You Horn.....and you are reigning in on his parade.

Originally posted by N/AA: No need to start dozen topics, we already some going. Here He doesn't trust your sources.

Ethiopia reaps U.S. aid by enlisting in war on terror and hiring influential lobbyists By Marina Walker Guevara WASHINGTON — One dramatic act sets Ethiopia apart from the array of countries with poor human rights records that have become United States counterterrorism allies since the September 11, 2001, attacks: With U.S. backing, it invaded a neighboring country and overthrew a Taliban-like Islamist movement. The country that Ethiopia invaded is its neighbor to the east in the Horn of Africa, the disintegrated state of Somalia, where the Islamist movement, called the Union of Islamic Courts, had taken over much of the country and was suspected of harboring al Qaeda members. Ethiopia remains militarily embroiled there today. In its latest human rights report for 2006, the U.S. State Department painted a grim picture of the Ethiopian government's human rights record, one that has changed little over the years. "Although the constitution and law prohibit the use of torture and mistreatment," the report says, "there were numerous credible reports that security officials often beat or mistreated detainees. Opposition political parties reported frequent and systematic abuse of their supporters by police and regional militias." Nevertheless, Ethiopia received a huge increase in military assistance from the United States in the three years after 9/11 — from $928,000 in the period 1999-2001 to $16.7 million between 2002 and 2004. In fact, in 2005 — a year of contested Ethiopian parliamentary elections when government forces detained, beat and killed opposition leaders, journalists and intellectuals — Ethiopia received $7 million in Foreign Military Financing funding, an amount nearly equal to the FMF total from the previous two years combined. While both governments deny a quid pro quo, the increased military funding came after the largely destitute African nation became an early member of the "coalition of the willing" and a close ally of the United States in the global war on terror. Influential Washington lobbyists, including a former majority leader of the House of Representatives, worked on behalf of the Ethiopian government to secure the funding. In the three years after 9/11, Ethiopia received increased funding from the FMF program (to buy U.S.-made weapons and services); the International Military Education and Training program; and the Pentagon's new post-9/11 Regional Defense Counterterrorism Fellowship Program, which trains foreign forces in counterterrorism techniques. In addition to the Somalia invasion, the role Ethiopia has played in the war on terror includes tightening border security, outlawing and restricting financial practices used by suspected terrorists and becoming a key intelligence partner of the U.S. in the Horn of Africa. It was in December 2006 that, with U.S. support and backing, it sent troops into Somalia and overthrew the Union of Islamic Courts; the United States suspects the UIC of harboring members of al Qaeda, including suspects associated with the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. In January 2007, in the midst of Ethiopia's offensive against the Islamists in Somalia, the U.S. government allowed Ethiopia to complete a secret arms purchase from North Korea, The New York Times reported in April. The deal, a possible violation of United Nations restrictions imposed on North Korea in October 2006 because of the country's unwillingness to cooperate with international nuclear weapons inspectors, appears to be another example of the difficult, and sometimes contradictory, compromises the Bush administration has had to make in the war on terror. The U.S. had been one of the most important sponsors of the North Korean sanctions at the United Nations. Lobbyists to the rescue The State Department's continued negative human rights assessment could have threatened continued U.S. military assistance to Ethiopia under long-standing human rights restrictions enacted by Congress. But thanks to a concerted lobbying effort on behalf of the Ethiopian government and objections from the State Department, supporters of the Ethiopian government managed to stop a bill in Congress that would have cut off security assistance on human rights grounds. The Ethiopia Freedom, Democracy and Human Rights Advancement Act, introduced by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., in June 2006, proposed to put limits on military aid to Ethiopia — with the exception of peacekeeping and antiterrorism programs — until the government released all political prisoners and provided fair and speedy trials to other prisoners held without charges. The bill swiftly passed the House International Relations Committee with bipartisan support. That's when both advocates and opponents of aid to Ethiopia became active. The Ethiopian diaspora in the United States launched a letter and e-mail campaign to push the legislation in Congress. To counter that grass-roots effort, the Ethiopian government hired a well-established law and lobbying firm in Washington, DLA Piper, to quash the bill; DLA Piper says its work on Smith's bill was only part of its $50,000 per month representation of the Ethiopian government. The lobbying team included former House Republican majority leader Dick Armey and 12 other lobbyists. DLA Piper also produced and distributed a nine-page memo highlighting the Ethiopian government's opposition to the bill. In the memo, the lobbyists said that the bill compromised "the national security interests of both the United States and Ethiopia." They also raised concerns about Somalia that Ethiopia and the United States shared. "The bill will prohibit critical security assistance to Ethiopia at a time when volatility in Somalia and instability in the Horn of Africa region more than ever demand that the U.S. make full use of the intelligence and defense cooperation of Ethiopia, its strongest and only democratic ally in the region." Mandatory lobbying disclosure records filed with the Department of Justice show that from April to August 2006, DLA Piper lobbyists talked on the phone and met numerous times with the staffs of the House International Relations Committee; Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), chairman of the Congressional Ethiopia and Ethiopian American Caucus; the congressional affairs section of the Department of State; and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and 2008 presidential candidate. The bill never made it to the House floor. The Bureau of African Affairs at the State Department objected to the bill as being "too punitive" and getting in the way of U.S. foreign policy, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations surrounding the bill. "They did everything they could to sabotage it," the source said. A State Department spokesman, Steve Lauterbach, told the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) that the bill was "prescriptive" and "limiting" on how foreign aid to Ethiopia should be spent. One of the few actions the U.S. took in light of the disclosed human right abuses was to stop the sale of additional Humvee military vehicles to Ethiopia after the Ethiopian government used some Humvees to crack down on civilian protesters in the riots that followed the May 2005 elections. The United States had sold 20 of the vehicles to Ethiopia for use in counterterrorism operations. Military maneuvers Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia after the Union of Islamic Courts forces began to threaten the fragile United Nations-backed transitional government based in the southern Somali city of Baidoa. The Islamists had been backed by Eritrea, Ethiopia's longtime bitter rival with which it went to war in 1998 in a still-unresolved border dispute. In addition, internal Ethiopian insurgent groups were operating from the area controlled by the UIC, according to Terrence Lyons, a George Mason University scholar on the region. But there was much more to the cooperation between the U.S. and Ethiopia. Besides providing intelligence assistance and satellite imagery to Ethiopian forces, American AC-130 gunships were allowed to take off from an airstrip in eastern Ethiopia to target al Qaeda suspects fleeing with the retreating UIC forces, The New York Times reported in February 2007, quoting sources to whom it had granted anonymity. Ethiopian government officials strongly denied giving access to the gunships. American special forces units were also allowed to deploy to Kenya and Ethiopia, and from there they ventured into Somalia to try to confirm the identity of those killed in the AC-130 attacks, the newspaper reported. The United States and the international community are providing diplomatic and economic support to the transitional Somali government, which is facing a guerrilla insurgency in the capital of Mogadishu despite Ethiopian forces having routed the UIC. More than 320,000 people have fled Mogadishu. "The transitional government had problems to begin with because it was connected to Ethiopia, the regional rival," said Lyons, "and now has further problems because it's connected to the United States." According to Lyons, the U.S. bombings in Somalia made the transitional government weaker. "From the global-war-on-terror framework and not from a peace-and-security-in-the-Horn-of-Africa framework, the attack made sense. Actually, it would make sense if they had in fact correctly targeted the people," he said (American officials told The New York Times that none of the top al Qaeda operatives in the Horn of Africa had been killed or captured since the invasion of Somalia began in December). "From the point of view of creating a stable government and building up a constituency … having a very powerful, very dramatic U.S. gunship come and attack did real damage to the transitional federal government." Cooperation between Ethiopia and the United States was not limited to the Somalia invasion. After weeks of outcry by local human rights groups, Ethiopian officials acknowledged that they had secretly detained 41 terrorism suspects from 17 countries who had been fighting with the Somali Islamists. It's unclear whether Ethiopia acted unilaterally or in conjunction with the U.S. government in detaining the suspects, but American officials told the Times that its agents had interrogated the suspects in Ethiopian prisons. U.S. officials denied that the prisoners taken into Ethiopian custody were part of any "extraordinary rendition" program, under which terrorist suspects are detained outside of the rule of law and often transferred to third countries, many times those known to employ torture. Back in Washington, human rights groups and the Ethiopian diaspora are continuing to press Congress on restricting military assistance to the Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi. The United States has been "giving too much to Ethiopia and asking too little from it," Lynn Fredriksson, Amnesty International's advocacy director for Africa, said in an interview with ICIJ. In November 2006, she testified at a congressional hearing, arguing that "Ethiopia is an important U.S. ally, but that does not give us the liberty to ignore egregious rights violations." Advocates of Smith's bill say that the legislation will have a better chance of succeeding under the new Democratic-controlled Congress. Smith's bill was re-introduced on May 9 while a very similar version was introduced by Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., on April 23. Meanwhile, $2 million of new FMF funding for Ethiopia was requested in 2007 by the Bush administration. The United States also made the country eligible to receive used weapons and equipment for free or at reduced prices under the Excess Defense Articles program. Meles, the prime minister, is "the victorious-against-terrorists United States friend," said Lyons. "He is not worried if the [u.S.] ambassador says we are concerned about prison conditions. He would just laugh at us." Assistant Database Editor Ben Welsh contributed this report. Source: The Center for Public Integrity, May 23, 2007

P....I gotta admit dubbing movies was funny. I remember watching western with three main characters who respectively had Q-aldaan, Xamari, and mods forgive me A-bgaal accents. It was simply hilarious. Val....Maybe you liked and remember the actors. They were your Pitts & Clooneys.

I thought Warrior of Light was man. Congrats dear. Aroos khayr ah, umad docaysan iyo nolal fiican baan ku rajeenayaa.

^^I thought Somali version sucked once I got actually learn Urdu. They are usually way off.

^^^Hum Gar jooraahee.....gotta be Dil. I saw as kid in 90 just before da war. P.S. Lagaan gotta be one of best modern day Hindi movies. Buraanii movies are usually the best.

He is even a failure at killing. How could you stab someone 15 times, and not end their life. I doubt he will face any justice. Maybe he will get his due upon his return to somalia. Some Jiri or M-ooryaan will put one in his dumb skull.

Allamagan.....Wax isdhaama ma arkin. But I assure there will be no winners in a war. Horn.....Iam little skeptical when Somali clans claimed that they constitute the majority of particular city or region. Untill we have an actual official enumeration of the Kismayo populace , lets meet in the middle and work for the benefit of all reer Kismayo.

Lets just hope for the best. In the end regardless of what clan militia takes over Kismayo, one thing is certain, more Somali blood will be shed culminating with new wave of fugees. I think both parties should drop this "anigaa iskale " attitude, and work together for peace. Who is Koojar Xiin?

^^^^maxaad la ilka cadaynee xumuu fildaraney. And who is Col Koojar?

Point..He doesn't have the time. That's condensed version.

Gordon...Your response looks little more emotive than the author penned.

dp

From Glory in 1977 to Gloom in 2007 By: Osman Hassan June 17, 2007 It is 30 years since June 1977 and a nostalgic flashback to that period may sound such a long time ago for many Somalis. Given the life expectancy of an ordinary Somali is less than 40 years, one might expect less than half of the present Somali population to have been around at that year or to be old enough at the time. All the same, that year was such an epoch-making one that it has permanently entered into the Somali folklore. Somalis, young or old, now remember it as the time when the mighty Somali army of that era had finally accomplished its long awaited mission and in a matter of one month or two crushed the Ethiopian-army and liberated its administered Somali territory, better known internationally as the O-gaden, a name detested by Ethiopia for good historical reasons and resented by some Somalis for its apparent clan connotations.. The Somali- Ethiopian war over the O-gaden in the summer of 1977, as it came to be known, was not confined to those two antagonists. If it was, Ethiopia would have for ever lost the territory and that would have been the end of the story. Sadly for Somalia and Somalis everywhere, big powers intervened mainly on the side of Ethiopia. The former USSR, hitherto Somalia’s protégé, had to choose between two irreconcilable client states and, having failed to dissuade Somalia from its military intentions or actions, decided for its own geopolitical and strategic interests to ditch Somalia and back Ethiopia to the hilt militarily, economically and diplomatically. On the other hand, the USA initially wooed Somalia with promises of economic assistance and military aid for self defence. Having lost Ethiopia, then under its Marxist leader, Mengestu Haile Marian, to the Russians, the USA main interest in Somalia was to wrest it from the USSR and hopefully gain a military foothold in order to contain the expanding Soviet dominance straddling South Yemen on the Arabian side of the Red Sea and the strategic Horn of Africa. Real politic being what it is, the Americans in no time reversed their position on the military assistance once it became clear that it was the Somali national army which was doing all the fighting in the territory and not the militia of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) as Somalia had all along claimed despite all the incontestable evidence on the ground. Not only did the USA went back on their promise of military assistance, but they went further and sponsored through the UN Security Council an arms embargo against Somalia that was binding so long as its forces were in the terrotory. It was this embargo, more than anything else, and the shipment of billions of dollars worth of Soviet arms s to Ethiopia, together with over 40,000 Cuban soldiers, that overwhelmingly tipped the balance of power in Ethiopia’s favour. That reality persuaded Siyad Barre to cut his losses and withdraw his army from the ****** or face a certain defeat entailing incalculable consequences. Some Westerners refer to the outcome of the war as a victory for Ethiopia and a defeat for Somalia. It was certainly a political defeat for Somalia to the extent that it was not able to hold on to the territory in the face of the overwhelming military odds it faced. Ethiopia did not defeat the Somali army in any battle but recovered the territory on the back of the massive military help from USSR and its Cuban ally, and to the concomitant arms embargo imposed on Somalia. My article is concerned mainly with recounting my own story of those glorious days in Somalia in June/July of 1977. As it was, I was an insider to the great drama unfolding in the O-gaden having been assigned as war correspondent for the BBC’s Focus on Africa just before my joining the United Nations in Geneva late 1977. In this article, I will relate my memorable observations from the war front as we followed the breathtaking sweep of the Somali army over the vast territory. Mogadishu and its glory in June 1977 is the point of departure for this story. Good stories have a happier ending but this one sadly ends with the gloom and doom engulfing Mogadishu in June 2007. It is this twist and turns of fortunes in the two periods that is the essence of the story Mogadishu where it all started My first ever visit to Mogadishu was in July 1967, then a relatively small sleepy town. That was the time when President Aden Abdalla Osman and his Prime Minister Abdirazaak Haji Hussein were replaced by President Abdirashiid Ali Sharmake and Prime Minister Mohamed Ibrahim Egal. When I returned to Mogadishu for my second visit in June 1977 after ten years absence, I flew in for the first time with the newly established Somali Airline whose enchanting atmosphere and typically Somali bonhomie could not had been a better way for my homecoming. What struck me immediately on arrival in Mogadishu was the staggering change that took place during my absence. Not only has the capital expanded beyond recognition, but it was the social and infrastructural development, the national cohesion, the vibrant confidence and the nationalistic fervour exuding from everywhere that gripped my attention and those of the swarms of foreign media reporters who were descending on Mogadishu like me to report on the war. They chose to cover the war from the Somali side rather than from Addis Ababa knowing that the winning side would be only too eager to take them to the battle zones in the ******. A losing side of course would hardly be keen to permit its humiliating defeat be paraded in the international public arena. This intoxicating atmosphere in Mogadishu was only a foretaste of what I were later to experience as we set off to Godey, the crown jewel of Ethiopia’s military outposts in the territory. Off to the O-gaden I was among the first group of journalists to be invited in June 1977 to visit “the first “liberated” areas. Godey, captured only a week or two earlier by the “WSLF” as Somalia claimed, was our main interest. Our convoy consisted of 6 Land Rovers carrying nearly a dozen radio, press and T.V crew. In my car, which was the lead car, we had a middle aged American lady, Newsweek’s Chief bureau in Paris, an Italian journalist, one armed “WSLF” body guard (in reality a colonel from the Somali army) and a public relations official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs As we crossed the Somali border, and before reaching Fer Fer, we came across the first visible casualty of the war: an overturned T-34 tank. It was unmistakably a Somali one as it carried the familiar Somali insignia. Since Somalia did not invade the terrotpry, as it was claiming, its tanks would not logically be there. All the same, it was difficult to understand how it came to its undignified end. Perhaps the old banger might have hit a ditch in the rush to get to Fer Fer and Mustaxiil. Whatever the cause of the tank’s overturning, no one has prepared us for this surprise.. Naturally, we the Somalis in the car pretended not to have seen it. But it was a sight that was not going to escape the attention of the watchful, eagle-eyed American lady .She asked our car to be stopped and with one closer look at the object screamed:” what is this? It is a Somali tank!!” Facing this first crisis, we remained speechless except for the man from the Foreign Office. He was given a stern brief from his Minister before departure from Mogadishu to deny at all costs Somalia’s military intervention. Having no choice under the circumstances, his incredulous, knee-jerk response only made the situation worse as he officiously yelled: “No, it is not a tank, it is a tractor!!” If the spectacle of the deserted tank was ignored by the rest of the accompanying press as a mere sideline distraction, it represented for the American lady reporter the perfect evidence she was looking for implicating Somalia directly in the war. Using this episode as the centre piece of her feature article in Newsweek, and mocking the Somalis for believing they can outwit the rest of the world, or pull wool over their eyes, she was the first journalist to report first hand evidence of Somalia’s military intervention. Be that as it may, her article was otherwise a damning critique of Ethiopia’s barbaric occupation and colonisation of the territory. Face to face with the realities of Ethiopia’s rule Wherever we stopped in this trip, at Fer Fer, Mustaxiil, Qalaafo and Godey, people turned out in their thousands, revelling in their newly won freedom and deafeningly venting their long pent-up hatred of their Ethiopian tormenters. Such public outpourings, and the overall realities on the ground that we witnessed here -and in other towns in the O-gaden that we were to visit in subsequent trips- have collectively conveyed a clear message to the visiting media about the true colonial nature of Ethiopia’s presence in the territory and the desire of its people for freedom and for unity with their brethren in Somalia. Almost without exception, that was a message that resonated well with the foreign media, judging by their unmistakable empathy and their supportive coverage. Looking around those towns, a striking feature of the Ethiopian military garrisons in the territory was their locations. Invariably, these were located for defensive purposes on higher grounds or hilltops and at a safe distance from towns or other human settlements. Such defences were clearly not against a possible invading foreign army but against the local people. These are the hallmarks of an occupying army among hostile occupied populations. The scatter of destroyed tanks, artillery pieces, burn-out military vehicles and countless unidentifiable debris; and of course captured Ethiopian prisoners, including women and children whose men left them behind in their rush to escape for their lives, were all that reminded us of the presence of the Ethiopians at these garrisons The rout of the Ethiopian army at every garrison we visited in this trip was inescapable and everywhere. While the military aspects were journalistically newsworthy, no less eye-catching was the heart-rending backwardness and misery under which the people in the territory had been kept. Ethiopia has always claimed that the Somalis in the O-gaden were Ethiopians enjoying the same right as other Ethiopians in the country. But the realities on the ground were so different. In none of the towns we visited did we find the minimum basic social services or economic development: Not a single school, hospital, or roads worth mentioning. Rather than being recipients of development, the Somalis in the territory were often easy prey to unpaid or ill-paid marauding Ethiopian soldiers for whom feeding on the locals, or raping their women at will, was part of a long-established Ethiopian colonial practices in the distant parts of its Empire. But they even fared far worse than others, paying the price of the century-old, deep-seated hostility between Somalis and Ethiopia. Somalia’s independence in 1960 and the quest for the liberation of other Somali territories had added to the ill-treatment of the Somalis under Ethiopia rule. The harsh colonial realities we observed in this first trip were to be found in all the other places we visited in subsequent trips If one was to rank Ethiopia’s defeat among all the places we were taken to in all the trips, the capture of Jigjiga stands out, in my non-military judgement as the biggest loss of the Ethiopian army. The plains of the area all the way to Kaaraa Mardha were littered with dead Ethiopians and destroyed tanks. As we got closer to the mountains, we could hear the terrifying artillery noise perhaps close to the Town of Harar, the ultimate objective of the Somali army but which they never managed to capture as the onerous arms embargo imposed on Somalia began to deplete the fire power of the Somali army [bOnce the occupying Ethiopian forces were chased out from everywhere, apart from Harar and Dirir Dhawa, and given the absence of any lingering bonds with the territory, ethnically, linguistically, culturally and economically, there was nothing left to show that the area has ever been part of Ethiopia except for the physical colonial scars and the relics their army left behind.][/b] The media reports and their revelations exposing the true colonial nature of the relations between Addis Ababa and the ****** were no less bitter for Ethiopia as the military defeats themselves. International relations weaknesses The downside of Somalia’s stunning military successes was its weak international public relations. Many in the West, particularly in Europe, were sympathetic to Somalia’s historical claim to the territory, having been the ones responsible in the first place for the partitioning of the Somali homeland among themselves and Ethiopia. After all, it was a former British Foregin Minister who after the second World War called for the unity of the four Somali territories under British control: British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, the O-gaden and the NFD. But whatever sympathy Somalia enjoyed, it did not extend to militarily invading its neighbour, though it would have been a totally different story if it was the much vaunted WSLF which were truly waging the liberation struggle. To counter diplomatic isolation, and the crippling arms embargo, it was all the more important for Somalia to have robust international public relations. As it was, Somalia’s neglected international relations with the West were its Achilles hill. The country was emerging from years of self-imposed isolation where contact with Westerners could only be conducted at the official level but not otherwise permitted. Though the government was beginning to understand the value of getting its cause across to western opinion makers, it was hesitant to ease its repressive communist style restrictions on free speech and assembly lest they lose their tight grip on the population. In the early months of the war, it was two steps forward, one step back. The charismatic Omar Arteh Qalib, who was the foreign Minister until the beginning the war, was suddenly dropped at a time when he was needed most perhaps because he was becoming too popular and effective for his own good. The post remained vacant during the first critical months of the war and was finally given to Abdurahman Jama Barre, a lacklustre, ineffectual brother of President Mohamed Siyad Barre. The weaknesses of the Foreign Ministry would have mattered less if the WSLF- the principal organisation purported to be waging the war- was itself an effective functioning body. It was nothing more than a dummy and a tool serving government propaganda. Its leaders were frequently changed at the behest of President Mohamed Siyad Barre. Under the circumstances, there was no coherent explicit WSLF policy on the territorial extent of the Somali inhabited territory they were claiming to be liberating. The leader of the WSLF at the time would often inform foreign reporters that their territory extended all the way to the town of Nasret - not that much far from Addis Ababa- and that it included large chunks of Sidamo and Bale regions whose Oromo inhabitants were referred to as Somali Abow much to their chagrin. His wild, preposterous claims should be seen in the context of the prevailing euphoria of those days when Somalis everywhere were intoxicated with the military successes of their army, engendering a free for all claims among ministers, high-level government officials and the public at large. Such claims did not win much kudos with the visiting reporters and did no good to the liberation cause. A good foreign minister, if Somalia had one at the time, would have counselled against such damaging excesses and would have evolved a common reference position for the guidance of all concerned. Press Reports on the War Somalia’s military intervention had both negative and positive consequences. On the negative side, an arms embargo was imposed which ultimately forced it to withdraw from the territory. On the positive side, however, was the worldwide awakening to the continued Ethiopian colonisation of the territory and the support it engendered for the yearning of the Somalis under its rule for self-determination and freedom. That positive achievement has not come about through any successful diplomatic campaign by Somalia but thanks to the foreign media who witnessed the realities of that colonisation and conveyed it to the outside world. Unlike the Security Council’s amentable focus on legal technicalities, for the media, Somalia’s violation of the UN Charter was less important than Ethiopia’s occupation of the Somali territory and its denial of the right of its people to self determination. If there was any reservation on their part, it was against the expansionist tendencies of the Somalis to claim at times non Somali-inhabited areas that everybody else saw as Ethiopia proper. It is worthwhile mentioning that for good historical reasons, the reporters of those days during the war, and those after them to the present day have invariably referred to the territory as the O-gaden. Look at any map of Ethiopia not issued by that government (see the one above from Google) and the O-gaden name is the one most prominently displayed. This is for good reasons. First because that is the name that the territory came to be known internationally when European and Ethiopian colonisers curved up the Somali homeland in the late 19th century and gave that particular area to Emperor Menelik of Ethiopia. But the region came to acquire much international prominence during the World Wars when Italy used it as a conduit for its invasion of Abyssinia. Since then, Somalia’s independence in 1960 and the quest for Greater Somalia had once again put the spot light on the territory as its people began to struggle for their freedom. Both Ethiopia and Somalia had their own different reasons for their phobia against the O-gaden name. Losing sight of the wider picture, Somalis are allergic to it since it smacks of the clan by the same name and wrongly consider it as tantamount to the denial of other clans in the region, most of whom are late comers including my own. For Ethiopia, it kept alive unfavourable history and, in its desperate and vain effort to prevail over that history, had given the territory various names at different times. Hararghe was the official name for territory during the 1977 war. But much to its consternation, the foreign reporters would have none of it, preferring instead the region’s historical name to fake ones. In this article, I had followed that line. If the Somalis were to overlook their myopic, clan obsession, the O-gaden name much serves their national interest in their contest with Ethiopia over the territory. Meeting the old warrior Meeting President Mohamed Siyad Barreh after return from field visits to the war zones was much sought by the foreign press as a fitting finale to their assignment. You can say what you like about him but you have to give the devil his due There he was, the old warrior, at these special press meetings, chain smoking, and oozing presidential pride, charisma, confidence and nationalism that Somalia has not seen anything like it since him. He personified more than anyone else the mood and confidence of Somalia at the time. His English may have been poor, but he always managed to communicate his message. No one has impressed the foreign press more than him. Mogadishu June 2007 Mogadishu’s descent from its thousand years long glory has started with the fall of the Somali state from when it remained in the hands of rapacious and egregious warlords for 15 years . They had inflicted incalculable damage on that once beautiful capital. But that has been totally eclipsed by its occupation and destruction by Ethiopia in 2007 in cahoots with its Somali collaborators. By what can only be described as wanton indiscriminate vengeance, Ethiopia razed large parts of the city to the ground and forced a third of its population to flee for their lives into the inhospitable countryside facing hunger, disease and exposure to the vagaries of the weather. Those actions would go down in the annals of Somalia’s history as its darkest days. Meles Zenewi, the monster Somalia reared and pampered to bring down Mengestu Haile Marian and the Ethiopian Empire, has instead turned on his former host country with ungrateful venom and vengeance. It is a measure of his amazing feat how he succeeded to turn Somalia into a vassal state under Ethiopia’s hegemony thanks in no small measure to the support from his Somali cohorts. Under him, an old Ethiopian dream has come true and Somalis have only themselves to blame. Mogadishu was Somalia’s mini Mecca. And nothing could be more humiliating than when Ethiopian soldiers desecrate the honour of our sacred capital by their mere presence, occupy former bases and posts that were once the nation’s pride, and commit heinous crimes against its occupied people. There could not be anything more insulting to the memory of the mighty Somali army of 1977 than the sight of those ramshackle clan militias masquerading as the national army and serving as camp followers for the Ethiopian army. Ethiopia’s writ now runs everywhere from the O-gaden to Somalia proper. And Meles Zenewi has installed himself as the de fact new emperor over the region. The more that gets to his ego, the more dangerous he will be. Worse than the Ethiopian occupation are those Somalis who, for myopic clan interests, support and justify the occupation. And nothing could be more insulting to ones intelligence than when they argue that Ethiopia has been invited, or that their stay is only for a short period, or that its actions are for our own common good!!. What is good about colonising Somalia and destroying its capital and perpetrating genocide? It is already six months since the Ethiopians occupied Mogadishu and their departure is not in sight. Those apologists for the Ethiopian occupation represent the cream of the society and include elites, former high level government officials and above all former ambassadors. It is ironic that some of those ambassadors are the very same ones who, in the days of Mohamed Siyad Barre, would ritually denounce Ethiopia at the United Nations and other forums for its incursions into Somalia. I am not aware of what we culturally share with Ethiopians, but I do know how much we differ from them. When it comes to loyalty to ones country, we are poles apart. An Ethiopian may be anti Mengestu Haile Marian or anti Meles Zenewi but never against the interest of his country. I cannot recollect any time during the 1977 war, or any time since, when any high-level Ethiopian official ever defected to Somalia and betrayed his country. In our case, it goes from the top office holders all the way down. As someone has said, we are a nation bedevilled with traitors and turncoats. Ethiopia, like all other successful invaders before it, is riding high on its sweet glory. But as history is a witness to it, there is no permanency about those successes and ultimately, all invasions end in disaster. And sooner or later, the Somali nation will rise from its moribund state and reassert itself more stronger than ever before thanks to its bitter experience over the last 16years and in particular to its traumatic experience under the Ethiopian occupation.. A new dawn and glory await Somalia and hopefully doom for Ethiopia. When that time comes, Mogadishu will have the last laugh over Meles Zenewi. Osman Hassan Email: Ohassanomar@yahoo.co.uk www.wardheernews.com

I remember seeing you praising Abdullahi Yusuf and others on one side and then the other group the other time LoooooooL...And I remember certain someone praising the courts one time and then calling for the TFG and their Tigray masters the other time. Come on old man, you could do better.

It now has regrouped and is the vangaurd of all the groups fighting the TFG/Tikray alliance. Who are these groups and what are their objectives other being opposed to the Tigray presence. Do they share the same political and military gaols as it relates to the occupation and the revival of the Somali state which is the only to ensure that Somali interests are protected in the Horn. Mind you people with diverse political and militaristic goals will lead us back to choas that made it possible for the Ethios to come into Somalia in the first place. True say. Now what to do ? Do we sit on our behind and wait for that perfect utopian Unity movement that would have the support of ALL Somalis(and impossible task) ? Or do we do what we can in combating the Xabashi/TFG enemy ? You don't have to halt everything to gain support. What the courts has to do is to build consensus (while carrying on with their fight)by formulating their stated goals and sharing their message with the Somali masses and also directly engaging with all aspects of the Somali society. Only through direct engagements could we eliminate the mistrust and confusion among Somalis. It is my sincere majority of Somalis object the invasion and would fight to expel the occupiers. But majority also want the return of the Somali state, a state that would ensure the safety and the interests of all Somalis regardles of their Qabiil, political and ideological affliations. I remember people who were projecting a similar pessmistic forecast back in June of last year when the Courts were fighting the battle-hardened, seemingly-invincible M.ooriyaan. In the space of a few weeks, the warlord era waa ku daysay thanks to no other than 'tribal militia and suicide bombers'. The miracle of 06 was result of reer Mogadisho abandoning the thieves that made their lives a living hell during the past 16 yrs. The courts won only cuz the masses in Mogadisho wanted a better future for themselves and the courts. For its credit, the courts presented an honest leadership though be politically inexperienced leadership that transcended Qabyaalad and was truely interested in the well being of the people. They can provide the same honest leadership to the Somali. Aligning themselves with tribal militias is short sighted thing to do as tribal militias are more interested in settling old scores among Somalis rather fighting to preserve their nation.

It is not nitpicking or labeling each other. It is about understanding that we are truely divided nation,and realising our interests would be better served in unity. Other than Kismayo and Mogadisho, I can't think of other Somalis are picking arms against Ethios. That says alot about the mind state of the Somali people. The Ethios are simple here cuz of Somali disunity and indiffirence. No amount of car bombs will make them leave Mogadisho as long as rest of Somalia watches everything from the sidelines. We need a concerted movement that acknowledges our past ugly history, transcends Qabiil and ideologies,and assures the interests of all Somalis. Pinning your hopes on tribal militias or suicide bombers is simply futile.

What resistance Kashafa?

I am broad to be black Somali. Why?

are South Asians intermediate? Yes...They are the product of Monkey God and the Buffalo.

Originally posted by Legend of Zu: ^^^I do no think Serenity could get a match...laakin ma isku baroobeenee? What would I get a price for my efforts. Mind you, the woman wrestles alligator. Cara......Ma qarxineey qofyaha.

Alla Ha unaxariisto!

LooooooooL@Shaax Caano.....I remember as kid little girls being told Shaaxa Naaso keenaay which apparently another dreaded thing for young gal back in the old country. I always use to wonder Wiilashana muxuu Shaaxo Caano u keynaa.