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President Hassan’s fading Political Footprint

By Faisal Roble

President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud of Somalia and his government have been lately mired in diplomatic nightmares. The latest bellow was dealt when the United States Secretary of Foreign Affairs, John Kerry, summoned the leaders of Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda on May 1, 2014 and sidelined President Hassan.  Leaders of these three countries are supposedly regional key team players and partners in Washington’s global “war on terror.” 

Kerry_Ethiopia
Kerry with the “war on terror” team

Kerry invited these leaders to a strategy session on conflict mapping and the necessary potential architecture to tackle terrorism.

Unfortunately, Somalia, the home for most of the terror and the main recipient of its casualties, was treated as a child of a ‘lesser God” by not inviting her to the table.  Neither the President nor his Prime Minister was invited to this key strategy session. Neighboring countries are charged to brief Somalia on the big picture.

For a face saving, though, President Hassan and his delegation were posthumously invited to meet with Kerry on his way out of Africa. This hastily organized meeting reportedly focused on reportage and a laundry list for aid prepared by Somalia. Apparent from the State Department’s debriefing, Kerry’s government appeared lukewarm and non-committal to Somalia, but mostly he listened. In the discussion, the US also mentioned its efforts in Somaliland and Puntland.

To add insult to an injury, for the third time, the President was not received at the Addis Ababa airport either by the Prime Minister or the Minister for foreign affairs.  Many Somalis feel that in diplomatic nuance, a reception by the Prime Minister or the Foreign Minister would have symbolized stronger bilateral relationship.

Kerry_Hassan
Kerry meets with President Hassan/Addis Airport

This brings me to Kenya’s Faustian political moves and inhumane physical, mental and material harm she deliberately inflicted on the Somali people and its weak government.  In the last two months of March and April, 2014, Kenya had done what the Britons did to the Kikuyu-led Mau-Mau movement of the early and mid-1900s.

Because England believed that the fearless Kenyan freedom fighters were warriors acting not on any rational ideology for liberation, but on [African] barbaric myth and magic, the only way to control them was, according to the thinking of colonial rulers at the time, rounding up innocent civilians and conducting indiscriminate mass in labor camps. In 1953, Kenyatta himself was sentenced to seven-years for “managing the Mau-Mau terrorist organization.”  Just like Somalis in this era, Jomo Kenyatta and his comrades have fallen victim to Briton’s indiscriminate man-hunt based policy.

If the late Jomo Kenyatta was a man of consciences, which he undoubtedly was, he must be by now rolling up and down in his grave helplessly watching his deviant and devious heir trying to “extricate” myth and magic out of Somalis by using similar colonial methods used unfairly against his own Kikuyu tribe.

It is possible only in Black Africa that the son of a liberation movement leader would turn around and use the same extraterritorial measures used against his predecessors.  Despite souring diplomatic relations between the two countries, the actions of President Uhuru Kenyatta against innocent Somali refugees, Kenyan Somalis, and Muslims of various backgrounds, are against humanity and must be added to his ever expanding paper trail of crimes against humanity.

The most annoying part of Kenyan diplomatic vigilantism came on April, 25, 20114 by that country’s security forces detaining a consular at the Somali Embassy in Nairobi. Despite the belated denouncement by President Hassan on April 29 and a subsequent promise to issue an apology by Kenya, one can’t help but ponder on the lack of respect Kenyan officials had exhibited towards the detained diplomat, Siyyad Mahmoud Shire. It is also ironic that Jomo Kenyatta was sentenced in April 1953, 61 years ago to this date.

What is not so perplexing about this entire misfortune is that Somalis both inside and outside the country have full understanding of what is happening to their people and their country as well. They equate the shift in status of once-respected young nation now being treated as an aging lion, where predatory foxes and flies in the neighborhood come to belittle and disparage. A nation without diplomatic prestige can’t stand up for its helpless citizens as the case is with contemporary Somalia.

No wonder, then, that Somali citizens seem to have a better and full understanding of not only their vexing existential [national] problems but also the solution.  Their constant demand for good governance, and a country that is at peace with itself as their preferred and only viable panacea to revive that once respected real lion’s image had fallen to deaf ears.

The stacked mistreatments of Somali masses and the diplomatic inferiority accorded to their representatives is a symbol of the fading away of the Somali sovereignty and the erosion of their symbolism for nationhood.

Given the constant violation of the territorial integrity of their beloved country by each and every dick and harry in the neighborhood, plus the docile role their leaders so far assumed like a helpless mother in adversity would do, it is only a matter of time when the anger of patriotic Somalis in the millions hits their tipping point.

The diplomatic second class reserved for Somalia’s leadership in the region as well as in the world is largely the direct result of the stagnation of recovery and the backlog in the implementation of the promised “nation building” all of which are the doing of the same leaders.

It is time to look around for a serious and comprehensive evaluation of the course so far travelled. As the adage goes “delay is death,” and as such the time for a serious and “out of the box” national dialogue is here, and now, not tomorrow, but now is the right time.

After 25 years of lacking a functioning government, smacked in a hostile region, Somali leaders better “smell the coffee” and do something out of the box.  As we stand, the decks are stacked high against the current leaders in Mogadishu.

The bitter pills to be swallowed and the accompanying healing that follow rests in the following simple but rewarding steps:

1. Come out clean and face off squarely with the current endemic corruption with its large footprint inside Villa Somalia that had plagued and also bankrupted all levels of the feeble institutions of the Federal Somali Government (FSG).

2. Overhaul the ministries at all levels and begin staffing from top to bottom with highly skilled professionals in defiance of the archaic 4.5 power-sharing; this is only so, because the observance of the 4.5 power-sharing only worsened the prospects for achieving good governance.

3. Rebuild the near-zero legitimacy to govern by fostering a comprehensive and inclusive national dialogue on the modalities and tools for an effective reconciliation program.  There is no short cut to legitimacy except implementing an honestly brokered national reconciliation program rooted in the concept of fostering a new relationship among Somalis.

4. Reestablish an equitable and working relationship in the spirit of the Federal Constitution with existing regional governments, while harmonizing disparate goals sought by some of the leaders in all the regions.  Inclusive of yet-to-be established regions, seek ways to foster harmony between all neighboring regions while reorganizing Mogadishu’s 15 wards to achieve inclusive and diversified governance, even if this is done at the cost of defying entrenched groups.

Faisal Roble
Email:[email protected]

 


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