Monday 24 January 2011

Somalia: Intellectual dishonesty of the Somali prime minister


By: Liban Ahmad

The BBC Somali Service interview with the Somali Prime Minister, Mohamed Abdi Mohamed (Raiisul Wasaaraha oo ka hadlay go'aankii Puntland) was a poor prime ministerial response to Puntland’s decision to stop working in partnership with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia although the BBC let him off the hook by not asking  his reaction to Puntland’s stance against renewing the TFG mandate beyond August 2011.

The prime minister cited the reconciliation efforts that members of his cabinet undertook in Mudug region last year where members of two neighboring sub-clans clashed.  “No one has ever conducted such reconciliation before”, he told the BBC Somali Service. In 1993 former TFG president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed (then head of emergencies in Mudug and Nugaal and Bari regions) and the late warlord  General Mohamed Farah Aideed signed an agreement to which Puntland and Galmudug  administrations are still committed.

Mr Mohamed said he had not listened to the news about Puntland communiqué against extending the TFG mandate “but if it is true , it is  unfortunate. It empowers Ahmed Godane [ Emir of Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen] and foreign jihadists.” Mr Mohamed likened Puntland to Al Shabaab supporters but this is hardly surprising. “ Puntland people are patriots who had a role in the Somali Youth League, ( the independence  movement) and   made their land peaceful” he said but in his  U.S. Strategic Interest in Somalia: From Cold War Era to War on Terror, (2009) “ a thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the State University at Buffalo in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Department of American Studies”,  he put forward the  following baseless argument: 

“In the South, the Italian colony found similar willingness in two loyal tribes: the Majeerteen of the Darood clan and the Mudulod, sub-clan of the Hawiye. These two southern tribes helped the Italians without reservation. In return, Italian and British colonies enabled these clans to claim some superiority over the other clans in terms of wealth, scholarship for their children in London and Rome, and future government influence in the (sic) post-colonial era.

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