By Abdisalam Mohamud

If one is talking about the Somalia Ethiopia has appropriated, or the Somalia that United Nations has made its stepchild for Nongovernmental Organizations, then I agree with you that there is Somalia, but not the Somalia Somalis knew. That Somalia that we knew was a proud nation which was not a pushover neither to its neighbors nor the so-called international community, which is directing her now to its own self-destruction.

To bring back its past glory, then what does Somalia needs. Somalia requires a real struggle to retrieve its pride. This demands a brain storming sessions to locate where things are botched up. As long as we are blinded not to see the truth glaring in front of us that there is no state called Somalia, but a fractious mini regions arranged to be at loggerheads that represent the interests of their backers, and leaders of those mini-regions whose sole purpose is to be gatekeepers who cash in the misery of their subjects.

Once we accept that as the reality as Somalis we encounter today, then we are on the road for the resurrection of Somalia. However, that road is not smooth. It is decorated with the obstacles placed in by those who played the major role in constructing the environment that Somalia is in – that of anarchy injected with the malice of clannish.

The United Nations is the foremost instigator of the chaos in Somalia, and the planner of the clan rivalry within Somalia as of now with Libya. The first UN mission in Somalia known as UNISOM headed by Mohamed Sahnoun in 1992 rooted the seeds of its clan rivalry by reviving the old mode of divide and rule in giving clan leaders or what the United Nations call traditional leaders a life of their own. Somalia’s clan leaders were pampered by making them central players in the unending conferences of conflict resolutions spearheaded by the UN during Sahnoun’s short stay in Somalia.

Hence, the clan leaders became fixture of Somali politics. They saw their upholding by the UN as central figures in search of peace to the then conflict ridden nation of Somalia as a new stature the chieftains have achieved. They thus became fierce defenders of the clan interests- whether it is in the form of clan cleansing or claims put on the role their clan plays in the formation of state governments, which resulted in the formations of transitional governments or the falsely declared of the so-called federal government of Somalia that hinges on the 4.5 model of clannish selection.

Yet, we are witness the disgrace and the impotence that this model of 4.5 has heaped on Somalis whether it is the humiliation meted out to prime minister and his delegation at the Kenyatta Airport recently or Ethiopia’s bossing to both the federal government and the regional states.

In addition, the 4.5 method of sharing power had stacked up generally the face of the officials representing the Somali government whether they are the parliamentarians, ministers, army officials, diplomats, with shameless, undeserving, illiterate, and corrupted individuals.

However, the blame of the muddy politics Somalia finds itself at present, the UN is not alone. The United States has its lion’s share. The role of its special envoy, late Robert Oakley, who was a former CIA operative and an experienced counter terrorism specialist, carried a well crafted plan to cause rift between the self declared president Ali Mahdi and militia leader, General Aidid, during the US operation of “Restore Hope” on the heels of Somalia’s civil war meant to save the lives of the starving Somalis in 1992 brought by the rampaging Aidiid’s militia..

Ambassador Oakley shuttled back and forth between Ali Mahdi and Aidiid ensuring each of them his support as of now UN special representative Michael Keating has done through his tours of the regional states in search of their perspective views of the impending elections. As a result, it led to the power struggle between Ali Mahdi and Aidiid that unsettled the peace in the southern Somalia, which its reverberation is still affecting in a much more worse way as a result of institutionalization of the UN and the Western backed federally clan based model of government in Somalia.

Not only that, the US moved quickly to sabotage the brief period Somalia witnessed peace in consequence of the defeat of the warlords by the Islamic Union in 2005. The US re-organized the routed warlords under an umbrella of counterterrorism to wage war against the Islamic Union, but once they were repulsed by the Islamic Union, the US employed Ethiopian proxy. It thus bankrolled Ethiopia to beat the Islamic Union by breaking the sanctions US placed on North Korea in order to buy tanks for Ethiopia’s endorsed US intrusion into Somalia.

Apart from that, the US to give teeth to the Ethiopian intervention, it changed cardinal UNSC resolution that forbid neighboring countries to be part of any peace building operations in Somalia; and crafted its own UNSC resolution that allowed Ethiopia and neighboring countries to be contingents of peacekeeping forces in Somalia. Moreover, it entrusted Ethiopia’s view point to be the one the international community will adopt in relation with Somalia. Consequently, Ethiopia became central figure in Somali politics. That is why we see the UN special envoy, Mr. Michael Keating, and the bogus Somalia leader, Hassan Sheikh appealing to Ethiopia in asking her to change the mind of the president of Abdiweli Gaas, the head of the Federal State of Puntland, who opposes the 4.5 model of power sharing instead of one-man –one –vote as the federal constitution prescribes.

Yet, one-man-one-vote is not to liking of the international community; the lack of it holds Somalia in a perpetual failed state. And if acted upon the one-man-one-vote, it will constitute the formation of a responsible, transparent government in Somalia which will remove all brokers from the scene of Somali affairs, including the NGOs that arrogated the duties of Somalia government by themselves, like the healthy sector.

From the above, we can glean the symptoms of the factors that freeze Somalia to be in a state of disarray. We get to know that the international community or for that matter the UNs has not in its heart the best interest to see a viable Somali state. Indeed, they working hard to see Somalia look like Haiti, if it remains to exist as an entity known as Somalia. Haiti is a country run by NGOs.
What are the ways open for Somalia to unfreeze itself from the vicious circle that it has been placed then? First, we have to understand why we are in this vicious circle. It is because of our frozen civil war. Generally, conflict based on civil war to end one group must overwhelm over the rest. Somalia missed that route. Not by its own choice, but by the machination of outside forces, typical example of it is the undermining of the Islamic Union.

Thus Somali civil war has become uncivil. Its components are both an amalgamated of an internal and an external united front determined to exploit Somalia’s natural resources to the extent of its extinction faced by populace bereft of leadership which is divided along clan lines.

This picture mirrors its colonial past. It demands as then a huge sacrifice. The methodology to unchain itself from the recurrence of its past is to trot the path of Somalia’s illustrious freedom fighters has taken. The formation of new youth league is more pertinent than before, as the younger generation lose much more than their predecessors. They share with the rest of the Somalis that the culprits who are the tools of Somalia’s undoing are those at its front wheel headed by Hassan Sheikh and his company (the federal government, Jawari, and Damjadiid) in collaboration with the heads of the so-called federal states who act as the bellboys of the enemies of Somalia who are consumed in working the premises of its dysfunction.

As long as the bellboys are leading Somalia, there will be no peace and Somalia will remain subservient to its foes. And all the efforts by any selfless nation, like Turkey, does in helping Somalia will be fruitless as the instruments of the bellboys are activated to nullify such efforts. For example, the recent international donor meeting held in Istanbul on behalf of Somalia, Ethiopia triggered one of its bellboys to dim the outcome of the meeting. Abdiweli Gaas, Ethiopia’s henchman, declared the meeting in Istanbul as of no consequence while staying away from it, and attending a shallow meeting in the name of IGAD in Addis Ababa. While the other bellboys, Gabre bosses as the pointing at finger at Farah Abdulaqdir caught by the cameras in the midst of the conference in Istanbul is an indicative of the betrayal of trust entrusted in Somali leaders by the Somali people.

Then our efforts as Somalis should be directed to unplug the bellboys, the plug for our revival as a state before we ask ourselves Where is Somalia and constitute our own government, not one that has been molded by others. In addition, we organize ourselves on two-pronged fronts in every corner of the country. One aimed to rise the conscious of the people of dire situation the country is in, the other the presences of the outside forces and their implications. With that, we have to rise to the occasion to remake Somalia great nation again.

Abdisalam Mohamud
Email: abdisalam246201@gmail.com

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Abdisalam Mohamud is a political analyst on World Affairs