By Khatumo Action Council
Introduction
We, the Khatumo Action Council (KAC), are an umbrella organization representing all sections of the people of the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) in Northern Somalia (former British Somaliland), and united in fulfilling through all legitimate means the inalienable rights of these regions to be free from the unholy alliance of two Somali clans that claim our regions for their different ends and enforce it through occupation or other means. Free from these aggressors, our goal is to remain irreversibly part and parcel of Somalia.
Statement on the union, Secession and Outsiders”s Negative Roles
The purpose of this statement is first and foremost re-state the facts about the people of northern Somalia, their respective stands on the union and secession. Secondly, it is to expose the so-called election organized by the secessionist clan on 31 May 2021 in some parts of northern Somalia for the failure they were, albeit cynically endorsed as free and fair by some politically motivated circles masquerading as Somalia’s partners. Thirdly, it is to highlight the endgame of those conspiring former colonizers.
Who is who in Northern Somalia
1. The first fact, and the point of departure about northern Somalia, is that it is inhabited by six major clans, namely the Isaak (North-West region), the Samaroon and Issa (Awdal region), the Dhulbahante and Warsangeli clans (SSC regions), the last two belonging to the wider Harti clan, and the minority Gabooye clan which is found in all regions of Northern Somalia.
2. The second fact is that all the six clans in Northern Somalia have freely and separately chosen to join the union with Italian Somaliland on 1st July 1960. No one clan had the power, legal or otherwise, to force the union on any of the others. It was all voluntary.
3. The third fact is that just as no one clan could have forced others to join the union, similarly no one clan had the legal or constitutional power to force others, other than by sheer brute force, to leave the union as the Isaak clan did when it forced the secession on the other unionist clans and occupied part or all of their regions, pursuant to their secession declaration on 18 May 1991.
4. The fourth fact is that the SSC people and their regions have never been party to the secession declaration of May 1991, nor played any part in the SNM sponsored sham referendum on the secession held in May 2001, nor participated in any of the subsequently held elections which were totally boycotted by the unionist clans. Far from joining the secession and embrace their adopted name of Somaliland (which remains defunct since that name of the former British territory ceased to exist after it united with Italian Somaliland), the SSC people chose to establish their own regional administrations such as Khatumo State of Somalia and Makhir State of Somalia.
The 30 May Election: Who voted and who didn’t
5. The fifth fact is that the SSC people have, in line with their long -established stand, boycotted the latest SNM/Isaak sponsored election held on 31 May 2021. As with previous elections, voting was again confined to Lascanod, the occupied capital of SSC, and the few places near it where the secessionist militia are based. The very low turnout among the SSC people relative to the size of the SSC population of voting ages attests to the decisive verdict of the SSC people on the secession issue.
6. The sixth fact is that the Makhir State of Somalia, also in Sanaag region, true to its proud history as an independent kingdom, never doing another clan’s bidding for the breakup of Somalia, has not only completely boycotted the latest Isaak clan-based elections but would not allow it to take place in any part of their region thus resulting in being allocated zero seats in the Somaliland parliament.
Failed election endorsed as free and fair
7. The seventh fact is that there is no official census for Somalia’s overall population or for its specific regions, and for that reason the unsupported biased figures bandied about in the report by the election observers of South Africa’s Brenthurst Foundation are devoid of credibility. What can be said for certain is the fact that the Makhir and Khatumo SSC regions geographically constitute nearly 55-60 percent of Northern Somalia and their populations even in the absence of censusare bound to make up a considerable proportion of the population of northern Somalia. On this basis, close to half the population of northern Somalia had nothing to do with this election.
8. And yet, the Brenthurst Foundation gives the spurious message that the election covered the whole of Northern Somalia when in reality they were confined to the Isaak regions, apart from the town of Borama in Awdal region. In a nutshell, those observers have never set foot on the SSC regions. As such, their report amounts to culpable misinformation in favor of the one-clan secession and their supporters among Somalia’s so-called international partners. We can only assume these parties had common agenda, making a mockery of what constitutes a free and fair election.
Bullyists masquerading as partners
9.Taking their cue from the one-sided Brenthurst foundation report, the European members of Somalia’s so-called international partners (United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland) lost no time to shower praise on the secessionist enclave for conducting what they consider a successful democratic election- in reality a one-clan election show to garner recognition. In a joint statement they issued on 8 June, they refer to the one-clan enclave as the “government” of “Somaliland” as if the defunct former British colony is alive, and express their readiness to working closely with all its institutions, and all these bilateral relations to be conducted over the head of the federal government. All these actions constitute de facto recognition of the renegade enclave. And yet, they claim to be partners working for Somalia’s peace and stability.
10. It would not be lost on anyone that these so-called partners are the very same countries which blocked the federal government in May through threats of financial sanctions to organize a similar one-man-one-vote general election, and forced on it instead to hold an indirect corruption-ridden selection of MPs, a crime against the Somali people to exercise their inalienable fundamental democratic rights.
11. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so one has to ask why the different treatment or the double standards? Clearly in one case, Somalia, they want it permanently mired as a failed State under their trusteeship while a successful democratic Somaliland would get recognition from a world giving up on a failed Somali State, a strategic Somaliland in the image of Taiwan that would serve their interest.
12. The leading members of these European counties have been former colonizers and in particular led by those who partitioned the Somali homeland into five pats in the 19th Century. This time they are trying to partition once again the two parts that united in July 1960 so that the Somali nation reverts back to its five separate parts. It is a delusion that is bound to fail in the face of opposition from the Somali nation and above all the northern people of Makhir and Khatumo.
13. In this regard, it is gratifying that the United States, itself colonized by some of these very same European countries, and subsequently gone through a civil war as in Somalia, has dissociated itself from their perfidious pro-secession actions. That appreciation also goes for the other non-European members of Somalia’s IP who distanced themselves from this conspiracy on the unity of our country.
14. TheseEuropean bullyists of Somalia should be aware that we are always mindful from generation to generation of the historical crimes they committed against our Somali nation in one way or another-– above all its partition into five parts whose painful legacy persists to the present day, the destructive colonization, the genocide of our Dhulbahante in the Darwish struggle. They are same ones who committed similar crimes of division in their ex-colonies- the Herero in Namibia, Kikuyu in Kenya, the Africans in Congo, the Arabs in Algeria, Abyssinians under Italy, etc
15. For us, their current overt and covert support for the secession in order to partition Somalia once again is the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Our advice to them is that they will have nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by perpetuating their crimes against our people. If there is any lesson they have to learn, it is that Somalia is indivisible. Respect for our unity and sovereignty, in deeds and not lip service, is in our common interest. And the sooner, the better.
Khaatumo Action Council(KAC)
Suleiman Abdi, Chairman of KAC Steering Committee
Ali H. Abdulla, Vice Chairman of KAC Steering Committee
Mohamed I Bulale, Secretary of KAC Steering Committee
Osman Hassan, member of KAC
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