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Dear Brothers and Sisters, Special Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen:
In the spirit of the Somali Diasporas to unity and renewed our solidarity which was affirmed during my trip in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, UK, Canada. I stand before you today here our gathering in Somalia Diaspora in USA, because the future of our country - an AU founding member - hangs in the balance.
Today Somalia is at cross roads: a road to peace and stability or a return to the violence and anarchy of the past 18 years.
I do not have to remind you, Brothers and Sisters that our government, the Transitional Federal Government – the TFG - had from its inauguration in October 2004 been struggling tooth and nail to restore the Somali nation to its rightful place in the community of nations.
Let me give background information of your country, our country Somalia.
From the outset, the TFG’s plans to move to the nation’s capital, Mogadishu was challenged by an entrenched powerful group of faction leaders known as “warlords” despite the fact that almost all the members of this group were accommodated politically and became an integral part of the Cabinet.
But, all habits die hard and they sadly reverted to wreaking havoc on the capital. The TFG, lacking the means to overpower them and impose its authority chose to exercise patience and to bring the warlords to their senses by talking to them. Unfortunately the warlords could only understand the language of force and the TFG was unable to speak that language.
As a result, it chose to take the interim measure of relocating to the town of Jowhar, located only 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu.
Soon afterwards, the forces controlled by the Mogadishu faction leaders clashed with a coalition of armed radical religious groups, Mogadishu people as well as foreign Terrorists known collectively as the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) with whom they had previously co-existed precariously in the streets of Mogadishu for more than a dozen years.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Events in Mogadishu developed quickly and the government decided to move to Baidoa which was further from the field of conflict for the government needed to work in a relatively quiet place in order to plan for its subsequent moves. The Union of Islamic Courts swept away the warlords and managed to establish peace in the capital because they had no rival. The TFG welcomed the demise of the warlords and sought partnership with the Courts.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You all recall that the sister nation of Sudan - an IGAD member - offered its good offices with Khartoum as the venue for the TFG and the UIC face-to-face conference. From the beginning, it became apparent that UIC had no intention of negotiating in good faith. They were making reconciliatory pronouncements, while doing everything in their power to undermine the negotiations.
A case in point is the low level of importance they attached to the initial meeting at Khartoum.
The TFG was represented by the President, the Prime Minister and the then Speaker of the Parliament. The UIC sent mid-level people without any decision-making authority. All the UIC leaders of note stayed back in Mogadishu. In the second meeting, the UIC delegates, from the outset created roadblocks to good faith negotiations by making conditions that were unattainable and by issuing threats against the TFG.
Within weeks, the UIC made good of their threats by attacking the port City of Kismayo in the southern most area of the country and ousted the local authorities that were loyal to the TFG. This after the UIC had made repeated pledges not to attack the TFG. After the fall of Kismayo, the UIC forces became bolder and exceedingly bellicose in their threats not only against the TFG but also against the neighboring countries of Kenya and Ethiopia.
The UIC threats against Ethiopia were particularly ominous. The fact that the TFG requested IGAD support and Ethiopia answered the call became a rallying cry for all religious fundamentalists and foreign terrorist, you all know that Somalis are not terrorist but there is foreignness teaching all the tactics of terrorist and same of there foreignness have one interest, to destabilize the region.
But TFG’s request for Ethiopian troops was fully consistent with the laws passed by the Somali parliament. And so the TFG had no choice but to defend the Transitional Institutions from multi-faceted attacks, including hitherto unknown suicide bombing
With the help of the Ethiopian troops, the TFG’s forces were able to defeat the fanatical UIC forces and return the seat of the Somali national government to the capital, Mogadishu, once and for all. In the capital, the remnants of the routed UIC forces began to conduct hit and run operations, lying of mines in the streets of the teeming city and an occasional suicide bombing forays.
But the most vexing problem is that of the massive caches of all kinds of weapons and munitions that were hidden throughout the city. These weapons and munitions were hidden in schools, hospitals, Mosques, shops, open markets, cemeteries, underground tunnels among other unlikely places.
The security forces are making progress in their operations. However, the campaign to collect these arms is proving to be an extremely challenging one in terms of manpower and cost that is required if the TFG is to make a serious dent on it.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In spite of a concerted attempt by remnants of the Islamic Courts in partnership with international terrorists and beneficiaries of lawlessness and anarchy to sabotage the peace-making efforts of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the AU African peacekeepers, citizens of Mogadishu today enjoy relative peace and normalcy than any time during the past 18 years.
The streets are cleaner and through collaboration between the business community and the government efforts are underway to re-habilitate destroyed government assets. Also, the main highways between cities and towns have resumed. Thanks to the security provided by the Ugandan peacekeepers the airport and the seaport remain open to airlines and ships.
The effort though critical is competing with other high priority operations such as the on-going pacification of the city and containing remnants of the UIC and their supporters, while giving a chance the outcome of the National Reconciliation Congress between the clans and within the clans. This is the first time in many years that Somalis are able to hold an inclusive National Reconciliation Congress at home and in their capital, Mogadishu. Contrary to spins and propagandas coming from the enemies of peace, and internet war lords, Somalia has made concrete progress towards stability and normalcy.
Without the help of our African brothers and sisters these modest progress would have been difficult if not impossible. After 18 years of destruction we are starting from ground zero. And to lift ourselves from ground zero we need continued help.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Given the formidable forgoing challenges ahead the Transitional Federal Government is asking the AU to honor its commitments to Somalia and extend the mandate of the AU troops and deploy the rest of the AU troops is good indication that Ethiopian troops are withdrawing even PM of Ethiopia made very clear that their troops will be out of Somalia within a week as soon as AU troops fully deployed. To my knowledge as Somali ambassador to Ethiopia, Ethiopian troops could have been with drown long time ago, had AMISOM troops been deployed fully,
The extension of the Ethiopian troops is crucial for safeguarding the day to day progress of the TFG. I hope I do not need to remind you that there is a need for an extension of human rights throughout the world; that surely is incontrovertible. We cannot rest where we are because some of us are comfortable or content.
However we have no right to be patient on the wrongs suffered by others. That is why we have to lay the line for the terms of cooperation and intervention from tender neighbors.
Finally, I have spoken for longer than is my custom at these gatherings, and I have been trying to express in a few words concepts which are extremely complex and terrifyingly difficult and which countries have difficulty of understanding. But what it really amounts to is a very simple statement.
It is that as we, the people on earth extend human justice, we are furthering the cause of peace and that every moment of peace is a moment stolen unless it is used to further justice between mankind in all parts of the nations.
Thank you.
