Haatuf News

Somaliland Times, Issue 196, Oct.22, 2005

EDITORIAL

Wednesday’s closure by the security forces of Borama’s independent radio station which started broadcasting only a few days earlier, is yet another clear indication of the extent to which President Rayale’s government is ready to go to make sure that no private broadcasting services are introduced in this country. By throwing the station’s technician, Deeq Mohamed, into prison and confiscating the broadcasting equipment, the government has shown how indifferent it is to the tremendously positive changes brought by recent parliamentary elections to the country’s domestic political landscape and international standing.

According to Mr. Rayale and his Minister of Information, Abdillahi Dualle, if independent radio stations were allowed to operate here, it is most likely that they would incite people into communal violence. They often cite the case of the notorious Rwandese Radio station, libre des Mille Collines, whose 1994 programs had deliberately encouraged Hutus to massacre Tutsis, as an example of the terrible things that private broadcasting can do. This argument is of course wrong and baseless simply because the Rwandese radio in question was actually owned by the incumbent Rwandese government at the time and not by someone from the private sector.

The attribution of neighboring Somalia’s lack of peace and reconciliation to Mogadishu’s 7 different private radio stations is also another excuse that Mr. Rayale and Mr. Dualle usually employ as justification for the government’s ban of the establishment of independent radio broadcasting services. However, as almost all independent observers would agree, Mogadishu’s thriving radio stations have been more of a stabilizing factor than a destabilizing one.

Moreover, the fact that Somaliland has its own vibrant private newspapers and at least one independent television station, which have won praise for their coverage of the country’s political situation in the last 14 years, has been in itself a powerful public reminder that there is no justification, at all, for the government’s policy banning private radios.

The actual reason for the government’s behavior lies some where else. Given the fact that Somaliland is primarily an oral society with a high illiteracy rate, President Rayale’s government knows that radio is the most effective medium of information communication. The government is simply scared that if it allows private radio stations in the country, they would capture the lion’s share of the audience. But regardless of the government's motivations for banning private radios, it is in breach of the constitution which guarantees citizens the right to own private radio stations.

The newly democratically elected parliament must bring the government’s habitual violation of the constitution to an immediate stop. The legislators should also introduce, after consultation with the independent media representatives, a law governing broadcasting operations.

The policy of banning private radios has not only deprived citizens of enjoying freedom of the press, but has also stigmatized Somaliland’s democracy internationally. The next House of Representatives should ensure that his harmful government policy ceases to exist.

Ethiopian Technical Team Visits Berbera Port

The Somaliland Times, Issue 196, Oct.22, 2005

Berbera, Somaliland, October 22, 2005 (SL Times) – A 9-man Ethiopian technical team visited Berbera port on Wednesday to hold talks with port officials in prelude to the expected arrival of Ethiopian cargo through Berbera in 2 weeks time.

An agreement reached by Somaliland and Ethiopia in May allows the latter to use the Red Sea Berbera port for import and export.

The Ethiopian delegation was expected to discuss with their Somaliland counterparts issues related to port clearance and forwarding and transport.

Meanwhile, manager of the port of Berbera Ali Xor-xor has disclosed that his department will open an office in Addis Ababa for coordination purposes.

According to Ethiopian press reports, the Saudi born business tycoon, Sheikh Mohamed Al-Amoudi has now shown interest in investing in the development of Berbera port.

Al-Amoudi has substantial investments in Ethiopia and is reportedly keen to revamp the Berbera port facility in the wake of Ethiopian plans to divert some of their import – export operations through the Somaliland port.

Top

Security Forces Close Down Borama’s Private Radio Station

Borama, Somaliland, October 22, 2005 (SL Times) – Somaliland security forces closed down a private radio station in Borama on Wednesday only a few days after it started broadcasting Somali songs.

Police raided a workshop for repairing radio and television sets late Wednesday afternoon arresting a technician called Deeq Mohamed Dualle and confiscating devices suspected of being used as transmission and broadcasting equipment.

The station broadcast on shortwave (SW1) from 19:00 to 02:00 and was easily heard throughout Borama town. The transmission was first detected last Sunday. Broadcasting hasn’t resumed since Wednesday.

This is the second time in less than 3 years that a private radio station has been shut in Borama by the police.

The Somaliland government banned the establishment of private radio stations in the country. The Minister of Information Abdillahi Mohamed Dualle has justified the move by saying that the country has not yet adopted broadcasting regulations. He also claimed that private radio stations, if allowed to operate in Somaliland, would destabilize the country.

Dualle in a similar incident in which a private radio station established in Hargeysa was closed down, demanded that all broadcasting equipment already in the country be surrendered to the government. He warned that delinquent prospective broadcasters would be prosecuted.

Somaliland has six private newspapers and one independent television station. Most Somalilanders depend on the independent media for information on the situation in the country. The government-owned media, 3 newspapers and a radio/TV station, suffers from a credibility problem stemming from public perception that the official media is a propaganda arm for those in power.

Top

Era of Bipolar Power Structure Dawns in Somaliland

Somaliland Times, Issue 195, Oct.15, 2005

Adan H Iman, Los Angeles

The political vacuum left behind by the implosion of the Somali State, which entailed disarming armed militia, by force where necessary, and establishing law and order gave the late President Mohamed I. Egal an opportunity to assume extraordinary powers. The current President Dahir R. Kahin inherited and perpetuated this imperial presidency. The office of the presidency dominated all aspects of political life of the people during this formative period of the Republic. The people tolerated the monarchical powers because establishing law and order and creating the institutions of the state was worth the problems of the imperial presidency.

We have had Presidents during this period that behaved like kings. But when the new elected members of Somaliland’s First Parliament assume their responsibilities, the era of imperial presidency must have sailed into the sun-set of history. In political terms, it is as if at a fault line on the grounds of the presidential quarters in Hargeisa, the equivalent of tectonic shift of the land have occurred. Half of the powers enjoyed by that office have migrated to Parliament as a result of the elections.

The constitution diffuses power into the branches of the government. Its beauty is the elaborate checks and balances: The President is responsible for the operations of the government but parliament has oversight and investigatory responsibility; the President presides over the development of the budget but Parliament has the authority to hold hearings and amend, if they have the votes, before final adoption; the President, as the head of the State, has jurisdiction over foreign policy and dealing with foreign leaders but Parliament has the responsibility of ratifying any agreements reached with a foreign power. The Judiciary, which currently lacks capacity and independence, is supposed to be the arbiter based on the constitution and the laws.

The late US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis wrote that the objective of the checks and balance in the constitution is not to promote efficiency of the government but to preclude the usurpation of power. If Parliament performs its constitutional duties as voters expect, freedom and liberty will ring throughout the country, as it has never been. Hopefully, there will be more transparency and accountability in managing the resources of the country; more protections of civil liberties and administration of justice as citizens will not be thrown to rot in jails without having their days in courts; journalists to have less to fear and more courage to search for the truth; more alternative sources of information like privately owned Radios Stations; more meaningful decentralization that gives decision-making authority to municipal councils and an increase of their budgetary allocations and less power to interior ministry officials over local matters.

Some parliamentary candidates used political parties merely as vehicles to appear on ballots not because they identify ideologically with their party. The bet is that between the one woman and eighty-one men who were elected to the Lower House, a majority of them (42 or more) will emerge to play the role of opposition and put a break to the runaway powers of the Executive branch.

Much as one can describe their governance styles in terms that are critical, the incumbent president and his predecessor, on the other side of the ledger, have made important contributions in planting the seeds of democracy to take roots in Somaliland. The late President Egal created peace and harmony and established the institutions of government in Somaliland while neighboring Somalia sank further and further into lawlessness and violence. Equally important, he painstakingly presided over the writing of the constitution, its lynchpin of which is multiparty representative democracy. Unfortunately, he did not live to see the realization of the dream in his constitution. It befell on his successor, President Rayale, who successfully presided over the holding of three elections, all of which met the standard to be free and fair.

The people of Somaliland elected municipal councils, a president and most recently members of parliament. The excitement and competitive spirits during the last election indicated the degree to which they are enjoying their new democratic values. But these political beliefs will be fragile unless people experience their liberty and freedom will also help gradually improve their economic lives.

The international community did not waste any time to hail the parliamentary election as an important step. But the rich western democracies, which made the spread of freedom and liberty in the Muslim world as a lynchpin of their foreign policy, should back up their effusive praise with concrete financial and economic assistance and end Somaliland’s isolation. Somaliland will be a worthy ally in world peace, in the fight against terrorism ( as it proved last month by apprehending heavily armed terrorists) and a model country where one can be good democrat and a good Muslim at the same time.

Top

The Regrettable Absence of The UN

The Somaliland Times, Issue 194, Oct.8, 2005

EDITORIAL

The United Nations has deliberately chosen to ignore Somaliland’s democratization process. As voters in Somaliland, a 100% Muslim country in the volatile Horn of Africa went to the polls on September 29, 2005 to elect their representatives to the country’s lower house of parliament for the first time in 37 years, UN officials in the region behaved as though this historic event wasn’t worthy of their attention at all. Without so much as a word of appreciation, the UN has rather mischievously warned its field staff of security threats in connection with the Somaliland election. While international observers from 4 different continents and from places as far as New Zealand, Finland, Canada and South Africa converged on Somaliland in the last week prior to the 29 September parliamentary elections, the UN was nowhere to be seen.

Although Somalilanders noticed with bitterness the UN's absence, it did not stop them from going on with their peaceful and reasonably fair elections. The UN has so far given no official explanation for its bizarre behavior, but it must have had something to do with Somaliland’s status as an unrecognized state. But the lack of international recognition cannot serve as a valid justification for th UN's implicit censure of a process under which people have been simply trying to exercise their basic democratic rights.

While the people of Somaliland were voting in the 3rd multi-party elections to be held in their country in a period of less than 3 years, the UN was ironically engaged in the dispensation of international community resources for the appeasement of its host in Jowhar, warlord Mohamed Dheere.

The Somaliland parliamentary elections provided a window of opportunity for Kofi Anan’s UN to be associated, at least for once, with the only successful home-grown-and-driven democratization process in Africa today. By missing this chance, the UN has unwittingly put itself in the same camp as the terrorists whose plot to undermine the elections was foiled by Somaliland security forces only a week before the voting.

The UN should rectify its mistakes and start cooperating with the Somalilanders’ efforts to develop and sustain their self-made peace and democracy, which could become a model for conflict resolution and good governance for countries in this region, and beyond. There are potential benefits for both sides to gain from such a type of partnership. The ball’s now in the UN's court.

Top

A Study of The Psychology of A Nomadic Society
And Its Implications For Somaliland
By Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar MD, FRCP(C), DABPN

The Somaliland Times, Issue 193, Oct.1, 2005

Part IV: Somaliland: Rebirth At The Edge of Chaos

“In Somaliland a ray of hope is flickering. I say flickering because it is under the onslaught of the same forces of evolutionary stress: tribe, toxic waste and visa exempt bugs of all kinds. But there sure is something interesting developing there, a singular experience, and something different altogether. There is peace around the water wells, in the grazing areas, in the villages and in the towns. There are plenty of guns. Plenty technicals. Plenty Klashnikovs. But no one is firing them. The tribes are not massacring each other. Instead a primordial state and its primordial institutions are gradually appearing. We need to know what is happening in Somaliland? Is this what evolutionary adaptation looks like? Is survival feasible after all? Should we not study this natural experiment with a magnifying glass, I mean instead of being scared by it or vilifying it or pulling magic numbers (like 4.5) out of tainted Diaspora hats? Stay tuned for Part 4 where I will be exploring this topic, its evolutionary ramification and the promise it may hold for all Somalis.” From Part III “The Extinction of Tribal Society.

This is part IV. A promise made and a promise kept (eventually!).
One caveat before I commence:

There is a multiparty parliamentary election underway in Somaliland as I write. The campaigning for the election has been heated, at times bellicose, and so far free, fair and much more importantly peaceful! Allow me to whisper to you a hidden secret about this election, to spill the beans Somalilanders don’t want you to know. The political competition is only superficially between the three contesting national parties. The real competition, the one that will decide success or failure is the hidden competition in this election between modernity and statehood on the one hand and tribalism and extinction on the other. It is a struggle for the soul of the Somali. In this part I will write about the theoretical and ideological basis of this singular development in Somaliland in relations to its wider regional context. And I will write about how the two entities of Somalia and Somaliland can interact with symbiosis rather the customary mutual suspicion and tribally based alliances that are ephemeral, shifting and mutually destructive.

What I write here is commentary. Political action is a local function. What happens in Somalia or in its progeny states will be decided on the ground in the cities, villages, farms and nomadic communities inside the country. Somalia’s salvation will not happen in professorial ivory towers or in sterilized suburbia, as some of my colleagues in Diaspora seem to believe. I am not therefore proposing a plan of action. The purpose of my writing is to provoke debate at a time when dialogue among Somalis is nothing more than a disconnected series of monologues, to explore other options at a time when positions has fossilized and imagination died and finally to illuminate the road ahead when possible.

The reader must know my bias. I am committed to the concept of the political independence of Somaliland. Bias, by definition, has the capacity of distorting observation. My Somali identity, however hyphenated, balances this bias to some degree. I remain acutely aware of the unique pain of uncertainty that is associated with my existence and that has caged my people at the periphery of mankind and the edge of extinction. My intimate awareness of the impending human catastrophe will hopefully take me beyond the petty bickering of who among Somalis is more dead than the rest for I know, all that is dead is equally dead.

In Between Stories (Or The Truth About A Failed State)
This is the story of a nation-state that ceased to exist. It is the story of a nation that refuses to be born again. It is an old story that is finished, completed and told, leaving behind a blank space where there is no new story. Somalis are thus stuck in a mysteriously frightening era that was once pregnant with hope and possibilities and that is delivering only horrors, an era in between stories. To untangle this mess let us start with what we know: the old story of the near past. We lived through it and so we know it. Now we must mine it for the cause of our imminent demise and clues for our salvation.

There was of course the union of two countries, the British Protectorate of Somaliland and the Italian Colony of Somalia that formed the Republic of Somalia in July 1, 1960. The union of the two countries was to serve as the launching pad for the ambitious dream of bringing about a grand state for all the Somali Speaking Moslems of the horn of Africa. It was a time of big plans and bigger dreams. It was a time of innocence. Everything was possible, every objective obtainable. Men elsewhere where planning to go to the moon. Somalis were planning the unity of all those who looked, talked and worshiped like them into one nation, united under god free at last of all colonial oppression in both its black and white permutations. It was the good sixties-Somali Version. The flag, blue as a cloudless sky in a sunny day, was carried with much love and dignity. The five-pointed star that adorned its center was the physical symbol of the purpose of the nation and the reason for its existence. The star waited for all the parts to fall in place. These are facts and they need to be retold because they are the pink elephant in the room that the collective psyche of Somalis insists on forgetting. They need to be retold because the pink elephant is the key to the new story.

Sadly there are dreams that morph into nightmares and this was one of them. Before the decade was out The Somali State was in either covert or open warfare with Ethiopia, French Somali Coast (currently Djibouti) and Kenya for the Somali people that were to be freed from colonial yoke and reunited into a new nation lived in these three neighboring countries. These were the liberation wars of Somalia. The first war started in 1964. I was in elementary school then. I remember running through the mountains fleeing with my family the bombardment of Ethiopian airplanes of my village. I remember being hungry, tired and wailing. And I remember my mother soothing, telling me that it will be all right soon, our government will open that magic mirror. The mirror will suck in all these airplanes and take them inside it for destruction. I liked the story it helped me fall asleep that night.

The last of the wars started in 1976 again with Ethiopia. Cubans, Soviets and American were all participants in it. The Cubans and the Soviets participated physically with armed forces on the ground. The American were behind the scenes but nevertheless present. The big powers were ferociously engaged in the cold war. For them the Ethiopian Somali conflict was only one peripheral and inconsequential theatre. But for the region it was a big war, the mother of all wars. It had had profound consequences for Somalis everywhere. For at the end of this war the ideology of Great Somalia lay defeated and dead. Anyway I never heard of it again. Honest. I never saw anyone advocating, justifying or proselytizing Great Somalia ever since. Before that war all Somali music, all poetry, all dance and all celebration were related to it in one fashion or the other. No poems, no songs and no plays were written about it since. The idea of Great Somalia simply vanished. It was there one day and it was out of the collective psyche of the nation the next day. Maybe some one opened the magic mirror facing the wrong direction?
The defeat also robbed the union of its reason for existence. The blue flag became stained with blood of Somalis who turned on each other finding refuge only in the savagery of tribalism as salvage of last resort and as an ancestral burying ground. The union (by then the Democratic Republic of Somalia) started to decay. It fell apart and died as well in 1990. It was over, from dust to dust, from ashes to ashes. Despite many attempts no one was able to bring union back to life. The metamorphosis of a dream to a nightmare was complete.

Some believe that Siyad Barre the last dictator of Somalia killed the nation. Others blame the armed liberation movements that resulted in the defeat of Siyad Barre (USC, SNM, SSDF, etc). They maintain these armed groups did carry the name Somali in all of their acronyms but in the final analysis they represented nothing more than a tribal fracture of the national body politic. Some maintain that the tribal strive followed the inability of these organizations to build a national consensus.

But this is merely a description of the sequence of events in Somalia. The underlying cause of the disintegration, the reason only tribal armed organization could prosper, the reason only tribal political alliances could be formed since the Fall, the reason one man could kill a nation, the reason a nation was unable to produce a national consensus, the real reason for all of these is that Somalis had nothing left to unite them, nothing to give them a national purpose. The dream was dead. No Great Somalia, no union, and no nation. Entropy took hold. Entropy caused the rise and triumph of the tribal political organizations. Entropy rules today. Its other name is statelessness.

The old story ends here. Whatever comes after it is a new story, with new plots and new characters. It is a story not yet written, not yet fully imagined, and not yet told. So we are caught here in the middle, in the time that is “in between stories”. Yet there are glimpses of what is to be in the horizon, not yet fully formed but primordial and still subject to evolutionary influence. The quandary starts here.

A Diabolical Experiment
Ever since the chaos began in 1990 Somalis have been repeatedly experimenting with a new formula as the foundation of a new story. The experiment has been repeated some 14 times so far. It fails every time. With each failure tens of thousands of Somalis lose their life. And the same experiment with the same parameters is repeated all over again. It is a killer experiment. The mad scientists who run the experiment are clearly not among those who are killed by it.
I don’t know who authored the formula. I know not the shadowy and persistent experimenters. I know for sure that once every few years I come by merchants of death flocking to Somali reconciliation conference sites to get a piece of the pie. I come by them hugging “get rich quick” schemes, and dreams of positions and booty. I see them secretly conspiring with the forces of tribal darkness, scheming to skim any fat of the Somalis that will soon die in the experiment. I see them fly and circle, like vulture, the carcass of a nation. Once every few years I see them.

Formula Diabolicum
The formula is maddeningly simple. It is has one central pillar and 4 supporting structures. Each of the five pillars carries within it the seeds for self-destruction and collapses as soon as construction is completed.

· The central pillar is the tribal distribution of power.
This has been operationalized in fine details and enshrined in made up number (4.5 tribal power sharing units) that do not correspond to the reality of the nation and that totally negates the concepts of the individual and citizen. There is only one simple problem with this tribally based power structure. Tribalism has never built a state in human history. It just is not in the nature of the beast. Tribalism is the one factor that has prevented the rebirth of a Somali state. It is what will cause the extinction of Somali society as a whole. Please see part III of this series for the details.

4.5 is the symbol of the shame and failure of the Somalia’s educated elite, who habitually fall back into the intellectually lazy position of tribal “solutions” nonsense because “There is nothing else to work with”. I mean give me a break, you don’t build your house with liquid water “because there is nothing else” unless you are a fish, you don’t build your house of hot air and live in it “because there is nothing else” and surely you don’t build your house of fire unless you believe in reincarnation.

· A peace conference in a safe place.
This removes the reconciliation process from its legitimate environment and throws it into the highly artificial environment of posh hotels, running water, electricity and absence of gunfire. It represents acceptance of failure right from the start, for it speaks of political forces that failed to develop even the minimal trust necessary to meet somewhere in their own country (just to meet and say hi). It solves the mistrust by asking them to reach a comprehensive solution (from A-Z) to their crisis in some foreign soil and go back and start fighting because no one really trusted anyone at all any which ways. The failure is ingrained in the assumption; it unfolds when “a comprehensive paper agreement” is brought back to the home of mistrust.

· Dangerous Aid:
International monetary assistance for the Somali reconciliation conferences has been one of the more destabilizing aspects of international aid to Somalis. People are actually paid to attend these meetings. The payments are meager but the economic environment is such that peanuts do count. The hotel expenses and food of the potentially reconcilable are covered by financial donations from the rest of the world. Aid comes with an inherently corrupting power. The money distorts both the course and the outcome of the conferences. Purse holders with the capacity to decide who should get what and when come into existence and prosper and play a disproportionate role. Local powers actually manipulate their donations to engineer an outcome favorable to them. More distant powers engage in similar practices in a more sophisticated manner. The marathon conferences take up two years at a time and become a bona fide business in their own right. The more money the more corruption, the more and merrier the unsavory characters and the merchants of death it attracts.

· The Assumption that Armed Gangs (Called Warlords) will voluntarily disarm:
What is a warlord? A warlord is to a nation what a criminal thug is to an individual. Warlords are men who have private armies recruited exclusively from the Warlord’s tribe but who has allegiance only to Warlord and to no one else (not to tribal elders, tribal chief or other prominent members of the same tribe).

A thug drives his power from his capacity to intimidate one or few persons at most. A warlord drives his power from his capacity to intimidate the civilian populations of whole villages, towns and cities. It is no exaggeration that every Warlord in Somalia has been responsible for the death of at least hundreds of Somalis. You don’t become a warlord by praying in a mosque. This is a status you reach only by spilling blood, preferably but not necessarily, the blood of other tribe members. You may become “respectable” afterwards, but first you have to plant the seeds of “respect”.

The Arta Conference held in Djibouti created the Abdi Qaasim paper government by imagining the Warlords away. The latest Somali reconciliation conference in Kenya took a different route but one that is equally preposterous. In the last reconciliation conference held in the pig farm of Mpagathi, Kenya, the experimenters decided to limit the reconciliation process primarily to the warlords and to make the biggest of them the president of the nation. That is how Abdillahi Yusuf became the new paper president.

Now imagine asking Al Capone a) to give up his weapons voluntarily b) to hand the weapons over to the Gambini crime family c) and to help the Gambinis become the law and order agency of the land. This might indeed look ridiculous but asking the murderous Somali gangs called warlords to give up their weapon is every bit as ridiculous. Yet it is a central premise of the experiment.

When the warlords continue on maiming and murdering people, and when they fight out turf battles among themselves marked by the enormity of the collateral damage to the civilian population, the learned experimenters shake their heads in dismay and feign surprise. For those who like to live in dreams we should wake them up and tell them otherwise. Behold ye who sleep; Warlords will not disarm voluntarily. Not now. Not tomorrow. And not the day after tomorrow.

· The establishment of a paper government.
The announcement of government that controls only few villages or few streets of the capital and presenting them to the world and to the Somalis as actual national Somali State perpetuates the whole fakery and plays a cruel joke on the Somali public. The paper government is recognized by other governments in paper. And every one abandons it once it is all written up in a paper and the paper ends up in landfills.

The uniqueness of the experiment lies in its strangeness as well. It always begins with prayers, celebrations, and song and dance. And it always ends in moaning and mourning with thousands of Somalis dead, suffocated, strangulated, stabbed, shot, infected, infested, starved and drowned. I mean this literally. And woe betides those who survive the experiment are seized by a collective amnesia that guarantees its future repetition.

Conspiracy theorists may see The Experiment as a secret weapon designed to free the land of Somalis and replace them with others. Unfortunately the essential theorists of the experiment are Diaspora based Somali intellectuals, themselves caught in the tribal net, their own alienation in foreign lands and their own disconnection from the spirit and soul of the nation. When the theory fails every time, the scholars blame the experimenters, the warlords, the victims, and the rest of the world. Indeed failure has “other” fathers.

There is here an obvious conclusion that can be reached with ease and certainty. The diabolic formula is the problem not the solution. It is not a new story. It is a perpetual repetition of the end of the old story. The decade that followed the defeat of the Great Somalia ideology in 1976 saw the ascendancy of tribal conflict, the commencement of ferocious tribal wars and the gradual decay and eventual disappearance of the Somali state in 1990. The decade and half that followed the collapse of the Somali State saw only the institutionalization of tribal ideology in the form of 4.5 and the cyclical escalation of the debauchery, bloodletting and tribal sacrifices of gore and blood. The Diabolic Formula drives these cycles and repeats the ending of the same old story, like an echo, like the after shocks of an earthquake, like the last shivers of dying man.

To be continued…..

The Sustainable Development Of Somaliland Democracy

The Somaliland Times, Issue 193, Oct.1, 2005

EDITORIAL

For the third time since declaring their withdrawal from the 1960-union with Somalia, some 14 years ago, Somalilanders were able last Thursday to choose their representatives to government in a democratically conducted national election. The overwhelming majority of Somalilanders have already expressed full satisfaction with the way the 29 September parliamentary elections were conducted. After all, this has been their own process; devised, nurtured and implemented by them.

To this basically egalitarian society, the right to choose one’s leaders freely and hold them accountable hasn’t been something new. When the British tried to deprive Somalilanders of this right, they responded with several rebellions.

In the post-colonial period when dictator Siyad Barre tried to subjugate Somaliland, people resorted to armed resistance and in the ensuing war Somalia’s repressive and alien state was destroyed. In its place Somalilanders tried to build new state structures that people in this country can understand and identify with. Thus the birth of the Beel or clan-based political system that took major decisions by consensus and selected government leaders through an electoral college consisting of traditional leaders representing clans. This system succeeded in reinstating peace through grass-root level initiatives for reconciliation and nation-building.

Since 1997, the challenge has been how to develop the clan-based system to such a degree that it would be compatible with the demands of modernity. The successful multi-party elections held in 2002 and 2003 and the one that just happened, have disproved those who were imbued with the idea that tradition, Islam and modernity were irreconcilable in the Somaliland context. But for the new system to take root, it will be crucial in the next stage to improve the polity in place and ensure the sustainable development of Somaliland’s democracy.

It is at this juncture that international cooperation will be most needed. Both the EU and South Africa have already shown positive interest in Somaliland’s democratization process. Perhaps it is time for the United Nations to pay serious attention to this country’s experimentation in the creation of an appropriate, effective and sustainable system of governance.

Somaliland has already taken significant moves toward real democracy and its latest successful multi-party elections have already drawn admiration from people in the Horn of Africa region, particularly the citizens of neighboring Somalia.

Somaliland can become a model for this region, and beyond, in terms of peace-making reconciliation, disarmament and constitutional democratic rule. The United Nations and the rest of the international community should realize that by lending their support to Somaliland's democratization and national consolidation process, they would be serving the cause of democracy in the wider-region as well.

Top

Counting of Ballot Papers Of Somaliland Parliamentary Elections
Underway

KULMIYE Leading In Both Hargeysa And Buroa

UDUB Expected To Win Borama

New Gains For UCID In Almost All Regions

Hargeysa, Somaliland, October 1, 2005 (SL Times) – Counting of ballot papers cast by voters in Somaliland’s Thursday parliamentary elections was still underway on late Friday night at the headquarters of the six regional electoral commissions.

In the Hargeysa district only 105 ballot boxes were counted with the main opposition party KULMIYE capturing roughly 40.71%, while UDUB and UCID won 30.15% and 29.14% each respectively.

In the Buroa district, 118 boxes were counted by midnight with KULMIYE winning 24,664 votes, UDUB 16, 354 votes and UCID 18, 184 votes.

The race was neck and neck when 19 polling stations were counted in Berbera district with UDUB scoring 4,968 votes against KULMIYE’s 4, 777 votes and UCID’s 4, 690 votes.
In the Gar-adag district of Sanaag region, the preliminary results gave KULMIYE 6, 650 votes, UDUB 3, 650 and UCID 1, 400 votes.

Meanwhile President Rayale’s UDUB party was poised to comfortably win the majority of votes cast in the Awdal region as a whole while UCID showed a significant jump in its capture of the national vote compared to the results of last presidential elections.

In Erigavo district, preliminary results so far indicated that KULMIYE won 22, 230 votes against 21, 981 for UCID. UDUB was third capturing only 13, 218 votes.

The voting started at 6 o’clock in the morning and closed at 6pm at most of the country’s polling stations. In some places such as Togdheer’s Odweyne district where arrival of ballot boxes was delayed by rains, polling stations remained opened after the 6pm deadline.

In Hargeysa and Buroa there were still people in the queues when polling stations closed. Scores of people were arrested by the police for trying to double vote.

Voter turn-out in this election was at least 40% bigger in comparison with the 2003 presidential elections with one million people expected to vote this time around.

The 3 political parties fielded 246 candidates for the 82-seat House of Representatives.
Though the weeks before the election witnessed a lot of mud slinging in the battle for votes, however the most overwhelming majority of Somalilanders on the streets or in rural villages felt not only satisfied with the fairness of the elections but also felt proud that exercise was held in an orderly and peaceful manner.

A contingent of 100 foreign observers monitored the Somaliland’s Thursday parliamentary elections.

According to the head of the group, Steve Kibble, no major problems were reported during the election.

The South African team consisted of 12 men and women. There was a parliamentarian from Finland. The International Cooperation for Development (ICD) provided coordination and logistical support.

Other countries from which observers were drawn included Britain, Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, USA, Zimbabwe and Sweden.

Top

Somaliland's Historic Parliamentary Elections

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 29, 2005 (Haatuf/SL Times) -
Somaliland voters went to the polls early this morning to elect
their representatives to the lower house of parliament.

There are nearly 246 candidates contesting this election for the
82-seat House of Representatives.

Voting started at 6 O'clock in the morning at most of the 985
polling stations. The candidates for this first democratically
elected parliament in over 35 years represent Somaliland's 3
political parties: UDUB, KULMIYE and UCID.

The polling represents Somaliland's third experiment with
multi-party elections in less than 4 years.

In December 2002, the country witnessed its first local council
elections and in April 2003 presidential elections were held.
International observers had certified both elections as free and
fair.

Two years and nine months after the country's last presidential
elections, officials of the National Electoral Commission and leaders
of the political parties expressed optimism that this parliamentary
polling will also be successful.

Top

Will the UN take Professor Herbst’s advice?

Somaliland Times, Issue 192, Sep.24, 2005

Editorial

With charges of corruption in Iraq’s oil for food program hanging over its secretary general, sexual crimes committed by its peacekeepers in the Congo and Bosnia, its inability to stop the genocide in Rwanda, and President Bush’s visceral disdain for it, the United Nation’s reputation and clout has undergone steady and serious erosion. Powerful countries such as the United States may have less reason to worry about this as they could use their political and economic muscle to protect their interests within the UN, or, if necessary, without the UN. But for most countries, especially the poorer ones that make up the majority of the UN’s membership, the weakening of the UN would have much more serious consequences because it would rob them of a legal framework with which to protect themselves. The poorer, less developed countries will have to blame themselves for this, since instead of fixing the myriad of problems facing them, they allowed their societies to deteriorate and have been using the UN system to prop up their failed sovereignties.

Most African countries and many Arab countries belong to these failing states that are hiding behind the UN’s principle of respect for state sovereignty. In other words, the UN system that was originally designed to help independent states by validating and to some extent, protecting their sovereignty, has become the protector of failed states. Due to the large number of failed states, especially in Africa, the UN system is stretched to the limit and it is getting more and more difficult to maintain the fiction of state sovereignty for failed or non-existent states. Somalia, which has not had a government for the last fourteen years is an example of such a non-existent state. There has been fourteen internationally or regionally sponsored conferences to revive Somalia. None of them bore fruit. In addition, the United Nation’s major campaign to save Somalia, Operation Restore Hope, was an unmitigated disaster.

Professor Jeffrey Herbst of Princeton has drawn attention to the severity of the problem of failed states in Africa and the need for a new approach to tackle it. His solution is that the world community should drop its misguided effort to resuscitate African failed states, and instead help those states, like Somaliland, that have actually proved that they are states. Professor Jeffrey Herbst has given excellent advice to the international community, but will they listen?

Top

Press Release: 24th September 2005 - Immediate

Somaliland Parliamentary Election 29th September 2005: The last task of the process of regaining the rejected freedom in 1960, 45 years ago.

With just days to go the countdown has began for the Somaliland Parliamentary Elections due to be held on the 29th of September. There are three freely competing national parties each convinced that they hold the answers and solutions to Somaliland’s challenges.

Against all odds Somaliland has successfully managed to overcome the destruction carried out by the military dictatorship. Now Somaliland is a country of peace, freedom, equality and enterprise. In August 2000 The Financial Times reported, “It (Somaliland) could serve as a model for Africa: peaceful, stable, little crime, no debt, a liberal economic regime as of this month, a multi-part electoral system”.

Since then a new constitution establishing a multi-part electoral system was approved in 31st May 2001, Local Government elections followed in December 2002 and peacefully contested presidential election was held in April 2003. With only parliamentary election scheduled for 29th September 2005 remaining, Somaliland’s multi-party democratisation process is complete.

Many renowned and distinguished politicians, academicians, researchers and commentators across the world are calling the International Community to be realistic about the permanent and drastic shift and change of the paradigm that the so called Pan-Somalism was based. They strongly and with conviction argue that no longer Somaliland and Somalia could form one government even if Somalia manages to reach peace and stability, as the case is now in Somaliland, as they are completely two different entities with different systems, institutions, ethos and aspirations.

The high profile Sir Bob Geldof recent series on Africa (BBC – Africa Lives – Geldof in Africa) and other programmes commended Somaliland achievements as a shining example of a home grown African democracy - blending the traditional and cultural values with modern democratic processes. The report of the Commission for Africa (June 2005) showcased Somaliland as a role model of a successful bottom approach democracy in Africa:

“Civil war plunged Somalia into a condition of such chaos that the state, as an organism of government, could be said no longer to exist. Provinces became anarchic and autarchic, with warlords ruling whatever territory their forces could command. To the north of the country, however, the area known as Somaliland has shown signs of calm, and modest but ordered prosperity…it is one with its mix of African and other systems of governance, which clearly works.”

In their press release of 6th September 2005 the International Co-operation for Development (ICD) says:

“For many observers the democratisation of Somaliland is seen as an interesting experiment that deserves greater study and support in its incorporation of democratic values within a traditional social structure.”

The success story of Somaliland and its unparalleled achievements were vigorously debated in British Parliament on 4th February 2004. In this debate the Rt. Hon. Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State for International Development, said:

“I concur completely with what we have heard today about governance and the progress that Somaliland has made. Indeed, it provides some important lessons, and in some respects acts as a beacon to other parts of Africa because of the relative stability that it has enjoyed for 10 years. It has held democratic elections - municipal and presidential - and aims to hold parliamentary elections in, we all hope, the not too distant future. It has a traditional bicameral Parliament...It has a police force, a defence force, its own currency and a relatively free and lively press. Undoubtedly, in contrast to the rest of Somalia, it has achieved an enormous amount for its people.”

Contrary to the unfortunate and sad loss of lives in many African and developing countries not a single person was killed, harmed or arrested in Somaliland during all these elections and no doubt the case will be the same for the coming Parliament election to take place on 29th September. This is not by accident but Somaliland people have a deep-rooted tradition of tolerance, fairness, equality and freedom. Even during the colonial period the Somaliland people were highly respected by “their masters - the British.” A report (1952) by the British Colonial Administration in Somaliland to Her Majesty Government states:

“… they have ethnological and political claims to racial individualism that would seem to be at least as good as our own, while there is no reason to suppose that their love of independence and liberty is any less than that of the Americans or ours”.

In 1959 one year before the independence of Somaliland (1960) The Secretary of State for Colonies, Mr Lennox-Boyd MP, made a political statement in Hargeisa the capital of Somaliland stating: “Whatever the eventual destiny of the protectorate Her Majesty’s Government will continue to take interest in the welfare of its inhabitants.”

On 19th May 2003 Mr Bill Rammell MP, UK Foreign Minister, made this statement at Westminster when Ms Linda Perham MP asked him about the UK Policy on Somaliland:

“UK policy on Somalia and Somaliland has two objectives:

a) To see peace and stability established throughout Somalia. We have encouraged the National Reconciliation Process initiated by the regional organisation the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and we welcomed the Declaration on cessation of hostilities signed on 27 October 2002.

b) For Somaliland, which is not taking part in the Conference, to reach a political settlement with the rest of the country. This can only happen at a later stage in the reconciliation process. It will be for the people of Somaliland to decide for themselves if they are ready to engage in talks with the rest of Somalia.”

After 46 years of Mr Lennox-Boyd MP, The Secretary of State for Colonies, visit and statement on Somaliland, The Rt Hon Chris Mullen, Foreign Minister for Africa, visited Somaliland in last October. He addressed both Houses of Somaliland Parliament and made this powerful statement:

“In a region torn by war and chaos Somaliland stands out as beacon of stability and progress…In the long term, however, sustainable development and prosperity in Somaliland will only be possible if there is peace and stability throughout the region…Let me assure you, however, that the British government will never be party to an agreement that pushes you – against your will – into a forced marriage with the South.”

The Somaliland Communities in Europe and elsewhere are loudly and explicitly saying to the International Community:

“We are an Islamic country in the developing world, and we have shown the international community that we know how to run a stable government and fair elections. Take notice of us, and use us as an example of what can be done, instead of pushing us into the corner as if we had done something disgraceful. What we have done is reject war-lord anarchy and opted for a well adapted administration and home grown bottom up democratic parliamentary process. What more do you want? Recognise us and our achievement, and help others to follow our good example!'

The Somaliland people hope that the International Community will honour and respect the self determination, the choice and deep feeling of Somaliland people in regaining their independence through democratic process. Also they hope that Great Britain who has long historic connections with Somaliland; and currently holds the chair of the G8 countries and the presidency of the European Commission to spearhead the long over due recognition and badly needed economic development aid for Somaliland. How long the Somaliland people await the dividend for peace, reconciliation and democratic governance?

It is imperative that The British Government shows the needed world leadership to resolve Somaliland predicament. These ministerial policy statements say it all and Somaliland people awaited action for a long time. It is about time that the rhetoric should be stopped and the reward that Somaliland people deserve, in achieving so much, to be delivered and their freedom and liberty as a nation and state to be respected and honoured.

To say the least it is double standard, injustice and discriminatory that Somaliland people to be a kept hostage by the International Community for Somalia - whether ungovernable as the situation has been for the last fourteen years or if at all governable in the future! Under the international law Somaliland people decided for their future and regained their freedom they rejected forty fiv years ago and they have all the right to do so.

On Thursday 29th September Somaliland people are fulfilling the last phase of the process of an innovative, workable and equitable model of democracy of their own making based on their cultural values and the process of modern democracy. As they fully met the criteria for an independent, peaceful, stable, democratic and viable country the Somaliland people hope they will not be ignored anymore and let down by the International Community.

This is the year for Africa and The British Government at the forefront of the International Community has the golden opportunity to honour its pledges to the Somaliland people and lead the International Community to give the Smaliland people what they deserve and entitled. The case of Somaliland people should remind Great Britain and other freedom loving countries to appreciate and value the democracy and equality that they strive for and have striven for over decades. Peaceful and freedom loving Somaliland people deserve no less.

For further information please contact the following SSE members across Europe:

Great Britain:
Eid Ali Ahmed - Tel: 029 2043 2972 Mobile: 07971531761
Abdulkadir Maacalesh - Tel: 01204535093 Mobile: 07984142942
Mohmed Bashe - Tel: 02077906611
Khader Hassan - Mobile: 07961131014

Belgium
Mohamed Aburahman Hussein ‘Jacket’- Tel: +32 32721095 Mobile: +32 484506644
Abdirahman Omer Farah‘Ciro’ - Mobile: +32 484639812

Denmark
Mohamed - Amin Siyad - Mobile: +45 26239485

Finland
Dr Mohamud Mohamed Abdillahi – Tel: +35 8 34 671 4929 or +35 8 9310 62673

France
Halimo Yusuf – Mobile: +33 6 24577093
Mohamed Hassan – Tel: + 33 478800575 Mobile: + 33 6 99669169
Abdurahman Yassin – Tel: + 33 5 59828841 Mobile: + 33 6 89831266

Germany
Mohamed Saad – Tel: + 49 2 235929245 Mobile: + 49 1 6092356044

Holland
Dr Hussein Abdillahi – Tel: +31 302613448 Mobile: +31 624169852

Italy
Dr Jama Muse Jama – Mobile: +39 3389679505

Norway
Saeed Farah – Mobile: + 47 98838582
Jama Ali - + 47 67415793 Mobile: +47 95232157

Sweden
Hussein Wadadyare – Tel: + 46 34684523
Ali Sugaal – Tel: + 46 34680167

Notes for Editors
.
Former British Somaliland became independent on 26th June 1960. However, it gave up its freedom after only four days as reported by the Daily Herald Newspaper of London on 29th June 1960:

“The Rejected Freedom - Three days ago, it gained its independence; on Friday, it gives it up again:

Somaliland, a British colony for nearly 80 years, became independent last Sunday. And on Friday, after four days of freedom, this British outpost will surrender its sovereignty and merge with its sister, Somalia. It has decided not to remain in the Commonwealth. Somaliland, eastern gateway to Dark Africa, was hardly worth a sniff in the world's press until three days ago. Now it has become an area of historical significance. And the reason is that its merger with Somalia is unique, as Somalia itself is not yet free. Somalia.”

The Somaliland people and their leadership were naïve enough to give away their freedom in June 1960. In February 1960 a British Conservative MP, Major Patrick Wall, visited British Somaliland and strongly warned about the injustice in the coming union. In April 1960 he made this statement in the British Parliament (African Affairs June 1960):

“There are, I think, considerable dangers to our British Somalis as in this union, because the Italian Somalis are more developed…and they have a higher degree of political institutions and it may well be that they absorb the Protectorate, indeed, it has already been decided that the Protectorate of British Somaliland is to become but two of the eight provinces within the new union. I think this would be a great pity…One hopes that the discussions which will start next week in London between her majesty’s Government and the representatives of British Somaliland, this point will be borne in mind; we should also see that our own ex-colonials – if I can put it that way – get a fair break in the new Republic.”

v On 28th July 2003 the highly credible lobby group, International Crisis Group, based in Brussels issued a comprehensive report on Somaliland: Democratisation and its Discontents. The report says:

“Somaliland’s democratisation renders the prospects for reunification with the rest of Somalia increasingly improbable, not only because the aspiring state’s political institutions have little in common with the kinds of interim, factional arrangements likely to emerge in the south, but also because its leadership is becoming more accountable to its electorate – the majority of whom no longer desire any form of association with Somalia.

This report is highly recommended to all interested parties to understand the history and present situation of Somaliland. For the full report please refer to the Group’s website: www.intl-crisis-group.org.

v BBC News – World Edition (http://news.bbc.co.uk) on 21st October 2004 reports Dr Iqbal Jhaszbhay comments on the Commission for Africa:

“Tony Blair’s Africa Commission has a profound historic opportunity, to firstly, facilitate development in Africa and, secondly, to focus on promoting peace and stability …Tony Blair’s Africa Commission will be fondly remembered if it succeed in highlighting the key development concern of fair trade and market access and, moving towards resolving the situation of the two neglected peoples of Western Sahara and Somaliland… Our humanity remains compromised as long as the people of Africa, Western Sahara and Somaliland, remain shackled by redundant policies, which do not see the urgency for creative action.”

Dr Iqbal Jhazbahay is a senior lecturer at the University of South Africa & memebr of the ANC’s Commission for Religious Affairs.

v In a speech he delivered on 17th March 2004 at a banquet and reception held by Somaliland Diaspora for the honour of Somaliland President Dahir Riyal Kahin and his delegation and British MPs who visited Somaliland Professor Ioan Lewis of London School of Economics brilliantly explained the situation of Somaliland:
“With the liberation struggle over in Somaliland, energies turned to the gradual restoration of the country. Peace-making and social reconstruction has followed a bottom-up path, starting at the grass roots with small local clan groups, and building up gradually in ever widening circles. This slow and often irregular process which, not without setbacks, has taken several years is reflected in Somaliland's contemporary two-tier parliament: A house of elected party representatives, and an upper house of nominated clan elders…These locally evolved Somaliland political institutions have delivered a degree of political stability and democratic government so far unattained in any other part of the defunct state of Somalia. Today Somaliland is an effective functioning state, based on good governance, to an extent that is sadly now rare in Africa. The restoration of civil society is well underway, schools and hospitals are under construction with help from diaspora Somalis and some friendly NGOs. Much has been achieved in demobilising former militias and retraining those who cannot fruitfully be absorbed into the local police or army.

Although there have undeniably been serious ups and downs in the process summarised above, the overall achievement so far is truly remarkable, and all the more so in that it has been accomplished by the people of Somaliland themselves with very little external help or intervention. The contrast with fate of southern Somalia hardly needs to be underlined.
Far from seeking to applaud or encourage these developments in spontaneous Somali democracy, the outside world has taken little interest and remained largely indifferent. This, of course, contrasts strikingly with the frequent pronouncements by Western leaders of their concern to promote good government and democracy in Africa. As the chairman of the politics department at Princeton University has recently put it: 'One would think that the natural response of the outside world to the extraordinary achievement of the Somalilanders would be respect and recognition' -especially in contrast with Somalia'.

If as I hope Somaliland soon receives the international recognition to which it has long been entitled, I hope equally that this action will provide a new impetus to social reconstruction in Somalia. It is obvious that a new approach is needed, and one that is better informed about Somali political realities and less biased by extraneous external interests. These biases on the part of the principal external actors are acutely obvious.”

v The Washington Times (www.washingtontimes.com) reported on 6th January 2005 an article titled “Curious Case of Somaliland” by Richard Rahn who argues:

“The Somalilanders ask why they must remain part of a dysfunctional state. Before the colonial period, there was no Somalia state, and Somaliland was under British rule for 80 years. They argue their situation is not really all that different from the Baltic States or the now independent countries that made up the former Yugoslavia…The danger for the U.S., Britain and the other Western countries is their failure to recognize Somaliland will gain influence and power for radical Muslim elements there. Somaliland might be pulled back into the morass of Somalia, a terrorist breeding ground.

American diplomats by nature tend to be cautious and are reluctant to appear to be rewarding breakaway states in Africa. However, it is the judgment of some of the diplomatic "Africa hands," who know the situation best, that the benefits of recognizing Somaliland far outweigh the potential costs of continued non-recognition. The Bush and Blair administrations should come together and immediately recognize Somaliland to reward them for pursuing a constructive path toward free market democracy. If we do so, I would bet that, within a year, most other nations will have followed our lead.”

Richard W. Rahn is a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute and an adjunct scholar of the Cato Institute.

v The Washington Post (www.washingtonpost.com) reported on 2nd January 2004 an article titled “In Africa, What Does it Take to Be A Country” written by Professor Jeffery Herbst of Princeton University who argues:

“The Somalilanders made their own peace without the benefit of international mediators and conflict resolution experts…recognizing Somaliland would be a strong signal to the rest of Africa that performance matters and that sovereignty granted in the 1960s will not be an excuse to fail forever. Few regions of any African country actually want to secede; thus the world could recognize the achievements and legal idiosyncrasies of Somaliland without experiencing massive disruptions of Africa's map. The Somalilanders, almost unanimously, ask what more they can do when the international community continues to recognize Liberia, Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of the Congo and other anarchic, violent places as sovereign units. It is time to give them an answer.”

v Sub-Sahara Informer reported on 29th July 2005 a revealing article titled “Faking a Government for Somalia – International diplomacy supports fictitious peace process” by Ulf Terlinden and Tobias Hagmann:

“For more than a decade the feasibility of successful reconciliation in Somalia has been proven in Somaliland. It accomplished peace and reconstruction largely by its own means and its government emerged from what observers have described as free elections. Yet Somaliland Republic is denied recognition, due to the international Community’s insistence on the principle of a united Somalia. As an ironic consequences, donors and international organisations support what could be captured as a ‘letter-box government’, which upholds a fiction of sovereignty, even over Somaliland.

The case of Somaliland also points to an issue that reaches beyond the gap between appearance and reality of Somali peace process and interim governments. The internationally sponsored peace conferences were all based on the assumption that sustainable peace requires the existence of a central state authority for Somalia. This stance overlooks the actual pacification and emergence of governance in Somaliland.”

Ulf Terlinden and Tobias Hagmann are peace researchers at the Centre for Development Research in Bonn, Germany and Swisspeace, Bern, Switzerland respectively. Both are political scientist and long time observers of the Somali inhibited Horn of Africa.

Somaliland Societies in Europe (SSE):

Somaliland Societies in Europe (SSE) is primarily a network for Somaliland communities and organisations in Europe. SSE is a non-political but charitable organisation. It is in its formative years and its vision is “to bring together and utilise the skills and resources of its members, Somaliland organisations and communities in Europe for the benefit of Somalilanders in Europe and back home - Somaliland”.

SSE’s Main Strategic Objectives include:

Ø To promote the development and empowerment of Somaliland communities in Europe and Somaliland

Ø To link and liaise with indigenous and International and Somaliland NGOs and Institutions

Ø To promote, publicise and market the achievement of Somaliland, its people and institutions in the International Community

Ø To lobby for more resources and development grants for Somaliland Communities in Europe and those in Somaliland

Ø To be vigilant about the on going Somaliland democratisation process and democratically challenge any undemocratic obstruction and hindrance instigated by individual (s) and/or groups in this democratisation process.

SSE Contacts:

Eid Ali Ahmed, Chair
Tel: + 44 (0)29 2043 2972 or + 44 (0) 29 2038 3317
Mobile: +44 (0) 7971531761
Emai: eid_consultancy@yahoo.co.uk

Abdulkadir Maacalesh, Secretary
Tel: + 44 (0) 12 0453 5093 Mobile: +44 (0) 7984142942
Email: maacalesh@yahoo.co.uk

Website: www.sse4.com
Email: info@sse4.com

Top

UDUB's Hate Speeches

Somaliland Times, Issue 191. Sep.17, 2005

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 17, 2005 (SL Times) – The UDUB party of Somaliland President Dahir Rayale has reduced its election campaign to a series of hate speeches as senior government officials took turns earlier this week to incite the public against the opposition parties, particularly KULMIYE.

At two consecutive rallies held by UDUB in Arabsiyo and Gabiley last Tuesday, Interior minister, Ismail Adan, unleashed a barrage of insults against the KULMIYE opposition party leaders and prominent veterans of the armed struggle waged by the SNM against Siyad Barre’s dictatorship in the 1980s. He accused former high-ranking SNM officers of spying for the enemy during the liberation war.

KULMIYE’s current leader, Ahmed Silanyo, is a former SNM chairman and a significant number of key posts in the party’s upper hierarchy are held by SNM veterans. By contrast, Somaliland’s current minister of Interior worked as a draughtsman for Hargeysa municipality during Siyad Barre’s rule. His relations with military government officials at the time was the subject of various types of rumors and is often described by KULMIYE supporters as a former collaborator with the Faqash (the SNM’s code name for Somalia’s former military government that ruled Somaliland).

While addressing Tuesday’s UDUB rally in Gabiley, Interior Minister, Ismail Adan, tried to demonize KULMIYE by saying that the party was against Somaliland’s recognition.

The minister seemed very concerned about how UDUB would perform in the upcoming parliamentary elections. UDUB lost Gabiley to KULMIYE in the last presidential poll and according to most observers, the ruling party is expected to fare even worse in this election.

Adan tried to woo voters by saying that they would serve themselves a favor if they voted for UDUB instead of the opposition.

“A political party that is not in government and not led by an incumbent president, vice-president and ministers can’t do anything for you”, said the Interior minister, adding that it won't be a big deal if the opposition emerged with majority seats. “Remember it is us who will still be paying their salaries,” he asserted.
.
The political atmosphere was further poisoned by the stinging attacks launched against KULMIYE by Somaliland’s Information Minister, Abdillahi Mohamed Duale, who was still campaigning with vice-President Ahmed Yassin in the eastern regions for the third week.

In an apparent bid to chip away at Kulmiye's identification with the SNM, both Duale and Adan resorted to personal attacks against Ahmed Silanyo, the longest-serving chairman of the former guerilla organization.

The incitement speeches against the opposition were first started by Vice-President Ahmed Yassin while he was campaigning in Berbera early this month.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters in the center of the town, he said that the government was about to fulfill its old pledge to supply Berbera with 2 power generators. “Those of you who feel jealous about the 2 generators should better be dead,” added the vice-President in an apparent reference to the opposition.

The onslaught on the opposition was shown unedited on the government’s newly acquired television station. The 2 opposition parties were unable to respond through the new local TV channel as they were denied access. The ministry of information is supposed to run the station. But in reality it is directed by the office of the president. The TV’s manager, Ali Fuad, has recently clashed with Radio Hargeysa staff over programme selection.

Ali Fuad who was transferred to the information ministry on secondment from the ministry of planning, insists that the TV is a parasatal organization that doesn’t come administratively under the ministry of information. It is not unusual to notice Fuad taking orders from his former boss, Ahmed H. Dahir, with regard to the type of programmes that need not be shown for the day.

The Election Monitoring Board said it has noticed, with regret, the irresponsible behavior of some UDUB officials last Tuesday. The monitoring board called upon all political parties to refrain from public incitement. It also urged the government to provide equal and balanced access to the state-controlled media.

Top

We Are United Against Terrorism

Somaliland Times, Issue 192, Sep.24, 2005

EDITORIAL

Somaliland has foiled yet another major terrorist attack. Obviously the operation was intended to create a situation of utmost havoc and despair in the lead up to two events both scheduled to take place in the last week of this month: the Sept 25 sentencing by Hargeysa regional court of 10 people suspected of killing aid workers between 2002 and 2004 as well as the Sept 29 parliamentary elections.

The terrorists’ dual target was, of course, to disrupt the country’s first legislative elections in over 35 years and blackmail the Somaliland government into freeing their comrades who could face the death penalty.

Considering the lethal nature of the large amount of weapons seized from them following Thursday’s raid by the Somaliland security forces on their hide-outs in Hargeysa, there is no doubt that the terrorists sought to stage their biggest attack in Somaliland so far. That they failed this time around however doesn’t mean they will not try again in the future, as long as rich Wahabists from the Arabian Peninsula continue to pour money into the pockets of thugs like Hassan Aweys and Adan F. Eiro and Somaliland remains an unrecognized country. But the truth is that Somaliland’s march toward a fully-fledged democratic system of governance of its own cannot be slackened, let alone stopped, by a bunch of terrorists calling themselves Mujahideen.

In fact the only Mujahideen that this country has known are the SNM veterans who led the armed resistance against the Faqash government (Siyad Barre’s regime). Today’s terrorists are yesterday’s Faqash. That is why they hate free and independent Somaliland. That is also why these Faqash turned terrorists will never have sympathy among Somalilanders and are doomed to fail.

Top

Elusive Terrorist Abdirahman Indho-Ade Finally In Police Custody

Somaliland Times, Issue 192, Sep.24, 2005

Elusive Terrorist Abdirahman Indho-Ade Finally In Police Custody

At least 4 More Suspects Arrested After Thursday’s Gunbattle
With Somaliland Security Forces

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 24, 2005 (SL Times) – Abdirahman Indho-Ade, one of the most wanted terrorists in the Horn of Africa was arrested yesterday by the Somaliland security forces. Indho-Ade was wounded in his right hand following a night raid by armed security police on a suspected terrorist hide-out in the most easterly part of Hargeysa city.

According to Somaliland police authorities, 4 more terrorist suspects were also arrested in this incident. Three police officers were wounded during the firefighting while an assortment of lethal weapons such as plastic anti-tank and anti-personnel landmines and remote-controlled exploding devices were seized. Included in the cache were also communication equipment, telephone mobiles, walkie talkis and video cassettes. However four terrorist suspects fled the scene of the raid which began around midnight Thursday.

Sources close to police investigators have confirmed to the Somaliland Times that the 5 suspects belonged to a Mogadisho-based terrorist group headed by Hassan Dahir Aweys, Aden Hashi Farah known as Eiro and Ahmed Abdi Godane. It is the same group that has been accused of planning and carrying out the 2003 assassination of Italian aid worker Annalena Tonelli and British teachers Dick and Enid Eyeington in Somaliland.

5 members of this group were arrested in March 19, 2003 for the killing of a Kenyan woman who worked as a consultant for the German aid agency, GTZ. The leader of this team called Jama Kuutiye had confessed to investigators that he went to Sheikh High School at Sheikh on reconnaissance missions several times before the killing of the Eyeingtons, but wasn’t part of the actual assassination squad. The information obtained led investigators to the arrest of 3 more main suspects in the case of the Eyeingtons murder. Three other suspects who were arrested in October 2003 following a day time robbery of money at Wajaale village were indicted for taking part in various terrorist related activities. One of these 3 was particularly accused of being an accomplice in the murder of Annalena Tonelli in October 5, 2003. Abdirahman Indho-Ade was the main suspect wanted for Tonelli’s murder. But he escaped arrest and remained at large until his capture on Friday.

According to investigators he was involved in the killings of the Eyeingtons, Annalena Tonelli and the Kenyan woman. From time to time Indho-Ade would come to Somaliland’s main cities and then slip back into Mogadisho, eluding his pursuers. He fled the house where he was hiding with other members of his team following the raid. He was caught on Friday some 135km to the east of Hargeysa. When Somaliland police chief Mohamed Ege said to him, “So you came back”, Indho-Ade replied, “Oh yes.” Neither of them seemed to be interested in saying anything further.

Top

“Parliamentary Elections Are Another Significant Step Forward For
Somaliland And The Region”
Bob Deware, UK Ambassador to Ethiopia

Somaliland Times, Issue 191. Sep.17, 2005

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 17, 2005 (SL Times) – The British Ambassador to Ethiopia, Bob Deware left Hargeysa on Thursday after a 24 hour visit to the country.

Mr. Deware praised Somaliland’s preparations for the parliamentary elections slated for September 29. While urging leaders of all the political parties to demonstrate responsible leadership, mutual respect and tolerance, he reiterated the UK’s readiness to continue to help Somaliland’s democratization process.

“It is in the interests of all to have a calm, peaceful election, to respect the process and have confidence in the eventual outcome,” the Ambassador said.

On this visit, Ambassador Deware was accompanied by Daniel Drake, second political secretary and David Charters, military attaché.

Here is the full text of the Ambassador’s statement before his departure:

I have been very grateful for the warm friendship and hospitality.

I have had the opportunity to meet political parties and the NEC and learn how the process is proceeding leading up to polling day on the 29th September. This is an important time for Somaliland and its people- and indeed the diaspora. These Parliamentary elections are another significant step forward for Somaliland and for the region. All parties and institutions should do their best to ensure that they are genuine elections which are free and fair.

Your elections are breaking new ground in many ways including the fact that you are likely to elect some women to Parliament, which is an important step forward.

In my discussions, including with the authorities, I have emphasized the need to ensure a level playing field for all parties. For example this means balanced media access; not using official resources for party purposes; codes of ethics and conduct should be respected; the strict independence and effective action by the NEC. It is important for all political leaders to be behave maturely and responsibly, avoiding dangerous or over-personalized rhetoric or incitement of violence or hatred. Now is the time for mutual respect, tolerance and responsible leadership. The great Somali tradition is one of peaceful dialogue to resolve any differences. If there are complaints these should be put to the Electoral Monitoring Board, which is the body set up to look into such issues. It is in the interests of all to have a calm, peaceful election, to respect the process and have confidence in the eventual outcome.

But these elections, however important, are only part of your on-going democratization process. You have already shown the region what is possible through your local and Presidential elections. The task after these elections will be to move forward yet further to make the new Parliament as vibrant and dynamic as possible, so that it can play its proper role. The UK stands ready to continue to help.

Of course there will be winners and losers. The overall winner must be the people. Their voice must be heard. Whatever the outcome, all parties should work together in the future in a spirit of cooperation, rather than confrontation. Making your democracy work for the people, with mutual respect between the House of Representatives, the Gurti and the authorities, will be important.
I wish all Somalilanders a successful election.”

Top

EMPTY RHETORIC

Somaliland Times, Issue 191. Sep.17, 2005

EDITORIAL

With all the problems facing the country, one would think that a political campaign would be the right time for Somaliland’s political parties to present their ideas about how to solve at least some of those problems. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet. Instead, Somalilanders are getting a lot of empty and unconvincing rhetoric, which really shows that Somaliland’s ruling party, as well as the ones who want to replace it, have not given serious thought to the thorny issues facing the country.

Since they have not thought about the issues, and therefore have no solutions for the basic problems of daily life in Somaliland, politicians have concentrated on tearing each other apart and often making absurd statements. One such statement was the one made by UDUB’s high official, Mr Bullale in which he accused UCID party of being composed of diaspora people who do not know the traditions and real conditions of this country. In addition to being absurd, Mr Bullale’s statement is contradictory, for if Somalilanders in the diaspora do not know what is going on in the country, why would they get involved in the first place by supporting UCID or any other party?

Another example of an unconvincing statement was the one made by one of Kulmiye’s leaders, Abdirahman Aw Ali in his recent visit to Berbera. In a speech over there, Abdirahman Aw Ali said that Berbera and Awdal regions are the two most neglected regions, and that the present government has done nothing for them. While it is debatable if those are the two most neglected regions in the country, it is true that the government has done nothing or very little for them. But that is not where the problem with Abdirahman Aw Ali’s rhetoric lies. Simply put, the problem is with his confession in that speech that the current administration is not the only one that has neglected the two regions, and that the previous administration, in which he was a vice-president, had also done nothing for those two regions. It was of course laudable that Mr Aw Ali admitted the part he played in the existing terrible conditions in those two regions, but it seems that he never asked himself if he were given a chance to do something about this problem and did not do anything about it, why should he be given another chance?

The last of these absurd statements that we would like to draw attention to was made by Somaliland’s Minister of Interior, Mr Ismail Aden Osman, while campaigning in Gabiley. The minister’s statement had two parts. In the first part, the minister claimed that opposition leader, Mr Silanyo is unhappy with the international recognition that Somaliland’s government is going to secure for the country. This statement is relatively easy to dispose of because the recognition that he is talking about has not yet taken place.

In the second part of his statement, he claimed that if the opposition wins a majority in the parliament, it would bring no benefits for the citizenry because the presidency and the ministries would still be in UDUB’s hands, and the only change would be that his government would give salaries to the new opposition in parliament. There are so many things wrong with the minister’s statement it would require more than a brief editorial. Suffice it to say that if the opposition wins a majority in the parliamentary elections, it would mean among other things a vote of no confidence in his government with all the attendant consequences that could flow from that. If the minister won’t admit that or can’t see it, he is either not leveling with the electorate or he is completely out of touch. That is why his statement is not only absurd but also dangerous.

Top

Awil’s Early August Rendezvous With Geedi In Djibouti

Djibouti, September 17, 2005 (SL Times) – Somaliland’s Finance Minister Hussein Ali Dualle (a.k.a Awil), has met again with Ali Mohamed Geedi, the Premier of the Abdillahi Yusuf-led faction in the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia.

The secret meeting between the two took place this time in Djibouti during Awil’s trip to the neighboring country in early August 2005, reliable sources have disclosed to the Somaliland Times.

It was also reported by this newspaper (August 6 edition) that Awil met secretly with Mr. Geedi in Addis Ababa’s Sheraton Hotel on July 20, 2005. Awil had denied the report, describing it as baseless.

On August 2, 2005, Mr. Awil left Hargeysa for Djibouti ostensibly to take part in a meeting between a US Congress delegation visiting Djibouti at the time, and Somaliland’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Edna Adan Ismail. Ms Edna Ismail had to fly from Cairo, Egypt, to meet with the group of American legislators. She arrived in Djibouti on August 4 and on the next day flew to Hargeysa. However, Awil overstayed in Djibouti for 3 days during which he was believed to have met Geedi.

There is growing suspicion in Hargeysa that Awil might have conducted many more clandestine meetings with TFG officials than the two mentioned above.

Mr. Awil was often criticized in the past for spending more time on suspicious trips to east African capitals, particularly Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Djibouti than on his work at the ministry of finance.

It has been the policy of successive Somaliland governments, including the incumbent Administration, not to meet with officials of any Somalia government that claims jurisdiction over Somaliland, such as the current one headed by Abdillahi Yusuf and Geedi.

It is not yet clear whether the present Somaliland government headed by President Dahir Rayale Kahin has decided to reconsider the policy of no talks with Somalia’s governments that claim sovereignty over Somaliland.

Top

Examination Results For Grade 8 and 12 Announced

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 10, 2005 (SL Times) – Somaliland’s School Examination Board announced Friday the results of the examinations held for grade 8 and grade 12.
A total of 3,723 students took part in the grade 8 exam while 1,547 sat for the secondary leaving certificate examination.

At the G8 level 3,083 students (83%) were reported passed, 479 failed (13%) and 161 (4%) didn’t appear for the examination.

The results of the secondary leaving examination were reported as 1,050 passed, 373 failed and 104 absent.

The names of the ten top students of the G8 were 1) Khaalid Haaruun Cabdillaahi Kaahin, Qudhac Dheer School, Hargeysa 659 marks; 2) Cabdiraxmaan Xuseen Ibraahim Wacays, Qudhac Dheer School, Hargeysa, 655 marks; 3) Isaaq Axmed Cabdi Ismaaciil, Axmed Dhagax School, 655 marks; 4) Cabdiraxmaan Cismaan Faahiye Ducaale, Aloog School, Awdal, 654 marks; 5) Sakariye Axmed Caynaanshe Odowaa, Arabsiyo School, Hargeysa, 650 marks; 6) Cabdiraxmaan Yuusuf Cismaan Magan, Qudhac Dheer School, Hargeysa, 641 marks; 7) Cabdinaasir Axmed Jaamac Xasan, Gurya-samo School, Hargeysa, 638 marks; 8) Cabdicasiis Maxamed Cilmi Xasan, Sheekh Madar School, Hargeysa, 635 marks; 9) Axmed Abiib Jibriil Kaahin, Axmed Dhagax School, Hargeysa, 632 marks; 10) Khadar Xaamud Jaamac Kibaar, Aadan Isaaq School, Awdal, 623 marks.

Top secondary school form IV students were as follows:

1) Mahmoud Abdi Gas Gutaale, 26th June School, marks 723;
2) Mustafe Moh’oud Hassan Iman, 26th June School, marks 716
3) Ayanle Moh’d Omar Osman, Sh. A. Jowhar School, marks 715
4) Moh’d Yussuf Warsame Farah, Ilays School, marks 711
5) Mustafe Awil Jama Moh’d, Ilays School, marks 701
6) Ahmed Abdi Jama Ahmed, Timo-Ade School, marks 693
7) A/Rasak Ab/hi Ibrahim Rage, Bin Ka’ab School, marks 691
8) A/kadir Moh’d Ahmed Muhumed, 26th June School, marks 689
9) Jimale Ali Nur Farah, Farah Omar School, marks 687
10) Sa’ad Ab/hi Yussuf Warsame, Timo-Ade School, marks 687

Top

Prospects For The 7 Women Candidates Said To Be Dim

Somaliland Times, Issue 190, Sep.10, 2005

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 10, 2005 (SL Times) – Prospects for the election of the only 7 women candidates running for Somaliland’s House of Representatives are dim, a panel of human rights, civil society, and political activists have concluded.

During a debate organized by East Africa Human Rights Watch at Haraf restaurant in Hargeysa on Thursday, the penalists said that the 7 women candidates contesting the parliamentary elections on 3 different party tickets are faced with tremendous challenges in campaigning for votes. The report blamed the clan system for discriminating against women’s participation in the political process.

Somaliland elections are contested along clan lines which are basically patriarchal in nature. Candidates running for election depend on tribal allegiance for wooing support. All the 3 political parties are extensively utilizing the traditional clan system in deciding who should be nominated as candidate for the legislative election. No clan selected a woman candidate and women were expected to vote not for their own clans, but for the clans of their husbands. The 7 women candidates were nominated by leaders of the political parties.

At last Thursday’s Haraf meeting, politicians, human rights activists, traditional leaders, women representatives and officials from the ministry of justice, have all agreed that getting the 7 women candidates elected should be promoted as a patriotic cause that deserves support.

“Unless we do something before it is too late, we will end up with a 100% male House of Representatives,” said Hassan Mohamed Jambir one of Hargeysa’s traditional leaders.

The penalists pointed out that the women running for office need immediate financial support in order to improve the impact of their campaign strategies quantatively and qualitatively. They also recommended that 2 specific days in the election campaign schedule be exclusively assigned to the 7 women candidates for the purpose of propping up voter support and highlighting the grave socio-political consequences of the electorate’s failure to vote women into parliament.

Women participants also called upon women voters to cross clan lines and rally to their sister candidates.

Top

Candidates Lack Campaign Agenda

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 10, 2005 (SL Times) – The Parliamentary elections campaign has entered the second week but most candidates have yet to come forward to explain their agenda to the electorate.

So far, all party candidates have focused on wooing voters belonging to their sub-tribal constituencies. But appealing to tribal allegiance is no longer a safe bet for securing voter support as almost ever parliamentary seat is being contested by at least 2 or 3 different party candidates who share a common lineage. Setting a competitive agenda for one’s campaign and then trying to sell it to the tribal community could have made a difference in terms of which direction the majority of votes should go. But the campaigns have until now been dominated by the rhetoric of political parties’ leaders and senior government officials.

Last week UCID party chief Faysal Ali Warabe and KULMIYE Chairman, Ahmed Sillanyo, were both criss-crossing the country to shore up support for their party candidates. In the last 10 days, Somaliland’s Vice-President and UDUB’s deputy chairman, Ahmed Yusuf Yassin, was campaigning on behalf of his party candidates in Berbera, Sanag region, Einabo, and Togdheer, while Information minister, Abdillahi Dualle, has been urging voters in eastern parts of the country not to vote for KULMIYE.

While the top political brass was required from time to time to lend support to the politicking, many candidates, particularly those from UDUB, have remained reluctant to start a campaign trail to urge people to vote for them. Some of the candidates of the incumbent party were still unknown by the public as they were completely over-shadowed as a result of aggressive campaigning on their behalf by ministers.

It is noteworthy though that there have been no major violations of the election campaign regulations.

At the start of the campaign on August 30, the state-owned media has tried to be impartial in its covering of the exercise. In the last few days, however, the opposition’s criticism of the government has been subjected to censorship. Both the minister of information and interior were frequently spotted using their government-owned vehicles in campaigning activities.

Two pick ups donated to the government by the international community were given private plate numbers and put under the disposal of UDUB party.

On Thursday KULMIYE’s candidate, Mohamed Mahmud Omer Hashi, returned from abroad to a heroic welcome at Hargeysa airport by thousands of his supporters who flocked to the streets chanting campaign slogans. As this ran against the NEC-approved schedule regulating political parties’ election campaign events, the boss of KULMIYE Hargeysa branch apologized yesterday about the action which he described as unintentional.

Meanwhile, the Center for Innovative Ideas headed by Dr. Hussein Bulhan, is expected to hold political debates between candidates from the 3 political parties. The programme will start tonight at 7:30pm with 2 candidates from each party. It will be held twice weekly.

Among the topics for discussion tonight will be:

- What distinctions exist between the 3 political parties and why they deserve to be voted for.
- The candidates’ qualifications, vision, capabilities and agenda.
- The candidates’ views on tribal vs. public interests, how to differentiate between them and find a balanced and acceptable mix of the two.

Top

Kulmiye’s Contradictions

Somaliland Times, Issue 190, Sep.10, 2005

EDITORIAL

KULMIYE’s Contradictions

Five factors will probably decide the outcome of the parliamentary elections: economics, clan, personality, party affiliation and stand on issues, not necessarily in that order. From talking to some UDUB bigwigs, it seems that they think voting is going to be actually decided by two of the five factors we mentioned, namely economics and clan. Furthermore, they believe that they represent the largest coalition of clans, and have the biggest economic resources, and therefore their candidates will do well in the elections. With this kind of attitude, it should not come as a surprise that they don’t give much attention to issues, and when they do, it is at the level of generalities and promises that they will take care of this or that problem soon. Besides, UDUB has never claimed to have much interest in rigorous analysis or thinking outside the box. It is happy with what it is: a conglomeration of clans and clan interests that operate under a skeletal party structure. Kulmiye on the other hand, projects itself as a modern party that only accepts clanism as a necessary concession to the realities of Somaliland, and ultimately aims to transcend the constraints of clannism. One indication of its modernist orientation, is that it has made considerable efforts towards recruiting educated Somalilanders, especially from the diaspora, which brings us to our topic.

From this type of party, i.e. Kulmiye, one would expect a more rigorous analysis and creative ideas on how to handle some of the challenges facing Somaliland. Unfortunately, in two key issues, that has not happened. The first one is that of Majeertenya’s occupation of Las Anod. If one goes by the many statements made by Kulmiye’s leaders, including its Chairman, Mr Silanyo, their position rests on two main elements: (1) the issue should be solved peacefully, (2) a blistering condemnation of the government for taking a weak position toward Majertenya. As the saying goes, it does not take a rocket scientist to figure that the two main elements of Kulmiye’s position are contradictory. In other words, it is logically inconsistent to tell the government to pursue a peaceful approach, and at the same time, castigate it for being weak. If the two elements could be reconciled, then they should have explained how, something they have not done.

The second issue in which Kulmiye fell short is that of Djibouti-Somaliland relations. For quite some time, Kulmiye’s leaders, including its Chairman, Mr Silanyo, have been critical of Somaliland’s current government for being too friendly with Djibouti. More recently though there have been very conciliatory statements towards Djibouti by Kulmiye’s shadow Foreign Minister, Dr. Ahmed Hussein Isse. An example, of such statements is the one Dr. Isse made in South Africa: “Djibouti Waxay Maanta Ka Jeceshahay In Ay Ina Ictiraafto Ma Jirto Ee Dawlad Xumo Ayaa Somaliland Ka Jirta”. Clearly, the shadow Foreign Minister’s recent statements and Kulmiye’s old position vis-à-vis Djibouti do not match. Something is amiss. Either Kulmiye’s position on Djibouti has changed, or if it hasn’t, they need to explain how the two positions don’t cancel each other. Moreover, as in the case of the problem of Las Anod, it is illogical to criticize the government for being soft on Djibouti and then turn around and say things that are even more conciliatory than the government.

The upshot of all this is that Somalilanders are used to muddled thinking, or even no thinking, by their government. As the largest opposition party that wants to replace the government, Kulmiye has to offer something better. Intellectual coherence will be a good place to start.

Top

How To Decide Who To Vote For

Somaliland Times, Issue 189, Sep.3, 2005

Editorial

How To Decide Who To Vote For

With the date of the parliamentary elections getting closer and closer, Somalilanders will soon have an opportunity to reshape the political landscape for the better or the worse. It will all depend on one decision: who they vote for. This is not only an important decision, but a difficult one. So we thought of a way that may help people decide. We will call it voting by categorization and elimination using a set of criteria.

The first category is the easiest one. It is those who held public office before. The voter knows, or should know, the record of these candidates, then decide whether to vote for them or not based on that record. It does not matter whether they were parliamentarians, ministers or held some other public office. What is important is how well they did their job.

The second category is those who have not held public office. Although it is difficult to predict future behavior of political candidates, there are some relevant pointers. For example, the voter could ask himself how did this candidate get on the party list. Was he approved by his community elders? Was he a party activist? Or did he pay a bribe or use some other crooked way to get on that party's list. If the answer is that the candidate got on the list through some irregular means, then chances are that he will commit bigger irregularities once in office, therefore, the voter should avoid voting for such a candidate.

In addition, the voter could ask himself the following questions:

- Has the candidate displayed a sense of civic duty in the last few years? For example, did he initiate or participate in projects that help the community?
- Has the candidate shown entrepreneurship and initiative?
- Is the candidate employed, self-employed or is he an idler who probably looks at being in the parliament as an opportunity to make easy living?
- Is the candidate disciplined and goal-oriented in his personal life?
- Is the candidate addicted to qat or any other drugs?

Top

Three Ministers Fighting over a House

Hargeysa, Somaliland, September 3, 2005 (SL Times) – Three ministers in President Rayale’s cabinet have been quarreling over which government official was going to move into a house located in Hargeysa and owned by the state.

The 3 ministers are the Minister of Public Works, Saeed Sulub, the Minister of Finance, Hussein A. Dualle (Awil) and the Minister of Commerce, Nuh Sheikh.

The house was one of 3 buildings rehabilitated by the EU four years ago. The EU then rented the house from the government and has been using it as an office for $1000 per month. The EU’s rent contract expires on September 15, 2005.

President Dahir Rayale Kahin initially granted the speaker of Somaliland’s House of Representatives, Mr. Qaybe, permission to move into the house. But later he issued two more separate orders allowing the minister of Commerce and minister of Finance to live in the house.
This was the situation until few days ago when the Finance Minister Dualle (Awil), stealthily and without notifying anyone moved some of his belongings into the house in question. He also posted some armed guards at the house. When the minister of commerce found out about it he was so irate, he went to the house threatening the armed guards that if they didn’t leave he would bring a larger number of armed men to kick them out.

The minister of Public Works was unable to sort out which of the 2 ministers should be allowed to move into the house. Early this year he had himself moved into one of the 2 other houses rehabilitated by the EU after the tenant, an international NGO, was told to evacuate it. The minister of Family Affairs, Fadumo Sudi, has recently established her office in the second building which was also evacuated by another international NGO.

The latest reports say that the two ministers took their dispute to President Rayale who in his characteristic fashion still has not decided who, if any, should move into the house. Each of the three ministers that are fighting over the government’s house already owns a house in Hargeisa. The Finance Minister, Mr. Awil rented his house to AGRO-TECH, a German aid organization. The only one among those promised the house who does not own a house in Hargeisa, is the Speaker of the House, Mr. Qaybe, who has lived, since 1997, in a rented house located behind the presidency.

Why did the European agency that was renting the house move out, if the contract does not expire until 15 Sep, 2005? The answer is: they had to move because of pressure from some of the ministers who wanted the house. The European Agency, which is the largest don