By Mohamed Yusuf
Former President of Khaatumo
Since its establishment, the UN Monitoring Group on Somalia had been partisan using its regular reports to the Security Council of the United Nations as a platform to support Somaliland’s secession from Somalia and its independence. This partisan pro-Somaliland stance was the case under its former Coordinator, Matt Brydon, and it is one that has gone further under its current coordinator, Jarat Chopra. All this is manifest from its report to the Security Council dated 15 October 201, where Khatumo State of Somalia and myself as its former President are denigrated on the basis of false information provided by Somaliland, the very secessionist one clan-based enclave occupying parts of our Khatumo territory since 2007, committing in the process crimes against humanity and war crimes against our people in order to force us to be part of Somaliland and the secession.
In Annex 3.1 of their report to the Security Council, dated 15 October 2014, under the title of “Threats to peace and security in the Sool region”, the Monitoring Group comes up with a number of ludicrous and unsubstantiated allegations levelled against Khatumo State or me as its president during much of the reporting period. In specific terms, paragraph 12 of this Annex points to investigations by Somaliland’s intelligence services of “renewed Al-Shabaab infiltration into Sool, including Al-Shabaab trainers involved in training Khatumo militia in at least two training camps in Sool”. Suffice to say that there has never been any infiltration by Al Shabaab anywhere, anytime in the Khatumo State.
What kind of credence can one give to this slanderous baseless claim when its source is none other than Somaliland’s intelligence services who would spare no efforts to destroy Khatumo in everyone they can in order to realise their misguided dream to break up Somalia. It is incredible that a UN body supposedly impartial and objective should use information from such sources that has an interest to fabricate stories in order to denigrate Khatumo. As the report notes, Somaliland’s intelligence services could not provide “further information” on their allegations despite “numerous requests for elaboration” by the Monitoring Group. What is the point then for the Monitoring Group to publish this patently unfounded story (and others in this Annex) unless they are acting as devil’s advocate for Somaliland if not its Trojan horse?
Another serious allegation against Khatumo State by the Monitoring Group is said to arise from my alleged links with Al Shabaab. This is based on information purportedly provided to the Monitoring Group by unnamed “two close contacts” of mine who are said to have informed the Monitoring Group about my regular contacts during 2014 with Mr Abdifatah Mohamed Ali, a relative who is based in Mogadishu since his surrender to the government in 2013. As the Monitoring Group now acknowledges, Mr Abdefatah Mohamed Ali is a supporter of Khatumo and a rehabilitated man now providing services to the Federal Government of Somalia.
As it happens, I have only met him few times during my two visits to Mogadishu in 2014 and this after he left Al Shabaab. This was to be expected, first because he is a relative and but above all because he is an active supporter and advocate of Khatumo. I would have liked to see him more but that was not possible given my distant location from Mogadishu.
What is glaringly obvious is the Monitoring Group’s ignorance of the dynamics of Somali social relations where one has to associate with ones fellow people, in particular those related to one, for all sorts of reasons without sharing their ideology. Unlike the Monitoring Group, we Somalis do not see anything wrong in principle to associate with our kith and kin deserters from Al Shabaab, or to maintain contacts with Al Shabaab’s followers in order to persuade them to desert the organisation as is the case with Mr. Abdelfatah Mohamed Ali.
The Monitoring Group’s disinformation about me and Khatumo State at the behest of Somaliland’s intelligence services throughout this Annex attests to their bias. Once again, Al Shabaab is said to be “attempting to exploit clan tensions within the Dhulbahante who are split in loyalty between Khatumo, Puntland and Somaliland” (paragraph 13).This is another blatant disinformation propagated by Somaliland and Puntland to justify their occupation of, and claim to our regions. Other than a handful of quislings or misguided opportunists working for these predatory neighbours, almost all our population at all levels support Khatumo.This is not a mere claim on our part but the whole Somali people and government were witnesses to the establishment of Khatumo at Taleex in January 2012. That undivided support for Khatumo was again replicated at Saaxdheer in September 2014 during the election of the new parliamentarians and President Dr Ali Khalif Galaidh.
Indeed, the Monitoring Group’s antipathy towards Khatumo and hence their pro-Somaliland and Puntland stance, is evident from the last paragraph of this Annex where they lament the “support extended by the FGS to Khatumo” which they gratuitously claim “could indirectly benefit Al-Shabaab”. In other words, leaving Somaliland and Puntland get on with their colonisation of our regions would keep Al Shabaab at bay!!. On the contrary, support to Khatumo from the Federal Government of Somalia and the international community, forcing Somaliland and Puntland to get out of our regions, would be the most effective way to deny Al Shabaab to benefit from the prevailing conflict in our Khatumo regions.
If Al Shabaab has any foothold in northern Somalia, it is in Somaliland, where it has support among some of the top echelons of the government. It is also active in Puntland where it has been waging skirmishes against government forces. As we in Khatumo have warned all along in the past, Al Shabaab could also seek to get a foothold in the Khatumo regions not by exploiting non-existent “tensions” or “split loyalties” among our people as our enemies would claim (and echoed by the Monitoring Group). Rather, what will suck Al Shabaab into our regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) is the armed conflict between on the one hand Khatumo State and its commitment to liberating its territory and defending its inalienable right to be free from Somaliland and Puntland’s domination, occupation and exploitation, and on the other hand Somaliland and Puntland who each want to appropriate our regions for their own expansionist reasons.
In a word, the best way to keep Al Shabaab out of Khatumo’s SSC regions is simply for the international community to get Somaliland and Puntland out of Khatumo territory. In the meantime, there is urgent need to replace the current coordinator of the Monitoring Group if it has to fulfil its mission in an impartial manner in line with its mandate.
Yours
Mohamed Yusuf
Former President of Khaatumo
CC: H.E President Hassan Mohamoud
H.E. Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed
H.E Oh Joon, Chairperson, UN Security Council Committee, arms embargo
H.E Nicholas Kay, UNSRSG for Somalia
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