A River Called Somalia - Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden’s Plan Proposal for Peace in the Horn of Africa

A few days ago, a Somali Intellectual sent me a mail with a poetical political analysis that captivated all my imagination. The striking images, the salient metaphors, the didactic approach to Somalia’s adventures, and the clear cut overview of the trouble caused to the Horn of Africa by the interfering colonial powers are the text’s strongest points.

One may consider Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden’s plan as eventually idealistic and actually unrealistic. This does not make it lose its importance and value in any sense. More than being a road map with well studied details, Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden’s plan for Somalia’s pacification contains all the steps, all the demarches and all the actions that, if undertaken by people of good intentions, would certainly lead the Somalis to everlasting peace.

More than a pragmatic agenda’s list of bullets, Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden’s plan forces the global community to stand with our back against the wall and answer to the following questions:

- Are you personally integral and morally strong enough to carry out what you know you have to? Where is your promise of Humanity? Where are the days when everything looked innocent and sparkling like a spring?

Like this, in our theoretical promenade, we will finally encounter the entire Mankind sitting silent at the banks of the river Somalia and there recounting the value of the years that went lost. And as the entire world is plunged into fratricidal discord equal to, if not worse than, that of Somalia, we will realize that, instead of merely stating that the Somali are humans, we can conclusively specify that all the humans are Somalis.

That’s why a failure in Somalia will herald a breakdown for the entire Mankind. I herewith publish Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden’s text integrally, after having slightly edited it for clarity. To my ears, it sounds as a warning of a great Somali thinker, who having experienced his country’s past Drama, speaks to us of our world’s forthcoming Tragedy.

Letter from Harm's Way River in No Man's Land Somalia
By Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden Had
A Somali Principal

Somalia is a country under complex condition for over 20 years. Somalia has no relation with the world's superpower or diabolic government. In addition, Somalia has no intellectual politicians and no patriotic leaders.

But Somalia is now a river into which are being poured three sewage pipes that can only discharge toxic substances from outside. Those substances are mixed up with the fertile elements that are inherent to the river, and thus form a dangerous waste to further deteriorate the matters of Somalia.

These sewage pipes are identified as the three clans, namely the Hawiye, the Darood and the Isaaq; the toxic substance they disgorge into the river is the idea of interference from the outer, diabolic world. This concept that turns a clan automatically to a pipe of sewage involves the notion that every one cannot have other target than defeating the rest, and in the process demand support for their tribalism from outside.

As we heard, there have been 16 Somali reconciliation conferences held outside the Somali soil and each of them ended fruitlessly, due to evil agendas involved. After all these developments, the acquisition of foreign support brought disaster to Somalia and the foreign involvement brought forth the present chaos.

Every participant in the so-called Somali peace process is truly generating the emotional motion of eliminating the Somali hopes, and in doing so, they nominate a person to carry out the task, a person who either has only vested interests or becomes the medium of exertion of foreign involvement.

Ideology

As we heard, and as we noticed in the media, the several rival groups have been driven to ideological impasses with the adoption of various –isms, such as secessionism, terrorism, and tribalism, that all derive from foreign interference and evil support accorded to the Somalis who disastrously ask for it.

Sharif Ahmed is the last contaminated leader of Somalia; in fact, he can't do anything to solve the present Somali mayhem. Sharif Ahmed’s interlocutor and sponsor, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, is an international broker. If he were a honest and honorable person, he would be rather concerned with his own country which is under military occupation; but of course, this is not the case. Ould, rather called Walad ("street boy" in Arabic), is an untrustworthy mercenary, and we don't know what he can do to us, the Somalis.

How Somalia can achieve pacification and reunification

If the international community wants to achieve peace in Somalia, the necessary negotiations must follow the next steps:

1. Exercise the necessary pressure to end the hostilities at Mogadishu, there achieving a cease fire

2. Enforce that rivaling parts (TFG and Islamists) withdraw their arms to their previous camps

3. Put an end to the various propaganda media

4. Stop increasing the AMISOM forces

5. Radicals must remove the foreigners (if any) from among them

6. TFG must specify the date of final departure of AMISOM forces from Somalia

7. No filibuster action should be taken either from a NATO base or navy in the US or any other country against the Islamists in Mogadishu. An all Somali intellectuals and sheikhs Summit or Conference must be convened in Bossasso or another town in Somalia to discuss all issues pertaining to the Somali Nation. The global community, without interfering, should facilitate this development.

8. The UN General Assembly must take a motion, calling for Somali Unity and Territorial and Moral Integrity of Somalia, forcing the secessionist administrations to come to the Somali reconciliation process.

9. UN, US, EU, AU, and Arab League must exercise pressure of the secessionist administrations in this regard. Indicatively, a force of 2000 soldiers should be deployed in Mogadishu to help effectively undertake and successfully complete mediations between TFG and radicals in Mogadishu under the auspices of the aforementioned international bodies.

10. The UN and the US must solemnly declare that there are no Somali groups and political figures who could possibly be blamed as "terrorist", and this more particularly with respect to Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, Sheikh Hassan Turki, and the Shabaab. No accusations of any sort should be pronounced against and these Somali leaders must be considered as normal Somali citizens with rights – like all the rest.

11. The Shabaab charismatic activists and the Hizb ul Islam leadership must declare that they have no relationship with Al Qaeda and any other terrorist group from now on – even if they had contacts with any of them in the past.

If the international community decides to get engaged in the above mentioned steps and processes, everything in Somalia will turn better, piracy will disappear, and anarchy will be no more.

More recently, we came to hear the news about a maritime agreement signed between Somalia and Kenya. If we are Somalis we can’t and don’t recognize that Memorandum of Understanding that is void due to the fact that the UN and the global community know very well that there is no truly elected government in Somalia. The existing TFG authority can't resolve this issue because, as its name precisely suggests, it is a transitional government tasked only to lead a reconciliation process and related affairs – nothing more.

However, this has been a fluffy action that helped finally clarify the shadowy image of the TFG administration and Sheikh Sharif; to oppose it, the entire Somali nation will stand to defend their territorial integrity, thus putting an end to the TFG authority’s most scandalous act. This shameful act is actually called the "Kenya Gate Scandal", the TFG minister involved in the act (Abdurahman Abdishukuur) is currently called "Minister of National Scam and International Burglary", and the TFG is termed the "Blindness Authority".

Abdirahman Haji Ahmed Aden Had can be contacted here: haadyey@hotmail.com

Note
Picture: A malnourished child has become a rather happy snapshot from Somalia, due to the ongoing hostilities and the ensuing casualties.
From: http://www.celsias.com/media/uploads/admin/somalia_child.jpg