By: Dr Yusuf Dirir Ali
Somalilandsun – The loss of innocent civilian lives in Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya is both lamentable and deserves to be condemned in the strongest language. This Nairobi violent incident followed a long trail of ongoing human torment in the Horn of Africa.
Wars under false nationalistic pretences and slogans are not new to this region. There have been an all open wars at least twice in the 60s and 70s between Ethiopia and the former Somali Republic, but what is novel to this region is the targeting of blameless civilians.
To effectively get to the bottom of terrorism in the Horn of Africa, one must first look at the root cause of the problem. As far as this, the International community missed a key piece in the Horn of Africa terrorism jig-saw puzzle. The monstrous actions of Siad Barre’s regime in Somaliland encouraged and jump-started the current terrorism in East Africa and dealing with the murderous Siad Barre remnants should have been the beginning of the war on terrorism in Africa.
In 1988 alone 50,000 innocent Somaliland civilians were massacred in Hargeisa city in a period of just one week and that is only second in scale to the genocide in Rwanda. Additionally, all Somaliland villages, towns and cities were levelled to the ground through land, sea and air bombardments.
The people who committed the second most atrocious crimes in Africa now live and roam peacefully in the streets of world capitals in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa. These murderous criminals have devastated the lives of millions of Somalilanders. With every rainy season, new mass graves open up and the corpses of hundreds of Somaliland civilian are exposed to the surface of the ground.
Mohamed Hirsi Morgan and Maslah Mohamed Siad Barre are among the members of Somalia’s war criminals that are wrongfully given immunity from detrimental effects, as of an action and now live their lives peacefully in Nairobi, Kenya.
It is erroneous to see Kenya sending thousands of soldiers across the border to Somalia to fight terrorists and not lifting a finger in extraditing or bring the awful remnants of the Siad Barre to justice. It is most outrageous to note that the remnants of the Siad Barre regime live less than few kilometers away from the Westgate Mall. Appeasing war criminals in your own soil and asking others to assist in your war against terrorism do not logically go hand in hand.
The hypocrisy of the International Community’s has to come to an end; there must be no safe haven for all colours of terrorist whether they committed their horrific activities in the streets of Hargeisa, in a shopping Mall in Nairobi or in the World Trade Center in New York.
If Kenya and other countries around the world mean business and are ingenuous in their fight against international terror and terrorists then they must first handover Somalia’s terrorists in the midst of their cities to the judicial authorities in the Republic of Somaliland.
The Writer Dr Yusuf Dirir, a Somalilander based in the Diaspora is a prolific author of numerous pieces in which he analyses international relations especially as pertains to Somaliland vis ‘a’ vis its relations with Somalia.
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