The INVADERS: Demise of Banaadir and Environs

[miles-militis]

The INVADERS: Demise of Banaadir and Environs Facts about the civil war, Mogadishu and surroundings

 

"A bad will is the cause of bad actions, but nothing is the cause of a bad will. For when the will abandons what is above itself and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil - not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked."

Saint Augustine

The City of God

 

FACTS Before and after the civil war:

 

 

Mogadishu was home to over one and half million Somalis from all corners of Somalia. It no longer is!

The INVADERS who captured Mogadishu sold all Somali historical monuments and artifacts concentrated in Mogadishu to overseas art collectors.

Every valuable asset in Mogadishu, public or private, has been ripped from under and above by the invaders and sold or stored away to rot. According to UNOSOM "at least 60 per cent of the country's basic infrastructure [concentrated in Mogadishu] disintegrated."

Southern farmlands, the breadbasket of Somalia, previously owned by a diverse group of Somali clans, are now mostly concentrated in the hands of the invaders and their clan businessmen.

Ethnic inhabitants who were the majority land and real property owners of Banadir and surroundings are no longer the rightful owners. For the last ten years, their land and real properties have been confiscated and seized by invaders from other regions.

When it is troublesome for the invaders to seize properties from rightful owners, then businessmen of the invading clan use counterfeit money, hot off the presses, to purchase land and properties.

According to UNOSOM data, "overall an estimated 300,000 innocent civilians, mostly elderly and children" have been massacred and died, Hutu style, by the invaders and "some two million people, violently have been displaced from their home areas, fled either to neighboring countries or elsewhere within Somalia." Yet, there is no single IRIN or other UN report on record that advocates for the innocent displaced surviving victims and their relatives.

Radio stations and tabloids in Mogadishu, again Hutu style, were used to incite violence and death against certain clans deemed undesirable and therefore unfit to survive or own property. Yet, IRIN and the BBC World Service use these same tabloids and radio stations as their only sources of news in all of Somalia.

To this day, the invaders are still employing their skillfully developed art of property seizures, massacres, looting, rape, torture and killing. The Dr. Jim'ala Human Rights Organization, a misnomer, or any other Human Rights Organization in Mogadishu has yet to raise a finger about any of these issues. As a matter of fact, according to the BCCP of southern Somalia, "this organization has taken the lead in protecting the mass human rights violations and abuses of Mogadishu warlords and their rootless businessmen." For them, as in the "God Father" movie, it is all about the "Family Business." It is also about misguiding world donor organizations about realities in Somalia.

And now, the rest of the story: (This might be of special interest to the Head of UN Political Office for Somalia, David Stephens; UN Humanitarian Coordinator, Randolph Kent; IRIN Director, Pat Banks; IRIN Editor-in-Chief, Jonathan Clayton and all other individuals and/or agencies who are still blind about the trials and tribulations of Somalia.)

 

In ANNA KARENINA, Leo Tolstoy begins one of the greatest novels with the following: All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. In Tolstoyian philosophy, the following might be a fitting line for the dislodged ethnic inhabitants of the region and the INVADERS of Benadir and southern Somali regions, from Mogadishu to Ballidoogle to Marka to Brava and to Kismayo: All honest clans are alike; all dishonest clans are dishonest in their own way.

 

That summarizes the modern Somali clan dilemma. The honest clan families of Somalia had been dislodged from their homes and territories. There is no land, no properties and no grazing fields for their livestock. Their family burial grounds are even out of bounds for these families. Certain minority clans, mainly the ethnic Banadiris, the Bravanese and others have even lost their wives and daughters to the invaders. They don't control airports and or seaports to engage in their commercial activities without paying huge ransom fees. These persecuted Somali clan families of the south, including ethnic minority clans, were the breadwinners of Somalia. Now, they are slave laborers in their own farms and sometimes in their own houses, and yet, Mr. David Stephens condescendingly justifies their agony as a minor problem due to "lack of land writs." Apparently, when Mr. Stephens incomprehensibly speaks of "Rehabilitation, Demobilization and Reintegration" and refers to the invaders as "no longer a case of armed factions," he is uttering code words dictating most Somalis to sign over their property deeds to the invaders. In southern Somalia, that is the prize for being honest, hardworking Somali and always in search of peace. That is the Somalia of Mr. David Stephens and the Arta faction.

 

The honest clan families of southern Somalia have no voice. They expected their voices to be heard. They believed help was imminent and believed in Divine Providence. They waited for the United Nations to arrive. They waited and the UN's UNOSOM arrived. In phase one of UNOSOM operation and after $42,931,700 net expenditures and eight military fatalities, the invaders were even stronger and seized even more properties and land. The victims waited and waited. Again, the UN arrived via Djibouti. But this time, the unexpected became reality. The UN wished to promote and enthrone the invaders together with Siyad Barre's criminals and crooks as the official rulers of their subjects and also as official peacemakers! The UN and the invaders' cohorts in the media (IRIN, BBC Somali Section and of course the invaders' own "Hutu style" radio stations and tabloids) did not stop there. They turned the tables on the honest Somalis. They were told: you are an obstacle to lasting peace in Somalia. And the honest minority ethnic clans of Banaadir and environs suffer agony and humiliation. In one widely reported incident on Feb. 27, 2001, a Somali family in Mogadishu, an ethnic Banadiri family, was denied by the invaders to properly bury their deceased! They were told that their family cemeteries were no longer theirs. This is the sad story of the honest clan families of southern Somalia and a true reflection of the "very much improved" Mogadishu City of Mr. David Stephens. That is the Somalia of the Arta Faction and Mr. David Stephens.

 

As always the case, all dishonest clans are dishonest in their own way. The invaders never made peace within. Dishonesty can't make peace. They fought over the leftover spoils and Mogadishu City got ruined and deserted. As in Ayn Rand's ATLAS SHRUGGED, the John Galts of Somalia, the intellectuals, educators and administrators, the driving engine of Somali ingenuity and progress, bailed out of Mogadishu and returned home to their regions. Consequently, peace, stability and development prevail in the North. From Gaalkacyo to Garoowe to Boosaaso and Burco, to Berbera, Borama and Hargeysa, peace and business interests reign. Telecommunications, including mobile technology, are the most sophisticated in Africa and the cheapest. Small-scale industries flourish. Water pipelines bring clean water into homes and businesses where once water was scarce commodity. Recently constructed water purification plants also provide the option of clean bottled water. According to local chamber of commerce data, unemployment in these northern regions may be the lowest in east Africa while Mogadishu residents are lately found in the employment queue lines of the northern regions. Mogadishu residents are running and running scared from Mogadishu. They are running away from a place perverse to all Somali traditions and to Islamic laws. A place where the sheriff, the sheikh, the intellectual, the administrator, the clan chief, the warlord and the '******** ' are all on the same page and on the same note. These '********s' and entourage are Mr. David Stephen's "clan elders" that represent no clans.

 

The run away Mogadishu residents are found in Berbera and Boosaaso ports and environs. They are looking for opportunities in the safe heavens of the "Northern Recovery Zones" or looking to escape to Yemen and to the rich oil fields of Saudi Arabia. And the "Northern Recovery Zone" residents keep singing the tune: Never again in Mogadishu.

 

In other Somali regions, peace and stability are slowly prevailing in RRA dominated southern Somalia. But still, the RRA has yet to recover most of their fertile land and confiscated properties. And given time, recover they will!

 

And now back to the invaders, ten years after the fact, Mogadishu invaders still can't make peace. But the trial and error goes on. With the help of the UN and the exemplary corrupt city-state of Djibouti, they brought in the remnants of the discredited corrupt Marxist dictatorship of Siyad Barre. Remnants that looted the nation and or directly participated the butchery of the Somali people. But then again, two wrongs don't make right. The invaders and their entourage, lately widely known as the Arta Faction with brand new over seized suits, like used car salesmen, complete with a name change and new corporate logos, and their clan businessmen and sponsors are now further apart than they have ever been. As a matter of fact and for all practical purposes, they are prisoners caged in few of the still standing Mogadishu hotels. Meantime, the invaders are desperately singing the tune: it must be the fault of Somaliland, Puntland and the RRA leadership and of course Ethiopia! Their nightmare continues and they scream: no more self-relying regional states and no more building blocks!

 

Meanwhile, the Somali rebuilding and reintegration goes on. The Somalis are reclaiming their country, region-by-region, block-by-block, and the creation of a federal system of governance, whether liked by UN Political Officers or not, is in full swing.

 

The clock for the dishonest clan families of Somalia is ticking. It is also ticking for UN Political Offices, IRIN, UN Radio Station, BBC Somali section and all other "Hutu style" radio stations and tabloids in Mogadishu. Eventually and at the end of the day, under the Somali way, honest clan families of Somalia will prevail. Peace and prosperity in Somalia will prevail.

 

SHASNA* Editorial Board

cc: SHASNA Members

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

Sad story indeed.

 

The peace loving Southerners need a new RRA revolution to fight with these armed warlords and bandits. There is no other way.