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Somalia 's Hope Should Not Remain Hostage to the Warlords

WardheerNews Editorial

The momentum of this important occasion should not be lost at this juncture in the
history of Somalia when millions of Somalis, both at home and the Diaspora anxiously await for the reestablishment of a functioning recognized government, which would occupy its rightful place in the family of nations. Despite the present challenges, this cherished goal should be within our reach sooner than later.

Warlord Yalaxow Should not be Allowed to Derail Efforts to Pacify Mogadishu

WardheerNews Editoria

Ill-informed he is. But, fool Yalaxow is not. He intentionally fired his comments at an opportune time – when a high delegation of the government, including him, was sent to Mogadishu as part of a comprehensive fact finding mission prior to the relocation of the government to Mogadishu. Mr. Yalaxow cleverly did not speak his mind in Nairobi, Kenya, for he probably would not have gotten away with it, but waited to do so until he returned to his backyard turf – Mogadishu.

Mogadishu , The Kill Zone : Yalaxow and Radical Islamic Courts vowed to resist change

Ali Bahar

This is not the first time he has drawn attention to himself, but Yalaxow, one of Mogadishu's notorious warlords, vowed to keep Mogadishu “ The Kill Zone” it has been for years now.He vowed not to cooperate with the African Union (AU) in its attempt in bringing African troops to secure Mogadishu . For all the enough and apparent reasons that the AU, or the world for that matter, has agreed to send troops in order to save Mogadishu from the grip of Yalaxow and his likes, Yalahow contends that the foreign troops will bring AIDS to Mogadishu. Give me break! Will you?

 

Lessons From Somalia's Civil War

Ali Fatah

The problem is made worse by the fact that the warlords almost never had much of a reason to fear suffering the consequence of their fondness for studied duplicity. Instead, in the hitherto polarized Somali society, warlords often wore their most egregious behavior as patches of honor before their respective constituencies to cultivate tough guy images.
Golaha Wasiirada DFKG ee Somalia

Previous Editorials

Ethiopia: Unjust Somali Land Transfer by Unpopular Cadres Breeds Conflict

Mr. Jibriil, who was in a semi-seclusion state, or what fanatic Muslims call “Khalwo,” until he agreed to hastily authorize the transfer of Somali districts to the Oromo National State only a few months in to parliamentarian elections, is now enjoying some sort of renewal in stature. This elevated status, however, is visible not in the Somali region but in Addis Ababa and among leaders of the Oromo Peoples

Report Card for Riyaale: A Failing Grade

Nearly two years later, Somaliland is on the verge of collapse and anarchy. The political landscape is bleak and rather gloomy marred by rampant corruption, persistent human rights violations and continuing war in the disputed Sool region.

Zamzam and the Hargaysa Kangaroo Court

The Zamzam case is a glaring reminder of the Kangaroo Court in which the rights of the accused and the precepts of justice are totally ignored. The detention and trail of Zamzam Ahmed Dualeh was not only unfair...

Epilogue to Puntland's Election and A Farewell To M.C. Xaashi

In the early hours of Saturday morning, on January 8, 2005, a historic democratic process was set in motion in the Somali Regional State of Puntland. In this process, a retired army General, General Cade Muuse Boqor was voted in to assume the presidency for the coming five yeas.

Change of tone: The Daily Psychoevolutionary Mode of Mogadishu warlords

By Ali Bahar

March 1, 2005

It seems some Mogadishu warlords have shown a change of tone the last few days, though never one would know about their change of heart. If the current change of tone of Mogadishu warlords means anything, it explicates the Master-Servant relation between Ethiopia and the warlords that is deteriorating.

Meles Zenawi - Prime Minister of Ethiopia

It seems that the master, Meles Zenawi, in this relationship, understands his servant, the warlords, much more than they know about themselves. The mention of Ethiopian troops included in the piece-keeping forces to be employed in Mogadishu scares the hell out of many Somalis, but more so for the warlords who have enjoyed having a master-servant secret dealings for the last one and half-decades. If anyone understands the psychology of these psychopath warlords in Mogadishu , it is none other the master, Ethiopia 's Zenawi, and his tactics seems to be working.

This change of tone suggests that these warlords are once again going back to their primitive war ritual after they realized that they wouldn't sustain constant attrition if faced with a gorilla war with Ethiopia lest they face extinction. Their wars in the past have become increasingly tied to the achievements of materialistic goals; acquisition, in and of itself, became a primary rationalization for war. Ironically, now Ethiopia is coming to collect its weapons back, and may be even some way-past overdue money from these warlords, they are asking the Somali people to rally behind them and reject Ethiopian troops coming to Mogadishu . Today it is becoming harder for these warlords to separate the tactics that previously manifested primarily as the working warlord mentality that was controlled or driven and regulated only by their self-centered, material oriented madness with which they destroyed our motherland, and the new rituals that may eventually atrophy their amassed wealth and power when the Ethiopian troops arrive in Mogadishu. They are realizing that their archetype of wars that was driven by violent destructive aggression, along with religious imperatives and the eros principles-- the warrior hero archetype, may come to an end.

For years now, we the public have been begging and appealing to these warlords to stop their practices of handing the control of our people to Ethiopia , but they deliberately turned a deaf ear to our voices. A good number of these warlords secretly, one time or another, signed deals with Ethiopia to gain the upper hand in taking over the other warlords, or so they thought, but the master was always ahead of them. The same warlords, who have used Ethiopia as a power-source in the past, are saying no today to the Ethiopian troops, who are on their way to Mogadishu to disarm them. In a statement signed by the Mogadishu warlords, among them Aidid, Yalaxow, Finish and others, promises the Somali people that they are now ready to disarm themselves, in their words, “they will surrender the parts they controlled in Mogadishu to the transitional government”. In that signed statement, they agreed to, in their words, “ flush out gunmen roaming there”. Why this was not done 10 years ago when many lives and materials could have been saved, one wonders?

Nonetheless, Abdillahi Yussuf, the Father of all warlords, is not going to trust these blood-sucking individuals who vowed to sabotage every attempt towards peace. Similarly, Zenawi, who has studied the psychopathological thinking process of these warlords very well, is keeping the pressure on them today. Give also a credit to Abdillahi Yussuf, who understood well that he wouldn't survive one day in Mogadishu , the Kill Zone , without the protection of foreign troops in Mogadishu . Abdillahi Yussuf knows better than not listening to his master, Zenawi.

We have been watching these warlords long enough to understand that the wars they have been engaging against each other were never about moral duties, geminated not from moral strength and nationalism, and clearly lacked humility and respect for humanity. They should know by now that they, not Ethiopia , failed the Somali people and our beloved once independent State. It was an observable tendency that evolved into mature destructive warlordism, which consequently brought our beloved nation to it knees, and it was too much of a prize for Ethiopia to miss the opportunity of gaining the upper hand in the Somali affairs. It was a war of warrior archetype; a misguided Athenian hero mentality inundated with powerful counter pulling psycho inertia that has long lost credibility and purpose. Notwithstanding the obvious fallacy in their individual logic or the lack of it, each one believed his forces would ultimately prevail even if it took humiliating the Somali people by inviting Ethiopia to gain a heavy hand in formulating the future of our people. They were not keen enough, educated enough, nor at least sane enough to adequately understand the formal dynamics, limits, and requirements of the power structure of the world in general, and that of Africa in particular-- a fatal limitation on their part to which they fell victim. What is more tragic, however, is that the same men are still on helm of the new government even today.

They coned some kind of formula in Kenya by which they agreed to form a government that obeys and serves according to the rules and the standards set by these warlords---a formula coned as tribal distribution and defined as power sharing. The Mogadishu warlords want to operate only under this coned power sharing plan that has its own rules and does not take into account what the rest of the Somalis want. They would change the rules when they want, would dictate how the new government should function in Mogadishu, built militia- occupied ministries (coned as government offices), and above all else, these militias will provide each warlord the power-base that he would require in order to take over or destroy others again when Abdillahi Yussuf leaves, if not before, in the near future. The Somali people should understand this psycho-evolutionary struggle that is taking shape in this new warlord government. It is a power sharing agreement based on not on nobility of ideas, but merely on quiet strength and on the size of the arsenal that each warlord has. Ethiopia at least knows enough to identify to whom in Somalia she sold ammunition and how much, and the Somalis should welcome Ethiopian troops to take their ammunition back from the hands of these warlords.

What Somalia needed was a true nationalist with a heroic leadership in its highest form, one who would destroy the existing warrior power, unite the dismembered nation and lead us with wisdom and intellect at its highest form; one who does not identify with power wrestling, but rather with an ability of taking responsibility and ultimately delivering loyalty to his/her people to lead us out of the darkness. There are many Somalis today, who are able to lead this nation, but unfortunately the Somalis are not seriously looking for them. We were all caught up in this warlord and tribal mentality and have lost sight of what is important. So many Somali intellectuals are wasting too much time on self-serving analysis on what Ethiopia has done to us, or Zenawi's master plan and how he outsmarted all of us, or on most instances blaming Ethiopia for all our sins. Sadly, we are not discovering anything that our forefathers didn't know. Ethiopian aggressing and political plan to take over part of Somalia have been written on the books and our yesterday nationalists warned us about it. Yesterday's men and women took a great pain in dying for this land in order to secure its borders, but today's Somalis have lost sight when they divided this country into tribal regions, which left our borders open to anyone. The painful truth is that the Somalis opened the doors for Ethiopia and even invited its troops to operate in some parts of our country long before the AU proposed foreign troops to come to our country. Ethiopia today comes and goes through our borders without anyone's permission. Where were we when all these were taking place in our backyards? We were busy supporting warlords and tribal segregation, which eventually weakened our ability to defend our nation. Go figure.

Realizing this shortcoming and the failure on our part to come up with any solutions for our problems; realizing that these warlords don't even agree on the primary critically needed cooperation among them; understanding that peace as power will be the only legitimate and survivable form of power possible; clearly understanding that the choices before us are either to work consciously with the impetus that primary cooperation brings or to continue to be dragged along by it with a higher risk of self-annihilation; and finally after losing trust in the Mogadishu warlords, who failed to learn how to perceive and think in a manner that is not only radically different, but one that will be, in some cases, 180 degrees opposite to what has been considered the norm for the last fifteen years, I chose to put my trust in the hands of foreign troops, who could at least guarantee the disarmament of this warlord government. I encourage any Somali with nationalistic blood in his body to support the deployment of foreign troops in Mogadishu .

 

Ali Bahar

aib_1@yahoo.com

 

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