Dalmar Kahin has posted a long article, in Manhadal website, in which he is responding to the report of the mission that Garaad Jama Garad Ali and NUSM representatives undertook in April in Nairobi where they had meetings with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations for Somalia, Mr. Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, other heads of UN agencies dealing with Somalia, as well as the special representative of the African Union for Somalia, Mr. Nicolas Bwakira. I had the honour to be a member of that mission and the writer of its report.  

Normally, I tend to ignore Dalmar Kahin’s frequent partisan articles in the Somali Internet websites in which he casts himself as the defender of Somaliland and a champion of its secession- often doing no good other to shoot himself in the foot. This time, I have to set aside my aversions to his ranting since he went on the loose gratuitously rubbishing anyone from the SSC regions, including myself, opposed to the secession and to the occupation of Sool,. It takes, though, great stamina and forbearance to wade through his unbridled, foul-mouthed invective, at many places bordering on infantile hysteria. All the same, it behoves me to respond to him while holding my nose in the process.  

1. General point raised by Dalmar Kahin

Given the title of his article, it is quite clear from the outset that Mr. Dalmar could not find any fault with the mission, its work and its achievements, but only its report. Somehow, he wrongly assumes that the report is more important than the mission itself and reasons mistakenly that if the report can be faulted, then that would automatically sound the death knell for the mission itself. Surely, it is the other way round. His failure therefore to grasp this essential difference means that he is on the wrong track and heading for the rocks. I will submit that the mission and its report have both achieved their respective objectives.  

The objective of the mission, as the title of its report clearly spells out, was to “convey the message of the SSC people to the international community”. Whether any mission has succeeded or failed does not depend on its report per se as Dalmar contends. Indeed, there are times when missions do not even issue any report and this could easily have been the case with our Nairobi mission. Would that have made then the mission a failure? Obviously not. Rather, a mission is judged by whether it has achieved the objective(s) it has set itself or not. 

In the case of the SSC mission to Nairobi, the fact that it has succeed to meet the heads of all the agencies it targeted and was able to convey its message necessarily means it has achieved its immediate objective. It also achieved other secondary objectives to the extent that the heads of the political agencies it met had reaffirmed the commitment of the Organisations they represent to Somalia’s unity and its territorial integrity. Equally, the heads of the humanitarian agencies provided assurances to the mission that their aid to those in need in the SSC will be directly delivered to them regardless of any interference from any of its neighbours, and that they will consider establishing some offices in the region unless deterred by overriding security considerations. 

Since. Dalmar Kahin could not challenge these obvious achievements; he chose instead to vent his frustrations on the report of the mission and spuriously dubs it a failure. Failure in what way? The report of the mission is merely a record of what happened and transpired during those meetings. It is a good report or otherwise to the extent it faithfully reflects the exchanges that took place among the interlocutors and it is them who are better qualified to judge the report and not a total outsider like Dalmar. Seen in this context, the mission report was unquestionably a success too.  

Challenging the message of the Mission

As one goes through the article, one finds that Dalmar Kahin has inexplicably shifted away from his main subject matter, namely the failure of the mission report, and goes to challenge as baseless the messages conveyed by the mission to the international community. These messages, as recorded in the mission report, simply stated the obvious facts: that the SSC regions have been invaded and occupied; that the human and economic consequences of this invasion and occupation had been colossal; and that the overwhelming majority of the SSC people are against the secession and are totally committed to Somalia’s unity. Mr., Dalmar Kahin, in the face of all this evidence would simply maintains a denial mode, a situation not that much different from those who would deny the existence of the Holocaust. 

His own outrageous and fabricated version of events relating to the invasion and the occupation of Sool, his make-belief perception of the support for the occupation among the Sool population, and his crude demonising of NSUM and SSC traditional leaders, for no other reason than that they are opposed to the secession, would have earned him the admiration of Joseph Goebbels, the Second World War German Minister of Propaganda. It was he who perfected the “Big Lie” technique, whereby if a lie was audacious enough and repeated enough times, it will be believed by the masses. We have his disciples among secessionists and in particular in the person of Dalmar Kahin. 

Like Goebbels, Dalmar Kahin is recycling the mantra of the occupiers that: 

• Sool was captured single-handedly by a bunch of ragtag SSC mercenaries;
• the invasion and the presence of thousands of occupying Somaliland militia embedded in Sool are all figments in the imagination of Somaliland’s enemies;
• almost all the people in SSC are supportive of the invasion and occupation apart from women and teenagers in Lascanod, which begs the question why is it necessary in that case for cash-strapped Somaliland to keep four battalions in the region and incur unnecessary financial costs? Of course, Dalmar will deny these soldiers exist.
• Finally, the nearly 100,000 internally displaced people from Lascanod and Sool, and those who were killed following Somaliland’s invasion, are being mistaken, according to Dalmar, for the “countless carcases of perished livestock due to sever drought”.

 

It is not only that he is practising the “big lie” His trivialising of the injuries inflicted on the people of Sool by the militia of his beloved clan-based secessionist Somaliland adds insults that any self-respecting person would have eschewed.  
 

Lambasting opponents and crowning collaborators

The invaders and occupiers of Sool and Lascanod behave no differently from other occupiers in classifying the occupied population between “goodies” and “baddies”. Dahir Kahin likewise has lashed out at those “baddies” who oppose the occupation. Targets that are far removed from the SSC arena are singled out for specific loathing. Wardheernews, well-known as a forum open to all shades of opinion, often posting contributions from the ungrateful Dalmar Kahin, has likewise come for a bashing. Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis, well-known for his advocacy of Greater Somalia, has been smeared as the devil incarnation. 

Within the SSC and NSUM, Garad Jama Garaad Ali has been criticized as an “inexperienced young Garaad”, a penalty for his uncompromising opposition to the occupation, his mobilisation of his people and his active lobbying the international community to seek the liberation of his occupied people On the other hand, Garaad Abdiqani Garaad Jama, wrongly referred to as his father but was obviously his uncle, is touted as “one of the founders of Somaliland”. 

No mention is made by Dalmar Kahin of the fact that both Garad Abdi Qani and Garad Suleiman signed the Burco secession declaration under duress and that on their return to Lascanod, they immediately renounced it unreservedly, affirming instead their commitment to Somali unity. Not only that, but the two Garaads have been instrumental in the establishment of Puntland and both the TNG and TFG governments. Among the “goodies”, is also one chief in Buuhoodle, by the name of Abdullahi Mohammed Dheeg, who retracted his support for NSUM for some suspicious reasons. Dalmar has mischievously rewarded him with a promotion to the status of Garaad. 

I have also been included among the “badies” as someone who has been away from the area since 1958. I could have told Dalmar Kahin, if only he asked me, that I have been going back home so often both on holidays and for professional work. Besides, one can be fully informed about events in Somalia without being there physically, thanks to modern communication technologies. Indeed, I am more in touch with my people in Somalia than I am with my colleagues and friends here in Geneva.  
 

Demonising the NSUM and discrediting traditional leaders

Dalmar Kahin may reckon that if he can heap as much baseless accusations as possible upon the NSUM, somehow some may stick among the more gullible and uninformed among his secessionist circles. But all it does is to boomerang on him and discredit him. There is no need to respond to each of his concocted charges about NSUM, but the following preposterous statement will suffice as an example: 

“For the NSUM to show its unequivocal support for Col. Yussuf not only defended Ethiopia’s incursion into Somalia but also painted Ethiopia as the sister state of Somalia while criminalising the Islamic Court Union’s freedom fighters as foreign-trained terrorists. http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article22435  (The author: Gamal M Hassan is the former NSPU (or NSUM or ASSC—S) ring leader.)” 

Two clarifications regarding the above quotations are in order. First, the author of the article that Dalmar Riyale is referring to (Gamal Hassan) is not even a member of NSUM but belongs to another different and much older organisation by the name of NSPU. It is no secret that both organisations hail from the SSC regions and both espouse Somali unity. For Dalmar Kahin, though, all unionist organisations are one and the same. 

Secondly, NSUM is only a year old and hence could not have existed when Ethiopia invaded southern Somalia in December 2006 which exposes Dalmar’s egregious charges for what they are. Since its establishment, NSUM and its members have been in the forefront in opposing Ethiopia’s blatant aggression on Somalia. Having said that, nothing could be more galling than the incredulous spectacle of a die-hard secessionist posing as a born-again Somali nationalist and castigating NSUM, the very apostle of Somali unity and nationalism, for being a traitor! 

Memories are short, but Dalmar Kahin should be reminded that it was the clan based Somali National Movement (SNM) which colluded in the 1980s with Somalia’s arch-enemy, Mengestu Haile Marian, and which subsequently spawned the creation of the USC in Southern Somalia as part of its grand strategy to bring down Siyad Barre’s regime. Unfortunately for the rest of us, it was not only the regime they finally brought down, but the whole Somali State whose dire consequences are impacting on the Somali people to the present day.  

The SNM might have got what it wanted – its breakaway enclave, but the fire it helped to ignite in Southern Somalia is still burning out of control. Given that Somaliland is a mere Ethiopian vassal, Dalmar’s protestation against Ethiopian imperialism in Southern Somalia is both hollow and cynical. Those of us in the NSUM, whose history as SSC people is dominated by our incalculable sacrifices for the Somali cause hardly need a lesson from a whiz kid imbibed in conspiracies against Somalia and its unity. 

NSUM’s goals

NSUM was established months after Lascanod was captured by the invading Somaliland forces. It is goals are three fold: unite the SSC people against their occupiers, strive for the end of the occupation, and defend Somali unity. NSUM is aware that the liberation of Sool and the defence of Somali unity are inseparable. Its goals are now being increasingly understood and shared by other regions and clans in Southern Somalia and by the TFG. 

NSUM has since its establishment focused on advocacy and lobbying and informing the international community to the extent that it has succeed to debunk much of the fabricated lies spread by the secessionists over the years that all the regions and clans in former British Somaliland support the secession. Thanks to NSUM activities, the international community is now better apprised of the realities. This approach may be sufficient to persuade Somaliland that the goal of recognition is a pipe dream and the only option left is to return to dialogue with their fellow Somali as Britain and other governments have told them in no uncertain terms. 

The defence of Somalia from external and internal enemies would have normally been the duty of the central government. In the absence of an effectively functioning national government, that responsibility to defend or liberate Sool fell on Puntland regional administration. Unfortunately, Sool was given to Somaliland on a plate without fight, the result of a prior arrangement between Somaliland, Puntland, former President Abdullahi Yusuf and Meles Zenewi of Ethiopia. 

Under the circumstances, the SSC people reserve the inalienable right to resort to armed struggle against the invaders if peaceful options fail. Garaad Jama Garaad Ali has succinctly spelled out the SSC options when he met Mr. Ahmedou Ould Abdullah. He compared the invasion and occupation of his regions by Somaliland’s militia like a crazy intruder who claims your home to be his and uses force to occupy it. In the face of this mindless aggression against ones home, the owner, the Garad suggested, has three possible options open to him: be patient and hope the crazy aggressor will come to his right senses and leave ones home; failing this, a third party, like the international community, could intercede with him on ones behalf and hopefully prevail over him; and if that does not work either, then one has to use the only language the aggressor understands and that is the use of force. As things are now, the Garad concluded, the SSC people are close to the last option. 

Dahir Kahin would consider any resort to armed action against the occupying militia of an illegal entity as “terrorism” That is odd coming from him forgetting conveniently that their own NSM rose against an internationally recognise government and committed atrocities against innocent civilians in the process. Indeed, in the secessionist heartland in Somaliland, the SNM is held as a national institution. So what’s sauce for the goose is good for the gander.  

Finally, it is essential to state that, contrary to Dalmar Kahin’s poisonous disinformation, the quarrel of NSUM and the SSC people are not with their fellow brothers and sisters in Somaliland but with the regime and those who support the occupation of Sool, politically, financially and morally. It is impossible to bear hatred against ones own brothers with whom one shares so much, not only cultural bonds but also blood ties .These bonds are held dearly by every SSC person and no less by NSUM. In defending the unity of Somalia, NSUM is also defending its unity with Somaliland.

Osman Hassan
ohassanomar@yahoo.co.uk

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