Open Letter To His Excellency, Abdiqasim

[Gabbal]

From: Hussein Ahmed Warsame, PhD

To: His Excellency, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan the President of Somalia.

 

Abdiqasim Salad Hassan

President of Somalia

 

Excellency:

 

Almost three years ago, I sent to you a letter of advice. I believe it was delivered to you privately when you were in New York in 2000. In that letter, I basically asked you to

(1) surround yourself with men and women who have the guts to tell you the truth when you are wrong,

(2) choose a prime minister who has a good reputation among Somalis and who is conscious of the complex nature of reconciling Somalis and reconstituting their State,

(3) appreciate the delicate nature of the Somaliland issue. I was under the impression that most of that advice was uncontroversial and straightforward. Yet, I received some hate-mail for it after friends that I shared it with leaked it to the secessionist camp. I am, therefore, expecting that this one will also cause me some headache. Nevertheless, I decided to write, in the hope that it may help you make an uncomfortably tough but correct decision about the Somali reconciliation process.

 

Excellency,

 

I am asking you to go back to Mbagathi and take your rightful place in the Somali reconciliation conference. I read some where that "Mawliid Macaane" was asked by the Group 8 to convince you to come back to the conference. I am asking you to listen to that wise, humble, and honest Somali man. I am asking you not to wait for a call from the President of Kenya or his delegate. Remember, while the President of Kenya will ask you not to embarrass him, Mawliid will ask you not to abandon the suffering Somalis who are either internally displaced or are in refugee camps in neighboring or Western countries.

 

Excellency,

 

When I wrote my first and only other letter to you in September 2000, I, like many Somalis, was hopeful that the Arta outcome will significantly help in bringing back dignity and unity to the Somali people. Three years later, that hope has all but vanished. Of course, many other Somalis believed that we, the Arta supporters, were either unscrupulous opportunists, or naïve personalities who did not study Somali history. I believe that we were neither. I still believe that despite the failure of your government to carry the day, history will be kind to the Arta outcome and the sacrifices of the 5000 delegates who attended that meeting and the generosity and concern of the host, President Ismail Omer Geelleh and the people of the Republic of Djibouti. At the minimum, it helped destroy the myth that the warlords were invincible.

 

I do not expect that there will ever be a political meeting anywhere and for any group, people, or nationality, that will be free of weaknesses. The Arta Process was no different. In my last letter to you, I wrote this:

Excellency, you may not agree with us, but I and many other supporters of yours, believe that the Arta process had weaknesses; that many compromises were made; that the original consultation process was limited, due to obvious financial as well as time considerations; and that the delegate selection process was deficient. We believe that this resulted in sub-optimal choice of representation from certain regions, especially the Northwest regions. Of course, the repressive self-styled separatist administration of Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, which denies the people of their self-expression, is mainly to blame for it. We also believe that representation based mainly on clan affiliations has major inherent drawbacks. Many people believe that the government of Djibouti, especially its president, had undue influence on the early stages of the process. Your presidency and administration unfortunately inherited these perceived and/or real weaknesses.

 

The above weaknesses alone were enough to compromise the functioning of any administration produced by the Arta process. But, I believe that four other factors contributed to the failure of the Arta process:

(1) not only did your administration underestimate the ability of the disgruntled warlords and the secessionist Somaliland administration to disrupt its efforts, it also behaved as if the World community owed it to solve its problems for it,

(2) your administration underestimated the determination of Ethiopia to frustrate the outcomes of the Arta process,

(3) your administration overestimated the status of Somalia in the Arab League and unduly relied on Arab support,

(4) the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on U.S.A.

 

Excellency

 

I am asking you to go back to the Mbagathi conference to basically save its outcome from the same problems that frustrated your administration. Just like you underestimated the warlords, the members of the "leaders group" in the Mbagathi conference are now underestimating you, Yallaxow, Hiiraale, Xaabsade and the Somaliland administration. Just like you expected the World community to solve your financial and strategic problems for you, they are relying on the African Union (AU), the European Union and EGAD to put and keep them in power. Just like you overestimated support from the Arab countries, they are overestimating Ethiopia's ability to do good deeds.

 

Your objections to the July 5th outcome of the Mbagathi conference, as stated in your press conferences, are all understandable. In fact, I believe that your presence and the media coverage that your press conferences received vastly improved the version of the Charter currently under discussion. The charter now indicates: that Somali and Arabic are Somalia's official languages; that Islam is Somalia's religion; the borders of the nation are clearly specified. That improvement is in large part due to your campaign.

 

Excellency

 

There is no doubt that some participants and sponsors of the conference worked hard to isolate you. Had it not been for the opportunity that you received to air your concerns about the conference in this year's AU Heads' meeting, I believe that their plan would have been more effective. But I also believe that your decision not to participate in the remaining phase of the conference will neither help you to become less isolated nor will it help the Somali people to get a better deal.

 

I believe that the sponsors of the conference are anxious to show something for the 20 million US dollars that they spent on it. Therefore, they will push hard to pass a charter and they will build a government. They will also pledge to finance a weak peace keeping African force just to indicate that the outcomes from Mbagathi will not meet the same fate as those of Arta. They will probably decide on an alternative seat for the transitional government while reaffirming their support that Mogadishu remains the future capital of Somalia. In the mean time, you and the remaining members of the Transitional National Government (TNG) and Transitional National Assembly (TNA) will probably meet and unilaterally decide to continue claiming to be the government and the parliament of the nation until such time that an arrangement that meets your approval is agreed upon by the "Somali People". But we all know that such an action will accomplish nothing more than providing you with a newly minted warlord status.

 

Excellency

 

Notwithstanding the failure of your administration to make a meaningful contribution to the reconstruction of the Somali state, I believe that you still command fairly high credibility among the participants of the Mbagathi conference and internationally. Your presence in that conference will improve its outcome by as much as your absence will ensure its failure. Most likely, at the end of that conference, you will be losing your presidency with or without your presence. But the consequences for the Somali people as well as for your name in the Somali communities will depend on your participation in that conference. Therefore, I implore you to go back to the Somali Reconciliation Conference in Mbagathi, Nairobi, and to continue working as best as you can to basically throw yourself out of office but to keep your dignity in tact. I hope that at the conclusion of the conference I can still refer to you as "Excellency".

 

Regards,

 

Hussein Ahmed Warsame, B.Sc., MBA, Ph.D.

Professor Warsame teaches and researches in accounting and taxation at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, Canada.