Is The Government Loosing The Propaganda War

[NASSIR]

Is The Government Loosing The Propaganda War?

 

 

Bill Ainashe

Friday, March 25 2005

 

Today the Kenyan Daily Nation newspaper reports:

 

The Somali government is to move to Mogadishu in May, Cabinet minister John Koech said yesterday. The Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the African Union (AU), in charge of the relocation, will have completed preparatory work for the government to go to Somalia. Next month, said Mr Koech, the Igad council of ministers will meet to “operationalise†the relocation. On its part, the transitional government, led by President Abdullahi Yusuf, would have completed its duty of “mechanisms of the physical†movement.

 

 

Well, we have been here before haven’t we? And I must say that this is really getting very confusing for everyone. Why is everyone else talking about the Somali government’s relocation plans while the government itself is so silent about this issue? Who is in control here and who is setting the agenda of the Somali interim federal government? The Somali interim government seems, at least at the outset, that it is loosing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Somali people. Certainly, it is loosing the propaganda war at an alarming rate. The destructive tribal warlords are getting bolder by day with demands and political ultimatums. Indeed, they are now saying that their primary objective is to impeach Ali Gedi’s government and the president himself in an attempt to complete their illegal quest for total control of the interim Somali federal government.

 

It important to remember, that only few days ago, President Museveni told us when the first batch of the African Union troops, primarily from Sudan and Uganda will be airlifted to Somalia. Soon after that IGAD Defense Ministers issued statement saying that no troops from the frontlines states will be dispatched to Somalia as peacekeepers thus securing a short lived propaganda “victory†for the destructive Mogadishu warlords and their accomplice, Matt Bryden who made a life long career on his pursuit of destroying the Somali Nation! Shortly, after that, and before that week even ended, we were told that Nigeria would be sending additional troops. It is worth noting that none of those fragmented critical pieces of information came from the Somali interim federal government directly. The question is then, why did the government go missing?

 

I believe the reason for this confusion stems from the fact that the communication staff working both for the Prime Minister and President Abdullahi Yusuf have failed and failed miserably in the eyes of the Somali people and the world at large. Indeed, I was very relieved when Sifir; the communications director and presidential spokesman was fired few weeks ago. The Information Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Mohamoud Abdullahi Sifir have never been loyal to President Abdullahi Yusuf and his government. He had his own political agenda and the President knew that he was not the best man for the job. However, I believe President Abdullahi Yusuf thought the perceived positive political impact of bringing someone from northern Somalia outweighed the potential damage Sifir could inflict upon the government. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the President was deceived by his political advisors. They ignorantly overlooked Sifir’s long record of disloyalty and political opportunism. It was not long time ago when Sifir was singing with the secessionist chorus in Hargaysa!

 

Fortunately, in the end, the president realized that Sifir was not only unfit to be the presidential spokesman, but he was indeed undermining the president’s policy directives by colluding with the destructive Mogadishu warlords. Needless to say, everyone knows now exactly where Sifir’s political loyalty lays. Indeed, he is now one of the leading conspirers trying to destroy the Somali peace accord and thus plunge the country into further political instability and potentially a new bloody civil war. Obviously, Sifir and other warmongers have slim chance of succeeding with their misguided political objective, which is, to highjack the collective political will of the Somali people. However, he has undoubtedly inflicted serious damage upon the government’s image in recent months.

 

The communications staff of the Prime Minister’s office is not doing any better either. Indeed, the people the Prime Minister surrounded himself as his communications staff are inexperienced political neophytes who know practically nothing about the intricacy of modern media spin. Instead of using the media as a tool to disseminate government’s policies, and as a means to reach out to the Somali people. They seem to be busy with damage control, which could have been avoided if they were smart enough in the first place. Unfortunately, these people seem to be in a goose-chase running after the media rather than leading the media and set the political agenda so that the collective interest of the Somali people takes precedence over Matt Bryden’s Bank accounts.

 

It goes without saying that Matt Bryden achieved what he wanted; free publicity! Aden Nuux Dhuule of the BBC Somali service gave him the other day eight minutes free air time out of their usual thirty minute daily program! Indeed, Aden Nuux Dhuule read direct translation over the airwaves of what Mat Bryden’s International Crisis Manufacturing Group put out on their website without critically and objectively examining the arguments made! I could not help but kept asking “Ma’anaa waalan mise Cadan baa laga heesayaa?†How could this little and unelected man, accountable to nobody in Somalia exercise such enormous political power and incapacitate the entire Somali political establishment with his poisonous propaganda?

 

One of the shameful examples of this communications failure is the disastrous media strategy adapted by the Prime Ministers spokesman which was designed to bar the embryonic Somali media from the press releases he issued in the past. He foolishly thought that by punishing the Somali journalists collectively and rewarding foreign media handsomely he could silence the government’s critics. That strategy proved disastrous for the interim Somali government as Matt Bryden and his anti-Somali colleagues filled the role they vacated by feeding both the Somali and foreign media outlets with information hostile to the governments political and security agendas. Consequently, the “genie got out of the box†and the communications staff at the Prime Ministers office was incapacitated by their own mistakes and thus lost the control of the situation for weeks. This is one of the reasons why the destructive Mogadishu warlords dominated the media in recent weeks.

 

Matt Bryden, the Trojan horse of the International Crisis Manufacturing Group and Somalia’s self-appointed public enemy number one has succeeded single-handedly to turn the Somali interim government into political disarray thus creating serious security problems for the Somali people and as a result created political chaos that will take years to repair. Indeed, as the IGAD foreign ministers noted, the serious political damages caused by Matt Bryden and his organization is the biggest serious political and security issue that will continue to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa region for many more years to come. Needless to say, Matt Bryden kept acting as Somalia’s “official†spokesman by feeding the western media with loads of factually erroneous reports and press releases intended solely to destabilize the political cohesiveness of our people and thus endanger the security our country and our people.

 

I must say that, I believe President Abdullahi Yusuf is doing the right thing by staying above the current tribalist political quagmire. He is also right to maintain his serious statesman’s image and work diligently for the collective interest of the Somali people without getting to the nitty-gritty daily squabbles with the warlords. Having said that, I believe both the President and the Prime Minister must reshuffle their communications staff by bringing media savvy professionals forward.

 

More importantly, the government must adapt a new overall media strategy that will help the government to reach out to the Somali people with its message of hope and national reconciliation. That strategy must also facilitate the governments continues attempts to have fruitful dialogue with its critics; after all, the mission is to save Somalia and its people and restore the collapsed Somali state by any means necessary. Even, if those means include appeasing the destructive Mogadishu warlords by giving them disproportionate political powers over national matters.

 

In short, the interim Somali federal government must be the one that sets the political agenda rather than band-wagon with hostile media driven by Somalia’s enemies and the destructive warlords with help of Matt Bryden and other enemies of the Somali Nation.

 

I believe President Abdullahi Yusuf’s successful mission to the Arab Summit in Algiers, in which, the President managed to secure almost thirty million dollars of cash from the Arab countries as an aid to the Somali people must be highlighted and conveyed to our people. Unfortunately, the current communications staff said nothing about this thus far!

 

I think it is just about time that the success of the interim government is conveyed in an honest manner rather than being too obsessive with the destructive warlords.

 

Bill Ainashe

Editor,

www.ainashe.org

[NASSIR]

One of the shameful examples of this communications failure is the disastrous media strategy adapted by the Prime Ministers spokesman which was designed to bar the embryonic Somali media from the press releases he issued in the past. He foolishly thought that by punishing the Somali journalists collectively and rewarding foreign media handsomely he could silence the government’s critics. That strategy proved disastrous for the interim Somali government as Matt Bryden and his anti-Somali colleagues filled the role they vacated by feeding both the Somali and foreign media outlets with information hostile to the governments political and security agendas. Consequently, the “genie got out of the box†and the communications staff at the Prime Ministers office was incapacitated by their own mistakes and thus lost the control of the situation for weeks. This is one of the reasons why the destructive Mogadishu warlords ted the media in recent weeks.

 

Excellent Point!!!