- Title: [SW Column] (SW) Hal-xikmadeedkii Maanta:
- From:[]
- Date :[[9 April 2000]
Opinions expressed in this column
are those of the contributors and not necessarily those of SW.
Hal-xikmadeedkii Maanta:
'The saying of the day'
-----------------------------
Xaruntan
(Dr. Ismaacill Jimcaale) oo caadhifo qabiil darted
uga aamustay, dhaca, boobka, kufsiga, jir dilka, dilka iyo xadgudubka
aadminimada ka baxsan oo joogtada loogu geysanayo dadka ku nool Kismaanyo, la yaab ma
lahan iney farta ku fiiqdo Puntland iyagoo jooga Xamar! Gacmo 14Feb01
"... Carta la iskuma raacin oo waxa Carta ay dhashay
waa uun koox cusub . Ismaaciil Cumar Geelle wuxuu qabay, kuna shaqeeyey anigana uu toos
iigu sheegay in ciddii dagaalkii sokeeye ku adkaatay ay iyadu iska leedahay Madaxnimada
Soomaaliya oo muran la'aan ah...." AYA 5 Jan 01
"...The General Secretary is impatient with the
lack of central administrative structures in Somalia for so long, a
situation he and many others see as out of line with the present World Order, an anomaly
that should be stopped. In this rush 'to produce a government for Somalia at any cost' the
General Secretary threw out of the window his stated 1999 position and embraced the
Arta(Djibouti) process......The confused actions of the international community, are only
serving to perpetuate the civil conflict of Somalia....The international community can
only help if it will accept that the Somali Crises have to be solved by the Somalis
themselves - AAJ 3Jan01"
"...Imposing order from
the top is not suitable for egalitarian society like Somalia. This is a place
where every person instinctively considers others equal to him/her by birth and
consequently possesses similar ambition as everyone else. One must prove his/her worthy of
high position in a levelled-playing-field before he/she could be considered worthy of such
position. In such environment it's only natural to start things from the bottom and aim
for higher. This would hopefully motivate the individual to show responsibility in each
step along the way and possibly encourage him/her to do better job while at the same time
giving others the chance to judge the person's creditability.
The scheme of
hosting peace conference in a foreign country and bringing along few retarded singers and
unemployed exiles, whom only the emotional part of their brain is still active while the
logic section has long taken a break is tempting but not practical. Picking someone from
such gathering and eventually appointing to the highest position in the country is also
nothing but an attempt to rule the nation with foreign aid. It only took less than six
month for Somalis to run havoc in the previous concept of world order once it was tested
on them in the 90s. Lets wait and see if bribery works where power had failed. AJB19Dec00
".....What the UN
calls a government has not been legally elected by the Somali public. It is merely an
idiosyncratic selection of participants,
belonging to--but not actually representing--different clans, from the Djibouti conference bazaar, whose protracted proceedings were dominated by
ex-ministers of the discredited regime of the corrupt dictator General Mohammed Siyad
Barre—many of whom Somalis accuse of war crimes"......".Somalia
today has broken into three parts (one more is in formation)
: the self-governing ‘Somaliland Republic’ (now ten years old) and the
neighbouring Puntland Somali state. These two regions with their locally elected
governments, comprise about at least a third of the total population of Somalia. Their
leaders, like the ‘official’ warlords of southern Somalia boycotted the
conference and another group(the Rahanwein), representing
a fifth to a third of the total population, have now also withdrawn their support to form their own local government.
In reality, the UN’s Somali ‘president’, with
his
Islamicist supporters and mercenary militia, controls only a small part of the former capital,
Mogadishu, and that is far from secure! "........".Even the UN radio station, recently set up in
Mogadishu, with intense propaganda reminiscent
of earlier UN operations in Somalia, and directed by a brother of the new
‘President’ and relayed through the BBC Somali service in London (whose
senior editor is another member of the clan)cannot disguise the alarming descent into
chaos which UN intervention is producing".......".Externally,
despite all the propaganda produced by the UN to secure international recognition for
their protege, the response to date has rightly been cautious. Although it is apparently
receiving some material support from Arab sources, only the Sudan, sensitive to Mr
Abdulkasim’s Islamicist flavour, has so
far recognised his regime. The local super-power, Ethiopia, with many interests in
Somalia, is more circumspect and has shown little inclination to follow suit..."
IM Lewis 29Oct00
"......Despite
the proven record and the abysmal failure of the tribal government, the newly formed
Somali government in Djibouti is entirely based and built on tribalism and is driven
by the incessant notion of “what is in it for me” which is the only currency we
value lately. And since there are not enough seats at the ministerial level to satiate the
well known appetite of the participants for miss-appropriating aid monies, the likelihood
for this government to succeed and bring about lasting peace in Somalia are minuscule.
This is not a great revelation on my part, nor is it news to any Somali out there who can
put two and two together, the question is, why is it that we tolerate this condition to
turn us into a pod of whales intent on beaching themselves? After all when all is said and
done, some of us will hold a first class ticket, the rest will be traveling economy, but
the fact still remains that we are all traveling on the Titanic, and the next iceberg is
just around the corner...." NE 22 Oct 00
"....In a
recent interview with Mr. Hassan by Al-Hayat (Arabic paper) reporter he was specifically
asked why should the Somali people trust him when he loyally served under a
dictatorial regime. The answer he gave did not give us any scrap of comfort but instead
made us more dismal about our future being in the hands of these people. He blatantly said
"the Somali people must trust, and they have already trusted me" he showed us
how complacently he took our trust for granted. What he does not realise is that it will
be incomprehensible for Kosovo-Albanians to be asked to trust anyone who loyally served
under Slobodan Milosevic's government. Nor will it be understandable for Europeans to
trust anyone who was in Hitler's cabinet. For that same reason it will be hard for the
Somali people to trust a loyal lieutenant of Siyad Barre specially when he surrounded
himself with former colleagues in crimes....." NAD 23
Sept 00
".....Maamulka
iyo shacabka reer Puntland waxaan cod sare ugu sheegayaa in aad intii karaankiina ah ka
shaqeeyseen in aad ka soo baxdaan xilka idin ka saaran Maandeeq. Sida muuqata
waxa markasta arintu u sii socotaa "KADAROO DIBI DHAL" jihada kaliya ee ku
khasaareeysana waa shacabkeena miskiinka ah....." AMJ 21Sept 00
In Arta Djibouti,
most of the Somali delegates have agreed to base the power sharing formula on stamped
tribal numbers. In Somalia there is no formal or informal census on the tribes and their
numbers, so how did they do that? The delegates or some special committee appointed by
conference organisers, spuriously thrown some names out in a hat and selected some
genealogy lineage in which some sharing quotas have to be based. Surprisingly the chosen
lines of genealogy was neither horizontally nor vertically even. Neither was the chosen
factor of tribal mass, mathematically fitting to the chosen model, unless there were
numerous assumptions and eliminations that in turn could calibrate the desired overall
outcome. Otherwise how can we explain this cut out numbers when it wasn't the consensus or
to the applause of the Somali tribal chiefs?...
...Latter events, when quotas were being
allocated, have proved the complications some Puntland tribes have warned about its
inevitable happening. In a sense it was a vindication for those tribes, who rejected and
warned about opening of the famous Somali Pandora box. That episode has even led us to a
stranger solution. It led us to a situation where a president of a separate state assumed
and reserved the responsibility of appointing twenty more parliamentarians of a sovereign
state. Is this the new weird world order in action in Arta Djibouti? Or is it the case
that president Gelle is paving the way for the reunification of greater Somalia? All five
of them? If it is the former, we could only expect weirder things to surface as we go
along this peculiar path. And if it is the latter, I hereby formally nominate president
Gelle not only to assume the responsibility of appointing few Somali parliamentarians, but
also to undertake the presidency of greater Somalia, and his tribe to take the lion share
of greater Somali parliamentarians. NAD 17Aug00
"...In
Somalia, accountability can only come from a well thought out Federal Administration.
The Foundations of that Federal System is inarguably now functioning in Puntland and
Somaliland. We urge the International community not to heed the Djibouti-based
exiles’ and International conflict resolution experts’ daily mantra that if we
don’t come up with a government, Somalia will disappear from the face of the
earth..". "...Somalia is alive, well and will soon be the
beacon of hope in Africa. The Recovery Zones are the first signs of hope, but lately they
have faced significant political attacks and ideological challenges. In essence, what we
have seen from the Djibouti-based exiles is the unfortunate reversal of the intentions of
the World Community. This reversal is misguided and dangerous to the progress being made
inside the country by the Somalis who have remained and returned home to build for a
brighter future...." JSA 7 July 200
"......Needless
to say (that) Somalia is a collapsed beast. Getting it back to something that resembles
normality is not likely to come out of a conference held in foreign country, attended
by people who so many question marks hang over their integrity as well as their
credibility. In plain English Somalia needs a natural remedy and grassroots approach. Not
solutions worked out by former collaborators and their pseudo-academic friends..." AJB Jul2000
"....Given
the foregoing picture, Mr. Gelleh ought to reverse his hostile stand against Somaliland.
Indeed, it is in his best interest to seek the goodwill of that country's citizens.
As a first step to such a goal, he should understand that the direction the Arta
conference has been taking so far does not inspire them to do anything with him not only
now but also in the future.
Surely, this is the only sensible course open to him. Unfortunately, judged by his
political behaviour, the man is anything else but a fan of commonsense and reason. Add to
this the fact that he is completely blinded by his deep-seated hatred against his
neighbourly brothers and sisters....." MU
26 Jun 00
"...The outcome
of Jabuti would be a big child of conflict resolution experts and would be called
"Somali government". But what kind of a government!..." Gacmo 23 Jun 2000
"....but the
fact of pushing the warlords aside and asking their lieutenants to form a government
doesn't cure the social ills of the Somalis. Any cosmetic change made to prop-up
a quick-fix for the sake of " something must be done" will not pass the first
test..." AF 23 Jun 2000
".....What he
can't comprehend is that it lacks (Uganda Government) even the vision of a
"good" corrupt government, because it is not doing anything to help people
produce more and create more wealth so that it has something more to steal
tomorrow..."...."...Unlike the British colonialists, past and present Sierra
Leonean leaders and rebels had raped the wealth of the country and put nothing back. In
between bouts of looting, they passed the time chopping off the hands and legs of the
people they had robbed...".Charles Onyango-Obbo
7Jun00
"..ERITREA AND
Ethiopia are now fighting the biggest war in the world. More than 100,000 people have
died in two years as their two armies have slugged it out over what appears to be a border
dispute. To the rest of the world it is insane - two bald men fighting over a comb - and
made more poignant because these are two of the world's poorest countries. Both are facing
a famine which puts nearly 10 million people at risk " .. Richard Dowden - 2 Jun 00
"..A casual reading of
the UN definition of peacekeeping could mislead almost anyone into believing that it is
all one big adventure. But "implementing peace agreements, monitoring ceasefires,
patrolling demilitarised zones, creating buffer zones between opposing forces, and putting
fighting on hold while negotiators seek peaceful solutions to disputes" is not
easy." ..The Nation May 5,2000
"...What may be unique to the Somalis is that
they are the only group of people who, thirty odd years after gaining independence,
have completely lost their central government to futile and protracted conflicts, internal
and external wars that have become so bitter and so deadly..."
"...This traditional
social setting, according to Potholom, is distinguished by two diverse strands of
behaviour and belief. The first is their sense of unity with one another, and the second
is the tendency towards cleavage and division, toward individualism and ethnocentricity.
Potholom emphasises, however, that "the feeling of commonality, of basic kinship, of
unity is as much an explanatory and motivating factor in Somali national life as is the
second". In this context, language, culture, and history, even the history of
fragmentation tend to unify the Somalis over and against the fissiparous tendencies of
their society...." AOM May 2000
"...Out of 20
donor nations who support overseas development, the U.S. ranks dead last, averaging
$29 per capita, versus $70 average for the group of donors as a whole. Japan, with an
economy half the size of the U.S., contributes more absolute dollars. Four European
nations contribute seven times as much as the U.S. on a per-capita basis... " Dr. John Rude
"..The British
find it hard to secure peace in Northern Ireland or build a hospital system that works.
They hate being lectured by outsiders. But they claim to know, beyond all contradiction,
precisely what is going wrong in Iraq and Serbia and Chechnya and Indonesia..."
"...We refuse to believe that we might not know what is best for distant polities and
peoples. This week British troops are still dropping bombs on Iraq, believe it or not, and
overseeing the forced removal of Serbs from Kosovo. Most Britons have probably forgotten
the reason. Meddling feels good....." SJ 12 April 00
"....Haddii
ninka geesiga ahi uu yahay kan nabada dhaliyaa sida qaamuuska luqaduhu qoro, ee uusan
ahayn kan hadba reer xabad la korjoogsada, hadii nabad in la doonaa ay macnaheedu
tahay in nabada laga raadsho kan kula dagaalsan, xasuuso in mudane A/laahi yuusuf uu Xamar
ugu tagay Gen. Caydiikii geeriyooday, isago oo ka raadinaya nabad oo kaliya, taasna waxay
iila muuqataa tanaasul kale. Xasuuso in aad ummadaa Soomaaliyeed gogol ugu fidisay
Boosaaso 1998kii adoo raadinaya qaranimo kadibna laguugu jawaabay in Boosaaso tahay tuulo
reer dago oo ayan soomaali lahayn..." AJ 12 April
2000
"....Sida aan ku aragnay qorshahana
wuxuu qorayaa in wufuuda shirka jabuuti lagu soo xulayo hab degmo, taasoo macneheedu yahay
in 92da degmo ee dalku ka koobnaa ay ka imanayaan degmadiiba 5 qof,(92x5). Banaadir oo ah
15 degmo, Jubooyinka oo ah illaa 7 degmo iyo shabeelada hoose oo ah 7 kale, isku darkuna
uu gaarayo illaa 30 meeyo degmo(30x5). Ilaahay hortii wufuuda caynkaa ahi in ay go'aamiso
aayaha soomaaliya ma idin la saxantahay?...." AJ
12 April 2000
"...‘Somaliland’
or north-western Somalia became a British colony in 1884, the rest of Somalia became
so-called Italian protectorate in 1889. All the arguments by Egal and his regime for
secession and/or partition are essentially based on this historical fact. Because their
country was colonised by the British in 1884 and thereafter, the argument goes, they are a
separate country/nation. Never mind that colonialism was about the domination of one group
over the other. Never mind that it was about the conquest and exploitation of poor and
relatively weak countries by technologically advanced nations. For purposes of clarity I
shall define a country as ‘the geographical characteristics of a place,’ and a
nation as ‘the political and social ones’. Now applying this simple definition,
where was ‘Somaliland’ prior to the arrival of the British colonisers? It was
just another sub-marginal land of the Somalis, wasn’t it? Did it have distinct social
and political characteristics that fundamentally separated it from the rest of Somalia? I
leave the answer to the reader, but I do not think it did..."AOM 11April 00.
"...Haddaynu Soomaalinnimo jecel nahay,
Soomaalinnimada dan uma aha, "buy-now-pay-later policy of reconciliation.". Ila
ah in lagu maamuuso, "let's bargain and agree on a price!" Waan taageersanahay
diidmada Puntland, igamana aha mu'ayidnimo indho la'. Soomaalinnimo aynu ugu
oohin-orgiyeyno waxba kama qabeen hadday xala-dhalaydii Mudug tiil lagu maamuusaayo, oo ay
dhinac walba ka dhab tahay. ...."AOWarsame, 2 April 00
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