Press Release

Voice of the Occupied SC Régions

In a Presidential Statement on 8 June, the United Nations Security Council, voicing “concern over recent fighting in the Sool region of northern Somalia” urged ” parties to implement, without delay, their commitment to international partners to an immediate cessation of hostilities, including refraining from statements or actions that may raise tensions, and further urges parties to pull back their forces and engage in dialogue”.

The statement adds that the Security Council notes with concern that the fighting has exacerbated the humanitarian situation and “calls on all parties to allow and facilitate full, safe, rapid and unhindered humanitarian access”.

What is clear is that this Presidential Statement is a repeat of the same Statement issued some weeks ago by Somalia’s so-called international partners. Clearly, this group as well as the Security Council have merely adopted a text prepared for them by the United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) for Somalia, Michael Keating. His call on Puntland and Somaliland to unconditionally cease hostilities, withdrawn forces to their previous bases before the conflict and engage in dialogue would be seen by many in Puntland as biased and favouring Somaliland. For once relieved of the ongoing liberation it would be under no urge to give up its occupation of the SSC, dialogue or no dialogue . 

Puntland is likely to interpret the SRSG’s adopted statement by the Security Council as partisan perpetuating the occupation.This implicit demand on Puntland to accept the pre-Tukaraq status quo, namely the occupation,has been rejected out of hand by its leaders, above all the Vice President Abdihakim Abdullahi Haji Omar. They are unlikely to give up their inalienable right, as enshrined in the UN Chapter, to be free from the occupation of a renegade secessionist clan.

The SRSG far from addressing this fundamental problem in the SSC regions, namely the occupation, is merely asking the victims to accept it. They are unlikely to accept it. In acting this way, the SRSG is likely to forfeit any claim to be an impartial agent  for peace. That is a job that can only await his successor.

Voice of the Occupied SSC Régions

Osman Hassan