Now,
why am I calling this meeting a gathering of losers? The first
reason is that this conference is based on opposing
Somaliland’s independence and championing the territorial
integrity of what used to be known as the Somali Republic or
for the sake of brevity
Somalia.
What is wrong with that you may ask? The answer is simple:
Somaliland’s independence is a reality on the ground, while
Somalia’s territorial integrity exists only on paper.
Moreover, this situation was the outcome of a long and bloody
conflict in which there were clear winners and losers, the
winners being the people of Somaliland and the losers being
the oppressors who tried to annihilate the people of
Somaliland in the name of Somali unity. Since the people
behind this meeting identify with the losing side in the
Somali conflict, then it is only right to call them losers.
There is another level on which this meeting can be called
that of losers in that many, though not all, of the
participants in this meeting were high level officials of
Siyad Barre’s regime, including generals and diplomats. In
other words, many of these people were the people who lost
power and privilege when Siyad Barre’s dictatorship was
toppled. Aware of the magnitude of their defeat and the
horrible crimes they had committed against Somalis, many of
them hid for many years ashamed and afraid to show their faces
in public. But somehow they have decided that this is the
right time to come out. Not only that, but they have made
their public debut by attacking Somaliland’s right to exist as
an independent nation, a clear case that the losers haven’t
learned their lesson.
Other than being the losers of the inter-Somali wars and their
vehement opposition to Somaliland, there is very little else
that this group have in common. For instance, some of them,
including the keynote speakers, are close to Mogadishu’s
terrorist courts, others identify with the so-called
government that is holed up in Baidoa, while still others are
actually from Ethiopia’s Somali region.
Having little support in Somali inhabited territories and thus
no real prospect of affecting the political situation where
they hail from, it looks like these people have decided that
they would focus their energy on disseminating anti-Somaliland
propaganda overseas. What they seem to forget though, is that
many of the countries they are targeting, especially the
United States
and the West in general, have institutional memories and know
of their human rights violations as well as the false and
inaccurate information that they used to feed the
United States
and the West, when these same people were either in power, or
close to those in power, in
Somalia,
therefore, their opinions are not worth a damn in those
countries.
My favorite example is this episode. In 1990, just before the
collapse of Siyad Barre’s regime, the U.S State Department got
in touch with one of the academics participating in this
meeting and asked him if Somaliland was going to declare
independence or stay with
Somalia.
The academic answered that there was no way they were going to
secede. Of course, what happened was just the opposite. The
State Department stopped consulting that academic after he
turned out to be so wrong.
Based on my dealings with the U.S officials in charge of
Somaliland and
Somalia, I can say that they are adequately informed
about the situation there, and as a result, it is unlikely
that they would be easily fooled by propaganda that emanates
from the participants in this congregation.
A quick look at its format and the fact that it has come on
the heels of Somaliland’s
Washington
convention, leave little doubt that this meeting is an attempt
to imitate Somaliland’s convention. It is said that mimicry is
the best form of flattery, so if it were not for its malicious
objectives, Somalilanders may have been flattered by this
obvious carbon copying of their conference. However, since the
organizers of this meeting have shown their ability to copy
cat Somalilanders, then perhaps they would go the next step
and follow the example of Somalilanders by actually helping
their impoverished compatriots back home instead of indulging
in intellectual masturbation and Somaliland bashing. For
Somalilanders, the best way to deal with this seeming
resurgence of Neo-Faqash, is to keep an eye on them, the way
civilized countries keep an eye on Neo-Nazis losers, and, at
the same time, work harder for Somaliland.
11:00 GMT
