Since our independence, Somali nationalism has waxed and waned depending on our political situations. You only have to recall those heady times in the early 1960s and then 1970s when the once powerful and irresistible Somali nationalism used to sweep Somalia and all other Somali-speaking territories. This nationalism has reached even those sections of the population who had less reason to be happy about their Somali status in the social, economic and political fields. I am referring to the Gabooye, who were, and still are maltreated as outcasts by all other Somali clans not because they are inherently inferior, or any less Somali, but simply because of centuries of egregious cultural mores which believed, and still does, survival of the fittest clans

In contrast to the 1970s, we now live in an age when Somali nationalism is in the doldrums: at best dormant if not altogether dead. Even worse, it is considered a taboo, a dirty word, in the North among our more clannish secessionist brothers. Somali nationalism has not survived the late Somali leader, Mohamed Siyad Barre, who is demonised by some as the Saddam Hussein of Somalia and admired by others as a great leader. Objective Somalis, who are a rare breed, are right when they claim that he was a dictator who, notwithstanding his achievements in the past, has in the end brought a once proud and united people on the verge of disintegration. But his less restrained critics will go to the extent of blaming him for all our problems, past and present. For them, their motto is that much abused Somali saying: “Wixii xunba Xaawaa leh”- in other words blame Siyad Barre.

A good example of the blame-Siyad Barre syndrome is the Mohamud Siad Togane, who, in an article in Puntland Post, accuses the former leader for what he did to the nation. Fair enough up to a point. Not satisfied with his Siad Barre bashing, Togane goes on to unfairly incriminate what he calls Siyad Barre’s allies among certain clans who came to acquire the acronym MOD – Mareexaan, Ogaden and Dhulbahanta. The Dhulbahanta for example are given collective guilt because one of their sons, Ahmed Suleeman (Dafle), the son-in-law of Siyad Barre, was in charge of security. If this is the basis for clan culpability, you may as well include all other clans among the culprits-even more so the Gabooye, since their own General Mohamed Ali Samatar was Siyad Barre’s life-long right-hand man- unless he is considered an honorary Darood.

It is typical of us Somalis to look for scapegoats, to focus on the frivolous and to lose sight of the wider picture. All the clans of the Somali nation have had clansmen who had served Siyad Barre even when he was becoming increasingly repressive and unpopular. As Mohamud Siad Togane acknowledges, somewhat belatedly in his article, all the clans had their good share of sycophants, collaborators and henchmen. Some of them are now leading members of Somaliland’s government, parliament, the House of the Elders (Guurti), or opposition parties. No one calls them names, least of all Faqash, which is reserved for others.

We the Somalis have an incorrigible penchant for blaming others forever for our own self-inflicted wounds. We tend to be prisoners of the past and close our eyes to the present or the future. What Siyad Barre has done to the country is indisputable and is now part of our oral or recorded history. The time of blaming him for our own failures and on-going crimes is long gone by. What matters to the suffering people of Somalia is not what Siyad Barre had done decades ago at a time when most of them were not even born but what we ourselves have done, or are doing to the country since his departure.

Who are the real culprits who have taken Somalia back into the dark ages, making Siyad Barre’s era almost like a golden age? It does not require much imagination to identify these culprits as the Mogadishu warlords and their camp followers, secondly the secessionist in Hargiesa and thirdly the BBC Somali Service under Yussuf Garaad, who provides valuable support to the warlords and secessionists.

1. The crimes of the warlords

To see things in historical perspective, it is instructive to compare Somalia and Ethiopia during the time when they were under the rule of Siyad Barre and Mengistu Halie Mariam. Both men had usurped power from corrupt, discredited regimes. Both were nationalists who believed that their so-called revolutions would usher in progress and prosperity to their long neglected populations. Both in the end have done more harm than good to their countries. It is therefore important to remember what happened to these two countries when their dictators were thrown out almost at the same time in 1991

Ethiopia and Somalia may have been badly bleeding by the time these dictators were toppled, but they were not beyond salvation. All they needed were better leaders who could revive them and repair the damage. Fortunately, that is what Ethiopia got. Tragically, that is what Somalia never got.
 
Ethiopia has survived and prospered because those who toppled Mengisto Haile Mariam and took over the reins of government had a vision that cared about the larger interest of their country more than their own personal interests. From the moment they took power, the incoming government, led by Meles Zenawi, lost no time to fill the vacuum, maintain law and order and put the country on a new constitutional, economic and political course. You can either admire or envy the immense development progress made by our neighbour. Today, Meles Zenewi -and his Ethiopia- is the darling of the West receiving yearly more than a billion dollars worth of aid.

In contrast to Ethiopia, those Southern Somalia militia leaders who chased Siyad Barre from Mogadishu had no vision other than to get rid of him and then scramble for power. Irrespective of which militia they belonged to, these leaders were driven only by unbridled personal greed, each one aiming to replace Siyad Barre as another dictator. If they were to succeed, they would have certainly turned out to be monsters that have less of Siyad Barre’s intelligence and more of his evil aberrations. Those warlords who claimed to have “liberated” Mogadishu from Siyad Barre had destroyed it in the end. Like a pack of predators, they went on the rampage fighting over the spoils of their victory, cannibalizing public utilities and factories and selling them to neighbouring countries. The Mogadishu residents were allowed a free-for-all looting spree. Properties deserted by their fleeing owners were seized. Worst of all, government ministries and institutions were ransacked and all vital national records collected since independence were wantonly destroyed.

Given their intellectual and leadership bankruptcy, the warlords could only fall back on whipping up clan vendetta, first against the Daroods, then the Isaaqs and finally against all other clans This led to something hitherto unknown in Somalia- indiscriminate ethnic cleansing in Mogadishu where thousands of innocent people, including women and children, were killed, raped, and dispossessed. Afraid for their lives, close to a million residents of Mogadishu were forced to leave the capital, ending up as refugees in neighbouring countries or beyond. Others returned to their regions of origin, in particular the North. In a matter of months, the clock was put back to where we were in July 1960 with almost all Northerners forced out of Mogadishu.

It was partly the plight of the displaced returnees and the tales of horror they disseminated, together with Ali Mahdi’s unscrupulous usurpation of power, that seems to have broken the camels back and gave the Isaaq, under the banner of the SNM, the pretext or justification to declare the independence of the North in the name of the people of former British Somaliland- in reality their own clan.

There was the time between 1960 and 1991, when Mogadishu transformed into a melting pot where a truly cosmopolitan Mogdishaawi identity had taken deep root. Although no reliable statistics are available, one could reasonably say that at least a third of the population of the capital were originally from the North. Their offspring could only speak the dialect of Mogadishu. The clan divide has almost disappeared as people have been living together as neighbours for all these years and intermarriage has produced new generations who knew no other place other than Mogadishu. This entire one-nation achievement that has been built over the decades since independence was wiped out by the warlords and their mobs. Mogadishu was relentlessly ravaged as the warlords subsequently fought amongst themselves and reduced the city to a ghost town inhabited mainly by one clan- a far cry from the cosmopolitan capital it once was in its heyday.

Unlike Ethiopia, Somalia had suffered two successive and reinforcing wounds: first that inflicted by Siyad Barre and subsequently that of the warlords of Mogadishu and their followers. What they have done, however, by far outweighs anything Siyad Barre committed for all his years of repression in the country, and it is their crimes that have dealt an already weakened Somali nationalism and unity a lingering mortal blow, an irreparable damage as some may argue.

Those chased away from their capital and denied the revival of their nation state for so long are unlikely to return to Mogadishu. Few others will take the risk of making any investment in the capital lest they be chased out or dispossessed again as happened to those who were ethnically cleansed in the past and whose properties are still occupied to the present day by the residents of Mogadishu. With all these still fresh in our collective memories and psyche, Mogadishu is unlikely to get back for the foreseeable future to its earlier glorious, one-nation capital.

2. The declaration of secession by the SNM

Apart from the crimes of the warlords, the declaration of secession in the North in 1991 is the second blow to Somali unity. This is a secession that in reality is led and owned by one clan who would like the world to believe that it encompasses all the areas of former British Somaliland. The world is not fooled and knows better. Sool, Eastern Sanaag, Eastern Togdheer, the Issa areas bordering Djibouti, the silent majority among the Awdalites and members of the Gabooye, have nothing to do with this secession. Some of these are today part of Puntland, a regional administration which is part and parcel of Somalia. This secession would not have been that difficult to handle if Somalia had a government which was in control of the rest of Somalia in which case the secession would have been unsustainable, and our misguided brothers would have come to their senses, even if their hearts often rule their heads.

But even if the secession was embraced by all the clans of former British Somaliland, that would not weigh much with foreign governments who are mindful of the fragility of African states, and are fully aware that if they were to recognize a breakaway clan or region in Somalia that would open a Pandora Box and set a dangerous precedent that would have disastrous repercussions within, and beyond Somalia. Ethiopia and Kenya would be the first to worry for good well-known reasons, as would distant member countries of the African Union.

The only hope for the secessionists is that the warlords in Mogadishu will in the end succeed to derail the fledgling government of President Abdullahi Yussuf and Prime Minister Gedi as they did with its predecessor. Then, as they hope, the international community may finally wash its hands off Somalia and give in to their persistent demands for recognition. That, however, is a pipe dream.

Sure, if the government is brought down by the warlords as the secessionists hope, that would put the final nail in the government’s coffin and with it any hope of reviving our nation state. And if that were to happen, it could be the catalyst for our final disintegration, with the various clan enclaves likely to go their separate ways. What is there to stop Puntland to follow the example of Somaliland and declare secession and demand recognition? And what could stop other regions such as Hiiraan to follow suit? This fear of the total break-up of Somalia if Somaliland is recognized is not lost upon foreign governments as they ponder as to what to do with the hopeless case of Somalia. Much as the stability and relative peace prevailing in Somaliland are appreciated, no government is likely to go beyond that.

The international community has done all it can to help Somalia to have a united government. But if the current government falls, so will the whole edifice of a new federal system of government. Somalia would be left as lawless, fragmented, and clan-based Bantustans, at best having one or two regional administrations like Somaliland and Puntland. This time, it could be referred to as former Somalia, an epitaph that the secessionists had been relentlessly propagating since 1991- always shamelessly eager for their own propaganda to bury Somalia as a defunct state similar to former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union.

3. The de-stabilizing role of the BBC

The third enemy of Somali unity is the BBC Somali Service under Yussuf Garaad. He has blatantly used the Service, among other things, as a platform to support his chosen warlords in their campaign against the government. He has also been cosseting the secessionists as a tactical defensive ploy to appease them. This tactic has allowed him until recently to dismiss complaints to the BBC management about his excesses as motivated by vendetta from a certain clan. That ploy has now been shattered. Nothing could have been more damning to him than the recent appeal to the BBC from former BBC Somali Service announcers who hail from almost every region and clan and who protested about the biased ways he has been running the Service. An equally telling indictment of him comes from Mohamed Siad Togane, a fellow clansman, who, in his article in Puntland Post, does not mince his words in what he has to say about Yussuf Garaad and the ways he uses the Service. For once, Yussuf Garaad would not be able to dismiss Togane’s critique as another clan vendetta.

The BBC management does not seem so far to have heeded the concerns of its Somali listeners. All the same, the government and all those among the public who care about saving our nation state should maintain their campaign and let the BBC management be in no doubt how it is being used as a platform to dismember or de-stabilize Somalia. Sooner or later, they should realize the serious harm that Yussuf Garaad is doing to Britain’s long term interests which is to have good relations with a democratic, united and stable Somalia.
 
Government approach to the warlords

President Abdullahi Yussuf and Prime Minister Gedi were saddled with the warlords following the accord of the Nairobi Somali Peace Conference which agreed that they be included in the parliament and be given key ministerial posts in the government. This was meant to be an incentive for the warlords to give up their bad old ways and join the democratic process. This undeserved generosity however has not made the slightest dent on these hardened and irredeemable criminals. Indeed, all that their rehabilitation has done was to give them the best of both worlds: enjoying the mantle of their ministerial status while at the same remaining warlords outside the rule of law.

Their inclusion in the government has allowed them to win over to their side a considerable number of members of Parliament, including the Speaker, who is basically their front man. Included in their bag is the former first deputy Prime Minister, Dr. Sifir, who is acting as the intellectual guru for these illiterates. The breakaway caucus nominally led by Sharif Hassan are now masquerading as a parallel government based in Mogadishu.

Many secessionists in the North must be rejoicing as that flotsam from Somaliland politics has taken on a new mission as the wrecker of Somalia’s fragile government. Those who thought that he was a born-again unionist/nationalist must have short memories or else deluded themselves. He was a member of the SNM and remains a die-hard secessionist at heart. When he allied himself with the warlords against his Prime Minister and the President, it was quite clear that he was not interested in keeping his post. Far more important for him was to work for the downfall of the government. The PM must now rue the day he made him his deputy even if has now sacked him.

As things remain now, it is a stand-off between the opposing camps in which each side believes that time is on their side. The warlords are counting on their past unbeaten track record and their current financial and military muscle. The government, on the other hand, has no source of revenue unlike the warlords and is critically dependent on foreign financial support without which it is doomed. However, as the government builds up its security forces and as more foreign governments pledge financial and diplomatic support for it, you can expect the warlords to feel the noose tightening round their neck.

Defending the federal system

The federal constitution for Somalia that was adopted in Nairobi is the best charter we can ever have. For the first time since our independence, the constitution guarantees equality among all the clans, not only on paper but in practice. No Somali group could be happier with this constitutional setup more than those that had hitherto been treated like second class citizens-namely the Gabooye and Somali Bantus. One of the main complaints of the Isaaqs against previous Somali governments was that the North (meaning the Isaqs) was given a raw deal in the Union. Now that they have that equality (as a clan) they will have none of it-not when they are now the dominant top dog in Somaliland, as they used to be in the good old days under the British colonial rule.

The survival of this government and the federal constitution is in the best interest of us all. If this government collapses, the federal constitution is unlikely to survive it. The stakes are high and the consequences of the defeat of this government by the warlords are too horrible to contemplate. We would be back to square one and to the laws of the jungle. Only the warlords will gain and the rest of us will be losers. As such, it behoves us all to do more than we are doing to save this government and the constitution. No one should be in any doubt that if the Transitional Federal Government were to fall, there will be no further initiative from the international community to organize another reconciliation conference. They will simply throw in the towel, leaving us to our own devices. No one can blame them.

Given the nature of the enemies of our unity, what needs to be done by the government in the immediate and medium term as part of a strategy aimed at overcoming the warlords? The following tentative ideas are suggested as part of a possible programme of action that the government needs to initiate while still in Jowhar;

1. The need to drop the warlords from the cabinet

Under the present circumstances, it does not make sense any more why Prime Minister Gedi should still keep these criminal warlords in his cabinet. The PM should reshuffle his cabinet and replace those Mogadishu warlords who refuse to accept collective cabinet responsibility and the leadership of the President and PM. Those who are sacked should also be aware of other trepidations that may await them. Their final destination could be the International Court of Justice to face the crimes they committed against humanity. In the meantime, the government should see to it that the international community, through the UN, Arab League, IGAD, African Union and Organization of Islamic Conference, impose travel and financial sanctions on the warlords and their families. This is likely to be far more effective than any military threat that they rightly see as not credible.

2. Mobilising the Banadir public

First and foremost, it has to be acknowledged that the support of the Hawiye for the government, in particular that of the Abgaal sub-clan, is sin qua non if the government is to dislodge the warlords from Mogadishu. No one can doubt that the long-suffering public in Mogadishu want nothing more than a national government like any one else in Somalia. For 15 years, the warlords had kept them as hostages using them as sources of income or recruiting reservoir for their militia. These victims will be the first to welcome their liberation from these monsters. These are the government’s natural allies and it should mobilize them.

3. Regular visits to all regions

Winning the hearts and minds of the public should have been the first priority of the government. But this is a government that believes that the mountain has to come to Mohamed rather than vice versa. It has made more contacts with the outside world than is necessary and few with its own constituencies in the country. It should reach out to the people in Banadir. That is the best way to pull the rug from under the warlord’s feet.

Outside Banadir, nothing could be more morale-boosting and supportive to reviving our unity and nationalism than occasional visits by the President, the Prime Minister and other members of the government to all the regions of the country (security permitting). In particular, the PM should make a visit to Sool and Sanaag as his first priority. This is essential if he has to convince the public that Somali unity is sacrosanct and inviolable and that his recent interview with the BBC Somali Service, in which he disingenuously appeared to support the recognition of Somaliland, was merely a lapse of judgement and did not reflect his personal belief nor that of the president and the rest of the government. He would need to quickly dispel by practical action and not words the serious doubts that many have about his nationalistic credentials and his commitment to Somalia’s unity.

4. The need for effective communication

Taking advantage of the government’s public relations ineptitude, the warlords and Yussuf Garaad’s BBC Somali Service, have been spreading scare mongering among the population of Mogadishu that Abdullhai Yussuf is mobilising militia from his clan or inviting foreign troops in order to attack the capital. If the public did not fall for this claptrap, it is because they are not fools or blind and not because of a sustained public information campaign by the government to counter these lies. This battle for the public’s heart and mind will be decisive in determining the government’s fate more than any armed battle in the field. It is never too late for the government to put its act together.

Apart from public appearances in all the regions of the country, the media is the most effective way of communicating with the public. But the government has an uphill task facing enemies who are loaded with money and who are well entrenched in the media arena. They can count on various radio stations and internet websites-some owned by them others allied to them. Much as the government is financially strapped, it should have its own radio based for the time being in Jowhar which could be beamed to most parts of Southern Somalia. The President and Prime Minister should sacrifice some of their expensive trips abroad and use the savings to address the serious need for public information.

If the government could bring Radio Mogadishu back under the control of the Ministry of Information, that would have been a great boost for national renaissance. The radio is like no ordinary station. It was the icon of our national broadcasting service since independence and its voice was the voice of Somalia. Listening to it again would herald to listeners the revival of Somalia. It is currently in the hands of Hussein Aideed. So far, he has managed to wear two hats: as member of the government while shedding none of warlord trappings. He should immediately transfer the Radio to the Ministry of information. Otherwise, one can draw the necessary conclusion

Final word

We are a people well-known for our resilience and resourcefulness in overcoming the hardships of our harsh environment. The exception has so far been our failure to have a functioning government after all these years without one. The problem is not that we do not want to a have national government-God knows how much this is cherished by ordinary Somalis every where in Somalia (excepting the secessionists). Rather, we have done little to rid ourselves of the warlords who are only united by their shared interest to thwart the establishment of any functioning government that would necessarily put an end to their criminal lucrative activities.

For the warlords, the clan of the president or Prime Minister is of no importance, otherwise the presidency and governments of Ali Mahdi and Abdulqasim Salaad Hassan would have survived. Since each aspiring warlord wants to be the president, to the exclusion of the others, thus far an impossible outcome, they are agreed that no one else should be president and hence there should be no government for Somalia.

 Having defied the international community for 15 years, and having nothing to fear from a traumatised, subjugated population, they remain until now invincible enjoying the fruits of their ill-gotten gain. If we could free ourselves from the shackles of foreign occupation, it should be even less difficult for us to get rid of these pests- if only we have the will and unity of purpose. To support the government is to support Somalia. The alternative is to support the warlords as Yussuf Garaad and the BBC Somali Service are overtly doing.

Mohamoud Oogle
Email: Mohamoud_oogle@yahoo.co.uk

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