end of British rule in Somaliland was not succeeded by the birth of a state to which its citizens declared their allegiance. Given the strength of Somali nationalism at the time, the immediate unity with Italian Somaliland was their common wish once British colonial rule ended rather than opting for a separate State. And as Britain did so, no Somaliland State has come to existence-only a transitional government headed by Mohamed Ibrahim Egal which disbanded itself after 4 days latler as it completed the union formalities. v) Support for the secession Defenders of Somaliland’s secession rarely ever acknowledge in public the fact that the SSC regions, representing in area almost half of former British Somaliland, are unionists who have no truck with the break-up of Somalia. And when these facts are pressed, their next line of defence is to claim that leading Garaads and other prominent personalities from these regions were participants at the Burco meeting and that they signed to the adoption of the secession declaration in May in 1991. This was also the position adopted by Ambassador Abdullahi Aden . It is true that the late Garaad Abdulqani, as well as Garaad Suleman, did attend the Burcao meetings but only in their own personal capacities and not as mandated delegates from all the clans and regions. As they explained on numerous occasions, they attended the meeting on the understanding that the objective was to restore peace and reconciliation among the northern clans and to consult as a region about their common position in negotiating with the South about the establishment of government that was to replace the ousted Siyad Barre regime Instead, the Burco meeting was high jacked by some extremist secessionist elements who forced on the delegates at gun point the adoption of the declaration of the secession from Somalia. This is of course denied by the advocates of the secession. Whatever the truth about the events that led to the declaration of the secession in Burcao the fact remains that the SSC delegation on their return to a shocked and incredulous public immediately disowned the Burco declaration. Everything they did since then was to distance themselves from the secession and reaffirm their unwavering commitment to the union and Somalia. The entire elders of the SSC, including Garaad Abdulqani and Garaad Suleemaan, played a leading role in the establishment of Puntland in which the SSC regions constitute a central pillar and the Arta TNG government. All this is beside the point as far as the defenders of the secession is concerned, and all that matters is the consent to the Burco declaration by SSC participants as if this consent under duress, as claimed, was cast in stone, representing an inviolable agreement between sovereign parties vi) The Right to Self-determination for secession Ambassador Abdullahi Aden, echoing similar thinking among proponents of secession, invoked the principle of the right to self-determination in support of Somaliland’s separation from Somalia. This right to self-determination is of course enshrined not only in the UN Charter but also in both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. As interpreted by the UN Human Rights Committee, self determination is “…exemplified by the liberation of peoples from colonialism and by the prohibition to subject people to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation.” In ending its colonial rule in line with this principle, Britain did end its subjugation, domination and exploitation of its Somali subjects when it granted them independence in 1960 for the purposes of uniting with their brothers in Italian Somaliland. But it would be a perverse interpretation or understanding of this principle to invoke it and claim that the people in Somaliland had been, or are presently being subjected to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation by their fellow Somali clans in the South The logical conclusion is that all Somali clans are alien to one another and each can in its turn invoke the principle of self-determination if it wants to go its own way. This is a prescription for the end of the nation state as we know it. Self-determination, if granted, is a double-edged sword, from which Somaliland has as much to gain from it as it may lose. Acting as the devil’s advocate, suppose, as could well happen, the Awdal region were to withdraw, from the current secessionist Somaliland, or a future independent one; will Somaliland then oppose it by force since it is on no moral or legal ground to reject it, being itself the product of self-determination an/or secession in the first place?. Some might consider the example of Awdal as a hypothetical exercise. I beg to differ. But if Awdal’s withdrawal from Somaliland is considered by some as far fetched, one could turn to a more realistic and closer case, namely the SSC regions. While Somaliland never tires to claim self-determination as if it was its own preserve, it would at the same time deny it to the SSC regions. Worse, it went to the extent of invading and occupying Sool and its capital Lascanod. Nothing could make a mockery of this principle than this blatant double standard. vii) Seeking SSC support through persuasion Somaliland had a choice between the use of force in capturing the recalcitrant SSC regions or relying on persuasion and patience in winning over the hearts and minds of its people. Given the realities in the SSC regions and the opposition to the secession, Somaliland was no longer willing to hold its cherished recognition hostage to the uncertainties of SSC public opinion. And so, in the end, it resorted to naked military force, and occupied Lascanod and much of the Sool region. Apart from the pursuit of short-sighted electoral shenanigans, the occupation of Lascanod was meant to send a message to the international community that it has full control of all the regional capitals of former British Somaliland, something it calculated misguidedly might satisfy the necessary condition for its recognition. It might be physically in control of Lascanod and much of Sool, but as long as the SSC people are opposed to the occupation and secession, even through non-violence, the clear message it conveys is that Somaliland may control or occupy territory but has no support from its population and this is the far more important factor. The international community is now fully aware that nearly 60 percent of Lascanod population are displaced; and that all the traditional leaders (Garaads and Isimos) are either in Garawe or mobilising their people in the interior. Ambassador Aden and Bashir Goth did not say a word about these realities but only a bizarre event which took place in Burco 18years ago. In the end, the will of the people in the SSC regions will trump the military occupation as it did elsewhere in the world. After nearly one and a half years of occupation of Sool, at huge financial cost it could hardly spare, and with the goal of recognition still as far as ever, the time has come for Somaliland to rethink it strategy and policies. For its own sake, and the rest of us, the best course for Somaliland is to undo the damage it did, and withdraw immediately from Sool and Lascanod. That would be more productive than a costly and open-ended occupation of Sool which could lead to war. If that was to happen, the gulf that would divide the SSC people from Somaliland would be unbridgeable for the foreseeable future, a sure way to forfeit a harmonious united people of the North. http://wardheernews.com/Articles_09/March/17_chall enging_somaliland_osman.html