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Outsiders may only be aware of some headline-catching instances of the odious nature of this occupation. Just to mention some, memories are still fresh of what they did at Kalshaale in Feburary 2011 when their tanks chased and deliberately run over scores of SSC nomads in the area; or at Widhwidh when elders were rounded up and gunned down on the spot; or at Bali Hadhac when people sitting around an open air tea shop were over run by an armoured truck, killing several of them, including one pregnant woman; or their night assault on Buuhoodle town last week when their attacking militia opened fire indiscriminately on the sleeping residents, killing a number of them and wounding many others, not to speak of the considerable damage to properties. Much as these specific cases may generate greater shock, yet they are part of unpublicised daily violations of the human rights of the residents of the capital, including extra-judicial killings, rape, indiscriminate detentions without trial, kidnappings, curfews, intimidations, humiliations, the closure of schools and businesses etc. And it is through these egregious actions that the occupying authority use as part of their ethnic cleansing policy in order to force the local SSC population to flee from the city. Most of the displaced have found their way to the Somali refugee camps in Kenya. These widespread, systematic and inhumane practices by the secessionists against the people of the partially occupied Khaatimo State amount to crimes against humanity as enunciated in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Those in Somaliland who are associated with these practices, whether as leaders or perpetrators, are liable to be indicted at the ICC. If in the past the SSC people had been always on the receiving end, voiceless, powerless and helpless, this time they have their Khaatimo State of Somalia and their own regional government that would henceforth not only defend them physically but will also pursue justice against those in Somaliland who had committed crimes against their human rights.
Somaliland's make-belief that the Khaatimo State and clan regions in the north are their patrimony bequeathed to them by the former colonial power, or that the people in these regions are disposable at the behest of the ruling clan are part of the prevailing conventional wisdom in the enclave. No one articulates this chauvinistic ideology better than Abdi Waraabe, better known as Abdi the Hyena. He called the other day for the removal of the SSC people en masse from their regions unless they succumb to Hargeisa's dictate. As the most senior citizen in the area and a member of their Parliament, he was simply echoing what their political, religious, traditional and the masses espouse and have been saying so ad nauseam. Coming back to the massacre at Las Anod on Sunday, this is the first time when the occupying Somaliland authority of Sool called for their army to shoot on sight kids and women demonstrators whose only crime was to oppose the occupation, wave the national flag of Somalia and shout slogans in support of Somalia and the establishment of the Khaatimo State of Somalia. Putting this heinous crime in its right perspective, one has to remember that the British colonial authority has never committed anything of this sort for all their 80 plus years rule of their former colony. Rather, this cowardly and unspeakable act of firing at peaceful and defenceless demonstrators is normally associated with fascist authorities or criminal outlaws. In particular, it has similarity with the infamous action of the government of South Africa during the Apartheid era when their police opened fire in March 1960 on unarmed black African demonstrators, killing many of them, in what has come to be known as the Sharpeville Massacre. This time, the Las Anod Massacre of women and kids was committed by no other than people we look upon as our own "brothers" in the secessionist enclave. Unfortunately, these are people for whom any association with Somalia or other Somalis is an anathema. Such relentless inhumane actions on the occupied from the SSC regions will only widen the unbridgeable gulf between the communities and make the emergence of a united people under a country by the name of Somaliland well neigh impossible. With the establishments of Awdal State, Makhir State and finally the Khaatimo State of Somalia, Somaliland is in a state of delirium and desperation as all the other clans it occupied as hostages to facilitate its recognition are slipping away one by one from its control and as it comes face to face with the demise of its phantom state. Desperate people invariably embark on desperate, destructive and self-defeating actions. This is how one should see their actions on the ground and their recent call to their people to bear arms, young and old, and fight the SSC people in order to nip the nascent Khaatimo State of Somalia in the bud. In contrast with the hostile and blood-curdling threats from Somaliland, the SSC people at their conference at Taleex, exercising their inalienable right to self-determination to establish their own State of Somalia, had affirmed their irreversible membership of Somalia, the supremacy of the central government of Somalia, under which the State comes, and their wish to live in peace with all their neighbours. While all other Somali clans and regions have supported the Khaatimo conference at Taleex, and welcomed the new Khaatimo State of Somalia, the exception has been the one-clan secessionist enclave. Their response is to call for an all-out attack on SSC people. When this threat is against regions and its people whom the international community consider as part and parcel of Somalia, the secessionists' mindset is a throwback to the by-gone age of colonial gunboat dictations to the "natives". Needless to say, the people of Khaatimo State of Somalia will defend their inalienable rights to run their own affairs through their own freely chosen regional institutions and liberate their occupied regions preferably by peaceful means but, failing that, by other means compatible with international and national laws. But at all times, they will defend their people and territory from all possible aggressions from the secessionists. The onus is therefore on them for plunging the region into a new conflagration that could draw other regions and clans. Hitherto, the international community, seeing the SSC people voiceless, occupied and subject of gratuitous dispute between Somaliland and Puntland chose to close their eyes and minds to the crimes Somaliland was committing in the SSC Now that the latter has their own State, on par with Somaliland and Puntland, the international community should no longer sit on the fence or look the other way. If peace is to be maintained, it behoves the international community, above all Great Britain and the USA, to use their considerable leverage over the enclave and persuade them that they consider the Khaatimo State as part of Somalia and as such Somaliland has no right to claim it let alone occupy it. For his part, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SRSG) bears part of the secessions' self-delusion when he recently told them for his own reasons that they deserve recognition as a country based on the borders of the former British colony. This amounts to giving away part of Somalia, but also the Khaatimo State on a plate. The least the SRSG can do for the sake of peace is to hitherto confine himself faithfully to his mandate which clearly requires him to defend Somalia's unity and territorial integrity and not ingratiate himself with the secessionists. Osman Hassan __________________________________________________________ We welcome the submission of all articles for possible publication on WardheerNews.com Copyright © 2012 WardheerNews.com |
