Qaybe’s insightful thoughts on the secession deserve reminding

[baalcade]

Wardheernews has been in the forefront, more than any other Somali website, in defending Somalia’s unity and serve as an open, unbiased forum where diverse views on Somalia’s vexed problems and possible solutions are presented, not least those from secessionist diehards. It is therefore to be complimented for reprinting Qaybe’s memorable thoughts on the one-clan driven secession based in some parts of NW Somalia, which he originally intimated to the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs in May 1994. Those irrefutable home truths stood the test of time and remain as valid today as they were when he first made them at that time. And it is this reminding that makes then today an anathema in secessionist circles

 

Casting gratuitous aspersions on Wardheernews’ noble goal of being faithful to its true journalistic mission is to be expected for those whom any bad news about Somalia is good news and one plus for Somaliland, and any dissent with - their misguided secession is dismissed out of hand as a sacrilege against what they see as their sacred, untouchable secession. One such critic of Wardheernews for having the temerity to reprint Qaybe’s legendary thoughts is a certain Mr. Sarmad Shaykh. Writing in Awdalnews, he has been lashing out at the website because Qaybe’s incontestable truths are an antithesis of all those mendacious propaganda that the secessionists had propagated since they declared their secession in 1991

 

It is instructive to revisit some selected extracts of Qaybe thoughts which he gave at a time when he was still held in high esteem and his views as a former foreign minister were very much after-sought. This is what he had to say:

 

“A majority of the residents of the former

Somaliland oppose secession, and that the independence movement is an attempt by the **** clan to grab power”;

 

“It’s a one tribe issue; the Isaqs want to secede and he other clans are saying no”:

“The other clans are willing to manage their own affairs locally until such time as a central government is formed. They are willing to be patient”;

 

“Despite their differences, all the other clans are against secession”

 

“There is no such a thing as a united Somaliland”

 

“The ***** secessionist aspirations date back to the early years of Somali independence and gradually evolved into the armed Somali National Movement(SNM)”;

 

“The Isaaqs felt they lost out in the union; however, members of the ***** clan have served in every major post in the Somali government save that of the president. Egal for instance was prime minister of Somalia from 1967-1969”.

 

In the face of these unfavourable facts, Sarmad can only come up with some bland unconvincing counter argument aimed at damage control. He claims that Qaybe’s statements “works to Somaliland’s advantage”. “How” he asks? Because it shows, according to him, that the “diehard opponents of Somaliland are being won over” and adds:” if the man who uttered those words in 1994 is today one of the leaders of Somaliland who are campaigning for its cause, what does that tell you about Somaliland?” Well, what it tells me, and no doubt others, is that Qaybe is a dead liability since what Somaliland has gained is not a believer in its cause, given his past record, but a desperate old man , having despaired of the revival of the Somali State or any other future elsewhere, felt that throwing his lot with Somaliland was the only option left for him, where he could trade his dubious initial propaganda value to the secessionists for a secure comfortable life in Hargeisa in his old age.

 

Even if one was to assume that Qaybe has undergone genuine miraculous conversion to the secession, which is not the case, what matters above anything else is not his change of heart per se but whether he has any significant support in his own SSC regions which he could deliver to Hargeisa. It is this aspect which in the end counts for Hargeisa and not the fact that he was once the foreign minister of Siyad Barre’s last government. Regarding the extent of his constituency suppor, Qaybe has always been a solitary lonely figure in every sense of the word with no grassroots back-up in his native home ground. Rarely have Qaybe , and the other mercenaries from Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, all marooned in Hargeisa, ever ventured out of the city and went back to their constituencies in order to mobilise support for the secession.

 

It is true that Fuad Aden Adde went back the other day to his birth place, Lascanod, but only under the protection of the invaders and occupiers of the city. Such humiliating spectacle of being protected from the wrath of his people by their occupiers might have broken the back of any self-respecting man but that is something over which the types of Fuad Adden Adde, Xaabsade, Qaybe and other SSC mercenaries would not lose any sleep. Qaybe may pride himself that, unlike Fuad Adan Adde, he went back to Buuhoodle the other day unaccompanied by Somaliland militia. But all the same, his forced exit from the town, after he was chased out by the residents, is no less ignominious-all the more so since this visit may well turn out to be his last to his native home town.

 

Taking Xaabsaade shameful comings and goings between Somaliland and Puntland as a typical case of the ways of SSC drop-outs and traitors to their region and country, one can only ponder as to where one draws the line between those who sell themselves to a cause they do not believe in purely for personal gain, , and those who sell their body equally for financial rewards?. In layman’s language, the two types only represent different facets of self-prostitution. What value then can such people have for Hargeisa? The answer is none, although Sarmad may disagree. It is this realisation that they had no support in the SSC regions at large that ultimately persuaded the secessionist enclave to invade and occupy Lascanod.

 

Now that the early days of euphoria has ebbed, the occupiers are under no illusion now that their days in Lascanod and Sool are numbered and that they will be thrown out from Sool sooner rather later. But if there is something from Sool, Sanaag and Cayn that the secessionists will be allowed to hang on to, it is to continue to keep those SSC traitors at their own taxpayers’ expenses. The SSC regions appreciate that Hargeisa Hargeisa continues to serve as a magnet and dumping ground for SSC traitors. And if Sarmad sees our “traitors” as their “gain”, so be it.

 

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