Category: President Farmajo

FARMAAJO’S APOLOGY TO SOMALILAND IS BRUTALLY SELECTIVE

While all people of goodwill would welcome the President’s apology to Somaliland’s unilateral claim of atrocities by Barre’s Junta, he deliberately, or, naively ignores the war crimes and gross human rights violations committed by the regime in Mudugh and Kismaayo. Add to this, the banditry, plunder and robbery of Barre’s retreating and fleeing forces in Bay and Bakool regions in the last days of regime’s collapse.


If Farmaajo had had any common sense and any sort of what it takes a leader to address such an important issue, he would have apologized for all atrocities of Siyaad Barre’s Regime. By apologizing to Somaliland alone, on temporary political expediency, he has complicated the situation: Now, he is required to apologize to the residents of Mudugh for Barre’s mass incarceration, killing, maining of innocent citizens en masses, destruction and poisoning of nomads’s water-holes, rape and other human rights violations amounting to undoubtedly war crimes.


Make no mistake, any effort towards yet to be called for national reconciliation talks, those atrocities in Mudugh by Barre and his henchmen shall stand out, without which popular trust in national government and public institutions couldn’t be achieved.


Finally, it is my hope that the leaders and people of Somaliland would seize this opportunity by allowing  President Farmaajo to visit Hargeisa without the entourage of Prime Minister Ethiopia, Abyi Ahmed Ali. People of Somaliland deserves better than that.

(Photo: The late politician from Mudugh, Yusuf Osman Samater, who had spent 18 years in Regime’s solitary confinement prison cell without charge).


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ON THE HORN OF AFRICA CONFEDERARION

In November 14-15, 2002, an international conference on the Horn political and economic integration was held at Institute on Black Life in Tampa, Florida, USA. The Keynote Speaker was the former President of Zambia, Mr. Kenneth Kounda, a reknown Pan Africanist. Presenters were mostly academics of Ethiopian origin in the USA. There were negligible number of Somalis in the diaspora taking part. However, there were visible American personalities in USA government participating and facilitating the debate.


Since then, we hear constant talk or rumours about East African economic integration. This wind is always blowing from the Ethiopian side. We saw President Farmaajo’s frequent travels to Addis Ababa and Asmara, while the President is coy and deceptively silent about what was happening in his discussions with the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea. Somali public or their representatives in Federal Parliament are kept in the dark about the matters being discussed in these high-level talks. Normalization of Ethio-Eritrean relations is reportedly a part of the mix in these debates, for a presumely bigger political objectives for the Horn. President Farmaajo is numb about the subject of these East African Summits. Djibouti was projected to include in these secret discussions, but somehow is being excluded and sidelined altogether. Perhaps, she was found unfit because of its territorial dispute with Eritrea.

Occasionally, we hear press statements by Prime Abyi Ahmed of Ethiopia about Somalia and Ethiopia becoming one country one day. How soon that will happen, he wouldn’t say. He talks about Ethiopian intention and future plans to take advantage of Somali seaports for his land-locked country. He is also building a huge navy for his land-locked country.

Farmaajo is tight-lipped about Abyi’s claims and official statements. Pressed for comment on the issue, Farmaajo’s economic and political advisors seem resolved to keep their boss’ secrets closer to chest. It doesn’t sound well.


Paradoxically, President Farmaajo’s claim to be clean, patriotic and free from foreign influence is hard to maintain after his secret dealings in foreign lands with foreign actors, and those who bought his claims now have to listen to the music that he is reportedly a compromised figure by foreign actors, diplomats and countries. He is now in the open that whatever he had said, or says, is a lie and deception.


The eyes of the Somalis, though, are wide open now to monitor the activities of certain foreign diplomatic actors accredited to Somalia, and their agenda push with regards to this “East African Integration” at expense of Somalia’s sovereignty for the benefit of Ethiopian hegemony in the region.


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The FARMAAJO’S POPULIST PHENOMENON


OCTOBER 21,

President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, like Donald J. Trump, is a populist thriving in symbolism, empty slogans on patriotism and revolutionary flavour. Farmaajo became the Prime Minister of Transitional Federal Government under Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed through the lobbying of family connections from Farmaajo’s wife.  He was born to a low-income family, unlike Trump, and raised in Mogadishu. His father, Farmaajo Senior, was a gate-keeper at Public Works Ministry in the civilian Somali government before it was overthrown by General Siyaad Barre of the same sub-clan of Mareexaan as Farmaajo. A military dictatorship, practising nepotism and cronyism gave Farmaajo’s family the first break from poverty. 

As young adolescent, Farmaajo junior and his playmates ran into legal problems. The family had persuaded the Military Despot to post this youth to Foreign Service in the Embassy of the Somali Democratic Republic in Washington DC, thus allowing him to escape from a criminal liability in Mogadishu. He was granted political asylum in the USA as the Somali Government had collapsed in January 1991.

Farmaajo’s formative years had witnessed public deceptive slogans of Siyaad Barre’s “Kacaan” (Revolution), and under-handed operations of the ruling family, whereby secret family consultations were held at night and decisions implemented during the day – frequently sending pre-eminent and public figures to jail in the wee hours of the night, many never coming back to their loved ones. This was widely and extensively practised throughout the existence of the dictatorship for twenty-one years.Thousands had perished in maximum security jails like “labaatan-Jirow”. Many others were purged and destroyed, while hundreds of thousands fled the country to all directions of worldwide for their own safety. Somalia now, even the under the occupation of thousands of foreign troops disguised as AMISOM, doesn’t send out such huge number of refugees, fleeing from repression by their own government as Siyaad Barre’s. Farmaajo has sympathy and antipathy for certain politicians and sub-clans in the country. This personal characteristic explains also his anti-federalist policies and attitude. Welcome to Confederalism! If that wouldn’t solve his problem for good, then only a psychiatrist could try to help him.

Young Farmaajo grew up in the atmosphere of a dictatorship, where kangaroo courts, hand-picked rubber-stamp parliament and personal fear for life, devoid of any civil liberties, were supreme daily occurrences. Unexplainable in Farmaajo’s strange populist phenomenon includes the fact that many young Somalis in the country and within the diaspora, ignorant of the country’s recent ugly history, are engaged in advocacy for N&N deceptive social media misinformation. The sudden erection and unmasking of nationalistic statues in Mogadishu these days to coincide with the anniversary of Siyaad coup d’etat, while the entire country is in dire situation, are powerful tools and deceptive political symbolisms par excellent by a demagogue. The whole exercise is to misdirect the people’s concerns with what is happening with Somalia-Kenya Maritime Dispute.

Fond of specious mask and using propaganda that he stood for the interest of the common man and country in an uninformed and gullible society, and portraying himself as a different patriotic politician, who was paying soldiers on time and caring for the veterans of 1977-1978 Ogaden War with Ethiopia, he rode on a strange phenomenon of rare populism in Mogadishu, and to some extent, Somalia.

His popularity in Mogadishu became apparent after he was unceremoniously fired by joint decisions of Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Adan as result of what is known as the Kampala Accord.

Surprisingly, certain sections of Mogadishu residents led by Murursade, his wife’s sub-clan, employing the grievances of disabled War Veterans occupying Di Martino Hospital, and hired IDPs in Mogadishu camps, rose up in public demonstrations, decrying the dismissal of Farmaajo as the Prime Minister. Mogadishu politicians had noticed Farmaajo’s popularity phenomenon.

Competing factions within President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Damul-Jadid Government were on loggerheads as who would replace just fired Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh, with Fahad Yassin and Farah Abdulkadir competing for influence. Farah Abdulkadir had won the battle, but not the war. Fahad’s anti-Hassan and anti-Farah political campaign had ended up Farmaajo’s win of the Presidency in 2017, when on the eve of the election night, nearly 60 MPs close to Daljir Party suddenly switched from Sheikh Sharif’s Presidential candidacy to Farmaajo’s.

Now that Farmaajo is the President of Somalia, all other branches of the government, the Parliament and Judiciary are as paralyzed as they were during the Regime of Siyaad Barre.This had resulted in total political stalemate in the country. It won’t stay that way. Something has to happen soon. We only pray for the better.


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Correction: an early version of this essay wrote incorrectly “Farmaajo’s election as President in 2016. “Daljir Party” was said to be the face of Union of Islamic Courts supported by Turkey. It was managed by Ahmed Moallim Fiqi during the presidency of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, with the knowledge of Sheikh Sharif, who hooked them up with Turkey. Ahmed Fiqi briefly got appointed Chief of Staff at Villa Somalia before he was pushed out by Fahad Yassin.

BREAKING NEWS: SUSPICIOUS, IF NOT BREACH OF TRUST



October 18, 2019

ICJ HEARING OF SOMALIA-KENYA MARITIME DISPUTE DERAILED

The postponement of ICJ hearing of the case until June 2020 is at least suspicious, if not already a breach of public trust. I believe this is the 2nd ICJ postponement of the hearing. But, this time, the situation is different with a cloud of suspicion as what has transpired between Somalia and Kenya under the mediation efforts by the new Nobel Peace Laureate, Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed of Ethiopia.

It looks that a deal on the case has been struck to postpone the ICJ hearing to an unacceptable long period before its suspension and eventual withdrawal from the Court altogether.

President Farmaajo must go live urgently to address this issue and the subsrance of his latest interactions with President Uhuru of Kenya, IGAD Mediation Team and Prime Minister Abyi Ahmed of Ethiopia on the case. There is a rotten fish to smell, so to speak.

Somali people are stunned by the silence of President Farmajo on his multiple secret MoUs, agreements and treaties with Ethiopia. This is very discomforting.

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THE SOMALI DOCTRINE

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June 28, 2019
Never re-elect a political leader is a Somali Doctrine and our contribution to the world of politics and political culture. The Doctrine is an exercise of democracy stretched to the maximum possible. It is consistent with George Orwellian famous quote that diapers and political leaders should be changed.
However, the Somali phenomenon has double edges. On the one hand, it cements a message to the president-elect or would-be elected that he or she wouldn’t have a 2nd chance, giving them only to choose one of two options:
  1. Abuse the system while have the chance
  2. Do something worthwhile to leave behind a good reputation, a proud nation and good name for own kids and family.
The Doctrine, on the other hand, had brought misfortune to the people of Somalia by producing bad and corrupt politicians one after the other.
Based on history and experience, most Somali leaders choose the first option. Hence, Somalis have become cynical of politics and politicians.
The Somali Doctrine is deeply rooted in its logic that, where corruption is of epidemic proportion and checks and balance of power aren’t in place or difficult to implement because of this malfeasance, the only choice left for Somalis to fight back is to not never return a political leader to power.

The problem with Ahmed Madoobe of Jubaland is that he has stubbornly violated that Somali Doctrine.

Call it the ingenuity of the Somali Doctrine.