The Voice Of Somaliland: About Professor Iqbal and others

Sunday, May 07, 2006

About Professor Iqbal and others

If we were to join Somalia again, something like this will happen to us in Somaliland.

•There would be a civil war in every region in Somaliland.
•My country would be ruled by ruthless war-lords.•Capital Hargeisa would be totally unlivable and outside the norms of the civilized world.
•There would be killings, assassinations, kidnaps, torture and maiming everyday around.
•The sea would be full of pirates and land full of cut-throats.
•Women would be offered for sale and rape would be as normal as drinking a cup of water.
•Nuclear waste would be dumped in every inch available.
•Desertification and ecological disasters would be the least of our problems.
•Our ports would be the export centre of drugs, body-parts and human trade.
•Our children would be taught on how to kill not how to read and write.
•We would be the breeding ground of local bandits and international terrorists.
•Man- made famine and diseases would the story of everyday.
•There would be no Government, no taxes and revenues, no parliament debating the budget.
•There would be no elections, no political parties, no National Institutions, no Judges, no nothing.
•Politicians would spend their time in humiliating conferences outside the country.

Those who are calling us to rejoin Somalia are swimming in a sea of blood and sharks. The stench of the dead bodies can be smelled miles away. I am running away from that miserable condition, yet they want to pull me back into their lake of horror. They never try to ask me on how I succeeded to avoid their predicament. Probably they do not want to get out ofthe mess. The only thing they shout out loud about ishow very bad I am by not sharing their plight! Their logic is that of crabs in a basket. They would enjoy had the sentence of doom on them was prescribed for every Somali anywhere. Woe betides you guys. Sorry I turn down your invitation. I can do better things than that. Instead I will pray for you. I will pray for us all. My brothers in Somalia cannot obviously help themselves. They do not possess the intellectual aura for that. They failed the test big time. MayAllah grant them his mercy? May a miracle come for them and set them right and straight. We in Somaliland thank Allah for showing us the right path.

I tried to make some sense of what has gone wrong in Somalia. YES it happened because of the cruel dictatorship of Siad Barre., but the historical roots are far beyond that. It goes beyond the bad leadership of the Majeerteen Administrations of the early sixties. It goes beyond the corrupt governo Saad, it goes beyond the Italian trusteeship, it goes beyond fascist rule, and it goes beyond the rule of the Arab slave trading sultanates. Certainly some of its roots lie in the differences of cultures and languages tha tare many in Somalia.

The Somali Mahaad tidhi do no tunderstand the Mai, the Bravan, the Bajun, and many other different languages around. The cultures and the look are so different. Everyone in Somalia doesnot see the other as an equal Somali with equal rights. That is why mass killings and robbing and raping is easy for them, for they see those people that they are killing as not people at all.

In early 90s a million people died in Baidhaba as a result of a deliberate scheme of mass extermination. It thus earned the international name of the city of death. Those who committed such atrocities did never even make a simple apology.They do not think that they did anything wrong. Now they came back to Baidhaba with the intention of committing the same crimes again.

God Forbid!! Most certainly the problems of the Somalia are rooted in land grapping. Arab land grapping, Italian land grapping, the SYL elite land grapping, the Darood land grapping, the present Habar gidir land grapping.

Somalia was always a history of misery, and the worst one is being brewed up right now. Look at the map. Everybody who lives in Mudug and to Bosaso wants to settle from Mogadisho to Kismayo. It is a story of occupation and displacement. I do not claim to understand what made Somalia what it is today, but one thing I know: It is the worst spot in the world today. It has has got a unique story of its’ own. It is a story of where Milosevic would be proud of. It is a story of where Charles Taylor would be proud of.

However, the best minds in the world. People like Iqbal Ghazbhay, Ali Mazuri, I.M Lewis, Mat Bryden and many others are proud of Somaliland. Somaliland is an oasis of peace, tranquility, harmony, brotherhood and wisdom.

Somaliland passed the test. We proved that we can live together, work together, build a society from scratch together. We proved we can make our own laws, our own institutions, our own democratically< elected Government. We are the jewel of the world. We are the bearers of the good and proud name that the Somalis are entitled to.

We proved to be more than equals to the most educated and most politically advanced countries in the world. We are the ones who up hold the Somali nations’ name damaged by those in Somalia.

Any friend of the Somali people, and any fair person would be proud of Somaliland and that is where professor Iqbal and the others I mentioned fall into the picture.. We thank them, we appreciate their contribution and our History will write them down in GOLDEN LETTERS.

Dr. Mohamud Tani

mohamudtmohamud_t@yahoo.com

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The New Somaliland Press & Publications Bill 2007

The Somaliland Government has recently sent to the House of Representatives a new Bill on press and publications. The provisions of this bill (based almost entirely on the Yemen Law No: 25 of 1990 on the Press & Publications) run contrary to international norms relating to freedom of expression and the independence of the press and are not in line with the Somaliland constitution.
The considerable powers given to the Minister of Information (and other ministers) include even deciding on appeals from anyone whose writings have been turned down for publication by a newspaper’s editor (Article 46). These ministerial powers over the press and publishers/printers/distributors etc, the compulsory registration of all press and publication activities, including the practice of the profession of journalism, and the extensive criminal sanctions which add to the existing array of criminal offences in the 1962 Somali Penal Code contrast sharply with the current Somaliland Press Law (2004), which contains no criminal sanctions and is based on codes of conduct. Unfortunately the Somaliland Government has repeatedly made clear its dissatisfaction with the current press Law and has used the Penal Code and extra-judicial powers to detain and imprison journalists. It is no surprise, therefore, that the Somaliland Government is not putting forward amendments of the current Press Law, but is now proposing its wholesale replacement by this new Bill which introduces considerable criminal sanctions, such as fines and imprisonment (Article 99) for the infringement of its numerous provisions, as well as prohibition of continued practice of journalism or publication or even circulation of printed materials; confiscation of property, including printing presses (Article 101) and seizure of printed materials (Article 102)..........Full Text

The Isaq Somali Diaspora And‎ Poll-Tax Agitation In Kenya, 1936-41‎

Poll-tax agitation has been a fairly common phenomenon in Africa. On most occasions it has involved little ‎more than vocalized protest. In a few instances, however, it has led to resistance that has been both serious ‎and violent; the earliest example of the latter is probably to be found in the widespread Fante uprisings that ‎occurred immediately after the introduction of the Gold Coast Poll Tax Ordinance of 1852; a later example is ‎the Natal uprising of 1906 which has been attributed in large measure to the introduction of poll tax at the ‎end of the previous year. Yet the agitation by the Isaq Somali in Kenya did not follow either of these two ‎patterns. In several respects it was a highly unusual movement: first, the Isaq were campaigning to pay higher ‎taxation; secondly, in order to secure their aims they attempted to mobilize the whole Isaq diaspora, so that ‎Somali in Uganda, Tanganyika, British Somaliland and Britain were all involved in this agitation, (see map )‎.....Read the rest

The "Letter-of-Death" by General "Morgan" January 23, 1987

(Waridaad) - Following is the famous "Letter-of-Death" as translated into English by Mohamoud Sheikh Ahmed Musa, former President of the Supreme Court, including his explanatory notes as footnotes:1
The report is addressed to the President of the SDR, the Minister of Defence, and the Minister of Interior. The latter, Major-General Ahmed Suleiman Abdalla, is also a son-in-law of the President, and Third Deputy Prime Minister. Since President Barre is also the Minister of Defence -- the previous holder of that portfolio, General Mohamed Ali Samatar, having been promoted Prime Minister on January 30, 1987 -- the report is seemingly confined to family members. This would explain its extreme frankness in specifying certain clans as targets for implemented and recommended punitive action.
The target is the Isaaq Clan Family. The term "clan family" was first coined by Professor I.M. Lewis, Professor Social Anthropology at the London School Economics, to describe the collective name for each of the several major divisions to which Somali clans traditionally divide themselves. The Isaaq clan family sub-divides into four main clans.
Top Secret.......Read the rest