     Governo | Sunday, April 08, 2001 - 06:16 pm
the knowledge is between us either we like or not Somalia had fall very hard , who is its duties to pickup there are some people trying their best ,but others see different way ,we know there are some obstacles and chronic elements out there ,and we know at the end we all Somali's need each other ,and our final goals are to be a Somali nation again every individual tell us how you feel and what you think to be correct ,open debate without insulting anyone...here is my opinion first if possible should be created a committee from Somalilad puntlnd Mugdisho and Bay/Bakol who are free from warlords and generals and their mission has to be reconciliation between the communities so the healing process can start..,than toward federal goverment ,states to have their local power,,,,and one thing I have to add those who committed any crime against any Somali civilian should be brouth to justice even in former dictator regime.....and please feel free to tell us your honest opinion,, thank you |
| Xalane | Sunday, April 08, 2001 - 07:05 pm
that is good idea but will Somaliland have to include . do they want to participate ,may be one day will become true dream. |
| Ms. | Sunday, April 08, 2001 - 08:59 pm
Xalane!
What do mean will Somaliland have to be included?
Have u ever asked yourself with sincerity that why Somaliland doesn't want to re-unite with Somalia?
I like u to answer my questions and I'll be more than happy to represent Somaliland with an open mind. Just to let u know, this is purely politics and nothing personal. Governo, had asked for some solution so, let's talk politcs and see what u all have to say. But first answer my questions.
Thanks
Ms. |
| Assassin | Sunday, April 08, 2001 - 11:29 pm
South produces people like Ninxoon! We can't relate to them period! Just leave the north well alone or we'll just have to scalp you all! |
| Keyse | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 04:19 am
The whole idea of unity came originaly from somaliland.. and it's upto them to join wheneva they wish to join..
why don't guys sort your regions out then you can start dreaming about unity..
first get rid of the war lords and sort your self out.... |
| Anonymous | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 04:24 am
See that is the problem Keyse-people like you. You talk about "you guys" sorting out YOUR problems and "you guys" sorting YOUR own regions. It is not you, they, them but US US US. WE all should be working together. |
| Alipapa | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 07:56 am
governo,
are you by any chance re-inventing the wheel?. we already had somalis getting together with no warlord around. it was arta which lasted 6 months.we don't need endless getting together. what we need is to support Arta results,work with them and try to put them in line.
Alipapa |
| Governo | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 07:34 pm
Alipapa
I don't see out there complete wheel everybody riding ,all I can see is re-grouping and re-arming so more fireworks will begin Art gov'mnt control by businessmen who worries only their wallets ,Bay&Bakol some troubles are going on ,puntland the general insist his power,,Somaliland from 1960-2001 one man show
please feed me back Alipapa its political incorrect |
| HaTer-GirL | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 09:07 pm
OK HOW MIGHT I START,HMMMMMMM......I MIGHT BE THE FIRST WOMAN IN HERE BUT HEY I GOT OPINIONS AND GREAT IDEAS WHICH NEED TO BE EXRESSED BUT IF WE KEEP TELLING EACHOTHER YOU ARE WRONG AND THIS SHOULDN'T BE DONE AND THAT AND THIS,WE AINT GONNA GET NO WHERE I HAVE SEEN SIMILAR TOPICS BEFORE AND THEY ENDED UP TALKING TRIBALISM AND SH+T SO FIRST OF ALL LET'S MAKE SURE THAT THIS TOPIC AINT GONNA END UP LIKE OTHER AND THEN LET'S TALK ABOUT POLITICS AND WHAT COULD BE DONE,CUZ I HATE TO SEE OUR PEOPLE TEARING EACHOTHER'S SKIN ACCUSING EACHOTHER OF WHATEVER THEY CAN THINK OF BUT ANYWAYZ I WILL EXPRESS MY POINT OF VIEW WHEN WE AGREE ON TALKING POLITICAL AND IN GROWN UP WAYS.
WASALAAMU CALEEYKUM. |
| Ms. | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 10:05 pm
Hater Girl:
No you r not the first woman to participate in this forum, but that's beside the point.
To All:
We r so much pre-consume of being politically correct we have failed to deal with the real issues here. I'm knew to Somalinet.com, but there is a theme that seems to be going through here. I think it's safe to state that the majority want of this forum want some sort of Somali Unity. However, we don't know how to implement this idea instead we r blaming Somaliland and Puntland for wanting a separate state. We all yearn the "good old Somalia" but the question is was there ever a good old Somalia. If somebody thinks so, please do educate me about it. Somalia fail part way before the civil war of 1988 in the North, and in the 1990s in the South.
This notion is indeed true. How do we know when a State failure is present.
1.When a State fails to provide its citizens with basic standders of living
2.When a State turns against its own citizen by bringing the army in.
And so on. Now, if we were to take our second characteristic of State failure, u would see it been very evident in Somalia before the civil wars. In 1980s if we remember the mass massacre that the ppl of Puntland experience if I have my facts correct. Later, the same thing was declare against the ppl of the North. Basically, the Siyad Barre regime wanted to eliminate whole tribes becuase they resist his leadership starting with the ppl of Putland and later Somaliland. Now, these provinces won independence through civil wars, and we r asking them to give their inde pence. These ppl, see Somali Unity as a threat to their peace and security. So, how r we suppose to make them understand that Somali Unity is worth taking chance for. We might say to each other, why don't they give up the "New Government" a chance. New Government? Almost everyone in the new government's parliament are ppl from the old regime. Same, ppl who with the same "AGENDA". ...................................I will continue this when I heard about your reaction. Again, this is pure politics and nothing personal.
Governo:
U said, that Somaliland is a one man show from 1960-2001. In case u have not notice their President is elected by the public. I thought, the Siyad Barre regime ended in the 1990s.
One question for u:
Was the New Government base on Democratic means or popularity contest? |
| HaTer-GirL | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 11:02 pm
MS. MAYBE U WERE TOO SHORT AND I COULDN'T SEE YA BUT ANYWAYZ ABOUT what u said part of it is true but i think u exaggerated a bit cuz nothing we call somaliland or puntland exist in the actual maps but hey if they want to dream about that i will let them be.I have reasons why these "CLAIMED" to be an independent country will never exist,first and the most important one is
:NO COUNTRY IN THE WORLD HAS LESS THAN THREE REGIONS IN ORDER TO BECOME AN INDEPENDENT NATION.
:DISTINCT VIEW OF THE WORLD WHICH IS DISTINCT FROM OTHER WORLD VIEWS.
i know there are a lot more that i am forgetting but these two will do anywayz back to the topic so what u r saying is a country that is less than let's say 700000 ml sq should devide int three different nations,c'mon be realistic and let's come back from outta space to face REALITY,there is no way that could happen i know it is, but believe me it is not going to be succesful and they are wasting their time,so what i am saying is nothing is better than being UNITY again,i know it's been UNJUST to some people but if we let BY-GONES-BY-GONES everything will be back to normal,like we all know LIFE IS ABOUT FORGIVING AND FORGETTING,and if u don't have that two believe me u aint getting anywhere in life.
and even though the question isn't to me but i will still answer it AS A MATTER OF FACT THE NEW GOVERNMENT IS BASED ON DEMOCRACY,now hold yar horses i will tell you why,tell me how long was the ARTA was going on?i will let you answer that since u seem to be familiar with politics.DO you think all this time they were wasting their time to see who's popular enough to win the position,no lil girl no,he was voted for on behalf of the somali nation,he was voted for and he won.
And about the somaliland president tell me if he was voted for on behalf of all THE NORTHERNERS.
anymore u would like to be explained you know what to say.
wasalaamu caleeykum. |
| F.O.B | Monday, April 09, 2001 - 11:46 pm
@GOVERNO
True Somalia needs each other, I guess we are the only ones left at the meeting. To answer your postings.
1)I spend some time on the Forum, this subject is important to me as well as the others, we all need to see the end result...
I started my own path of inquiry from the perspective of someone who felt we needed a stronger unity and recognition, we have to have a good recognition without one's qabiil..
F.O.B |
| Bahsan | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 02:18 am
It think it is time that we realize that Somalia would never be united again. So if a region decides to break away, I think we should give them a thumbs up so long as they can provide peace, a system for it's people something that Somalia right now can't provide.
And besides you guys are enjoying the luxuries of the west I don't think that gives you the right to decide the fate of the break away republics. |
| A.N.A | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 03:07 am
Aslaam Calakium,
I've read some of the disscussions, and I would just like to add my own point of view.
First of all, the whole issue concerning us forgiving each other for the past and moving on. Of course we can do that, but it takes time. It can't happen overnight.
There have been a few comments made about the regions of Somaliland and Puntland. I think that it is good thing that this has occured as it gives each region time to sort out their internal dynamics of their region. The South should also do this, once the fighting has ceased there, then we can get together.
Everyone keeps going on about democracy and elections, etc. I don't think this is the way foward for us. It is the western concepts of Democracy, Socialisim, etc, that has helped destroy Africa. While they may work here in the west, we are not westerners. We will never get anywhere if try to adopt their notions (there is no such thing as democracy anyway)
The way foward for all of us is Islam, returning to our roots. Yes I know it sounds Idealisitic, but its the truth.
Thanks for your time |
| keyse | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 05:02 am
Hater_girl
are you on medication sis?
Coz am astonished to hear that somaliland only consists of three regions..
When was the last time you checked the map?
have you not seen somaliland with big capital letter consisting of FIVE regions??
from your statement i can only conclude that your naiva little girl with absuletly no knoweldge of somaliland..
For those of you who are against somaliland, you can only keep barking coz the caravan will roll on.. |
| Alipapa | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 07:55 am
Governo,
First of all, i would like to make one suggestion --that is if we want to have descent and fair discussion about somali politics. My suggestion is:
Can we aplogize to somalilanders for including their country's name here in our somali politics debate and from now on exclude our discussion from somaliland ?. bizzare i may sound but i guess unless we do that, we will end up debating North vs South. Needless to say that was not what you meant when you get started this great topic. I maybe biased against this community but i found them hard to debate with when it comes to somali politics.
that was my honesty suggestion. And before i wrap my posting up, i would like to clarify one thing. Puntland and somaliland aren't same. They were not found similar objectives. Somaliland is seccist and was found as independent state.on the other hand, puntland was established as regional autonomy which means, puntland isn't seccist state.It regional autonomy wating somali government to reborth again. because of that they are and will not be the same.
Again, i would appreciate if we leave somaliland hell alone and talk about somali politics without somaliland.
Hater girl;
Wellcome on board.we need politician girls but hey, it seems that you have beef against somalilanders. please don't start on with them. Those guys never give up. And you know how tiresome it will be when you involved such endless and meaningless rag tag war. And also please will you stop writting in caps?.thanks.
Alipapa |
| soo | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 10:07 am
hey |
| Arawello | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 10:14 am
Alipapa,
Okey, leave Somaliland alone.
Are you by the way Majeerteen.
Ms,
Agree with you with alot of things. I think Somaliland at the moment should be left alone. I am not saying this because Iam Isaq ( I would like to have somalia united) but the more I spoke to poeple from there ( including my unclues) I think It is better they should get their own recongition.
Peace Arawello |
| Anonymous | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 10:40 am
WHO NEEDS A GOVERNMENT ?
I am happy with the lack of a Government.
In the past 10 years, my family income has
tripled.
No more Siyaad Barre to regulate my business,
to harrass me.
When the government existed, all it did was
sustain a minority on the sweat of the majority.
Government oppresses people, restricts their creativity.
So if u want to call yourself, Somaliland, Puntland, Or Fictionland, its up to u.
All I believe is in the $, if u got it, lets talk if not get out of my way.
Liberterian |
| s.n.m | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 11:42 am
Hater girls take your darood ass out of here, Somaliland forever!!!!! |
| Ifis | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 12:18 pm
I kinda agree with anonymouse/Liberterian.
But not for the same reason,i belive in peace,
and if all these new 'countries' are going to
bring that,i am all for it!!!!!!!!
Another way 2 see it,Somalis don't fight just
about clan,they fight amongst sub-clans etc.
So even if 1 clan can agree and just being 1 clan,
i see it as a step closer to a unitied Somali.
I mean if all the Is,Dr,Hw(don't know anymore!)
can agree on just being that to each other,
imagine how many warlords,that are going to find
themselves without a job!
Yours trully,Looking at it from a positief side!
Ifis |
| dhoore | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 12:40 pm
To SNM
Ya, about Somaliland there is such thing call somaliland, You and I know that, this is just a dream that ends the boarders of Burco, Barbera and Hargeysa. Other than dat Keep dreaming I only believe one thing call somalia
take care. |
| Governo | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 05:21 pm
Ms
your input is great we learn somethings from you thanks its vey true Somalia had fail and we are not the only nation although the end of the cold war had some effects but our crisis or failure barely to be blame only Somali's and basically the result of dictatorship is always catastrophic look around the world, and we happen to be one of the bad lucky society ,,yes former dictator was using every avenue available for him late 1978 he massacred hundreds of civilians and we all somali's said its [reer hebel ]and he did again 1988 in the North but the truth is nobody have ability to stop him we all feel this regime must go but how and what will happen nobody knew ,,,my opinion I am not against puntland and Somaliland what they are doing now but there are differences the two state status ..where puntlad case is lets wait the right moment,,,,the Somaliland case is secending ,,,,and the reason I said one man show is the North Somalia has the most well educated Somali society and Egal seem to be there for very long time let the youg and fresh generations have their chances ,,,,that was my point
the new gov'mnt basically are appointees ,,,they are not elected ,,,they are only transition gov'mnt...I will have lot more to say ..its only political incorrect thanks
A.N.A
thank you brother for your perfect opinion but my feeling is no one disputes islam is our basic fundamental life,,,but if we mixed politics with religion we might not capable doing what that may supose to...I would like to hear from you more
Alipapa
you figured out very good point but Somaliland still by the international borders is part of Somalia when that day comes we will see ,Seconly you have huge somali community who have relatives throughout Somalia and don't want to become separate ,,,are we going to ignore them ..by meantime lets strictly deal the south problems and see where the power ball need to be correct my views are puntland seems under control or tranquil atmosphere the rest of the south is still questionable...what your opinion
the other friends who made their input I will respond to you thank you |
| Princess | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 05:51 pm
To: MS and the other Qaldaamiins:
More than 10 years + Somaliland did not get regonition and will never get because the whole so-called government is an attempt to have Isaaqland. Just see what the dictator Egal has done to the people of Awadal? daily harrassement.
The Darood in that region do not want seccession. So, my question is If Darood and Gadubursi are not for seccession, what will the Isaaq do? Declare Hargeisa and Burco a country!!!
Way back when the 'North' decalared seccession, it was actually decalared by the SNM, IT WAS A FAIT ACCOMPLI and no one challenged them because they were the only organized group. Don't get me wrong, SNM at the begining of this inception was legitimate, but after 1989 it degenerated into a corrupt Issaq front.
Princess is out. |
| Burco Man | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 07:00 pm
PRINCES
To my knowldge, Burco ppl are issaq and awdal had been captured after the defeat of your faqash ppl. so i guess Somlailand doesn't need ur f*ucking approval b@*itc.
Mr. faqash ass\hole, PLS. mind ur own business |
| HaTer-GirL | Tuesday, April 10, 2001 - 10:29 pm
To keyse
for your info i am not on medication and if anyone is that will be YOU,and plze i know a lot more about maps and geography a lot more thatn u will ever know,ok fair enough i didn't count on the lil towns but there is a difference between REGION and A TOWN,and if u want count on towns go ahead be my guest.
alipapa
Don't get me wrong believe me i don't have any beef against somalilanders,i just think it's pathetic deviding a country into three pieces that's all nothing more nothing less.And about the big CAPS i was just trying to make easier for people to read but since u don't like it i can live with writing small caps.lol
to y'all
plze let's keep qabiil out this.Can't we talk in more civilised way than this,there is nothing more sad to see someone accusing someone's qabiil that's just low of you,so for the last TIME KEEP QABIIL OUTTA THIS ISSUE FOR ONCE!!!!!!!!!
WASALAAMU CALEEYKUM |
| Alipapa | Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 07:31 am
Governo,
My point wasn't let's forget somaliland at all. It was let's exclude it in our debate for some technical reasons that i already mentioned. I hope you understand it.
Back to the topic at hand, Yes it is the south that has problems. And yes it is the south that holding the peace to prevail in all somalia. But don't we forget it is also the south that matters the most. if we solve the problem of the south, we almost solved the country's problem.
"Why the south?" you may ask. Well, amigo mio, let me tell you this. most of somali resources that promoted our long lasting war are in the south.
Many times, i hear some people bragging "Hey somaliland or puntland is a peace.. look what is happening at the south--kismayo, mogadishu etc". Well, what this people don't understand is what is it in somaliland or puntland or any other fantasyland for that matter that would make any people to engage violence or fight? steal each others goats? raid some camels from "the other clan"? robe a shop when each robber can be identified,snap, "just like that" since everyone can be identified ?.
What i am trying to say is there is nothing dramatic to fight up there. Of course,there are some camels and goats. And if for some strange reason, one rifraf of man or woman decides to raid some other clan's bunch of goats/camels, then rest assured, she/she is in big trobule. It is because this is not new practice nor will it cause big trouble cause the other clan will raid his/her clan's goats tommorrow.
you may say "well, so what about the south, dude alipapa?". Tell you what amigo, there are so many damn things at the stake in the down of that damn south that can cause endless war.
To illustrate how people liked the south, we have haber gedir coming to south who vowed not to go back to mudug after they tapped good resources down the south, majeerteens swore to Allah that letting waamoland go away is like giving up to janah and many other communities who will fight to the teeth not going back where they originallycame from .
Not only that amigo, today mogadishu is still the center of everything. There is great population that makes the violent-oriented elements to survive in mogadishu. Like any other big city, mogadishu's crime is high. and that is why mogadishu is the most troubled city in somalia. Just imagine LA with no law and order!!.
That is what makes the south voilent and peaceless land of God. And like i said if we solve the problem of the south, we almost solved the country's problem. At no point of time shall we compare south with the rest of country.
How are we gonna solve it? well,that is the whole point of the discussion. let me see what each one has to say.
Arawelo,
Your question was irrelevant.
hater-girl,
Thanks for not writing the caps.
Alipapa |
| Anonymous | Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 12:37 pm
ZZZzzzzzzzZzZZZ |
| Governo | Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 06:18 pm
Alipapa
some of the points you made are right on the target if Mogdishu crisis solved most of the dilemma will fall prospective ,,and the whole issue over in Mogdishu is greedy ,,and the reasons are the former Republic of Somalia had invested one big basket Mogadishu and former dictator did on purpose to control the whole economy and his power that is one lesson we all learned never put all your eggs in one basket.and these other Communities you mention who migrated from cenral states to deep south most of it is economical ,,,their pastoral way of life became harder ,,,but if they would have some help drilled wells and other assistance they would stay their way of life as shepherds...but the most eminent threat now in Mogadishu are the Warlords and Art gov'mnt and Ethiopia is fuel her side...I am predicting more fireworks ahead.. |
| Xalane | Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 07:48 pm
Ms
the true is you acting like you suffered more than the rest of Somalia .that is not true all Somali population had suffered the same ,even during the civil war the south suffered more than the North and we are not becoming separatist why only the Issaqs demanding that,I am really asking you honest question,,,no personal pure politics that is why I feel governo should excluded the debate [Somaliland]I will be glad to hear from you |
| Basra | Wednesday, April 11, 2001 - 07:49 pm
Want to hear what is Politically incorrect????
To stand in a star buck Cafe` line at my Lunch Break for 10 minutes just to get a cold Frapaccino with cream and caramel on top.Lets talk about that,for a second instead of this boring topic.
Thanks. loooooool |
| A.N.A | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 01:36 am
Xalane - I'm not sure if I'm correct, but as far as I know the Issaq were the inital targets of Barre's regime. Didn't one of Barre's top generals write a book discussing how to exterminate the Issaq (General Morgan). I've been told of my own family members being killed because they looked like they were Issaq (they were not ).
Issaq have not just made up stories for the hell of it, they did suffer. I'm not saying that people from the South didn't suffer either.
Untill whoever was responsible for the injsutice is punished we can never really be united. From the Issaq point of view, we need to see the likes of Morgan, Gaani, Ali Mhadi brought to justice. Inshallah that will happen soon.
Right now I prefer how things are, with us being separate( not forever). If we were forced to unite,it would just blow up in our faces.
Wa Aslaam Calikum |
| LENIN | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 03:21 am
What we need is a strong government which is willing to rule with an iron fist. Somalis are not ready for democracy. Let give me you an example. Imagine organizing a basketball game among several Somalis. It takes about an hour to for people to pick teams. Another hour to argue if the allocations were fair. Several more minutes are spent on arguing who is the captain and who will start. By the time this is all done, there are a few minutes left before it becomes dark.
Now if there were 2 dominant captains before the game who decided which person was going to be on which side, the game would start in a few minutes. The problem is that if you wait for Somalis to reach a consesus on anything, you will die waiting. Our dilemma is that we want a perfect government that everyone will be happy with. This can not happen.
This is the case for a strong government which is willing to enforce order by negotiations and force if necessary. If Somalis smell fear or hesitation in you, you are done for. You must present yourself as strong and willing to push your agenda.
What we need is a Polibutro with members from all regions who can at least represent 50% of their populations. This council should enforce the law in their state and report progress to the central committee. The President will be the head of the Polibutro.
LENIN. |
| Governo | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 04:23 am
Basra
this is political Incorrect its just purely politics nothing personal I wonder you have foreign name,,,if you don't know its small town in southern Iraq near the border of Kuwait.but we really very sorry Borama Bosaso Banadir couldn't provide you cold frapacino with cream and caramel on top by meantime enjoy your busy life in Britain and North America.. |
| Anonymous | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 06:48 am
Alapapa,
I was waiting for your reply It was just a thought.
My opinion on somaliland,
I am half -half and wanted Somalis to be united but at the moment we have alot of things to do before we get together, is not it the same reason that the Puntland claimed to be a sepatae region. I do not want your exuce languages ( alipapa)
When some asks you your qabill does not always mean he or she is qabilist. I asked you becaoue you sounded not someone who are talking somalia as a whole but as defensive ( Puntaland)
Peace
Arawello |
| Anonymous | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 06:50 am
corections; I was NOT wating for your reply |
| HaTer-GirL | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 01:37 pm
DAmn i am the ONLY,"sane" person in this room
everyone seems to be jumping out of the topic
please READ AGAIN this POLITICAL INCORRECT,let's not start world war III in here,i don't want to see that happen before somalis are united.TAke it easy breathe in breathe out,that will be much better.
alipapa
u r wlc
CHEERS |
| Governo | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 05:11 pm
lets first make this topic political incorrect all diplomat channels are open Somaliland Puntland and the rest of Somalia lets be open pure politics only if you want to criticize someone do it in manner way of wrong or right but not insulting any community thank You
let me see the three Major heavyweight in the political arena at moment are Egal in Somaliland Abdullahi Yusuf in Puntland and A/qasim Salad in Mogadishu and the rest seems to be without borders thats the reality in the ground lets analyze the three and see where they stand in their local and generally about Somalia ?
LENIN
after the civil war tragedies there are transformation taking place with in the Somali people and there are some results emerging out which will never allow any Goverment to become iron fist I can't tell which and what direction Somalia will go from here but if the right people lead the task we may function well and lawful Society ,,Secondly the structure of the Somali Society after the civil war is absolutely divided it will be very slim chance for strong central Gov'mnt... lets see your thoughts ,,,we all need learn from each other this debate is open to all Somali's thank you |
| HaTer-GirL | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 06:31 pm
I REPRESENT THE SOUTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| Arday | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 11:30 pm
Very interesting conversation indeed, few insults and a lot of constructive criticism and opinions albeit somewhat off-track at times .
Let me however explain some facts about Somali politics that seems to be missing from these conversations/debates:
1. Every person from Somalia seems to be annoyed by Somalilands peace for the last couple of years, but maybe these people should ask themselves who would suffere if there is no peace in Somaliland?? Who would have suffered if the Isaaq decided to join Somalias civil war????
I am not saying that Isaaq clan is strong but in the Somali military context we are a heavyweight, Somaliland is the only place where 30 000 organised troops(mostly Isaaqs) are permanently standing not counting police force and reservists and it is an undeniable fact that were the Isaaq clan to side with either party in the Somalia civil war that party would have won, as a matter of fact this is exactly what Aideed wanted that USC and SNM divide Somalia between themselves and butcher the daroods but we refused and said we are seperating, just imagine if we had not made that decision....?
What the USC forces did in mogadishu is well known but when did you hear of SNM massacring daroods or Hawiiyes in the north??
At the time right after Afweynes fallas it is well acknowledged fact that had SNM(mainly Isaaq)) not decided to seperate they would have emerged as the dominant power of Somalia politics there was nothing stoping SNM from a massive land grabbing campaign just as the USC forces took bay and bakool but this did not happen, we did not retaliate, we do not want to retaliate, we simply want to build up our lives, Somalilanders are true Muslims and we sincerly believe that our policy of non retaliation is the way of Islam and Somalis especially Daroods should thank Allah for our policy of goodwill which is very rare in Somali tradition.
2. Egal is the only person of todays Somali leaders that no single clan would object to becoming the leader of a united Somalia. It is widely known that the Arta conference had him as their first choice, my point of bringing this up is simply to show that Isaaqs are not power hungry idiots as sometimes told in these forums.
3. Let me finish off by saying that Somalilanders are the most nationalistic of the Somali people, we just want to runn our own affairs that does not mean we hate people from Somalia although it is hard to like people who are hidding war criminals and supporting our butchers morgan, gabyow, ganni etc..
To be continued......... |
| Arday | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 11:46 pm
Here are some historical documents that will answer some of the questions about the Isaaq and their policy of seperation:
Copyright (c) 1988 The Nation Company, LP,
The Nation, June 25, 1988. Reprinted with permission.
Bloody Somalia
Aryeh Neier
President Mohamed Siad Barre of Somalia was scheduled to meet with President Reagan, secretary of State George Shultz, other key members of the administration and Congress June 13-16. Stung by the recent decision of the International Monetary Fund to declare Somalia ineligible for further loans, defensive about international criticism of human rights violations and embarrassed by reports that his government had offered to exchange relief aid for arms on the black market, Barre was eager to convince Washington to continue its policy of unqualified support for his regime.
But Barre's visit was called off at the eleventh hour in the wake of heavy fighting in Somalia's northern region between government troops and an armed guerrilla organization, the Somali National Movement (SNM). Witnesses say that fighting around the provincial capital of Hargeisa since May 27 has left at least 1,000 people dead. Government control of the region has been seriously undermined, though official deny claims that most principal towns are in rebel hands. Westerners working for relief organizations have been flown out of Hargeisa by U.N. rescue planes.
Barre has held power since a military coup in October 1969. Since then, he, his relatives, military cronies and his Marehan clan have pillaged and terrorized the country. As Somalia's principal ally since 1978, the United States has become closely identified with the abuses of his regime.
Immediately upon seizing power, Barre's government abolished political, banned professional associations and brought civic organizations under the control of the government. The media is government-owned and is closely censored, as are all forms of cultural expression. Draconian legal reforms have institutionalized the denial of basic rights. Subversion has been defined so broadly and vaguely that the rights of expression, association and religion have been interpreted as dangerous to national security. Law No. 54 of 1970 prescribes a mandatory death penalty for "exploiting religion for creating national disunity or subverting or weakening state authority". In April of 1987, nine religious leaders were sentenced to death in Mogadishu for criticizing the government's failure to respect freedom of worship. A special court system , which lacks basic safeguards, hears all security-related cases. A formidable intelligence network tracks potential dissidents and has created a pervasive climate of fear and suspicion.
These powers have been sweepingly applied. Security forces have seized people without warrant, explanation or reference to any central authority. Many have had their property confiscated. Hundreds of Somalis have been detained under harsh prison conditions and tortured. Thousands of others have gone into exile.
In the absence of any channels for legitimate dissent, opponents have inevitably been driven underground. Currently, the main opposition comes from the SNM, which operates in northern Somalia. In an effort to deprive the SNM of a civilian base of support, government troops, security forces and curfew patrols have unleashed a campaign of indiscriminate killings, rape, extortion and looting. In the countryside, the largely nomadic population has abandoned many settlements as people flee the frenzy of state reprisal killings that follow SNM victories. In March 1988 more than twenty people suspected of SNM sympathies were drowned in wells in the town of Gebiley. Many others were executed by government troops. A scorched-earth policy including the poisoning of wells, the destruction of water-storage tanks and the killing of livestock has led to widespread hunger and disease. Many have fled to Ethiopia.
The United States has not always been Barre's ally. When he came to power, he adopted a pro-Soviet program of "scientific socialism". But during the Somali-Ethiopian war of 1978, Moscow switched its allegiance to Ethiopia and Barre then turned to the West. Mindful of Somalia's strategic location on the Horn of Africa, with access to both the Indian Ocean and Red Sea, the United States has pursued a policy of friendly relations with Barre. Economic and military assistance ( an estimated $41.9 million for fiscal 1988) have been reinforced by public silence on human rights violations and the denial of political rights. In exchange, Somalia has granted the United States access to military facilities. The port of Berbera on the Gulf of Aden has become important in light of renewed tensions in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East.
Somalia is now at a critical turning point. Far from promoting stability, U.S. assistance has enabled president Barre to pursue policies that have brought the country to the edge of civil war. The danger of the current turmoil is that it provides an opportunity for further atrocities, which will be depicted as an inevitable byproduct of counterinsurgency operations. Strong public statements from the Reagan Administration and Congress, warning President Barre of the international consequences of further abuses, would go a long way toward heading off a slide into anarchy. Responsible and timely criticism by the United States of a military that is out of control can only strengthen the prospect of peace. Failure to speak out publicly and unambiguously, on the other hand, would align the United States still more closely with a brutal dictatorship at war with its own people.
Aryeh Neier is executive director of Human Rights Watch, which monitors violations worldwide. |
| Arday | Thursday, April 12, 2001 - 11:52 pm
Copyright 1991. I.C. Publications, Ltd. New African, September 1987, pp.21.
Reprinted with permission
SIYAD'S VENDETTA AGAINST THE NORTH
Dr Saeed Sheikh Mohammed, a visiting Fellow and research assistant, of Refugee Documentation Project University, Ontario, Canada gives his assessment of what he sees as government vendetta against the Somali northerners. He claims that northerners have been penalised for being prepared to help themselves and for being successful in trade and selling their services.
When Somalia left the Soviet orbit and returned to the West in 1977, it was fervently hoped by all four minded Somalis that a new era of democratic freedom would dawn.
But it soon became clear that President Siyad Barre was in no mood to abandon his dictatorial practices which have caused nation-wide disharmony. His malice was particularly directed to the northern regions where there is a strong aversion to the repressive methods and the counter-productive policies of the Government.
The north had strong links with the Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia. Thus over 90 per cent of the Somali expatriate community now live in Bahrain, Kuwait Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Northern Somali workers flocked to those states for work while businessmen from the north boosted the trade across the Red Sea. They brought back valuable foreign exchange to improve the impoverished Somali foreign exchange reserves. They provided the currency for vitally needed goods and merchandise.
At firsts the Government actually encouraged the workers and businessmen to help the critical economic situation and help stave off the impending famines that were soon to afflict the country. The Franco Valuta system was introduced as an incentive to Somali businessmen. This allowed expatriate workers and businessmen to keep their foreign exchange earnings in foreign bank accounts and to use the foreign exchange to finance the purchase of imports.
But the traders were so successful, and created so much wealth, that the military dictatorship began to get jealous of the benefits that northern Somalia was winning for itself. So the Government reversed its policy and resorted to its traditional policy which can be summed up in the phrase "Keep your dog hungry so that it follows you."
It was then that a Hargeisa-based group of educated young men started, in 1981, a string of self-help schemes to compensate for the years of Government neglect. The Hargeisa Group hospital, which had been inherited from the British was the centre of this programme. There were also plans to improve schools, build a public library, secure the free flow of medical supplies and provide food for hospital patients.
These self-help projects were entirely financed by the citizens of Hargeisa without any help from the Government. But the Government soon became jealous because of Hargeisa's successes in showing it how to conduct its affairs. It resented the implied challenge to authority. So it turned on those involved and arrested 31 administrators, businessmen, doctors and teachers and sentenced them to imprisonment ranging from 20 years to life.
The well known Dr Mahamud Ali Sulub was released from jail later after being totally incapacitated. Other educated and idealistic prisoners remain inside.
It was these events which led to the 1982/83 riots that temporarily paralyzed Government authority in Hargeisa and Burao. Then the region sank back into the former situation of neglect and inertia.
It also resulted in the creation of the Somali National Movement (SNM), in early 1981 by a group of educated people, mostly front the north. This infuriated the government still further which saw the danger of the north becoming a stronghold for the opposition. Siyad Barre imposed a state of emergency to try and divert the people from supporting the SNM.
he Franco-valuta system was revoked by Government in September 1981, a move which was like "Cutting off one's nose to ; spite one's face." It simply meant that Somalia lost a valuable system of foreign trade, as most money accumulated abroad was simply held abroad, instead of being spent on essential imports.
All goods not cleared by the customs, or on board vessels which happened to be anchored at national ports were confiscated (stolen) by the Government. About $4m worth of goods was illegally looted by the a Government in the port of Berbera alone. Over 40 innocent businessmen were also detained.
I have compiled a list of 635 different cases of innocent citizens arrested between October 1984 and August 1985. Unfortunately this is only the tip of the iceberg.
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Somaliland Archive |
| Arday | Friday, April 13, 2001 - 12:00 am
Copyright 1991. I.C. Publications, Ltd. New African, July 1987, pp.14-16.
Reprinted with permission
Somalia's Letter of Death
by Richard Greenfield
New African has acquired a copy of a top secret letter by a Somali General threatening terrible vengeance on the people of the North. We are satisfied it is a genuine letter that was sent to President Siyad Barre. A former President of the Somali Supreme Court, Mohamoud Sheikh Musa, has both translated it and certified, on oath, its veracity. Richard Greenfield, for nine years political adviser to the Somali Government, examines this revealing and disturbing document and its political setting.
The letter of death is by General Maxamed Saciid Xirsi, known as Morgan", the sector commander of the Northwest region. It is one of his regular secret security reports sent to President Barre, senior ministers and party chiefs. It was delivered by special Courier, but not before one copy had come into the hands of New African.
The General complains about the attitude and conduct of the people of the North, particularly members of the Isaaq clan. He calls them Qurmis, meaning 'the rotten', a derogatory term for guerrilla groups.
He writes: "We took punitive measures against the positions jointly occupied by Qurmis and the Ethiopians, resulting in losses to both of them and in the obliteration of villages, including Dibiile, Rabaaso, Raamaale, and Caranuugle (small villages, south of Hargeisa, the northern hospital). All our measures were implemented at night and, except for some light injuries, all the troops returned safely to base."
Morgan refers to popular resentment against the curfew - the most recent having been in force since January 1 1987 - current SNM propaganda leaflets, anti-government slogans written on the walls of buildings" and an increase in rebel enlistment. They have appealed to their various sections to recruit 2,000 persons for Qurmis to be trained in Awaare. So far, 400 individuals have joined." Aware is a settlement in the Somali populated areas administered by Ethiopia, popularly known as the Ogaden.
"Campaign of obliteration"
It is clear, Morgan claims, that unless the guerrilla opposition ". . . and its supporters are subjected to a campaign of obliteration, there will come a time when they will raise their heads again." He therefore outlines a series of repressive f measures:
"Balancing the well-to-do to eliminate the concentration of wealth (in the hands of the SNM supporters).
The reconstruction of Local Councils in such n way as to balance present membership which is exclusively from a particular people; as well as the "dilution" of the school population with an infusion of children from the Refugee Camps in the vicinity of Hargeisa.
Rendering uninhabitable the territory between the army and the enemy, which can be done by destroying the water tanks and the villages lying across the territory used by them for infiltration.
Removing from the membership of the armed forces and the civil service all those who are open to suspicion of aiding the enemy - especially those holding sensitive posts
The children in the northern refugee camps are largely from Somali clans, or are Oromos, the majority group in Ethiopia, who though related, are not Somalis at all: most do not even Speak Somali.
General Morgan then describes how he has re-interpreted economic regulations in order to victimize Somali merchants who might sympathize with the rebels.
Before there were 337 buses used as public transport, two-thirds of which were owned by members of one clan (the Sa'ad Musa ). However, on investigation, it became clear that most of the buses were not operating in accordance with the security procedures, due to defects in their registration and circulation documents; and when information received revealed that they were sometimes used to carry Khat ( a mild narcotic plant) or persons open to suspicion, in secrecy and without notification to the security organisations; and since the number of buses greatly exceed the needs of the city, the following decisions were adopted and implemented:
Buses Confiscated, redistributed
(a)The number of the buses must not exceed 80;
(b)Every bus must have a serial number for identification purpose;
(c)The buses must be evenly distributed amongst the districts of the city, with each bus limited to a particular route and departure and finishing point;
(d) A just and balanced redistribution of licences regulating bus ownership in such a way as to give preference to persons relating to the Revolution, and to deny those politically opposed to it;
(e)>Six four-wheel drive vehicles were confiscated at Berbera harbour, and similarly, the removal of vehicle in the city is in progress; those found to be serviceable will be mounted with weapons and the others used as transport for reconnaissance purposes and for officers in command of forces in forward positions; we are also engaged in a process of reclassifying transport."
Morgan enumerates his most recent political prisoners and asks for them to be transferred urgently to other regions lest popular demands for human rights lead to attempts to free them.
Businessmen detained
"The persons detained as suspected supporters of Qurmis are 45 from Hargeisa, 30 from Burao, while seven are officers. Most of them are businessmen and well-to-do people, while some are headmen. They are held in Mandhera prison. However, it is hereby requested that they be transferred urgently to Laanta Buur prison, or Bari prison, etc in order to ensure their continued incarceration during the reorganisation of the local prisons which show many defects from a security standpoint."
The General reserves his strongest wrath for the lsaaq - an important northern clan family - consisting of four main clans from which several leaders of the SNM are drawn.
"Since it has become evident that the Isaaq were, by act and intent, with the SNM and since we could not see them giving up the line they have pursued so deceptively for some time and in order to forestall them, we arranged continuous meetings for the other inhabitants of the north (whom he lists) and a mobilisation campaign designed to rouse them to action and to raise their level of awareness "
The Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) all but disbanded following largely Italian pressure on Somali leaders, has also been remobilised apparently on a clan divide-and-rule basis.
" . . 300 men have been stationed at a place near Geed Deeble (near Hargeisa) ... they will be rearmed and then put amidst those brigades and battalions considered to be capable of furthering the fight against Qurmis. At same time they can implement operations inside ( i.e. in the Ogaden) whenever required".
Banking secrecy has already gone by the board. Morgan reveals:
"We are still engaged in identifying the positions of those people who maintain accounts at banks in the Northwest and Togdheer Regions. The accounts of those recognised as Qurmis supporters will continue to be frozen...We see the economic strangulation of the people who work for the enemy as serving a useful purpose. However, it is absolutely essential that this should be accompanied by the strengthening of the economic positions of non-Northerners, with a view to raising the level of their capabilities and their interests in these Regions".
Northerners cannot be trusted
He concludes by recommending a "purge of the Somali Police Force, the Security Forces and the military police, the members of all of which are largely recruited locally, by finding a force to "dilute" them and by transferring present members." The Corps of Prison Warders, he admits, is largely northern in origin and "cannot be entrusted with the task of guarding the prison" and should be reconstituted . To effect all this, he asks for another division of troops to be transferred to reinforce his command.
Morgan at least realises that his activities " will arouse anxiety" amongst many in Mogadishu but urges that they "not be listened to or heeded so that the impetus of the war being waged does not drop". His letter ends:
Leave nothing behind
"Up to now we have been walking on ground deliberately strewn with broken glass to reduce the momentum of (our) efforts. It is essential to sweep away the broken glass without leaving a single piece behind. There is a Somali proverb: Oh hyena, you cannot drag away hides without making a sound'".
The implementation of such a savage policy is certain to seriously embarrass potential friends and aid donors. But even more important is what it will mean for the continuing unity of the Somali People and for the future of the north, on which the whole country depends.
Military clashes, serious disturbances, curfews and arbitrary imprisonments have typified the northern areas of the Somali Republic in recent months. Indeed, especially since May 1986, mounting political instability has been manifest.
This is particularly true of the northern regions of Somalia, formerly a British Protectorate, amalgamated three days after independence in 1960, with the former Italian colony and UN Trust, Italian Somaliland. Since then, and particularly in the last few years, most northerners have resented being denied what they see as a proper share of the few economic developments that have taken place in nearly three decades of independence.
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Somaliland Archive |
| Arday | Friday, April 13, 2001 - 12:24 am
Reprinted by permission of African-American Institute.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT African-American Institute Inc. 1994.
From Africa Report , November-December, 1994, p35(5).
SOMALILAND: FIERCELY INDEPENDENT
By Matt Bryden
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As Somalia was engulfed in Civil War, the Northern part of the country declared unilateral independence as the Republic of Somaliland. Our correspondent traces the origins of this secessionism - from the birth of the Somali National Movement, to the declaration of independence three and a half years ago, to the present government' s fierce resolve never to give up its hard-fought prize.
By Matt Bryden
For the men of the 11th Brigade, the Somali National Movement's (SNM) long war of liberation is finally over. Under a blazing blue mid-morning sky, they have assembled at Hargeisa stadium s dusty mid-field with their arms - a dozen weary battle-wagons four artillery pieces and two ancient tanks In a few moments the weapons with which they sustained their 10-year struggle against the Faqash - the forces of the deposed Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre - will be handed over to the government of Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal president of the Republic of Somaliland.
An animated colorful crowd of thousands has assembled to watch and to take part clustering around the troops and their vehicles though the 11 th is neither the first nor the last of the SNM s units to demobilize and there is little pomp or ceremony to hold the people s attention The atmosphere in the stadium is festive and familiar the speakers low-key more in the spirit of a town meeting than a martial spectacle since today s events are a celebration of normalcy and an affirmation of the hard-won prize of peace.
Far from the mayhem and surreal violence of Mogadishu beyond the reach of even the United Nations operation in Somalia Somaliland is struggling to reconstitute itself from the ashes of a brutal civil war But each success represents more than just another notch in the painful transition from war to peace For Somaliland' s secessionist majority each success drives home another nail in the coffin of the old united Somalia.
Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence in May 1991 took the rest of the world - at least those bits who noticed - by surprise. Perceived against the backdrop of the south's hideous self-destruction the north s sudden decision to break away seemed just another aberrant twist in Somalia s dark spiral of fratricidal violence But the origins of northern independence and the SNM's secessionist tendencies are nothing new They are older than most of the young fighters of the 11 th and their younger comrades in arms among the SNM s other units.
Few of these young men are old enough to remember any other life but that of the bush fighter: long, hungry months in the semi-desert wastes of the Haud, exchanging fire with the Faqashin brief, furious skirmishes. Fewer still remember when resistance to the Barre regime began in the aftermath of the Ogaden war, or the unhappy marriage of north and south over three decades ago, which soured from the moment of its consummation. But there is no doubt among the fighters about what they were fighting for : the end to southern domination of the north and the liberation of their country under Somaliland or any other name
Only a few hundred meters from where the soldiers of the 11 th have assembled at the edge of a desiccated rock-strewn cemetery is the grave of Hassan Kayd the first of the fighters for northern independence. In 1961, defying the tide of popular sentiment that led to the merger of former British Somaliland and the UN Trust Territory of Somalia only one year before, Kayd - a Sandhurst graduate - and a group of young northern officers launched an abortive coup d'etat against the northern apparatus of unitary government. Brought to Mogadishu for court martial their trial was reportedly annulled on the grounds that as northerners they could not be judged by a southern court since the parliaments of the north and south had yet to ratify a single act of union. Though the officers failed to generate popular momentum for their struggle a national referendum on a unitary constitution later the same year failed to gain majority support in the north. Carried by the numerical superiority of the more densely populated south the dream of Somali unity was already losing its sheen.
Hassan Kayd himself lived long enough to witness the SNM s victory and to be buried in an independent country. Few of the surviving SNM cadre can match his historical record. The most senior date their opposition from the late 1970s and Somalia's crushing defeat in the Ogaden war when Barre resorted to increasingly Draconian methods to consolidate his hold on power. In the north especially crippling restrictions on merchants "special taxes" and preferential treatment for southerners persuaded many northerners to quit their homeland for greener pastures in the Gulf and elsewhere. Mohamed Hashi, one of the SNM s founding members was among many who read the writing on the wall early, opting for self-imposed exile in Saudi Arabia. In Jedda in 1978, he and a handful of others including future SNM leaders Hassan Aden Wadadid and Ahmed Ismail Duqsi came together without any specific objectives beyond opposition to the Somali regime.
"We were reacting," Hashi explains. "We didn't develop a political program until later when we formed the SNM." But Hashi's cell in Jedda was not alone in its basic, inarticulate anger. Similar groups in Riyadh, London, Mogadishu and Hargeisa were developing along parallel lines: planning, fundraising, circulating anti-government tracts. As contact and communication between such cells multiplied and strengthened, the network of northern resistance that would become the SNM began to crystallize.
Abdi Yusuf Duale "Boobe," former secretary of information for the SNM now produces an independent Hargeisa journal from a spartan, concrete room in the crumbling compound of Radio Hargeisa - one of the few installations in the city not completely destroyed. In 1979, he became involved with opposition cells within the ruling Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party, Barre's superficial effort to supply his military dictatorship with civilian credentials. Somalia's defeat in the Ogaden had dashed nationalist aspirations for a greater Somalia, a dream already soiled by Djibouti's emergence as an independent state in 1977, and disillusionment was rife both within and without government.
Many northerners, who had taken the brunt of Somalia's rout in the Ogaden, also discerned a pattern of increasing Darood influence within the regime which found expression in sharpening discrimination against the Isaaq. Meeting in small, secretive groups, Isaaq officers began to formulate plans for safeguarding northern interests, Their efforts produced the Afaraad, the Fourth Brigade of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), guerrilla vanguard of Barre's efforts to challenge Ethiopia's control of the Ogaden and an instrument, in Isaaq perception, of Daarood hegemony among Ethiopian Somalis. When in 1980, Boobe was named to the WSLF'S central committee, he was already familiar with subversive nature of the WSLFs Fourth and its Isaaq commander: "Afaraad was formed with the intent of protecting Isaaq interests, with securing weapons from the government so that we could defend ourselves."
Boobe didn't join the SNM proper until 1982 when the movement moved its headquarters from London to Dire-Dawa in Ethiopia the same year that the first Afaraad officers crossed over to the rebels with their troops and their weapons. He defected first to the mainly Mijerteen Somali Salvation Democratic Front, then to Aden where he found the atmosphere charged with the heady idealism of a multitude of liberation movements from all over the world. When he finally linked up with the SNM in Ethiopia, the movement was basically an unsophisticated conglomeration of Isaaq interests. "We had no real program, no constitution, only guidelines," he remembers. "Our 1982 charter spoke of unitary government, but we always had the idea of decentralization." The idea of secession, though unstated, was already a powerful undercurrent in the organization. "Especially among the grassroots," Boobe remembers. "Only a small group of intellectuals believed that Somalia would remain unified."
Whatever the rank and file of the SNM might have thought about independence, the leadership had good reason for not letting it show. From the beginning, according to Mohamed Hashi, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Ethiopia's strongman and the SNM's patron, already had an inkling of the group's secessionist orientation. In February 1982, he sent his liaison officer with the SNM, Ato Demise, to pass an unmistakable message to the movement's leadership: a secessionist movement would forfeit the support of the Ethiopian government - a clear indication of Mengistu's own preoccupation with the war in Eritrea. As long as the SNM remained in Ethiopia, independence would be restricted to the realm of quiet speculation. It could not, and never did become, an overt aim of the movement's leadership, but its roots ran deep among the ordinary fighters. Amina Yusuf, who lived for years in the bush among the SNM guerrillas with her husband, Mohamed Farah "Qadiimi", was convinced that victory would mean independence: "Only the policy-makers opposed the idea, but the front-line fighters were determined."
But the SNM did not have a monopoly either on resistance to the Barre regime, or on the dream of liberation. While the guerrillas struggled to build an effective military organization in the desolate Ethiopian-Somali border areas, popular anger with the Barre regime was also growing within Somalia itself. Afaraad's defection and increasingly daring SNM raids led the government to crack down hard in the northwest. General Mohamed Hashi Gaani, a clan relative of the president, took command in Hargeisa, effectively assuming control over all branches of administration. A curfew was imposed and arbitrary arrest, detention, and executions became routine.
Mohamed Barood, Somaliland's soft-spoken minister of rehabilitation and resettlement, was among the members of a Hargeisa-based dissident group called Ufo (Hurricanes). We sympathized with the SNM, but we didn't know what they wanted to do. People had doubts about them. Maybe they would just write letters from Jedda and London." The group decided to take matters into its own hands. At mid-day on June 26, 1981, the anniversary of Somaliland's independence from the British, Barood and other members of Ufo gathered for a secret flag-raising ceremony. Their banner was a Somali flag with only one point of the Somali star remaining - Somaliland. "You could see we had a vision even then," Barood remembers, though he admits that independence was not defined as one of the group's objectives. Over the next few months, he and several others began to distribute anti-government leaflets in signed with the provocative byline of Ragga U Dhashay Magalada (Men Born of the City). Equally provocative, they organized a self-help group for Hargeisa hospital, which suffered gravely from government neglect and was barely functional. "It was an act of defiance," asserts Yusuf Xirsi Garow, another member of the Ufo circle. The hospital did indeed become a center-piece of Hargeisa's resistance to the regime, provoking a response from the government which far exceeded the group's expectations: Between November 1981 and January 1982, 29 alleged members of Ufo were arrested and placed in detention. Barood himself was picked up on November 4 and brought to the headquarters of the dreaded National Security Service or NSS. His interrogation took place in the same room from which he now functions as a government minister, and through his window he can see the barracks in which he and several others were detained and tortured for the next four months.
We were never tortured in the town," Barood remembers. "They would extinguish the lights every night at the same time. Then we would hear the keys - there are so many keys in a prison...Everyone had his heart in his mouth is it me tonight? Then there's be a ride in a Landcruiser to a place about 3 miles away. They thought maybe we were part of something big. They would ask us questions like: Do you know Omar Arteh or someone big like that. Most of us didn't even know each other."
After four months, Barood was transferred to the infamous facility at Labaatan Jirow near Baydhabo in southern Somalia. He would spend the next six and half years in solitary confinement, shut in a cramped cell roughly three paces square, including the toilet. Once a day the outside door would be opened for air, and sometimes a little sunshine, to enter the cell. "In February 1989,1 heard that there was fighting," he recalls. "I heard that Hargeisa was deserted and demolished. It was difficult to believe a thing like that. l thought that the stories were exaggerated. l couldn't accept it." When he was released one month later, Barood discovered that the stories were accurate, but they were long out of date. The SNM's nearly suicidal offensive (1,200 of the lightly armed guerrillas confronted two fully equipped army divisions) against the heavily garrisoned northern towns of Hargeisa and Burao, and the government's savage and devastating reply, had transpired nearly a full year before.
For Barre, the SNM onslaught signaled the beginning of the end. Within months, a group of Ogadeni government officers, led by General Morgan's (military commander in Hargeisa and Siad Barre's son-in-law) operations officer, Colonel Ahmed Omar less, deserted their posts in the north and headed south to join the nascent Somali Patriotic Movement. In 1989, the Ethiopian-based military wing of the United Somali Congress (USC), under the leadership of General Mohamed Farah Aidid, had launched offensive operations along the border near Beled Weyne. Stretched between three fronts simultaneously, the Somali National Army would soon become distended and demoralized, fighting for a little more than its survival against the increasingly experienced, well-armed insurrectionary movements. Total collapse was less than two years away.
The May 1988 offensive also marked a point of no return for the SNM. Aden Tarabi Jamac was one of the 450 guerrilla fighters in the assault in Burao. "Before I was fighting for a free government for all of Somalia," but the shock of joining battle changed that. "Then we were fighting to have two governments" Boobe, who had become one of the SNM top cadre, noticed a similar shift in the movement's orientation. "The aerial bombings, the bombardment, strafing of refugees as they fled to the border, all helped to solidify our sentiment of separateness. Their looting of the cities, the systematic, indiscriminate shelling...We realized we had nothing in common with these people from the south."
Such sentiment also found expression in the SNM's relations with other Ethiopian-based rebel movements. Until 1989, about a quarter of the SNM's central committee was composed of members of other clans who shared the Isaaq's discontent with the Barre government. Following the outbreak of full-scale civil war in the north, this began to change Both the SPM and USC, initially reliant upon the SNM's good offices for their Ethiopian patronage, broke away and started to stake out independent areas of operations closer to the battle for the northwest. The facade of a Somali 'National' Movement was now effectively dropped.
Despite the movement's new, sharper focus, 1990 was to prove a difficult year. Under a new commander in the northwest, Gen. Abdulaziz, government forces managed to score an unprecedented victory against the SNM, capturing their bases at Balleh Gubadle and Alaybaday and driving the rebels back across the border into Ethiopia. As the SNM fought back to regain lost ground and to restore morale, USC forces of General Aidid fought their way across the Somali capital, SNM troops stormed Berbera, Hargeisa, and Burao in rapid succession. The army and the administration crumbled and its agents in the northwest fled. For the SNM the war was over
. After 10 years of armed struggle, the SNM found itself in possession of the prize it had so long been fighting for. The destruction wrought by the war had been terrible. Hargeisa, the capital, was a lifeless plain of blasted ruins, infested with mines and unrecognizable as the once-dynamic hub of life in northern Somalia. Burao, Hargeisa's sister city to the east, like innumerable villages in the interior, had shared the same fate, razed to the ground and sown with lethal and crippling devices Over 60,000 northerners were dead; hundreds of thousands more had endured the duration of the conflict in sprawling Ethiopian refugee camps and the scattered SNM-controlled havens along the arid frontier. One Hargeisa resident described returning to the shattered city for the first time after nearly a decade in exile "Whatever anybody tells you, it's such a shock. You don't know what to do.. whether you should cry...You can't imagine that kind of destruction. There was just one street left. The rest of the city was just garbage and unexploded bombs."
The human cost of the war had been no less shattering Around Berjeex military headquarters in Hargeisa, returning fighters discovered a series of irregular mounds of fine red earth, marking mass graves of hundreds of the regime's victims. Several hundred more are buried near Berbera's airstrip, systematically executed by the garrison's military governor. Human rights organizations report that most of them probably had their throats slit.
Such revelations only served to deepen Isaaq resolve to distance themselves from the south, but it took the unilateral declaration of a national government by a faction of the USC in Mogadishu, without consulting either the SNM or any of the other liberation fronts, to bring matters to a head Secession was not on the leadership's agenda in early 1991, but the decision about whether or not to declare independence was no longer in the SNM's hands. "People saw independence as a fait accompli, a fact of life," argues Barood. "As soon as they came back to the country, and there was fighting going on in the south, they thought it would be automatic." The shock of finding the country in utter ruin, deliberately stripped of infrastructure, and strewn with mines helped crystallize attitudes toward the south.
By the time the SNM met in Burao in April 1991 to chart a course for the future, the outcome was practically a foregone conclusion. Elders from clans across the northwest had already agreed that the original act of Somali Union should come under review. When, a the during the first days of the congress, radio reports suggested that the SNM would attend reconciliation meetings with the southern leaders, crowds of civilians and soldiers surrounded the congress hall in Burao to demand secession. Tanks took up positions and trained their cannons on the building. The declaration of independence was passed by the assembly without abstention or dissent and on May 18, 1991, Somaliland repossessed the sovereignty it had surrendered 30 years before.
In the three and a half years that have followed, Somaliland's declaration of independence has been neither recognized nor unchallenged. Parties from all of Somaliland's minority clans have argued vociferously against secession, despite the unanimous endorsement of the declaration given by their clan elders at Burao and again at Boroma in 1993, when a new National Charter - including an affirmation of Somaliland's existence as a sovereign state - was approved by leaders from all of the country's communities. Non-lsaaq clans are now better represented in Somaliland's governance than at any time in the past, with members of minority groups holding key posts like the vice presidency and defense, and en joying a greater share of the seats in the national parliament than ever before. The speaker of the Somaliland Parliament is himself a member of the eastern Dhulbahante clan, who were closely identified with Siad Barre's government until the very end. "Now the fight is finished," he affirms, "No more claims. No more hate. No more misunderstanding. The war is over."
Only the United Nations Operations in Somalia (UNOSOM) seems determined not to let Somaliland's sleeping dogs lie, having recently recognized a group of Somaliland's opposition parties as the legitimate representatives from "north-western Somalia." The cornerstone of UNOSOM's policy is Abdirahman Ahmed Ali "Tuur", Somaliland's first president and the man who declared its independence, who abandoned his retirement in London to campaign for a federal arrangement between Somalia and Somaliland. Given the manifest lack of support for his platform within Somaliland, Tuur's sudden change of heart appeared inexplicable, though a report from the Uppsala-based "Somalia News Update" has even claimed that UNOSOM offered him $200,000 for his trip to Mogadishu.
Interference of this kind led the administration to expel UNOSOM definitively from Somaliland in August, though relations between the government and the UN have never moved far out of the deep freeze. Despite written assurances from the secretary-general that the UN has no intention of interfering in Somaliland's internal political arrangements, UNOSOM's recent courtship of Tuur and other opposition groups reeks of a bias. Even the name 'Somaliland' is effectively banned from UNOSOM's vocabulary, which official documents still refer to as the Northwest region (actually the name of the administrative area encompassing only Hargeisa and Berbera). Nor, according to Egal, has Somaliland reaped any benefits from UNOSOM's enormous budget: Apart from several months' salary for a handful of police officers, the government claims it has seen nothing in terms of assistance with demobilization, de-mining, or rehabilitation. Egal's position is firm: "We are better off without UNOSOM."
Other UN agencies and international NGOs seemed to have avoided UNOSOM's difficulties. UNDP's project officer in Hargeisa enthuses about Somaliland's improvements over the past year, especially security We have a tremendously good relationship with the community at all levels. This is an area where we can do sustainable development. We can leave the postwar period of pessimism and uncertainty behind."
Much has already been done without the help of the international community, however. Hargeisa's population has largely returned, refurbishing the roofs of their houses with silvery sheets of corrugated iron and daubing the walls of homes and shops with the bright colors of happier times. The mines in and around the city have been for the most part removed, allowing people to move about safely and without fear. Air and telecommunications services, the work of Somaliland's burgeoning class of entrepreneurs, far surpass the offerings of the archaic, state-run enterprises of the Barre era. Practically everywhere, from public buildings, to shop counters, to the windshields and bumpers of the ubiquitous bush taxis, fly smaller or larger versions of the green circle and white field of the Somaliland flag, both the symbol of the country's commercial and moral revival and a gesture of defiance in the face of the international community's indifference "Things here are improving in spite of us rather than because of us,' the director of one international NGO reflects.
Lack of international recognition and the modest trickle of assistance has left Somalilanders undaunted. With the war firmly behind, they have their faces set towards the task of reconstruction and recovery. "Somaliland is an instrument for the people to realize their aspirations," reflect Boobe. "That part is done, we have the state apparatus. Now we have to begin healing the wounds of the war, to get on with recovery." Few people see any point in looking back "We lost a lot of lives, a lot of material," asserts Mohamed Hashi, but there is not one of us who regrets."
Charged with the awesome government portfolio of reconstruction and resettlement, Mohamed Barood is more reflective. "It is not a waste of time to create a country where our children can be free. We were striving for that and we have succeeded. We are on the right path, we are improving all the time and the way ahead is clear."
Whatever the way ahead may hold in store for Somaliland, it will not soon lead to any kind of unity with the south Somalilanders have fought long and hard for their independence and they will not be persuaded to relinquish it now - neither through negotiations, nor through force of arms. Egal's own resolve echoes the sentiments of their people "Our arms have been repaired and are kept clean. We are ready to defend our independence. If they try to come here from Mogadishu to force us back, we will bury them here."
Matt Bryden has been living and working in Somalia since 1990. He has worked foe various NGO's, the U.N. and as adviser to the Canadian ambassador to Somalia
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Somaliland Archive |
| Anonymous | Friday, April 13, 2001 - 04:19 pm
long live Somalilad |
| Alipapa | Friday, April 13, 2001 - 06:34 pm
Governo ,
I am out. i can't stand to this somaliland motherfuckers. they are all almost fucking insane. Look what this idiot posted. Does the motherfucker think we have nothing to do in our God damned lives when we are reading all this garbage!!!. I told you earlier let's leave those fuckers the hell alone. you said no. let 's see how far you guys go.
Alipapa |
| Lander | Saturday, April 14, 2001 - 10:37 am
Somaliland xoornimadeeda wa muqadas, if you do not want to read history of somaliland well then do not mention Somaliland!!!! |
