[October 12, 2001]

This week we will again directly speak with His Excellency, Mr. Kofi Annan, and we will try to reveal to him the truth in Somalia and about the sub-clan activities at the Horn.

Your Excellency, with the Arta terror cell in our minds, we wish that "out of evil can come good," and that "…the task now is to build on that wave of human solidarity, to ensure that the momentum is not lost, to develop a broad, comprehensive and, above all, sustaining strategy to combat terrorism and eradicate it from our world."

Your Excellency, as the Taliban claim that their path is the virtuous one, so do your political officers, Sir Kieran Prendergast and his lieutenants, also claim a fait accompli for the Arta process and wish that out of the Somali misery, the sub-clan and the Djibouti elite would build on a solid foundation and unite us out of our ‘foxholes’ and into the virtuous path. Unfortunately, we are deeply saddened and outraged to have to report to you that we have since been miserably degraded to the worst of conditions. For the one brief year that the UN sponsored Arta sub-clan has been in Mogadishu, Somali living conditions have deteriorated and because of the Arta group’s printing and importation of fake Somali Shilling, inflation has been rampant and the US dollar exchange to Somali Shilling has more than doubled. During early 2000, the beginning of the UN supported Arta group; one US dollar amounted to about Ssh 10,000. Today because of the Arta TNG’s printing of fake currency, the US dollar to Ssh exchange has dropped to more than Ssh 22,000; and it keeps dropping as they keep printing more fake currency!

Your Excellency, it keeps getting worse. Somali clans are getting further apart from each other; religious zealots and East Africa Al-Itihad groups are getting closer and stronger more than ever. Unknown groups and doubtful conferences blessed by your lieutenants keep taking place and keep driving Somalis further apart more than ever. Somali peace reconciliations are replaced by Al-Itihaad peace gatherings; and Arta group non-existing and never heard of peace talks are daily quoted by the UN’s IRIN information agency! And for the detriment of Somali peace and reconciliation, UN aid shipments to the Arta sub-clan and Al-Itihad movement keeps rising! The Somali people keep suffering and the air conditioners keep humming at the UN compounds in Nairobi and Mombassa! Your Excellency, the world is deeply concerned about your policies and about our plight.

Your Excellency, on the human rights front, on your guard, matters are even getting from bad to worse. It is so bad and so lopsided that even your people are today seen and treated as members of a certain Somali sub-clan militia. A sub-clan that has committed gross human rights violations; a sub-clan that murders, tortures, displaces, rapes and preys on the innocent and weak Somalis; a sub-clan that torched the villages of Garasweyne, Hejmacood and Kuunyo-Barrow and where most of the residents were either massacred or chased away by the sub-clan militias or their so-called Islamic court militia terror cells from their bases in and around the invader controlled coastal towns of Marka, south of Mogadishu, and Ras Kamboni, south of Kismayo. Your Excellency, it is so bad that as recently as few weeks ago, innocent mothers were daily being intimidated, and to set an unforgettable example, their young children are slaughtered by the sub-clan’s militias and their un-Islamic courts. Your Excellency, one such recent example has been the slaughter of Miss Asho Shariff’s two very young children by the UN supported TNG militia!

Your Excellency, with your consent, we have since been blessed with this Djibouti manufactured and UN supported sub-clan militia. The Premier of the sub-clan militia, Mr. Ali Khalif Galleydh, a Minister from the previous Siad Barre dictatorship and a man with very dubious financial background and close financial relationships with the Middle East terror cells and the corrupt Djibouti elite, has lately been rumored to be on his way from Djibouti to New York to meet with you and the United Nations. Your Excellency, we wonder why? His superior, Mr. Abdiqassim Salad Hassan, also the Interior Minister of the previous dictator and a man of dubious religious believes, is also for a reason funded and supported by members of the Saudi ruling classes who devote a substantial part of their oil fortunes to spreading the Wahabi Sect of Islam of which they share with bin Laden. And to make sure the bin Laden formula works, well-known religious zealots and cohorts who previously were based in Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Somalia dominate the handpicked Arta group parliament. Your Excellency, by supporting the Arta group, these Middle Eastern ruling classes are using the good names of your UN as a back office for funding their operations, which in reality is just another front for Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda. Your Excellency, with all the Somali leaders abound, why are you imposing these dubious characters on us? And since successive generations of Somalis had been taught that Western Colonialism is over, we also wonder who is appointing whom for what position, and who is telling who that represents whom? Your Excellency, the Arta sub-clan militia does not even represent half of the populace of the half deserted Mogadishu streets, let alone all of Somalia!

Your Excellency, the good UN offices and information agencies in East Africa have been turned into a law firm and into public relations agencies that solely promote the interests of the UN supported Arta TNG and religious zealots that back the terror cell. Your Excellency, have you yet been informed about the Mogadishu and Marka Islamic courts or about the Ras Kamboni Al-Itihad? Have you been informed of the four hundred young men sent by Mogadishu Islamic Courts and their TNG to destabilize Puntland and expand the newest base of the terror cell in Boosaaso, Puntland? Have you been informed that half of these heads-shaved young men have been captured in Galkayo, Puntland? Your Excellency, have you yet been informed of the truth in Somalia and in Mogadishu?

Your Excellency, let us please have a little bit of respect for the Somali people and Somali intellect, we have earned it and we deserve it. We have survived in some miserable conditions; we will improvise and continue to make improvements; we hope you will not hinder. We also hope you will opt to act on our warnings and not ignore them the same way you have regrettably ignored Moscow Permanent Mission’s detailed intelligence report to the UN Security Council on Al-Qaeda and their infrastructure throughout the world.

Your Excellency, given the prevailing winds in Somalia and the middle of the night deals at the UN, we also wonder if this United Nations office is somewhat similar to the old League of Nations! We hope we are wrong.

Your Excellency, having all of the above in mind, would the UN now admit defeat in your nation building, leadership appointment and government sponsorship process in Somalia? Or Your Excellency, would you wait until the good offices of the UN are again used, abused and humiliated by special interests? These special interests, as we have learned from the land of Aghans, are roaming amongst us and do remain at-large in this new world order. Your Excellency, the world is watching and waiting, unless of course, your whole exercise of "out of evil can come good," is public relations eyewash! We hope not!

Thank you very much for your support in the ARENA OF IDEAS in these trying times. The true and tested hard working and devoted Somalis need leadership and unbiased information. We will try our very best to provide that. To other Somalis on the fence: the days of one clan forcefully dominating the other are over. If each one of us doesn’t clean his/her own house, nobody will clean it for us! For all the young men and women: don’t waste your time in this clan rubbish. Stay in school; we may need you someday. For the few who disagree, please be specific in where we err, if we do at all!

SHASNA* Editorial Board
cc: SHASNA Members

*SHASNA is an advocacy group based in Boston, Massachusetts. It stands for the unity and peaceful coexistence of Somali people. It supports the creation of a federal system of governance to safeguard the emerging free markets of the Recovery Zones. SHASNA encourages corporate and individual investments in the Recovery Zones. It has presences in both Puntland (Boosaaso, Garoowe, Buurtinle, Bacaadweyn and Galkayo) and Somaliland (Hergeysa, Berbera and Burco).