Shame on Hargeysa:

[Jamster]

Shame on Hargeysa: Let Freedom Reign for the Gabooye Community

 

WardheerNews Editorial

May 25, 2005

 

On May 13, 2005, an abhorrent act took place in Hargeysa at the hands of the Somaliland police forces against innocent Gobooye civilians. These acts are undoubtedly reminders of the Jaziira incident in Mogadishu in the late eighties, when the late dictator's soldiers rounded up individuals of the ***** clan and shot them at point blank. This time, the soldiers, who ironically claim to carry the mantel of the victims of the Jaziira massacre, carried out the shootings against the Gabooye community in Hargeysa.

 

 

On an eventful morning of May 13, 2005, hundreds of weary eyed Gabooye mothers, youngsters and children, carrying on their shoulders the visible weight of centuries-old discrimination and racism, yet undeterred by the intimidation of Hargeysa police, peacefully demonstrated to seek explanation of the senseless shooting of the 23-year-old Khaddar Aden Osman (Dhanbar.). But the Rayaale administration with a blatant prejudice of “ how dare you do , of all people, challenge us ,†shot at them, beat them and then rounded up about a hundred of innocent civilians and kept them for days in various undisclosed locations.

 

Amnesty International, in a statement issued on May 18, said: "We consider the detained demonstrators and others arrested later to be prisoners of conscience who are imprisoned on account of their peaceful opinions and defense of the human rights of Gabooye minority."

 

This latest action against the Gabooye community is in addition to a worsening and disturbing human rights record in Hargeysa, where innocent civilians are jailed, tortured and shot at if and when perceived to question this administration's abysmal human rights situation. Rayaale's administration undoubtedly has a Siyadist orientation that has of late banned freedom of speech and jailed journalists who are accused to carry what the minister of interior calls anti government journalism, and banned private ownership radio stations which is a sad indication of where Hargeysa's human right's record lies.

 

Notwithstanding repeated calls by Amnesty International, the Hargeysa authority has defiantly emerged as the cradle of human rights abuses. And, the Somali media as well as human rights groups have been rightly critical of the Rayaale administration, mainly due to its abysmal record. The case of the 16-year-old young girl, Zamzam Ahmed Ducaale, from Boosaaso who was raped, tortured and imprisoned by the order of Somliland authorities, the arbitrary and frequent arrest of political dissidents and lawyers, the humiliation of traditional leaders, and the harassment of refugees from the Somali Regional State of Ethiopia and Somalis from other regions are but only some of the highlights of Hargeysa's poor record on human rights.

 

Mohamed Hassan, a Ph.D. candidate in Linguistic studies at the University of Taxas who fluently speaks English, French, Italian, Arabic, Somali, Amharic and a host of local dialects, and a remarkably gifted short-story writer, says that Hargeysa has a long history of ethnic chauvinism and discrimination against the Gabooye clans more than any other place in the Somali-inhabited regions in the Horn of Africa. Neighborhood segregation and alienation of Gabooye clans to the belittled quarters and derelict neighborhood of Daami is an indication of the institutionalized segregationist culture. Mohamed Hassan has in his possession extensive research materials on the Gabooye massacres by the SNM in the 1980s, and based on that material, he argues that northern Somalia has the most inhuman and most oppressive cultures visa-vi Gobooye communities.

 

When a Diaspora-based Somaliland groups organized last June a gathering in San Diego , to commemorate June 26 th , Independence Day, Haji Musa Abdi Mire of Riverside , California , reportedly stunned everyone, following his unapproved speech text where he methodically listed the horrible treatment of his community in Hargeysa in particular and in Somaliland in general. He said “ Gobooye children are denied the opportunity to attend schools and have been contained in a primitive social statusâ€. He demanded a quick ratification of the status quo, although his plea seemed to have fallen on deaf ears.

 

WardheerNews strongly condemns the actions taken by the police in Hargeysa and the Rayaale administration who do not exercise any restraint in matters pertaining to human rights, and particularly to the Gabooye community. We challenge the Rayaale authority to publicly issue an apology to the leaders of the Gobooye community of its latest actions. The following actions must be taken to ameliorate the Gobooye question:

 

• Hargeysa authority must immediately release all the people it detained and to steadfastly disclose the locations of all the prisoners of conscience following this latest incident.

 

• Somalis in the United States shall write to their congressional representatives and denounce this inhuman act.

 

• Traditional ***** leaders and ***** religious community in Hargeysa must come clean on this issue and denounce the inhumane treatment of their own brethrens, and not let Hargeysa serve as the pseudonym for Las Burgabo depicted in the newly released fiction story of “The Yibir of Las Burgabo†by Mohamoud Gaildon.

 

• A long-term policy by the Somaliland administration to correct the prejudiced inhumane treatment against the Gabooye community must be employed to finally grant these citizens their full rights. To that end, we propose that human rights organizations in Hargeysa in close collaboration with the Amnesty International and the Gabooye community erect a monument to honor the victims of chauvinism, discrimination, exclusion and wanton killings suffered by the Gabooye community.

 

It is about time that the Old African American spiritual song of “let freedom ring" be invoked in the dusty streets of Dami, Hargeysa where human bondage is still the norm.

 

Send comments: editorial@wardheernews.com

[Gabbal]

Somalis will always be Somalis. Discriminationka ku maqan waa wax la yaab ah.