The Voice Of Somaliland: Editorial-Waridaad: End of TFG

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Editorial-Waridaad: End of TFG

(Waridaad)-21 years of brutal dictatorship coupled with 16 years of mayhem and lawlessness has come to a sudden halt. The benefactors and the sympathizers alike were shocked at the unexpected change. The warlords, who divided the capital and the rest of southern Somalia into fiefdoms, concocted, with the help of US, what they called the “Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT)” to counter balance the growing influence of the Islamists militia.

After the fall of Mogadishu, the silent drums of the TFG have come to life once again and Abdillahi’s dream to become the president of Somalia finally has been realized. Abdillahi Yusuf started dictating that he would not talk to the Islamists until they recognized his government and gave up all the territories they had seized and to lay down their weapons. The first group who responded to the TFG beat were, Ali Abdullah Salah of Yemen and The Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU), who made a desperate plea to deploy troops to safe-guard the Somalia's embattled transitional government in Baidoa.

The Islamic Courts union, after the defeat of the beastly secular warlords, immediately distant themselves and denied to have any links with any foreign terrorist groups. The new face they projected was that of a moderate cleric and the chairman of the ICU, Sheikh Shariif Sh. Ahmed. To counter the TFG’s rhetoric, the ICU agreed to hold talks with the government and signed the Khartoum Accord, recognizing the government of Abdillahi Yusuf, which silenced the TFG’s loud drums and their discourse to allow foreign troops in, to pave the way for Abdillahi’s hegemony.

Abdillahi Yusuf and Said Barre’s remnants have played their final card. The ICU has politically and morally marginalized the embattled TFG government and has ended Said’s remnants inspiration to rule the country once again.

Ahmed Quick

Waridaad Media Centre

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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

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

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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