The Chairman of the Ogaden National Liberation Front, Mr. Mohamed Omer Osman, in an interview with the BBC’s Somali service in December 2003, had openly called upon his followers to take reprisals against nomads living in Ethiopia’s autonomous Somali state that share a common lineage with clans in Somaliland. Mr. Osman, a former Admiral in dictator Siyad Barre’s Navy, was at the time reacting to the arrest by the Somaliland authorities of 34 Eritrean-trained ONLF combatants between Nov 29 and Dec 1, 2003 (See The Somaliland Times Dec 6, 2003 edition). A number of Isak men were reportedly killed in separate incidents by ONLF insurgents following the incitement message conveyed in Somali through the BBC by Mr. Osman last December. The ONLF’s chairman repeated the same incitement in another BBC interview broadcast yesterday. Asked to comment on news reports that the ONLF burned two trucks in the Fiq area in the Somali autonomous state, on April 25, 2004, he explained that his people couldn’t be blamed for responding to the harsh treatment and arrests that they experience in Somaliland. He even claimed that Ogadeni travelers in Hargeisa and Buroa have been victims of mob attacks in the last 3 days.

Though Mr. Osman lives in London, thanks to modern telecommunication technology that is available now in Somaliland, he can follow events here as they happen. But the ONLF chairman has deliberately lied on two accounts. First, is untrue that Ogadenis are mistreated in Somaliland or that Ogadeni travelers in Hargeisa and Buroa have been attacked in the last few days. The truth is that Mohamed Omer Osman is very much unhappy with last December’s arrest of 34 of his fighters and the uncovering of a vital infiltration route hitherto utilized by his organization for smuggling terrorist missions into Ethiopia. Mr. Osman can claim from London that he is a leader of a liberation movement fighting for the rights of the Ogadeni clan. But he can’t fool anybody here. In reality, the ONLF is nothing but a cover for the Al-Itihad terrorist group. Al-Itihad and ONLF are two faces of the same coin. Otherwise why Al-Barakat used to fund the ONLF or why extremist elements from far away Muslim countries are found in the ONLF's ranks?

People like Mohamed Omer Osman should have been tried for their role in the genocide committed against civilians in Somaliland during the dictatorship era. It is a gross injustice that a suspected war criminal like him was given asylum in Britain. But that injustice has assumed more dangerous proportions when he started using Britain as base from which he incites tribal hatred and plans terrorist operations among otherwise peaceful communities back at home.

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