An Open Letter To Dr. Bob Arnot special
Foreign Correspondent, MSNBC
In reference
to: Somalia in the crosshairs for terror
President says public fears U.S. attack to avenge ‘Black Hawk Down’
deaths
Dr. Arnot, I would like to
thank you for showing interest in the humanitarian
cause of my people which lost international
sympathy after biting the hands of those who came
to feed them (Operation Restore Hope & UNOSOM).
It is quite encouraging to
see that there are some people like you who did
not write off the whole country of Somalia and its
people for their inability to regain their senses
a decade after having been through terrible times.
Imagine the cataclysmic blows to their heads to
remain unconscious for such a long period or
poisonous injection that kept them sedated to the
present time. However, it’s unfortunate for
anyone including you, to attempt to file any
meaningful report or make a correct assessment
about Somalia’s recent past and its present
predicament by talking to the same individuals who
are directly responsible to that nation’s ills. Your
recent interview with Abdiqasim Salad Hassan is
a case in point. To see a well respected
international reporter adorn him with titles like
president of Somalia is a joke.
First of all, Abdiqasim
cannot speak for the Somali public. He speaks only
for his Habar Gidir-Ayr subclan, who is
responsible for the death of those heroic American
soldiers and actually assassinated those 18
selfless young boys in cold-blooded murder. All
Somalis know that Abdiqasim has so much blood in
his hands. He
was one of the staunchest lab dogs of the former
military dictator who served that ruthless
dictatorial military regime in so many capacities
including such sensitive positions as both
Interior Minister, the minister responsible for
all internal security agencies such ass the
notorious NSS (National Security Service), the
Investigative Department of the Somali
Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Police, and
Deputy Prime Minister at same time.
At another time, he was also Minister of
Information and Public Orientation, or should I
rather say Misinformation and Public
Disorientation. He was responsible for creating
the personality cult of the military dictator
Major General Mohamed Siyad Barre, depicting him
as all knowing and the wisest person on the face
of the earth. Among the attributes of the
General that had been advanced by this
shameless person, Abdiqasim was “Aabihii
Garashada”, and “Aabe Siyaad”,
meaning the father of knowledge and father Siyaad
or the father of the nation respectively. Abdiqasim
is infamous for his callous ability to present the
tears of anguish and grieve into adulatory and
approval. I
would never forget the day when Radio Mogadishu,
the government radio started its news broadcast
with a telegraphed message supposedly sent by a
father of one of 17 young military and civilian
officers who were executed earlier in the day for
trying to overthrow the regime in 1978. This is
beyond human decency. After the
collapse of his regime, Abdiqasim and his clique
turned the popular uprising into settling the
score of some clans with the former dictator’s
clan, so that they could get away with their
criminal past.
He then pledged his allegiance and support
to his clan warlord who was none other than the
late General Aideed, then the most powerful
warlord who had been either duped or inspired by
Abdiqasim’s selfish and corrupt explanation of a
triumphant revolution led by his Habar Gidir clan
against their arch enemy, the head dictator’s
clan. When
General Aideed was killed in a street fight and
his inexperienced son could not put the fear of
god in the hearts of his late father’s
lieutenants of whom he was broadly one of them,
Abdiqasim don yet another Islamite shirt by
joining
the AL-BARAKAT funded militia of the Islamic
Courts to pursue his greedy and selfish
interest. And now, you know it; the Arta, Djabouti,
Somalia Peace and Reconciliation Conference was
the brainchild of the latter group.
Dr. Arnot, Somalia had seen worse days but to
say “ it is the closest the country has
come in a decade to resolving the bloody civil war
that has consumed that nation” is
misunderstanding and misstating the facts. In
truth, the Djibouti promoted Somali Reconciliation
Conference, which produced Abdiqasim’s and his
guests namely TNG has turned the clock another
decade back. He polluted the political environment
of the whole region by playing the old hatred card
against Ethiopia, a country that proved to be the
only true friend of the Somali people in their
time of need in order to enlist the support of
Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea and Djabouti that may
share the same goal of seeing Ethiopia’s power
and influence diminished. However, the real reason
behind this risk and political suicidal
declaration was well-planned calculation to
justify the purchases of weapons for his Ayr
subclan militia and his allies so that they could
use against other rival clans.
Dr. Arnot, you wrote “ Is it an irony or a tragedy
that just
at a time when you have a transitional government
that many people agree on and you have a real
chance, that suddenly you are accused
of being a terrorist state?”.
This is another misguided statement. If any of
that three-part statement were true, why no single
region of Somalia’s 18 regions supported him. Why the
TNG cannot leave Hotel Ramadan for almost two
years. Why he cannot persuade his close associates not print
billions of fake Somali Shillings every few weeks
causing an unprecedented economical disaster. Why bother
with last weeks failed Nairobi, Kenya
conference. Abdiqasim
neither has nor does he deserve a chance to con us,
and the rest of the world again.
When Abdiqasim says, “It is like the book
of Somalia calling it pastoral democracy. Somalis
are democrats by nature”, he did not tell
you that the book by I. M. Lewis was set in former
British Somaliland, now Somaliland which is
adamant in its refusal to rejoin with the rest of
Somalia after its cruel treatment by the hands of
Abdiqasim’s Interior Ministry’s security
forces and the armed as well as the air forces of
his former regime.
We hope for Somaliland’s change of heart,
but it would be difficult for the people of that
part of the country as well as Puntland and the
rest of the country including the infamous city of
death, Baidowa, to embrace a system where
Abdiqasim and his peers could stay anywhere else
other than their proper place, which is in the
jails. And who could blame them if the people of
those parts of the country say no to the current
arrangement?
It’s like asking someone to sleep in a
same room with the snake that bit him before.
Dr. Arnot , whatever action the United
States of America, or anyone else wants take to
help Somalia’s unfortunate people, Abdiqasim
must not be consulted, informed, or advised, but
instead he must be apprehended.
Thank You
Cabdulle Muuse
jumbur@hotmail.com
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