Past back to the future in present

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Guess what year this article was published.

___________________

 

Somali Capital a Grisly Battlefield As Civilians Die in Clan Warfare

 

A week and a half of artillery and rocket barrages in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have turned the city into a grisly battlefield that has left about 6,000 civilians wounded and possibly more than 1,000 dead, according to aid and medical workers who have returned here in the last few days.

 

"I've been in war for eight years and I've never seen a slaughter like this," said Dr. Sam Toussie, an American surgeon, who was tending the wounded as part of a medical team financed by the United States Government. "We were getting 150 casualties a day at one hospital -- 75 percent were children and we were losing five an hour."

 

Fighting broke out in Mogadishu, a city of about 1.5 million on the Indian Ocean, on Nov. 17 when Gen. Mohamed Farah Haideed tried to unseat the President of Somalia, Ali Mahdi Mohamed. Both men are members of the ruling group, the United Somali Congress, which is dominated by one of the country's major clans, the ****. But General Haideed is a member of a sub-clan of the ****** called the ****, long resented by Mr. Ali Mahdi's sub-clan, the ****.

 

Mr. Ali Mahdi was named president of Somalia earlier this year after insurgents of the United Somali Congress ousted President Mohamed Siad Barre, who ruled Somalia for 21 years, first with the assistance of the Soviet Union and then after 1978, with the help of Washington. Mr. Siad Barre, who is more than 80 years old, fled Mogadishu in January and remains in his home village in the southwest.

 

Since Mr. Siad Barre fled, the people of the **** clan in northern Somalia have declared an independent republic of Somaliland with borders corresponding to those of what was once the colony of British Somaliland. In 1960 British Somaliland in the north joined with the Italian colony in the south to form Somalia, a country of about six million people.

 

Somalia has an unusual religious and linguistic homogeneity for Africa. Most Somalis are Sunni Muslims and everyone speaks Somali. Yet clan hostilities are among the most strongly felt on the continent, differences that were accentuated by Mr. Siad Barre, who played one clan against another.

 

A State Department official said that since Mr. Siad Barre had left, Washington "recognized Somalia as a country" but did not recognize any government, either in the north or the south. No 'Functioning Government'

 

"We do not see a functioning government in Somalia," the official said. The Somali Embassy in Washington was told to close and the American embassy in Mogadishu is an abandoned ruin, he said.

 

Through the Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, the United States is financing Dr. Toussie's medical team, as well as supplying food through the International Committee of the Red Cross and other agencies, the official said.

 

The southern part of Somalia has been in virtually continuous clan-based turmoil since the beginning of the year, with the fighting that broke out 10 days ago the most intense since January.

 

Those who have witnessed the latest round in Mogadishu said that suppporters of General Haideed and President Ali Mahdi had divided the city along a north-south axis, with General Haideed's side controlling the airport, port and radio station.

 

New York Times

[Nofeembar, 1991.]

[kyz]

Still the same donkeys are fighting over the beautiful city of Mogadishu.

[Che -Guevara]

My family left the city September of that year-sad day it was.

[Cawaale]

Originally posted by kyz:

Still the same donkeys are fighting over the beautiful city of Mogadishu.

[Kamaavi]

Originally posted by kyz:

Still the same donkeys are fighting over the beautiful city of Mogadishu.

[Xaaji Dhagax.]

Originally posted by Ferguson:

quote:Originally posted by kyz:

Still the same donkeys are fighting over the beautiful city of Mogadishu.

[Land_Soldier]

Originally posted by kyz:

Still the same donkeys are fighting over the beautiful city of Mogadishu.

Atleast back then they were doing this with the blue flag held high on both sides of the battle field. Now there is this unrecongnisable black flag hanging everywhere in Moqadishu.

 

 

Guys, do you think its better to be slaughtered by someone carrying the blue flag or by someone carrying the black flag?

[The Zack]

^sidaad somalilander isaga dhigeyso umbaad mar mar is ilowdaa, cowkoow. Don't u consider the iraqi-like flag as your flag?

[Land_Soldier]

My Somali-Ethiopian friend, If you had to choose to be petrayed or even murdered by a real somalinimo loving person carrying the blue flag or by a somalidiid.

 

WHich one would you choose?

[Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar]

Those same 'monkeys' are Soomaalis and to the world, you are just another 'monkey' among Soomaalis and who couldn't settle their political differences for two decades. That is a record for a modern country.

 

They are not differentiating if you hoped.

[Land_Soldier]

Originally posted by Miskiin-Macruuf-Aqiyaar:

Those same 'monkeys' are Soomaalis and to the world, you are just another 'monkey' among Soomaalis and

who couldn't settle their political differences for two decades.

That is a record for a modern country.

 

They are not differentiating if you hoped.

"Political diffrences". You think what is happening in Somalia the past 20 years is about political diffrences?

 

I beg to disgree. Killing, murdering, raping and stealing has nothing to do with having 'political ideas or vieuws'.

 

But as long as certain people choose to ignore this, close their eyes and refer to it as a fact of being 'Somali'. Then nothing will change of that barbaric attitude, for which some are well and worldwide known for. And that my friend is a recorn in modern civilisation.