Deconstructing the ‘Peace Deals’ in Somali .....

[The Zack]

Deconstructing the ‘Peace Deals’ in Somali Regional State of Ethiopia

By Muktar M. Omer

Dec. 03, 2010

 

 

The fabrication of the “big lie” has always been essential in the planning and execution of political interests, whether in the form of usurping power internally or invading and colonizing outsiders. Rudyard Kipling’s “The White Man’s Burden” and Tony Blair’s “45-minute claim on Iraq and its weapons” are two classic examples. The big lie told to the world in the case of Ethiopia is that it is a “Federal Republic” which constitutes “Regional States” with administrative and decision-making autonomy. I will not discuss this lie for it has been undressed by many scholars who established, with thorough research, that today’s Ethiopia, even with its pseudo- Federal system, is not a republic but a disguised monarchy ruled by one man –Meles Zenawi, and his few tribal acolytes.

 

A subsidiary lie to this big falsehood is the news of ‘peace deal’ in Somali Regional State of Ethiopia (Somali Galbeed) which has been swarming the wavelengths for the past three to six months. The happy ululation of this new-found dispensation of ‘peace’ politics and its happy cacophony somewhat slacked the intellect and ability of many people to tell a fog from a real cloud. How Somali Galbeed people hungrily leap at any hint of impending ‘peace’ betrays a severe stress from helplessness and weariness. Therein lies the danger. An acute wish to release oneself from oppression by accepting the oppressor’s conditions for co-habituation often leads to ungainly conduct and worse disasters.

 

The ‘peace’ rituals the United Western Somali Liberation Front (UWSLF) and Engineer Salahadin Ma’ow’s ‘****** National Liberation Front’ (ONLF) wing signed with Ethiopia were not peace deals and do not answer the question of self-rule and self-determination in Somali Galbeed. In fact, they jeopardize any hope of attaining these longstanding ideals.

 

1. Exchanging Contrition for Amnesty

 

All peace deals in the world, past and present, are characterized by an exchange of concessions: land for peace; political power for peace; referendum for peace, etc. Nowhere in peace deals does one side of the happily-marrying former enemies take full blame for what had happened between the two. Nowhere does one side grant amnesty while the other roars oaths to expiate its past wrongs. This makes the deal made between Ethiopia and UWSLF, and between Ma’ow’s ‘ONLF’ wing and Ethiopia, anything but a peace deal.

 

It is a different beast; it is called surrender. This is not about passing judgment on its rightness or wrongness. This is about calling a spade a spade, not a soil-redistribution implement. Amnesty and contrition are issues that turn up when a criminal or a fugitive of law is caught or surrenders to the law, not when former enemies sign peace deals.

 

The justifications offered by UWSLF and Ma’ow’s ‘ONLF’ and their supporters on why the ‘peace deal’ was needed, are even more revealing of the real nature the ‘peace’ process. The reasons include, inter alia, ‘we can’t keep on fighting forever’; ‘Somaliland and Puntland are taking advantage of our situation and are handing-over our O'gaden youth to Ethiopia’; ‘all Somalis are prostrating under the feet of Meles and we can’t be different’; and ‘the Sheikhash and Somalis in the region are taking our land while we are occupied with fighting Ethiopia’.

 

 

All or some of these can make sense to some, but the plausibility or implausibility of the rationale given for the peace deal is really an aside issue. It is the absence of any tangible concessions the two former rebels could tell to the people that is most instructive. If the basis of signing the peace deal was, therefore, out of helplessness and defeatism, it is surrender, not a peace deal. UWSLF and Ma’ow’s “ONLF” should justify the surrender instead of proliferating inane nomenclature of ‘peace’ and ‘deal’ where there is neither! Far too easier than hiding behind short dareemo grass in a tree-less Hawd, is simply dressing up your hinds.

 

2. Peace they need in Stockholm, not in Salaxaad

 

The war between the Ethiopian Government and the ONLF is being fought in six of the nine zones of the Somali Regional State (Somalil Galbeed). One would therefore expect peace meetings to happen inside the region and most of its proponents to be from the communities most affected by the lack of peace. Respected elders, intellectuals and oracles from the ****** and other Somali clans clan should have organized by their own volition and should have held mass rallies, meetings and peace conferences inside Somali Galbeed. Ubiquitous calls for peace should have come from the land that is deprived of peace for decades.

 

Instead, virtually all of the ‘Peace-dealers’ are Diaspora dwellers, who seem to be tired of the drudgeries of life in foreign lands, and ready to offer peace for jobs and land titles at whatever cost. The enthusiasm for peace was not witnessed in Gunagado, Gomar and Hamaro; it was witnessed in Stockholm, St. Paul, and London. Which brings the interesting question: when the ones who bore the brunt of the war are in rural villagers in Somali Galbeed, why is the Peace propagated in Western capitals and not in the areas that need it most?

 

The answer to this question is a simple one: because it is not a peace deal. It is a peace banter and pretense staged for the benefit of Western funders of Ethiopian regime. Ethiopia aims to kill three birds with one stone by publicizing false peace: it will maintain Western financial support by giving the impression it is working on its political challenges at home; it will divide the ****** clan along sub-clan lines (the Rer-Abdille Vs Rer-Issaq statement by Meles is a proof); and it will give false sense of security to oil companies who it wants to use to exploit the natural resources of the region.

 

It found hungry and tired Diasporas as the other side of the binary of mischief it created. Hungry people are often tempted to gnaw at their ideals, indeed to act against their own interests for short-term gains, for one plate of rice or for a piece of land. So, there is no surprise Ethiopia is not dancing alone in the ‘Peace’ tango. As tired Diaspora members flock to Addis Ababa, the local population, who carry multiple lacerations in the body and soul from colonial oppression, is rebuffing the ‘peace’ propaganda of the occupiers with surprising equanimity. This is what is astonishing.

 

The best brains of the O'gaden clan inside Somali Galbeed are incarcerated and tortured in prisons. Most of the educated Diaspora members do not approve of the way the ongoing ‘peace’ deals are conducted. The caliber and social standing of most of the supporters of the ‘peace’ move, both in the Diaspora and inside the Somali region, is very low.

 

In any case, most of the people who are claiming to be ‘rebels’ who made ‘peace’ are not what they claim to be, and have no means of stopping the war in the region. Meles is not dealing with the real stakeholders and it is naïve to suggest he doesn’t know this.

 

3. Any Peace dividends yet?

 

The only tangible thing that came out of the ‘Peace deals’ were the release of many prisoners, who were never charged by a court of law and convicted of any crimes in the first place. Even as some were leaving the gates of the jails, new inmates were taking the squalid perch the released ones vacated. The whole exercise was used to create divisions among clans. Mahdi Ayoub was released, but Bashir Makhtal is still in jail. Suldan Fozi Ali Abdi is in custody, but Ali Shucaac is out. This follows Meles Zenawi’s embarrassing interview in which he claimed that he is fighting “Rer-Issaq”, and is negotiating with “Rer-Abdille”. Apart from the circular arrest-release-arrest phenomenon, not much else has happened in Somaligalbeed, after the Sheikhs of UWSLF came back from the Gulf and Ma’ow of ‘ONLF’ arrived, with small, mostly bucolic men.

 

‘Executive’ Sheikhs: Sheikh Ibrahim and Ahmed Nashaad of the UWSLF (Al-Itahad) have just launched an NGO. They have also been given land in prime areas of Jigjiga and Godey. Most of the people who reported to Jigjiga as delegations of ‘Peace’ from UWSLF were from Diaspora – Money Transfer owners and workers in Johannesburg, Community organizers in London, and some website owners elsewhere. There is no change in terms of freedom of speech and association in the region since the advent of the ‘peace’. During the initial days of the deal, Sheikh Ibrahim raised few complaints over the continued arrest of people. The regional President, Abdi Mohamed Omer (Iley), told the Sheikh, that if he continues to ask similar questions, the President will consider it as “evidence UWSLF is not serious about the ‘peace’ it signed”. Even when Sheikh Ibrahim and his UWSLF colleagues are allowed to preach in the Mosques of Jigjiga, all of which are run by Sufis because of government policy of neutralizing Salafists, they are given talking points and are not allowed to speak outside ‘the virtue of peace’ topics. In the last two weeks, some members of his team are held under house-arrest. It can therefore safely be said that they have exchanged ‘peace’ for NGOs and land title deeds, for there is nothing else they can exhibit as a peace souvenir.

 

Ma’ow’s maudlin cheerfulness: Salahadin Ma’ow’s ‘ONLF’ peace mission did not get land like the UWSLF, but are enjoying the warmth of high-profile receptions and festivities accorded to them by the Government of Ethiopia. Some of the contingent that joined him when he travelled to Jigjiga confided to relatives that they were interested only in the free-tickets and money they were given and that they wanted to use the occasion to visit families they haven’t been able to see for years. Ma’ow is, characteristically, smiling broadly ever after he signed the ‘peace’, but there are no substantive concessions that were offered by the Ethiopians, which can make people understand the cause for his maudlin cheerfulness. Ma’ow is even said to be having difficulties with President Abdi Iley; the latest misunderstanding being Ma’ow’s displeasure over Iley’s instruction that the Diaspora teams in Jigjiga should go back to where they came from.

 

4. Chinua Achebe in Vain

 

In Things Fall Apart, the Nigerian sage Chinua Achebe narrates, through his created characters, how an injured community agrees to send a delegation to the offending village few rivers away. Strangely, and although ashen-haired elders of the villages advised against it, the aggrieved community sends its most warlike citizens as emissaries to seek and bring peace. Expectedly, they come back with a hot war, bagging hate and boiling emotion.

 

It turns out they had asked peace while shaking sticks for emphasis. The village of Umuofia is puzzled by the response to its search for peace. Whereupon one of the village elder reminds Umuofia: “you do not place a parcel of live coal in tender hands of a child and exhort him to speedily deliver it to your neighbour with utmost care! Now see with what care the child has delivered the parcel”, the old man said, looking away in disgust.

 

The moral of the story and its parallel to the Somaligalbeed situation cannot be missed. The Tigre rulers of Ethiopia will not be surprised if peace doesn’t come to Somaligalbeed. The very act of sending an infantile team of young stooges to go and get a peace is absurd. It is not a mistake or a misjudgment. It is by design and it shows Meles Zenawi doesn’t want peace. The poster face of Ethiopia’s grotesque peace is President Abdi Iley, a man who is consistently accused of committing human right violations. No sane leader would put his faith in men of Abdi Iley’s intellect and temperament to advance peace and reconciliation, if the leader is desirous about real peace and an end to hostility. That is why Meles’s peace maneuvers are nude and fake.

 

5.Conclusion

 

There is no peace deal signed in Somali Regional State of Ethiopia. UWSLF surrendered unconditionally, and a group of men purporting to be a wing of the “ONLF” came to Addis Ababa. There is no change at all, as far as the core issues of self-determination, regional autonomy, or at least genuine Federal governance is concerned. The ‘peace’ deals did not bring a sunrise that offers a tranquil respite, during which ruptured souls would be sutured and gaping wounds would heal, to the people of Somali Galbeed. Those who were released from prisons are grateful, but they know they are merely passing through an excruciating interlude in a cycle of subjugation. They know it is not the time for loud laughter; it is the time for muffled sigh.

 

The Somali Galbeed people continue to live in hunger, violence, and unremitting fear. If at all, the ‘peace’ has brought misery to more citizens in Jigjiga , Degahbour, and Godey, who are beaten and whose properties are confiscated because their siblings and parents in the Diaspora did not welcome Abdi Iley and other delegations from Ethiopia with verdant flowers, when they descended on Europe and North America.

 

The fear that gripped the locals until now is exported and internationalized. Even those who escaped torture and live in the far lands no more feel safe, as any action they do would have a severe repercussions for their relatives back home. But they must know they will only encourage tyranny if they are intimidated and silenced. They need to speak out with a much louder voice now than they ever did.

 

Sheikh Ibrahim, Ma’ow and the hungry men and women from the Diaspora stand to reap the most from this peace charade. Presently they ride high on fickle ‘peace’ sentiment and ONLF-bashing. But the narrow horse they enjoy riding for now, will not take them any higher. Trapped in the integument of colonial politics, their fate will be sealed in being fodder for the colonizer, fighting for the right to be the top lackey for the master; instead of positively affecting the politics of the region. They will also suffer the most when the ephemeral objective of this peace skit is attained. A good-looking he-goat that pecks on the rest up to the Eid-al-Adha time turns itself into a strong candidate for a deadly Eid cheer.

 

The chaotic way with which some Diaspora people are streaming into Addis Ababa encourages Ethiopia to continue its divide-and-rule policy and is unlikely to make life better for the people in the region. Their only contribution, beyond personal gains for themselves, is to prolong the misery of Somali Galbeed people and to undermine any chances of facing Ethiopian machinations with unified front. Their actions will not contribute to the realization of peaceful settlement to the conflict in the region.

 

 

ONLF may be carrying a clan name and its fighters may be coming from a specific clan, but their war is a mere chapter in the longstanding struggle of the Somali Galbeed people. Ethiopia’s current rulers did not spare any clan when it comes to oppression. ****** men and women are losing limbs and legs; other Somali clans are losing land and farms. The case of Jinacsani, Maeiso, Afdem and Babile are good examples. Neither UWSLF nor Ma’ow raised these issues in their ‘peace deals’.

 

The Tigre rulers of Ethiopia are dividing the people further and further, taking advantage of Somalis unique propensity for self-destruction and the universal human foible of greed. The ONLF leadership is in reactive mode, trapped by inefficiency and is running out of ideas. But these temporary predicaments, however daunting, must not weaken the resolve of the Somali Galbeed people to fight for their rights.

 

This calls for a creative and courageous leadership from ONLF. They must reflect on and urgently implement the recommendations of the Karamardha Group . It also mandates action from non-ONLF Somali Galbeed intellectuals to work towards creating conditions that will make ONLF see the benefits of changing its name and its clan-based mobilization and organization strategy.

 

Broadening the struggle against TPLF by closely working with other Ethiopian opposition forces is critical; and if it means some of the aspirations of the Somali Galbeed people would have to be shelved for now, so be it. A phased approach to independence can be adopted. This could have been arranged with the TPLF leadership too, but through their consistent negative actions and approaches, they have demonstrated, beyond any doubt, their unwillingness to be a real partner for peace. They cannot be trusted and the alternative is to look elsewhere.

 

Source

[Qodax Qorax]

So many words used to explain why he refuses to join

his people who choose Peace.

 

Just say you want war and refuse Peace, and its clear to everyone your a Nabad-diid.

[The Zack]

^He refuses to surrender, get the record straight!

[Abtigiis]

Q&Q,

 

I now see why that nefarious cousin of mine, Dakhare, was right. He used to say 'fools only see things in false binary of black and white".

[Kamaavi]

Good read, Zack. Thanks for sharing.

[Mayaani]

Qodax is looking Ethopian recognition so he has disregard rights other Somalis. Nabadu micnaheeda ma aha inaad slave noqotid. Somali muslim ayaan ku jihaaday baad meel walba la taagan tihiin hadii in gaal lagu jihaado maxaa u diidan tahay.

[Kamaavi]

Zack, any more up dates so far?

[The Zack]

Kamaavi;679896 wrote:

Zack, any more up dates so far?

Salaxudiin has been kicked out of Jigjiga already. He wasn't able to get along with Iley and his crew, he is currently at somewhere near 6 Killo. Weynu arki doonaa meeja ay ku dhamaato.