Many Somali people as well as the members of the international communities are very puzzled by the seemingly unexplainable and unstoppable chaos, disorder and wars going on in Somalia and the horn as whole.
However, the issues are not unexplainable, the problems is that people are always looking at the situation from the wrong angle.
It’s true that there are the warlords, tribal mafias, regular bandits and anarchists but none of those are sufficient to explain the wars in Somalia. There has been a continues high tech war in Somalia for more than 20 years. The weapons paraded by poor tribal mitias are very sophisticated and expensive weapons to maintain, even the richest countries in the word cannot maintain a continues war for a decade let alone 2 or more. However, Somalia doesn’t manufacture any weapons not even basic rifle ammunitions. So where are all these weapons coming from? Who is providing ammunition for tanks, heavy machines guns, and all kinds of artillery and missiles. To operate heavy equipments such as tanks, armoured personal carriers, and an standing army-like militias requires expensive fuels and maintenance that even well of governments find it hard to supply to their armies. So who is supplying the Somali militias? They are all using heavy equipments and are never short of fuels and ammunition even when their lands are drought stricken and people are dying of hunger thirst.
The fact is that are a whole cluster of nations involved in Somalia’s crises and that the war in somalia is not a somali war nor is it a civil war. It is a war between nations bent on making sure that whoever is running Somalia is on their side, and if they are not on their side then they will supply the opposite group, so that nobody wins forever.
Eventually someone is got to address the real issues.
During the 70’s and 80’s when the Eretrian liberation movements were fighting the Ethiopian regime Somalia provided military support to them which ultimately led to their victory and independence. Many Ethiopian radical nationalists viewed this as an act of enmity from Somalia and they wanted revenge. Their chance came when they convinced a group calling itself the Somali national movement (SNM) amongst other groups to rebel against the government. Armed and supplied by the Ethiopian regime they started a civil strife in the north in which thousands of people died. Initially the SNM marketed themselves as nationalist movement seeking to help overthrow the Somali dictatorial government. But the Ethiopian secret service was not happy with a mere nationalist movement they wanted to establish something that can equal to their loss of Eretria, and split Somalia just like Somalia helped split old Ethiopia. They started coaching a small group within the SNM about creating a new country and seeking international recognition, they promised that Ethiopia would always be on their side. Early on, the new Ethiopian regime have realised that creating a new country from Somalia is not going to happen for the following reasons:
· In the north of Somalia live some of most nationalistic tribes of Somalia, so Somaliland cannot be created by force
· If a vote for independence was to be held, the people who are for Somalia will significantly outnumber those for Somaliland; so Somaliland cannot be created through a referendum
· Friends of Somalia will block any separation of Somalia into states on the international stage, and other countries will do the same for their own geopolitical interests.
· The Somalis are a people who not only related by culture and religion but also by tribal ethnicity so the Ethiopians also realised that even if Somaliland becomes a country this will be of no benefit to them politically since the new country will no longer need Ethiopia to deal with Somalia or the rest of the world.
Therefore, the Ethiopians changed their strategy from seeking to help Somaliland become independent to a policy of turning Somaliland into a bargaining chip or a flash point that they can use against Somalia. Geopolitical flash points are a well know strategic moves used by colonists. Colonists would divide the territory of tribes between two countries, both countries will claim the territory and the region becomes a flash point, the colonial governments will pressure both sides not to fight and there will be no war as so long as both governments comply with the geopolitical interest of the master nation. However if one side does not comply with the colonists the colonists will inflame the flash point to start an instant war and use the other side to get a forced compliance from the disobedient nation. By the end of the war everything goes back to zero and the flash point remains, a carefully controlled smouldering fire that can be utilised for future ignitions of war for the same purpose. Both nations are now perfectly regulated political slaves.
The case of Somaliland is the same, Ethiopia knows that there will never be a country called Somaliland as the people in Awdal, sool, sanaag and ayn regions as well as the rest of Somalia are totally against it. But Ethiopia wants keep this flash point smouldering so that if Somalia attacks Ethiopia to take the Ogaden regions (a colonial flash point) as it did in 1977 Ethiopia can use Somaliland as flash point to start a civil war inside Somalia.
Some elements in the so-called Somaliland government realised what was going on so they decided to create their own strategy to get out of the lock situation. Their strategy is to keep the rest of Somalia in chaos in the hope that the international community will give up its hopes of united Somalia and recognise Somaliland as an alternative solution to the regions problems. In fact, Somaliland constantly repeats that if Somaliland is recognised as a country the war in Somalia will stop, hinting on their involvement in the conflict in the south of the country and their support for warlords and terrorist groups.
Somaliland providing, money, ammunition and giving terror groups free access to the ports in the north while at the same time playing victim of terrorism. The Somaliland intelligence services members were caught planting bombs into civilian areas and even killing members of their own militias in bomb attacks just to demonstrate that they are not part of the terrorist network, when in truth they are the chief financiers of the terrors groups like al-shabaab. The leader of Al-shabaab as well as many of the groups high-ranking officials are from the north and members of the Somaliland government have inserted their sons in the al-shabaab militia, with the declared intent of directing and keeping the war Somalia going. Somaliland plays many tricks to fool the international community into believing that they are not aligned with al-shabaab. In September 2010, the Somaliland government made bizarre claims that armed terrorist groups have landed on the coast of the Awdal region. They further claimed that they found Eretrian money on the sites as evidence that those group came from Eretria. Nobody doughts that Eretria , just like Ethiopia is involved in Somalia, but theri claims were extraordinarily silly. Public Scepticism about the claims mounted quickly and the people everywhere responded with utter disbelieve. Once they realised that Ethiopia, the international community and the Somali population was not buying the story they quickly buried the story and to this day they have not presented any evidence or prisoners captured as a result of the “massive anti-terrorist operation”
Later that month members of the Somaliland security service were killed and captured fighting alongside a group aligned with al-shabaab in the Galala mountains. Ultimately, the group’s leader Siad atam fled to Somaliland and was treated in hospitals in Somaliland where he is still believed to be hiding. Somaliland regularly invites warlords and to Hargaysa promising them that if they would recognise Somaliland, Somaliland will help them to attain power in southern Somalia.
Memebers of al-shabaab, and other terrorist groups have safe heavens in Somaliland, they go to Somaliland when they want to rest and plan terrorist operations and provides travel assistance for terrorists groups. It is reported that the leader of al-shabaab visited his family in dubia twice through family connections to Somaliland’s travel assistance. The Somaliland security service deliberately misinforms the international community by arresting their enemies and labeling them as terrorists while helping, arming and assisting the real terrorists, to keep southern Somalia in war.
The al-shabaab members inserted by Somaliland into the group avoid taking part in the wars of southern Somalia in which they are involved; they just organise the wars and manage the financial affairs because they don’t want to die as they don’t actually believe in that cause; pursuing a different agenda. They recruit poor orphan boys from southern cities, brain wash them in camps and send them to the battlefront. There are reports of them recruiting mentally ill people to be used as suicide bombers. The international community, Somali government, regional administrations and neighbouring countries must address the issues of Somaliland and its role in the terrorist networks and the chaos that continues in the horn.
I call on the Somali people in every region to realise what is happening and save their country, and the blood of their children from the recklessness and ruthlessness of those who have adopted evil political games. The Somali government, United Nations political office for Somalia, Interpol as well as all interested parties must investigate Somaliland’s criminal activities.
Cabdulah Axmad
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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