- Title: [SW Country] ( Somaliland Forum) GUELLEH A
PEACEMAKER OR PAWNBROKER?
- Posted by/on :[AAJ][27 July 2000]
PRESIDENT
GUELLEH: A
PEACEMAKER OR PAWNBROKER?
SOMALILAND
FORUM
July
24, 2000 (00.30 GMT)
Ref.
SF/EC-017-2000
When
Mr. Ismail Omar Guelleh, the President of Djibouti, first called on
the Arta Conference in last May, his style of conducting the 13th
Somali conference since 1991 was seen as an asset by some in the
international community. However, by the dawn of the closing of the
conference---which is now a few days away---the same style is
increasingly proving to be a liability. Mr. Guelleh's early political maneuverings
to host the conference in his city-state of Djibouti were quite a few
at the beginning. First, he took unto the United Nations' general
assembly podium in September of last year to plead with his
international counter-parts (Heads of States) to bring the Somali
political nightmare to an end. This move instantly won him some
international friends and money---a badly needed cash infusion for his
crumbling economy. The regional organizations such as the Arab League,
OAU and IGAD, of which the old Somalia once was a member, all came
aboard and bank-rolled Mr. Guelleh's latest political gamble on the
Somali issue. The Somali-speaking media, especially the BBC Somali
section, also jumped on his bandwagon and gave him a glorious coverage
in every turn of his manoeuvring.
Secondly,
he initially came across to some Somali-speaking media listeners as
someone, who is articulate in the Somali language and hence was
perceived to be saying of something relevant to the Somali political
impasse. Somalis have always felt some reverence towards those who
prove to have some ways with the Somali language such as General Siad
Barre, who herded the Somali people into an abyss. Mr. Guelleh also
initially unveiled his political plans with simple messianic language,
as though he was the only "saviour" left on earth to deliver
the poor Somali population in Somalia proper (the South) from their
suffering; thus the initial public adulation in Mogadishu, Bossaso,
and even Baidao.
Thirdly,
Mr. Guelleh finally thought to have cornered the southern Somali
warlords by threatening them with prosecution for crimes against
humanity, if they did not comply with his mission. This probably had
won him the biggest jubilation, as the people of the South (Somalia
proper) were already fed up with their visionless warlords, who could
not politically shoot straight over the last ten years. But if such
was initially the crust of Mr. Guelleh's initiative, what went wrong
with his plan afterward? The later reversal of plan is evident and his
political mishaps are countless. Accordingly, his public image has
lost its gloss in the eyes of most Somalis both in Somaliland and
Somalia. The reasons are many, but we will only consider the
following:
Instead
of making peace among the southern Somali communities and attempting
to soothe their hard feelings as well as the bad blood between them,
caused by the ten-year old protracted civil war, he chose to pick a
fight with the established Republic of Somaliland! For example, he
closed the border between the two brotherly nations of Somaliland and
Djibouti, banned Somaliland's leading daily newspaper - the
independent and privately-owned Jamhuuriya - to enter his country and
took to the airwaves to denounce Somaliland's social and political
achievements. Worse still, Mr. Guelleh engineered to get a token few
Somalilanders to his conference, whom he thought, and still thinks
that the world would believe that they represent the people of
Somaliland. As a result of his Machiavellian tactics, the public
opinion of Somalilanders quickly saw the true objective of his plan,
which is to erase their sovereignty and achievements. The political
climate between the two nations is now one of looming war.
As
for the rest, the implications of Mr. Guelleh's actions can be summarized
as follows:
- He
has now created more problems in the Somali territories than there
was before he first started his political adventures in May. For
example, he is now almost succeeding to announce a make-shift,
unrepresentative government for Somalia at the end of this month,
whose blueprint, in fact, was in his desk drawer from the day he
first called on the conference at the UN. How else can he create a
government with a president, a prime minister, and a cabinet for
Somalia in less than 36 hours, unless the whole thing was
pre-determined from the beginning? If it was that easy to form a
government for Somalia, why was Somalia allowed to stay ungoverned
for over ten years? Unluckily for him by now, this quick fix has,
by all indications, clearly started to backfire on him, as so many
of the people in Somalia proper (the South) have already expressed
their skepticism about the whole project. As recently as three
days ago, his top political adviser, Mr. Osman Ahmed Yussuf, was
in Mogadishu for a last-ditch effort to bring the Somali warlords
on board. To Guelleh's disappointment, Mr. Hussein Aideed, Osman
Ato, and Mr. Yalahow have stated that they were not interested to
rubber stamp his pre-cooked political blueprint for their country.
- The
international media, that first showed some interest, is now
backing away from the story. Some are even reporting the
diplomatic showdown that is currently brewing between Egypt and
Djibouti over the Somali issue. With less media coverage, Mr.
Guelleh should know that, this means less money coming into his
cash-starved economy and this should signal to him the beginning
of the end of the era of milking the Somali story for his own
benefits.
- His
lack of knowledge of the African political history since
independence is also causing more harm than good between the
Somali people of the Horn. For example, he clearly views the
Republic of Somaliland as a region seceding from Somalia in the
manner of Biafra from Nigeria in the 1960s, or even that of the
Katanga region from Zaire under Moise Tshombe. Here, Mr. Guelleh
has failed to understand that Somaliland's end of merger with
Somalia, after thirty-one years of voluntary union between the
two, is sui generis like the case of Eritrea. Its
uniqueness, like that of Eritrea and of Namibia, is embedded in
the African colonial history. He also failed to read another page
from African history on the many nations that flirted with the
idea of merging in that momentous year of 1960 when independence
came to most African countries.
For example, Senegal had joined with Sudan (Now the
Republic of Mali) in a Mali Federation at independence in June of
1960, with the understanding that other French West African
countries such as Dahomey (Now Benin), Upper Volta, Mauritania,
and even anti-federalist Ivory Coast would later do the same. But
President Senghor of Senegal pulled the plug on that Union after
only two months of its existence; once he realised that others
were not coming to join the two, despite the glorious past that
these countries shared as part of that great African Kingdom of
the Mandinga people that flourished between the 13th and the 17th
centuries. So Mr. Guelleh should not look that far into African
history in order to find some parallels for his country's betrayal
of the "Greater" Somali cause in 1977 when the
Djiboutians chose to stay away, and rightly so, from the
experimental Union between the two other Somali-populated states
(Somaliland and Somalia).
- Mr.
Guelleh has also sown the future seeds of confrontation between
Somalia and Somaliland by totally disregarding the people of
Somaliland's political, economic and social rights in the region
during this conference. For example, high in the agenda of his
conference, besides seeking immediate recognition for his
newly-invented government for Somalia, is the issue of passports.
By implication, this is aimed at punishing the large Somaliland
expatriate communities in the Arab Gulf States, which would lose
the privilege to use their old Somali passports. These travel
documents were issued to the communities by the former Somali
regime and it is their inherent right to seek gainful employment
with these passports until such time when both the
Somali-populated states (Somaliland and Somalia) gain
international recognition and issue their separate passports. But,
Mr. Guelleh, because of the fact the issue came up in the
discussion that soon, is clearly trying to exploit the situation
and use the passport case as a stick against the people of
Somaliland. It is a cheap tactic which is not going to change the
minds of the people of Somaliland, as they are prepared to pay any
price for their hard-won freedom and statehood. Mr. Guelleh and
his Somali puppets at Arta are also contemplating to disrupt the
flow of the international trade both to and from Somaliland. They
are planning to put a ban on our lucrative livestock trade with
the Arab world. Again, they would be enlightened to re-call that
we had survived from that economic strangulation game, too. And it
was not that long ago to forget it.
Finally,
Mr. Guelleh's arrogance and autocratic style had their effects on the
Somali proceedings at Arta. So many delegates had been harassed to get
concessions from them, and others had been thrown into jail during the
conference. Still others had been denied the right of speaking their
mind to the public media or leaving the country. Delegates had,
therefore, been internalising all these mistreatments at Arta, and
they will for sure have a second look at their signatures, for
whatever they are worth, which is not much in most cases, as soon as
they leave Djibouti. Secondly, no tangible progress has been made in
reconciling the communities of Somalia proper on vital issues such as
occupied territories, properties, militia disengagement, and war
crimes. So, it is very likely that those, in the international
community, who first saw him as a savior, especially the UN officials
who are so eager to wash Somalia off their hands, would soon regret
that they ever endorsed Mr. Guelleh's futile mission.
The
Somaliland Forum
[Country] |