Southern Somalia, The Killing Zone

[NASSIR]

Southern Somalia, The Killing Zone

Mogadishu (HAN) February 11, 2005

--This is not the first time he has drawn attention to himself, but Yalaxow, one of Mogadishu’s notorious warlords, vowed to keep Mogadishu “The Kill Zone†it has been for years now. He vowed not to cooperate with the African Union (AU) in its attempt in bringing African troops to secure Mogadishu. For all the enough and apparent reasons that the AU, or the world for that matter, has agreed to send troops in order to save Mogadishu from the grip of Yalaxow and his likes, Yalahow contends that the foreign troops will bring AIDS to Mogadishu. Give me break! Will you?

 

Over the years since the collapse of the government in Mogadishu, tens of thousands of Somalis lost their lives and Yalaxow and his gutless militia contributed to the death of many residents in Mogadishu, if not to most of the day-to-day problems. Yalaxow and his militia are responsible for a countless dead bodies on the streets of Mogadishu, where innocent people, young, old, men and women, were slammed with bullets that torn their bodies, bored holes in their lungs or tunneled through their hearts, left them dead and naked on the streets of Mogadishu, where survival is redefined as killing your neighbors and even brothers and sisters. They were the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers of someone. They died in vain; their souls were gone with a blink of the eye. Yalaxow is not only still walking on the streets of Mogadishu alive, but also gained power to the highest ranks, the Trade Minister, a post that he desperately campaigned for with the promise that he would control his armed men in Mogadishu when the new government moves in. Knowledge, intellect, experience in government, wisdom or integrity were not required for the post. And that very much described the former soldier warlord, Yalaxow.

Did AIDS kill those innocent Somalis that Yalaxow ordered to die? Does he really care if all he calls his enemy died tomorrow from bullet wounds or AIDS? There are those who are dying today in many parts of the country from all kinds of diseases, both curable and incurable, including AIDS. Given this desperate, life and death situation on the streets of Mogadishu, does it really matter what one dies from? A bullet to the head is a guarantee thing anyways, sometimes prescribed by Yalaxow and his cohort.

 

 

For years now, Yalaxow has been in the middle of different conflicts, where he and his men facilitated the unfortunate consequences of lawlessness and the destruction that culminated today’s “Kill Zone†in Mogadishu. He failed to grasp the importance of peaceful coexistence, and that survival for any society, above all else, means interdependence, pushing aside individual egos, embracing group differences and making societal mutual interests a priority, all which are treats crucial to mankind and his civilization as a whole. Unfortunately, Yalaxow and his cohorts in Mogadishu put their egos above all other mutual interests, where for more than two decades now, they persistently continued their Darwinian notion of the survival of the fittest. For long time, Yalaxow perused what has become the norm in Mogadishu for the last two decades, the infamous lifestyle of war lordship where killing, extortion, torture and intimidation are the means to power and wealth. He resisted respecting human lives or the law and order of the society, he openly and publicly refused supporting the idea of government in its totality; and left no stone unturned to undermine the Arta initiative, established relationship with Ethiopia, who supplied him with shipments of heavy machine guns, AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles as well as grenades and other weapons and ammunition, with which he constantly used, and even as late as of today, to kill and torture innocent Somalis in every corner of Mogadishu and its suburbs. Not only did Yalaxow succeeded to mastermind an atmosphere of unrest and chaos in Mogadishu in order to dissemble Arta initiative and Abdulkassim’s ill-advised move to Mogadishu, a tactic that he is still capable of employing when Abdillahi Yussuf arrives Mogadishu, but he made it no secret to his extortion and kidnapping tactics against the UN workers when he repeatedly ambushed them, and in 2001 orchestrated the captivity of four aid workers by his militia. He accused the UN staff for, in his words, “sneaking into the country without informing any of the faction leadersâ€. In as late as June 2004, Yalaxow and his militiamen destroyed and confiscated equipments belonging to Somali journalists, who were both harassed and denied their rights to collect information. This is how he came to power and Somalia is expecting him to lead the Ministry of Trade. Trading human dead bodies? May be!

This is the same Yalaxow who once, speaking of TNG, said, “ The only way we could accept an international force to come to Somalia is if they are going to disarm the terrorists and Abdiqasim Salad Hassanâ€. He continued saying, “It is true that we, the faction leaders, share some views and we differ on some. However, our common objective is to remove the so called Arta Governmentâ€. Today, yet again, he vehemently rejects the agreement that the parliament, of which he is a member, signed and agreed upon to send foreign troops to secure Mogadishu in order to disarm him [Yalaxow] and his cohorts. However, this behavior of Yalaxow is nothing new. He countless times refused to honor his own signature before by breaking out of agreements, where many times peace agreements were brokered between these warring factions in order to bring stability to the streets of Mogadishu. He even violated ceasefire agreements as late as last year, during IGAD peace talk mediation in Kenya. This doesn’t draw a good picture of a guy or a trustworthy record of a man, who could guarantee loyalty to Abdillahi Yussuf. His action so far fell far short of the promise that he made to restore order in his untamed militiamen, if and when the new government arrives in Mogadishu, the Kill Zone. Yalaxow believes in his heart that war is the only answer to his long dream, power, extortion, and why not? Crime pays off in Somalia. Abdillahi Yussuf is the president, isn’t he?

The same applies to Yalaxow, who even lost his own brother in these war, but yet never succeeded to bring himself to a crucially needed critical debriefing of what his madness is all about, or at least to smell the blood of his own people on the streets of ruined city of Mogadishu. Even the death of his own brother in these aimless wars failed to help him gnaw on things or internalize and analyze this madness, as he lacks the human behavior that guides us into the state of mind of questioning our conscience in times of uncertainty. Even as a trade Minister in this new warlord government, he lacks stewardship to understand that peace is the only way out of this madness, and that his initial responsibility is to see to it that his militiamen do not violate the very agreement he himself signed, to guarantee that the new government and its AU forces relocate in Mogadishu peacefully. His biggest problem is fear! Nowhere is the divergence among the warlords and the tendencies to break apart are more visible than in Mogadishu warlords. They trust neither each other nor Abdillahi Yussuf.

 

 

Now that he is being forced to join hands with his long-time rivals, other warlords, in a search for a mutual defense against their own respective arsenals, and to radically change their behaviors towards each other and towards the rest of the innocent Somalis, Yalaxow is nervous. The notion of peace and disarmament spells insecurity for him, a fear of losing control, a fear of being subjected to the law of the land, where criminals like him should have been in jail, where courts evolve towards legal system in which jurists strive. Real Courts (Not the so-called Islamist Courts in Mogadishu), with their elements include independent judges presiding over trials in the presence of unbiased jury, using established legal precedents to arrive a just verdict. A jury of his peers that have no interest in the outcome of the trial except to see that justice is done. Courts where truth would have eventually emerged and he would be hung high for the crimes he committed against his own people, some he even knew them by name, close relatives, his own Abgal brothers and sisters.

 

 

Today he sides with the radical Islamists that control Mogadishu courts, a corrupt fundamentalist group of Taliban sheikhs, who brought shame to Islamic communities everywhere, and more so to Somalis, by their recent horrendous actions against dead bodies, ---graveyard skeletons, savagely exhumed from their resting places and scattered on the streets of Mogadishu, The Kill Zone. Worse yet, there was no united uproar of condemnation from the peace-loving Somalis either, as we have become sensitized and to some extent numbed by our unfortunate state of affairs for the last two decades, where we chose to keep our heads in the sand; vow to silence when it comes to matters of national importance. We even failed to join the rest of the world in their respective but united voice of condemnation of Islamist Courts in Mogadishu, because of their most inhumane, barbaric, un-Islamic and embarrassing actions they have taken against the graveyards where these skeletons were resting in peace. They even ordered a death warrant for anyone that dared to investigate or expose their evil ways. In The Kill Zone, nowadays, even celebration of New Year has been redefined as a crime against Islam, and that anyone accused of singing “Sanad Waliba Hoodiyo wuxuu Hadimo Leeyahay, Waa Laga Helaayoo Hadhow Lagu Xusuustaa†will be dragged to jail or flogged into a torture chamber to induce fear, where no one escapes punishment.

 

 

One thing certain, nonetheless, is that AU troops are on their way to Mogadishu and it is a matter of time before these warlords and vagabonds, Sheikhs and all, are subjected to the law of the land.

 

By: Ali Bahar - mailto:aib_1@yahoo.com