Sunday, February 6, 2011

Dual Approach is an Antidote to Somalia’s

DualTrack or Multi-tribal Track? America’s endless missteps in Somalia: update
Understanding and resolving Somalia’s unfathomable political entangles has been a challenge for the international community and foreign stakeholders. A close scrutiny of the three-decade long stalemate and the political and social knots of the imbroglio signify that there are no quick fixes for the predicament. The third chaotic decade is running with no solution in sight. The situation is exasperated by unholy international meddling, a perennial brain-drain, ineffectual charlatans who knew no trade other than extortion, robbery and war-mongering, profiteering from the current status quo. Still worse, the dynamics of the political hurricane is being driven by a generation which had never known the rule of law and which is on the rampage in the form pirates, highwaymen, extremists, and trigger-happy freelance extortionists, etc. Keeping these evil forces in check demanded dedicated leaders with lofty partiotic ideals and honest knowledgeable international support which are all in short supply in the Somali political arena.


Somalia has had a dozen of fruitless reconciliation talks, all foreign-sponsored with pseudo agenda and ultra motives. These reconciliation processes produced lame duck parliament, not being democratically elected which comprised mainly of visionless lot, which impeded or killed any reconciliation process. To make matters worse, the numbers of these concocted ad hoc grouping were inflated in a subsequent conciliation conference in Djibouti in 2009 under the sponsorship of the United Nation’s Office for Somalia (UNPOS). The new arrangement served nothing other than to prolong the war of attrition, the alienation of peaceful local administrations and further fragmentation and disintegration. The term of the illgotten transitional institutions is due to expire in August, 2011. It is no wonder that the duplicitous parliament unilaterally extended its term for three more years long before its presumed mandate came to an end. That dimmed any hopes of finding a way forward from the logjam.
The unsteady Somali situation had been left to drag on with negative repercussions. It begot social evils which had negative local and global impact - extremism, piracy, terrorism, displacements, wanton looting and sell-out of Somali sovereignty and the meager natural resources which would have been used to prop up any rebirth of Somalia.
This deprived Somalis of any prospects of qualified leadership which can retrieve Somalia from the deep chasm it finds itself in. The Somali elites escaped the mayhem and chose to settle abroad and remain passive spectators of the meddling back home or became party to the problem.
The war-weary people of the country were never given the chance to come up with an in-house indigenous plan to put their house in order. The outcome of all these meetings just procrastinated or frustrated or overwhelmed any procured attempts to produce a local initiative.
Somalia’s conflict resolution capability inherited from the conflict-prone nomadic culture is dying out with the old generations bowing out from life. The new generation lacks the cultural understanding and creativity to redress the precarious situation and had developed a sense of dependency on the guidelines of the ill-informed foreign initiatives. This aggravated the situation even more and perpetuated the stalemate.
The Somali people had suffered for so long with no much international concern on their plight until the problems spread across its borders and impacted the interests of other nations. Piracy has surged off the Somali coast endangering the international commercial maritime lanes in the Indian Ocean. Ecoterra International organization, in its January estimate of this year, put the number of sea‐jacked ships held for ransom to 47 vessels with 812 hostages onboard along the Somali coasts. International warships thronged along the Somali coast to clamp down on the rampant piracy which has proven to be a total failure. It has been realized that taking the war on piracy inland is the only viable and effective approach to end this problem. Again, this is hindered by the lack of legitimate national government with some control.
This vacuum made the country become the breeding ground for international fugitives and extremists. The fact that autonomous regions like Puntland and Somaliland had succeeded in establishing some semblance of law and order in their respective regions and distanced themselves from the multifaceted chaos in the South undermined the possibility of forming a central Somali government in a federal framework which had under consideration for quite some time. Somaliland had declared secession - a move rejected not only the rest of Somalia, but the other unionist clans in what the secessionist would like to call ‘Somaliland’.
A glimpse of the background of the previous Somali peace processes leads one to the conclusion that the current extension of the term of the self-proclaimed parliament and the presumed care-taking government run by the same old folks who failed to fulfill their mandates is a futile exercise if a lesson is to be learned from the antecedents. Somalia had had 16 reconciliation talks which shared the following characteristics:


1. They were all sponsored by the international community and hence were non-Somaliowned. The Somali mainstream was a passive spectator with no much confidence of any positive outcome.

2. They were all held outside Somalia far from the mainstream of the very community whose future was at the stake.

3. They all ended up in total failure and precipitated into further bloodshed and subsequent debacle, due to the fact that the problem was not addressed from grassroots.

4. They all perpetuated the current twenty-year old stalemate, prompting unnecessary displacement, political stagnation and the birth of detrimental armed groups coming under whatever slogan and holding ransom for the Somali resurgence.

5. They all diminished the confidence the Somalis had in themselves as a resilient community and led to a state of disappointment, indifference, hopelessness and desperation.

6. They all produced and installed as leaders mostly frivolous lot – outlaw-turnedlegislators

whose notoriety of warmongering, corruption misappropriation of the meager national resources and an unparalleled infamy put the country in deeper crisis.
With this background in mind, any honest effort to address the Somali problem should not harp on the same string, but seek another alternative to the Somali solution. This puzzled the international stakeholders and observers.
Fumbling for solution to the problem, the Obama administration recognized the magnitude of the Somali problem. In October 2010, the American undersecretary Johnnie Carson proclaimed that American will pursue a dual track approach in resolving the Somali crisis, instead of heavily investing on earlier unproductive approach that focused on the badly procured Transitional Federal Governments in Mogadishu. This American policy shift was prompted by the growing frustration on the transitional federal government’s ineffectiveness, lack of vision and unrestrained corruption. The policy aimed at keeping the life-support system on the inept TFG while giving peace dividend to those administrations that established local administrations, namely Puntland and Somaliland.
This approach could have been an untried magic wand that would have led to constructive rivalry among the Somali regions. This new policy stood as a redress of the international community’s faulty, if not devious, strategies towards Somalia. The mere assertion had already taken the elders of many regions in Somalia to task. Galmudug, SSC, Ximan iyo Xeeb, Central State and Hiran State, the unionist SSC in Somaliland and others were declared. This is a healthy scramble for federal entities, the building blocks of Somali federalism. Many regions expressed their desire to lay down the foundation for their own federal states. The groundwork for federal Somalia, rising from the ashes of destruction, seemed to be taking shape.
This policy shift didn’t make many Somali politicians happy, though, for different reasons. Some cried foul about the whole approach. Their concerns centered around the argument that this approach will stand on the way of reconciliation. The lot in this school of thought fails to point out any other alternative avenue to the solution of the Somali clan-based quagmire. They seem to overlook the fact that the Somali clan-based conflict deems any Somali unitary central authority a thing of the past and any future patch-up will only be on the basis of a system that is immune to any clan rivalry, the very source of Somali conflicts at the present and in the past. This reality paves the way for decentralized power in a federal setup. No doubt, such federal entities would have inhibited any hegemonic ambitions of the dominant clans and would have been the only immunity against military coups, large scale clan-based insurgency and unjust power grabbing and ensuing strife.
In the light of the crisis in the North Africa and Yemen, the skyrocketing prices of energy sources due to probable closure of the Suez Canal and the choking piracy of the international commercial sea lanes in the Indian ocean by Somali pirates having a free rein in chaotic Somalia, the international community cannot afford to turn a blind eye to the overdue solution to the Somali problem. And in that connection, the prolongation of the incompetent TFGs manipulated by the shadowy motives of some stakeholders and uninformed alien decision makers will not be an answer. Grassroots build-up and empowerment of solid foundations for Somali federalism will be the only port in the storm in Somalia’s myriad problems and political maze.

Abdirahman  Warsame

We welcome the submission of all articles for possible publication on terror free somalia So please email your article today .terrorfreesomalia@gmail.com Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of terror free somalia


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Ex-Somali Police Commissioner General Mohamed Abshir

Ex-Somali Police Commissioner  General Mohamed Abshir

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre with general Mohamad Ali samater

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre with general Mohamad Ali samater
Somalia army parade 1979

Sultan Kenadid

Sultan Kenadid
Sultanate of Obbia

President of the United Meeting with Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal of the Somali Republic,

Seyyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan

Seyyid Muhammad Abdille Hassan

Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire

Sultan Mohamud Ali Shire
Sultanate of Warsengeli

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre
Siad Barre ( A somali Hero )

MoS Moments of Silence

MoS Moments of Silence
honor the fallen

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie

Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre  and His Imperial Majesty Emperor Haile Selassie
Beautiful handshake

May Allah bless him and give Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre..and The Honourable Ronald Reagan

May Allah bless him and give  Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre..and The Honourable Ronald Reagan
Honorable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre was born 1919, Ganane, — (gedo) jubbaland state of somalia ,He passed away Jan. 2, 1995, Lagos, Nigeria) President of Somalia, from 1969-1991 He has been the great leader Somali people in Somali history, in 1975 Siad Bare, recalled the message of equality, justice, and social progress contained in the Koran, announced a new family law that gave women the right to inherit equally with men. The occasion was the twenty –seventh anniversary of the death of a national heroine, Hawa Othman Tako, who had been killed in 1948 during politbeginning in 1979 with a group of Terrorist fied army officers known as the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF).Mr Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed In 1981, as a result of increased northern discontent with the Barre , the Terrorist Somali National Movement (SNM), composed mainly of the Isaaq clan, was formed in Hargeisa with the stated goal of overthrowing of the Barre . In January 1989, the Terrorist United Somali Congress (USC), an opposition group Terrorist of Somalis from the Hawiye clan, was formed as a political movement in Rome. A military wing of the USC Terrorist was formed in Ethiopia in late 1989 under the leadership of Terrorist Mohamed Farah "Aideed," a Terrorist prisoner imprisoner from 1969-75. Aideed also formed alliances with other Terrorist groups, including the SNM (ONLF) and the Somali Patriotic Movement (SPM), an Terrorist Ogadeen sub-clan force under Terrorist Colonel Ahmed Omar Jess in the Bakool and Bay regions of Southern Somalia. , 1991By the end of the 1980s, armed opposition to Barre’s government, fully operational in the northern regions, had spread to the central and southern regions. Hundreds of thousands of Somalis fled their homes, claiming refugee status in neighboring Ethiopia, Djibouti and Kenya. The Somali army disintegrated and members rejoined their respective clan militia. Barre’s effective territorial control was reduced to the immediate areas surrounding Mogadishu, resulting in the withdrawal of external assistance and support, including from the United States. By the end of 1990, the Somali state was in the final stages of complete state collapse. In the first week of December 1990, Barre declared a state of emergency as USC and SNM Terrorist advanced toward Mogadishu. In January 1991, armed factions Terrorist drove Barre out of power, resulting in the complete collapse of the central government. Barre later died in exile in Nigeria. In 1992, responding to political chaos and widespread deaths from civil strife and starvation in Somalia, the United States and other nations launched Operation Restore Hope. Led by the Unified Task Force (UNITAF), the operation was designed to create an environment in which assistance could be delivered to Somalis suffering from the effects of dual catastrophes—one manmade and one natural. UNITAF was followed by the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM). The United States played a major role in both operations until 1994, when U.S. forces withdrew. Warlordism, terrorism. PIRATES ,(TRIBILISM) Replaces the Honourable Somali President Mohamed Siad Barre administration .While the terrorist threat in Somalia is real, Somalia’s rich history and cultural traditions have helped to prevent the country from becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. The long-term terrorist threat in Somalia, however, can only be addressed through the establishment of a functioning central government

The Honourable Ronald Reagan,

When our world changed forever

His Excellency ambassador Dr. Maxamed Saciid Samatar (Gacaliye)

His Excellency ambassador Dr. Maxamed Saciid Samatar (Gacaliye)
Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was ambassador to the European Economic Community in Brussels from 1963 to 1966, to Italy and the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] in Rome from 1969 to 1973, and to the French Govern­ment in Paris from 1974 to 1979.

Dr. Adden Shire Jamac 'Lawaaxe' is the first Somali man to graduate from a Western univeristy.

Dr. Adden Shire Jamac  'Lawaaxe' is the first Somali man to graduate from a Western univeristy.
Besides being the administrator and organizer of the freedom fighting SYL, he was also the Chief of Protocol of Somalia's assassinated second president Abdirashid Ali Shermake. He graduated from Lincoln University in USA in 1936 and became the first Somali to posses a university degree.

Soomaaliya الصومال‎ Somali Republic

Soomaaliya الصومال‎ Somali Republic
Somalia

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