Press Release – A Call to the International Community

[Deeq A.]

The government has given excessive power to use the police forces and military to subjugate the
ordinary people of Somaliland, including the power to use of live ammunition to shoot public
protesters or individuals.
Evidence exists which shows that the government is fanning the flame of never-ending clan warfare
in Somaliland, to create a distraction from the deteriorating economic and political situation.
The government is blamed for eroding justice and rule of law. Rank and file soldiers, as well as officers,
have defected from the army and have set themselves up in the neighbouring Puntland state, calling
themselves the ‘armed opposition movement’.
It is widely believed that the government deliberately triggered current high inflation rates which are
causing market instability, unemployment and the stagnation of many livelihood options. The country
is on the verge of civil uprising and all the gains of peace in the last decades to be lost.
Clan-based nepotism in recruitment for public posts, in the allocation of government tenders and in
military promotions, and the marginalisation of certain regions in resource allocations from
International Development Funds, including UKAID, have led to widespread grievances.
Free and Fair elections were the only hope that the people of Somaliland had to respond to these
challenges. This Two party agreement seems to have put an end to that hope.
The issue of change to the current NEC is an ongoing political conflict. But the way the government is
handling this conflict – it by insisting that the current NEC oversees the election of 2019 – will only
lead Somaliland into further mayhem and inevitable breakdown.
We see this agreement as the end of democracy in Somaliland and the start of dictatorship, use of
force, corruption and inhuman levels of injustice.
Hence we:
• Call on the government of Somaliland to return to respecting the rule of law and not to cause
the demise and breakdown of the country.
• Call on international Community, particularly donor countries which have contributed to the
development of democracy in Somaliland, to intervene before the situation gets out of hand.
• Call on the UN, and particularly its Special Representative for Somalia and Somaliland, to
follow closely the situation on the ground, which is becoming more despotic.
Mohamd Issa
The Chair of the SUMC
+44 (0) 7931375764
NB:
Somaliland United Movement for Change (SUMC) is a political movement which opposes corruption,
clannishness, subjugation of freedom of expression, gagging of journalists and all forms of injustice.
SUMC is based in the UK but also represented in EU countries, USA, Canada and Australia.

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