Press Release

The Khatumo Forum for Peace, Unity and Development would like, first and foremost, to convey its respects to the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations (SRSG) for Somalia, Mr. Nicholas Kay. Though not long in his post, Mr Kay is to be commended to be the first SRSG to forgo the la dolce vita of Nairobi and pitch his base in Mogadishu, a welcome contrast to his predecessors and comrades from the international organisations dealing with Somalia who are loath to give up their good life in Kenya and dread the hardships and hazards of the terror-ridden and war-torn Somali capital. He is also to be praised to refuse to mollycoddle the one-clan secessionists enclave calling itself Somaliland to recognise them as a de facto separate country from Somalia as his predecessor, Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, unabashedly used to indulge them.

All the same, Mr Kay can be seriously faulted for acting less as the UN Special Representative to Somalia and more as an emissary of his former employee, the British Foreign Office, presumably to advance first and foremost the interests of his country. A UN Special Representative to Somalia would have been duty bound to be true to his mandate and treat all the regions, clans and peoples of Somalia equally in the interest of restoring unity, peace and stability in Somalia. As it is, Mr Kay acts, for all practical purposes and for questionable reasons, as the special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations to only selected places, often Mogadishu and Garawe, to the neglect or deliberate exclusion of the rest of the country.

While both Mogadishu and Garawe are admittedly important, he should be reminded that all the regions of Somalia are equally important. And unless he treats them equally, in words and deeds, his mission is bound to be hamstrung. It is not in the interest of Somalia, the UN and the international community which he represents, to unwisely put all his eggs in one or two baskets and ignore all the other regional administrations of Somalia that are ready to welcome him and cooperate with him. No State member of federal Somalia has more empathy for the SRSG’s  mission than KhaatumoState of Somalia. And yet, ironically, that is the State he has needlessly alienated most.

The partiality of the SRSG is not lost on the people of Somalia and most of all on those in the KhaatumoState. Its border is almost a stone’s throw away from Garawe and yet the SRSG seems reluctant to recognize its existence let alone set foot on its territory. While the SRSG is bound by his mandate to respect the inalienable rights of the people in the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) to establish their KhaatumoState of Somalia, a fact recognised by the Somali government, he chose instead to ingratiate the whims of Puntland’s petulant and domineering leader, Abdirahman Faroole.

Driven by megalomania and the fantasies of his empire-building, Mr Faroole is ludicrously in denial about the existence of Khaatumo State of Somalia and claims that the SSC regions, on which Khaatumo State is based, are part of his clan’s fiefdom, aka Puntland. His mind-boggling rationale is that the SSC regions had joined Puntland at one time, an act he deems irreversible as if it was carved in stone.

Not surprisingly, it does not cut much ice with Faroole’s one-way mindset that the SSC regions, having been daily betrayed by Puntland’s collusion with Somaliland’s continued occupation of their capital, have abrogated their political and defence alliance with Puntland and established their own KhaatumoState of Somalia in January 2012. It is his way or the highway as far as he is concerned. What is lamentable is not  so much Faroole’s wayward ways against Khaatumo but that the SRSG has endorsed his stance. This is what he did the other day when, on a visit to Garawe, he referred to the forthcoming elections in Puntland’s  ” …..five original regions ” – clearly asserting that the SSC regions are part and parcel of Puntland, and negating at a stroke the existence of Khaatumo State of Somalia much to Faroole’s delight.

The SRSG has not so much sacrificed KhatumoState for it is here to prevail over its predatory enemies, Puntland and Somaliland. Rather, it is the credibility and raison d’ètre of his Office that the SRSG has wantonly compromised and damaged.

Khatumo Forum for Peace, Unity and Development.

Email: info@khaatumoforum.org