At a time when everyone thought that KULMIYE’s warring party members may have finally buried the hatchet and made peace, an even more serious problem has cropped up last week when Hassan Mohamed Ali, famously known as Gafadhi, officially threw his hat into the ring, announcing his candidacy to challenge Mohamed Kahin- the incumbent first deputy chairman of the ruling party.

For months, KULMIYE has remained on the political death row, desperately hoping for some kind of reprieve. The party was so disorganized and beset by multiple factional disagreements that almost brought to its own demise but thanks to the recent pain-staking agreement hammered out amongst the warring factions that ultimately gave the party what appeared to be a temporary reprieve from the death sentence.

After months of intense political wheeling and dealing behind the curtain,

KULMIYE assured the party’s rank and file that the cohesion and unity of the party leadership was finally restored, according to the party chairman, Musa Bihi. KULMIYE is however no stranger to political squabbles and troubles but what makes this one more stranger is the timing of Gafadhi’s announcement of candidacy to run against the much-revered first deputy chairman of the ruling party, Mohamed Kahin.

Gafadhi, the leader of the failed Rays party, and his supporters officially joined KULMIYE with much enthusiasm and excitement at the beginning of February 2013.

The question that needs to be asked here is why Gafadhi really wants to be a candidate at this moment in time when he was privy to almost everything that transpired in the party boardroom including the incredible time and effort invested in resolving the thorny and sensitive issues that nearly brought the party to its knees? At no time did Gafadhi utter a word, in public or in private, in the past that he will enter the race. The announcement of his candidacy came as a bolt from the blue.

While Gafadhi has every right to be a candidate for every post including the highest post of the land, the president of the Somaliland Republic, the timing of his announcement begs the question: why, in particular, does he want to run against Mohammed Kahin at this point in time when the party’s thorny and complex issues were amicably resolved after a marathon of talks? Why now, and not before?

Since Gafadhi was a party leader himself, why did he not contest for the chairmanship position of KULMIYE?  More interestingly, if Gafadhi is as ambitious as he would like us to believe, why did he not try to seek the party’s presidential nomination? And why did he not challenge the other deputy chairmen of the party?

Until Gafadhi answers these hard questions, he will not be considered as a credible contender in the eyes of the public but rather as someone who is simply spoiling for a fight with Mohamed Kahin based on a myopic inter-clan rivalry and competition. If that’s not the case, then the public would like to hear why Gafadhi opted to run against Mohamed Kahin and not other party bigwigs.

The former Interior Minister of the defunct UDUB party, Ismail Adan Osman, who apparently has an axe to grind with the chairman of KULMIYE, Musa Bihi, did not hesitate to quickly put his weight behind Gafadhi as soon as he officially announced his candidacy for the position of the first deputy chairman of KULMIYE. Ismail even went further. He literally threatened that if the party fails to entertain Gafadhi’s request to run against Mohamed Kahin, they will leave the party and form their own splinter group which he called DALRAYS.

This kind of message will not gain any traction among grassroots activists and will most certainly not elevate Gafadhi’s voice in the debate and possibly his candidacy in the race. While he is still a far cry from a front runner, he could become a spoiler.

It’s ironic that most of the angry men in today’s KULMIYE party happen to be the newly signed up members who are either from defunct parties like UDUB or whose political parties failed to qualify for the top three national parties as stipulated in the Somaliland constitution.

Gafadhi and Ismail are both politically ambitious men and would be well-advised to think hard before taking a leap into the unknown. They should rise above the petty politics and march in lockstep with the party line.

KULMIYE is not, by any stretch of the imagination, out of the woods yet. Gafadhi may be an angry man but he is an honourable man, too. He could be reigned in but there are more dangerous spoilers waiting in the wings that would jump into the race like a wrecking ball at the last minute.

In the meantime, KULMIYE’s leadership should leave the door open for dialogue and understanding among all candidates and resolve differences of opinion through civil discussion.

Jamal Madar

London, United Kingdom

adammadar@yahoo.com

By Goth Mohamed Goth

The Head of Somaliland Custodial corps Brigadier General Mohamed Farah Hirane has for the first time spoken on the recent attempt Jail break revealing that they had in custody six suspected accomplices who are being investigated for smuggling in firearms.

The prison chief in an interview with SLNTV reporter Mr. Hamze Ali BulBul also thanked the public for the vigilance and in assisting law officers in the apprehension of the fugitives, adding that investigations are still on going and that the CID department have made headways in the investigations on how a firearm was able to be smuggled into the otherwise high security prison.

Gen Hirane added “We are currently holding a number of people who are suspected of aiding and abetting the convicts and as of now I can tell you the suspects are been questioned, we hope they choose to cooperate, we will have the answers we need, the answers we demand sooner than later. He has also directed authorities to increase security at prisons across the country.

So far, there is no indication that any Department of Corrections workers helped the inmates with their escape, but investigators are still looking at any possibilities of an inside job but if that was the case then the prison chief has some questions to answer.

Last week four convicts using smuggled in weapons killed one prison guard and seriously wounding two other during an attempted prison break, two whom were charged with Terror related crimes while the other two were convicted pirates.

Most of the inmates at the prison run by Somaliland custodial corps and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are serving time made piracy and terror related charges with roughly 12 of the Hargeisa prison’s inmates being members of Al Shabab.

Ironically, pirate prisons may also be generating new security risks. Pirates in Hargeisa and Bosaso are held in the same facilities as members of Al Shabab, the Somali group with ties to Al Qaida, and juveniles are housed alongside adults. That means there’s a very real risk that impressionable, disillusioned young men could be radicalized.

SomalilandPress.com

By M.A Egge

The people of Taleeh have been cordially advised to shun the Galeydh and Ina Issa duo hence desist from their aims of acts of insurgency.

They were likewise re-assured that their peace and stability would not be rendered as under by the insurgent Khatumoist movement since the national security apparatus was at place.

Both the advice and assurance were made by Hargeisa Regional Governor Mohamed Mohamud a.k.a. Jeeni-yare in an exclusive interview with DMG over the week.

Governor Jeeni-yare further told our sister paper Dawan, “That so called meeting cannot be held”, and underscored, “will not be hold”.

He was irked by the fact that the secessionist project fueled by the enemies of the land was again trying to put their objectives into action after severally flopping, something that perturbs the whole populace.

He clarified the fact that the Khatumoists had no tangible powers to turn tables on the political status of the country neither were they capable of making any impact in the Sool region of Taleeh.

He urged the area residents to be vigilant and do their utmost best to be solidly united hence keep the Khatumoists at bay.

He scoffed at claims that the Khatumoists had abrogated Garad Jama’s Chieftaincy.

“They have no mandate to defrock him for the Garaad inherited his sultanhood,” said Governor Jeeni-yare, testifying to the natural heirdom in local chieftaincy.

He said that Galaydh and company were only out to seek spoils of havoc which would only set back development.

In the recent months, Ali Galaid who happens to be an MP in Mogadishu has expressed mixed sentiments that only add confusion on his political motives. One time he is against Mogadishu and what it stands for the and the next he sponsors a motion to curtail SL/Somalia talks, and then next he hints of coming back to his country of origin only to go public hinting monkey games!

Completely way out of normal political and personal integrity of a supposedly educated man with a long streak of high executive and political posts!

By M A EGGE

Local administration of Dilla District in Awdal region moved strongly to condemn the decision taken by a section of Elders that negates the joint resolutions of regional border demarcation agreed upon in a bid to promote harmonious inter-communal co-existence between the two communities residing in Awdal and Gabiley regions.

Recent administrative borders demarcated for the communities who are at loggerheads over Ged-diqsi area that falls between Gebiley and Awdal regions and is strategically passed by Elberdale road network.

The head of Dilla administration Ibrahim Haji Abdi accompanied by the Deputy Administrator for the District and the District secretary Abdillahi Mohamud Hussein and Arab Abdillahi Obsiye respectively have jointly criticized the stand adopted by communal elders in counteracting the common approach advanced by the administration of Awdal and Gabiley that have amicably resolved grassland dispute between the two warring communities a week earlier.

The chairperson of Dilla administration who was speaking to DMG by phone on Friday from Borama town has termed the elders’ latest move as one amounting to ‘hate speech and incitement of communities that have initially abided to the recommendations of the inter-regional resolutions’.

“The complete about turn taken by sectional communal elders is intended to retrigger communal dispute over pastoral land whose border dispute was earlier resolved by regional administration”, charged Ibrahim Haji Abdi.

Abdi reasoned that the elders were inciting the neighboring communities by criticizing the joint approach taken by regional administration of Awdal and Gabiley that have finalized the differences to the satisfaction of all.

Hussein while commenting on the issue called upon local residents not to listen to elders who use the internet in fuelling discord over an issue whose fate was amicably resolved through mutual consent of all warring factions.

By M A EGGE

A member of the House of Representatives who also doubles as Vice-chairman of the ruling party’s central committee has strongly opposed the declaration of interest of Mr Gafadi in vying for party’s supreme committee’s which he said is against the goodwill resolutions reached  by the conciliatory committee.

Hon. Mohammud Jama Warfaa has termed the candidature of Hassan Gafadhi as a wrong move that negates the unity of the party in addition to contravening the negotiated democracy modeled by the reconciliation commit after bickering and infighting among the top party’s elites.

The parliamentarian while speaking to DMG over the week called upon Gafadhi to reconsider his interest after the later declared interest in the national first Vice chairperson’s positions.

Mr. Warfa feared that if the candidature of Gafadhi is commenced then internal conflicts and renewed bickering would be witnessed to the detriment of party’s unity and cohesiveness.

The National Delegates Conference is schedule to take place from tomorrow the 28 of April 2014 at Maansoor Hotel and elections of positions are not earmarked to feature among the agendas to be tabled in the national convention.

Do not listen to inciters, urges Dilla’s Administrators

Local administration of Dilla District in Awdal region moved strongly to condemn the decision taken by a section of Elders that negates the joint resolutions of regional border demarcation agreed upon in a bid to promote harmonious inter-communal co-existence between the two communities residing in Awdal and Gabiley regions.

Recent administrative borders demarcated for the communities who are at loggerheads over Ged-diqsi area that falls between Gebiley and Awdal regions and is strategically passed by Elberdale road network.

The head of Dilla administration Ibrahim Haji Abdi accompanied by the Deputy Administrator for the District and the District secretary Abdillahi Mohamud Hussein and Arab Abdillahi Obsiye respectively have jointly criticized the stand adopted by communal elders in counteracting the common approach advanced by the administration of Awdal and Gabiley that have amicably resolved grassland dispute between the two warring communities a week earlier.

The chairperson of Dilla administration who was speaking to DMG by phone on Friday from Borama town has termed the elders’ latest move as one amounting to ‘hate speech and incitement of communities that have initially abided to the recommendations of the inter-regional resolutions’.

“The complete about turn taken by sectional communal elders is intended to retrigger communal dispute over pastoral land whose border dispute was earlier resolved by regional administration”, charged Ibrahim Haji Abdi.

Abdi reasoned that the elders were inciting the neighboring communities by criticizing the joint approach taken by regional administration of Awdal and Gabiley that have finalized the differences to the satisfaction of all.

Hussein while commenting on the issue called upon local residents not to listen to elders who use the internet in fuelling discord over an issue whose fate was amicably resolved through mutual consent of all warring factions.

“Lafaha aasa idinkoon ku bikoon” “(Bury the bones without being poisoned by them)”– Haji Abdikarim Xusseen (Abdi Waraabe)

Psychological trauma was replayed in Somaliland as the skeletons of the victims of the 1988 civil war were unearthed in several sites in Hargeisa by a Peruvian Forensic Anthropology team in conjunction with the Center for Justice and Accountability and Somaliland’s War Crime Investigation Commission. Forensic anthropologists excavated a gully full of skulls, rib cages, femurs and other bones. They wrapped the larger bones in remnants of cloth and stored smaller pieces in cardboard boxes to be moved to a burial site. Each collection of bones was rewrapped with a white shroud (Kafan) and laid to rest in accordance with Islamic funeral rites.

Preachers, former guerrilla fighters and politicians lined up in rows and performed funeral prayers (Janazah). Shortly after the burial ceremony was over, Muuse Biixi, a former guerrilla fighter said, “The cause they fought for [Somaliland] must be upheld and
the perpetrators must be brought to justice.” These victims are believed to be members of the Isak tribes that were killed by the troops of General Maxamed Xirsi (Morgan), head of the Somali National Army’s 26th Northern Division. His forces routinely rounded up Isak tribesmen from various neighborhoods and imprisoned or executed them at the Pillar Site (Tiirka) near the Hargeisa Airport. Tiirka was a line of cement columns used for securely tying individuals to be shot by a firing squad. This was the most common place used by the infamous General for extra judicial killings. Bodies of the victims were dumped in various neighborhoods to incite and instill fear in the hearts of their residents. Sadly, this was a government at war with its own people.Members of the Isak tribe became a target of the state after the Isak tribes established the Somali National Movement (SNM); and sought bases and support from Ethiopia to overthrow the Somali government. Ethiopia took advantage of the opportunity to weaken the Somali state, and happily provided logistic support, weapons and bases to overthrow the regime. Ironically, at the same time, the Somali government was roviding safe haven and material support to Ethiopian insurgents.

SNM troops clandestinely crossed the border to assassinate officers of the Somali army, set landmines and kidnap aid workers. The rebels attacked non-Isak tribes in the countryside for not joining them in their efforts to topple the government. General Xirsi resorted to more brutal tactics against the tribe. He imposed a curfew on the city and set up check points along all arteries of the city. Everything required the General’s approval. Travel, commerce and the daily activities of residents were confined to a few hours. These ruthless measures caused more people to join the SNM at a time when the Somali Army was already hamstrung by nepotism, asertion, poor morale and fledging tribal insurgencies. The army was unable to keep the rebels at bay.

Siad Barre offered amnesty to the SNM troops but they refused to accept his offer—and called for his ouster. Barre was determined to expel the SNM from Ethiopia. He signed an agreement with Ethiopia to cease hostilities by expelling each other’s insurgents and exchange prisoners from the war of 1977-78. Barre and Mengistu, the Ethiopian head of state, met in Djibouti in 1986 to seal the deal.

Somalia and Ethiopia agreed to expel insurgents operating in their respective countries and terminate any future assistance to rebels. The SNM had no choice but to surrender or plunge into an all-out war with the Somali Army. Haji Hussein Abdi Warabe, a prominent Isak elder and ardent supporter of the SNM, recalls that the tribe met in the village of Balay Gubadle and decided to face off with government forces whether they succeeded or not. The order to move on with the decision was made by Ahmed Mohamud Silanyo, current president of the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland.

A battle between the SNM militia and government forces ensued in the heart of the city. In the government’s frantic effort to keep control of the north, civilians were swept out of all neighborhoods. Government forces conducted extra-judicial killings, torture and
imprisonment. According to a survivor of these mass murders, Morgan and General Gebyo (Adan Abdillahi Nur) took a group of twenty five individuals, tied them up with ropes, shot them execution style, and buried the bodies in a gully near the Makal-durdura neighborhood of Hargeisa. A survivor who witnessed this mass murder was released after being identified as the brother of a woman married to a member of the army and a relative of President Siad Barre.

As the government started to lose its grip on the north, it resorted to aerial bombing. The government drafted young men from poor villages in southern Somalia and dumped then into the battle zone to quell the SNM. The SNM rounded up deserted soldiers, as well as non-Isak men and women; and carried out summary executions and torture that are too gruesome to describe. Entire towns were depopulated while many civilians fled to Ethiopia, Djibouti and Mogadishu.

In the end the government lost the war and the SNM made successful forays into Gadabursi, Issa and Dhulbahanta, and Warsangeli territories. Emboldened by their victory they pillaged and razed Gadabursi villages along with Gabiley and Dilla. Xalimo Muxumed, a disabled woman unable to walk due to a broken hip was abandoned in her hut in Kalabaydh. She dragged herself from the hut and came face to face with a fighter aiming at her with a bazooka. Before he clicked the trigger another fighter yelled, “War ka daa Islaantu waa Isaaqe” (Don’t shoot the elderly woman; she is an Isak). She said the militia fighters were searching for Gadabursi men. They were
chanting a poetic epithet “Hadaan Saw iyo Sogsoglay isku gayn.”(I will sweep up the Gadabursi and gather them under Saw Mountain). Earlier her son was killed by the SNM as he was fleeing from Hargeisa. They killed him as he was crossing the dry Arabsiyo River bed between Hargeisa and Gabiley. When I interviewed her in 1995, she was still overcome with grief. She lamented, “If my son had told his assailants my tribal genealogy, he would have survived!” (She said this because her husband was Gadabursi, but she is Isak.)

SNM troops depopulated towns and pursued survivors to Borama and beyond. When they reached Borama, they massacred more civilians and ransacked both shops and houses. Cawale, an eye witness of the attack, slept in a bier at a mosque feigning death. He said when the SNM militia besieged the town they were chanting “God is great!” as they decimated homes, markets and coffee shops. Bodies were strewn all over and many survivors were unable to identify their relatives. Mohamed Hassan Maafo, former mayor of Borama, was fleeing with his family when a jeep mounted with a large Russian gun (known locally as “Zu”) blasted the vehicle into pieces, killing everyone except a young girl that survived the blast. The remains of that family are buried at the Borama livestock market. The Daray Macaane refugee camp on the outskirts of Borama was being used to house Somalis who fled from the Ogaden region. The camp was shelled with tanks from every direction. It is estimated that 764 Gadabursis were massacred in Borama.

The Gadabursi—unprepared, overpowered and forced away from their towns—hastily put together a militia to resist further incursions of the SNM. The newly formed Somali Democratic Alliance (SDA) did not accomplish much as it never gained the full backing of the elders.
Abdi Warabe said as soon as the SDA began to form, “we as [Isak] elders reached out to Sheikh Muse Godad and Abdillahi Sheikh Ali Jowhar [two prominent Gadabursi] elders with a request to dismantle the [SDA].” The reason was that the movement would cause more unrest. The two elders agreed with him, and were active in dismantling the SDA. The Gadabursi elders had their own motivation for dismantling the SDA. Sheikh Abdillahi said the Gadabursi tribe faced three options with the incursion of the SNM. The first option was to vacate their land and never return; the second option was to fight back and cause more mayhem. The third option was to seek mutual peace. The elders sought the latter option, understanding that the future of these tribes’ was inevitably closely inter-twined and inter-dependent.

They disarmed the SDA militia and other armed groups, and sought a political settlement. The elders were to travel to Berbera and Bur’ao to call for reconciliation and forgiveness. All human and material loss of the war was to be forgiven and forgotten. A new course of history was to be chartered in the Grand Borama Conference of 1993. Abdi Warabe sarcastically said that the Isak elders selected Borama as the site of the conference because they knew Gadabursis had underground granaries with the means to feed five hundred tribal delegates. A year after the conference, two armed, rival, branches of the Isak tribe—the Garxajis and the Habar Awal—fought over the revenue from the Hargeisa Airport and the port of Berbera. President Maxmed Ibrahim Cigal was appointed in the Borama Conference to consolidate Somaliland, build a state, and take over the airport and the port with a more neutral force. The Garxajis confederation of tribes saw him as a Habar Awal president after their revenue. After endless and fruitless negotiations with the tribes, President Cigal declared war against the tribes and set out to remove them from the airport by force. That unleashed two years of intra-tribal feuds. The feuding tribes destroyed what was left of Hargeisa and killed hundreds of people. After two years of battle a settlement was reached by the elders to end the war.

The conflicts of the civil war had many overlapping levels. There was the state versus the tribes; tribes versus other tribes; and there were internal tribal wars. Every tribe has a mass grave to unearth. The atrocities of the civil war left no tribe unscathed.
The question of who is responsible for the genocide is clear. Those responsible for genocide cannot be “cherry picked.” Every tribe has perpetrators, and no tribe is willing to prosecute its own. If Somaliland tribal relations are to improve, Somaliland must adhere to its covenant, the Borama Peace and Reconciliation Charter. In that charter five hundred elders from Somaliland agreed that the only way forward was not prosecution, but a commitment to forgiveness, clemency and moving forward. This blanket amnesty got the SNM off the hook. The creation of the so called “Somaliland War Crime Commission” is in violation of the Borama charter. The exhumation of victims’ bodies only sows the seeds of discord and memories of bloodshed in every household. As Sheikh Hassan Daheye (a Gadabursi leader) said, “If Somalis from different tribes cannot forgive each other after thirty years, I, too, will exhume my victims. I have more bones than those of all the Isaks who perished in these battles.”

By Jaafar M Sh Jama
jaafarjama@hotmail.com