Forget piracy in Somalia’s coast, and forget starvation and president Rayale’s obsessive cliché of “the further the South region sinks in conflict, the closer comes the recognition of Somaliland,” the events that took place in Baydhabo in the waning days of 2008 can’t be topped.

On December 29, 2008, Mr. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was forced to resign from his post as the President of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), bringing closure to a political and military career of over 50 years. Abdullahi Yusuf has been in the thick of Somalia’s last 30 painful years.

Beginning with the 1978 aborted coup against the dictatorship of General M. Siyad Barre, Mr. Yusuf has been a leader of the armed Somali Salivation Democratic Front (SSDF) and later the founder of Puntland’s autonomous regional government.

His latest attempt to revive the country’s government through the UN-recognized Transitional Federal Government, partly to exonerate his name often associated with being the first to set up an Ethiopia based rebel movement and his role in the 1990s civil war (Barde Cad, VOA), came to a sudden halt with the passing of this fateful year of 2008.

Fully cognizant of the potential controversy surrounding his forced resignation and the clan dynamics of Somalia’s politics, especially in light of the fact that the other side’s not-so-noble drive to oust him only one year shy of his term, WardheerNews nonetheless welcomes the president‘s decision to resign. Mr. Yusuf’s peaceful resignation may, and only may, give his nation a glimmer of hope for a new chapter

No doubt the TFG administration has been ineffective since its inception; its administration’s ill-advised decision to invite Ethiopia to occupy the country gave Ethiopia, a traditional enemy, a carte du jour to massacre Mogadishu’s residents and destroy the city by the indiscriminate shelling of civilian centers by Zenawi’s occupation forces. But who knows whether Abdullahi Yusuf’s government could have achieved some results had it not been for the dysfunctional nature of the largely ill-educated, so-called 4.5 based House of Representatives and the multitude of warlords still active in the Somali political arena. It is the same house that, of course with the recommendation of Abdullahi Yusuf, approved with some pride the invasion of their country by Ethiopia.

The TFG, including former president Yusuf, former Prime Minster Geeddi and the current one, Nur Hussein Cadde and their tribal house of representatives, are all equally responsible for the grand crime of approving the occupation of Somalia by Ethiopia since December 25, 2006. Equally guilty are those currently lobbying Zenawi’s regime to keep his forces in the country longer to cause more mayhem and destruction.

The year 2008 would go down in history as the year when Ethiopia‘s Meles Zenawi has committed one of the most heinous human rights abuses in the history of the African continent, the details of which would emerge in the future. The Bush administration has been a prominent culprit in the commission of the killings of thousands of innocent Somalis in the past year.

What else is odd about the year 2008? It is the unholy marriage between the Somali mullah, Sheikh Sheriff Sheikh Ahmed, and Meles Zenawi against former president, Mr. Yusuf. It was not long ago when former president, with the help of the merciless Ethiopian forces, was on the hunt of Mullah sheikh Sherif. With the closing Year 2008, we have a complete role reversal of events!

Sheik Sherif	Mohamed Dhere

Year 2009 would be, in so many ways, the same as 2008, and 2007, and beyond. In all those years of civil strife, a common thread has been that Ethiopia’s foxy Meles manipulated the political figures in the Somali Theater. Whoever thought 2008 would conclude with Meles Zenawi, on behalf of Sheikh Sherif, disarming Mohamed Dhere, a known CIA agent and a former protégé of Meles Zenawi, who himself notoriously hunted down innocent Somalis in exchange for cash and arm cache?

Despite shifting political alliances, it is near certain that the new year of 2009 would usher a religious civil strife biting Sheikh Sheriffs ICU against Al-shabab/ ICU’s Asmara based-wing, and/or Alsuna Wal Jamac against al Al Shabaab.

But the most important development to watch would be the course of governance that the autonomous region of Puntland charts for its constituents. With Mr. Yusuf returning to his home base somewhat humiliated, it is uncertain whether he would use his status as a former president of Somalia to bring the south and Puntland together or tear them apart?

What is not a feasible political course of action for Puntland residents is to entertain any secessionist tendencies. A raw reaction to any perceived humiliation suffered by their kinsman should not cloud the judgment of Puntlanders and their wider kinsman. If most Puntlanders have religiously opposed the unilateral secession of Somaliland, we expect them to do the same and vigorously oppose any such tendencies in Puntland 2009.

A better course of action for all is rather to strengthen local governance and evaluate regionalism and federalism with a fresh perspective.

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