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It was only a matter
of time before Ethiopia and their unsuspecting dupes in
the media began applying the “Terrorist” label to the
Somali People’s popular uprising led by the Supreme
Council of Islamic Courts against the Mogadishu
warlords. For the past fifteen years, the warlords were
the agents and emissaries for the Ethiopian regime;
doing his dirt war against the defenseless civilian
Somali population by killing, torturing, raping,
stealing, extorting, and plundering their lives and
resources. Those despicable warlords squandered every
opportunity to salvage what was left of the Somali
people and institutions of government. To add insult to
injury the warlords conspired with foreign enemies to
assassinate what was left of Somali intellectuals,
religious scholars and prominent business men and to
once and for all seal the faith of Somalia as an
independent and a sovereign nation.
At the backdrop of
these atrocities committed by the warlords and their
Ethiopian handlers came the Islamic courts (doctors,
professors, business people, teachers, former police
officers, former Somali army forces members, religious
scholars, Humanitarian organizations, Community
activists, poets, journalists, students, and ordinary
man). These people which the media refers to Supreme
Council of Islamic Courts risked life and limb to rescue
the Somalia people and institutions. For example, they
created public schools for orphans, children of war and
the displaced children. They were the first who started
clinics for mothers to give birth safely. They were the
only people who rebuilt the broken Somali education
institutions such as Universities, Colleges and primary
and secondary schools that were destroyed by the
warlords. They created small scale businesses and
industries to provide for their families, they rebuilt
wells for the people to get clean water. They partnered
the world and international corporations to build the
best telecommunications infrastructure in Africa second
to South Africa.
They established law
and order by Islamic Sharia based courts to mediate
conflicts and resolve civil and criminal matters in
order to punish the offending aggressor and assist the
weak and injured. They propagated a message of peace,
tranquility and respect for the human life, property
rights, and respect for sound moral values. They fought
environmental abuses by preventing the destruction of
the natural resources and land and marine mammals. They
stopped the abuse and human trafficking of children and
defenseless women perpetrated by the warlords.
Any humane person
with no hidden agenda and cared about Africa and Somalia
in general welcomed the popular uprising of the Somali
people. The overwhelming majority of the Somalis
welcomes this new development and actively supports the
success and positive changes happening in Mogadishu.
When Ethiopia and
their allies realized their agents are defeated and saw
a new dawn in Somalia, especially in Mogadishu, it
reared its ugly head once again and went full scale war
in creating and fabricating unfounded allegations
against The Supreme Council of Islamic Courts. Some of
the tactics used to spread false information about the
Somali popular uprising had the familiar Ethiopian dark
libels without a shred of any evidence supporting their
allegations. Here are examples of what the Ethiopian
propaganda machine is spewing out: The Islamic Courts
are the new “Taliban”; the horn of Africa is in danger
of being taken over by a group of “Terrorist” zealots
who want to destabilize the region. The moderate leaders
of the Islamic courts are being replaced by hardliners
and the world must eradicate, marginalize or even cut
any contact with them all together. This is all from the
Ethiopian Propaganda Cook Book to undermine the
aspirations of the free Somali people. The world must
take notice and take into account Ethiopia’s deliberate
intervention in the internal affairs of the sovereign
nation of Somali. As I write this article, Ethiopia
continues to send troops and death squads to destabilize
the Somali republic.
Historically,
Somalis are independent people and can’t be subjugated
by an Ethiopian led butchers or Taliban style
authoritarian for that matter. Somalis have no cultural
affiliations with Afghanistan or the South East Asia.
They are fiercely independent Nomadic pastoralist with
strong tribal affiliation and therefore, The Supreme
Council of Islamic Courts could not rule as the Taliban
did even if one follows the twisted logic of Ethiopian
propaganda machine. Somalia is an open society and no
fugitive can hide in their midst. In fact, many of the
Islamic courts leadership are highly educated people who
returned from abroad mainly the west such as Canada,
United States, Europe, Sweden and in the Middle East to
salvage what was left of their land.
Secondly, the
current president of the weak transitional government
Abdullah Yusuf is not Hamid Karzi of Afghanistan, he was
a former warlord and a former defector to Ethiopia while
his country was in full scale war with Ethiopia and
majority of Somalis suspect his loyalty to Somalia. Mr.
Yusuf himself admitted publicly in an interview with the
BBC(as if though he is proud of his past) that he had a
major role in the collapse of the Somali Nation and the
resulting death, destruction and devastation that befell
on Somalia due to the lack of functioning government in
Somalia. Somalis simply don’t trust his leadership and
that of his Prime Minister Mr. Ali Mohamed Gedi; a
notorious ineffective Ethiopian handpicked prime
minister.
It is a know fact
that neither the President nor his Prime minister can
question the marching orders from Addis Ababa. If this
was the case they would have shown the courage to seek
the support of their fellow Somali countrymen and work
hard towards peace, unity, nation building and
prosperity and in return they would have been recognized
as the undisputed heroes the pulled Somalia out of
extinction.
In fact one must ask
who should be returning the favor’ Gedi and Yusuf or
Miles Zenawi? Somalia has done more for the ruling TPLF
than Ethiopia ever done for Somalia. In fact, Somalia
provided Miles Zenawi a home base to operate from as
well as military and material support while he was in
exile in Somalia but Ethiopia has never done an iota of
positive for Somalia. All Ethiopia has done was and
continues to be: arm one warlord against the other to
ensure that they continue to fight against one another
so that Somalis could forget their Ethiopian occupied
territories. Ethiopia’s approach towards Somalia defies
logic because a land locked Ethiopia should have been
working hard in finding a genuine solution that brings a
stable and undivided Somalia so that they could be
allowed to use Somalia’s ports. Rather, Ethiopia works
hard to divide and cut Somalia into ever smaller pieces.
For example Ethiopia actively supports cutting Somali
into five more autonomous countries by supporting and
creating fiefdoms such as Somaliland, Puntland,
Hiranland, Benadirland, and Jubbaland an ever decreasing
pie. Ethiopia currently has working ambassadors in some
of these fictitious regional names.
It is no secret that
the current TFG President Abdullah Yusuf came to power
by the funding of the Ethiopian regime and was selected
by a bunch of warlords who are mostly out of power. What
ever legitimacy he had from the Somali public and
international community evaporated when he and his prime
minister dismissed offhand and refused to negotiate with
the public uprising leadership and allowed the Somalia’s
traditional enemy Ethiopia and nemesis to invade. They
have not uttered a single word against the invading
enemy army. Instead they foolishly denied it, even
though the Ethiopian regime admitted their military
units invaded Somalia’s sovereign territory. This is an
act of treason of highest order. They further isolated
their position by welcoming the dreaded and defeated
warlords with open arms while rejecting the Khartoum
sponsored peace negotiations. All intelligent Somalis
with inquiring minds saw them as thugs and warlords that
can’t be trusted for single moment. We have been misled
to think they were different but rather they were
“Ethiopian under cover agents” and realities on the
ground unveiled them. Simply put, their actions for the
past fifteen years and the Somali public opinion hung
them and sealed their faith. They will end up the dark
hole of irrelevance and go into oblivion.
Finally, Meles
Zenawi is not George W. Bush, he is an unelected
corrupted dictator who respects no democracy,
international law and boundaries and would do everything
in his power to deceive the world and project himself as
the American friend while he himself undermines the
democratic principles that all free people aspire to
achieve. Not too long ago the Ethiopian dictator
imprisoned his opposition and slaughtered some of them
and would do anything that would enable him to declare
marshal law so he can finish them off while he is making
incursions into Somalia to divert his atrocities against
his country’s opposition leaders. In fact the recent
election in Ethiopia his own party did not win a single
seat in Addis Ababa the Ethiopian capital.
We as the
independent Somali people living in the Diaspora advise
the international community specially the United States,
Canada, Europe and Middle East to see the situation in
Somalia from the perspective of the builders of Somalia,
the people who love peace and demonstrated they are for
nation building but not from the perspective of those
who destroyed our country who killed us, tortured us,
raped our women, pillaged our infrastructure, extorted
us every intersection, and plundered our future youth.
These people squandered every opportunity the
international community tried to assist the Somali
people and even killed those well-meaning foreign
nationals who came to feed the needy and those who came
to show the blight of Somali people.
We convey to the
Ethiopian prime minister that Somalis have co-existed
side by side with the their Ethiopian neighbors for over
5,000 years with peaceful and neighborly relations
except when a dictator like him came along once for
every several thousand years or hundred years and
plunged both nations into perpetual war. If the dictator
in Ethiopia is concerned about the blight of the Somali
people let him feed the famine stricken indigenous
Somalis living in the fifth zone of what is now under
his leadership. Do not mislead the world and do not
start a war you could not win by any measure. The
Supreme Council of Islamic Courts are not a terrorists
but are there by the will of the Somali people, we know
it, you know it and the world is learning day by day
your white lies and smoke you have created. If you
choose to continue this aggression let be reminded that
Somalis are born fighters and never has Somalia lost a
war against Ethiopia. History attests that she always
had to be rescued by foreign army intervention.
Regardless of the
position taken by Ethiopia towards Somalia, we, the
Somali public should offer a helping hand to the freedom
fighters of OLF, ONLF. This way Males Zenawi will be
busy trying to hold together the more than sixty
different nationalities that make up present day
Ethiopia. Basically, Mr. Zenawi would have to fix his
own backyard before he could contemplate running the
affairs of Somalia and/or weakening the nation of
Somalia. Ethiopia’s strongman should realize that if it
was possible to divide and destroy homogeneous Somalia,
then it should take much less effort to create conflict
and chaos amongst the different nationalities under his
hegemony. Therefore, a final word of advice for the
Ethiopian prime minister would be “leave Somalia alone
before you are engulfed by an inferno with no exit”
strategy.
By Cali Cusmaan
USA
Email:
ccusmaan@gmail.com
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