By Ahmed Khalif
He, who is silent, it said, is taken to consent.
Somalia, my motherland, had been sinking down for over quarter of a century; it has no central government since 1991, the fall of Dictator Siyad Barre. Somalia has been splintered into clan based statelets; and to make matters worse, some of those statelets already are occupied militarily by Somalia’s avowed enemies: Kenya and Ethiopia; others are ruled for them by their satraps.
Somalis are witnessing that their country being divided by their age old avowed enemies; they sadly watch what is transpiring in their homeland, but not clamorously reacting with it; and for that matter, their silence might be taken as consent. No, it is not. Somalis awakened now and they will defend their birthrights to their last drop of blood; they don’t take aggression.
It’s agony to watch your motherland slowly perishing before your eyes; it is unspeakably painful to see the future of your children getting gloomier by the day.
The most painful injury, it is said, is the self-inflicted one. The unbearable pain of their internecine war put Somalis in comatose state; but Kenya’s underway flagrant infringement of the Somali borders helped them to regain their consciousness now.
It seems now that the stratagems of their enemy neighbors became clear to the Somalis; and they understood that the only winner of their civil wars is their enemy who, after keep pouring fuel on their fratricidal war, now reaping fruits of it; they now realized this grim actuality requires the Somalis to unite against their pitiless enemy; and thus henceforth fight back forcefully and vociferously.
To clarify a bit of the conundrum of Somalia’s continuous lawlessness, we may sort its problems into two categories: ecdemics and endemics.
Ecdemic problems:
Even though traditionally untold, most of the troubles that bedeviled Somalia were brought about and perpetuated by Somalia’s false friends; and the only faulty in fact the dilemma in the Somali part became their credulity. Call it folly if you will, of blindly believing in these faux amis: ‘international and regional communities/agencies’.
While Somalis were busy killing each other in their civil war, their enemies were busy plotting how they would obliterate them. Somalia’s historical hostile neighbors – Ethiopia and Kenya – kept fueling its civil war; they disingenuously befriended with all rivals while supplying them ammos. They feigned empathy for their next door neighbor; and even hosted reconciliation conferences for warring functions keep your friend close, but your enemy closer; each time handing them a Pandora’s box to open. They, nonetheless, lie in wait for their victim be ripe for attack. Their intrigues, however, are more conspicuous now than any time before.
Ethiopian and Kenyan arms, under the disguise of the green helmet of AMISOM (African Mission in Somalia) a mélange of arms from Uganda, Burundi, Sierra Leone, Kenya and Ethiopia which forced themselves in after being initially rejected for conflict of interest, are deep in the lands of Somalia, in the name of war of terror with pretext of fighting with Al Shabab. Kenya is carving out Somali territories both in the land and in the sea -for its grab while Ethiopia itself is eyeing on the bigger portion.
AMISOM forces have been in Somalia supposedly to fight Al Shabab out close to ten years, yet they achieved no tangible victory toward that goal. On the contrary, Al Shabab, a terrorist group whose job is to get rid the Somalis out of their Somalia: dead or alive have significantly increased the frequency and the casualties of its terror attacks, however; that clearly manifests how AMISOM had failed wittingly, as suspected and even confirmed by Ugandan soldier to fight out al-Shabab and bring law and order back in Somalia.
For the AMISOM soldiers though, Somalia is a gold mine. UN pays $1,200 in salary plus lavish perks to the AMISOM soldier in Somalia, who used to get less than $ 100 equivalent in their countries; so the longer their stay in Somalia, the richer they are. It thus hardly surprises anybody except some naive Somalis that they, due to the human greediness, put their pay above the Al Shabab’s fight. As a result probably they collude with Al Shabab to avoid casualties, and prolong their mission in Somalia as long as possible. It is believed in the Somalis, with reason, that AMISOM provisions Al Shabab with food and ammunition.
It is much easier for the UNISOM soldiers to rape under age malnourished Somali girls virtuous and comely, even after so many years of living in harsh conditions in the war torn country with impunity than fighting with the Al Shabab. An elderly, sick and even pregnant women who sought medical treatments in the AMISOM’s field hospitals were allegedly raped.
Read more: Silence not always means consent
Ahmed Khalif
Email: [email protected]
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