Mohamed-rashid Sheikh Hassan
Abdiqasim Salad Hasan, leader of Arta group in Somalia has recently given an interview to Al-Jazeera Arab TV. Some extracts of this interview was published in Haatuf News paper on 7th of March. In the history of nations there are periods that produce certain political personalities who by default arrive in the position of leadership. Sooner their political view which rotates in their subjective psychological whims reveals its poverty of vision and bankruptcy of political ethics. Abdiqasim Salad Hasan knows the fact that Somaliland is not a tribal entity (Qabiil) as he told in the interview but though comprising of various clans, a nation which has an ancient historical root and all the ingredients that legitimize a nation and a sovereign state. It has also a recent shining struggle that toppled the brutal military regime that for over 20 years denied the Somali people their basic human rights including those Abdiqasim Salad Hasan seeks their support - A regime that Abdiqasim Salad Hasan justifies its legitimacy and glorifies its record in the interview.
Successive Somaliland governments and the Somaliland population have shown in numerous occasions that they wish for the leaders of Somalia not to confuse Somaliland issues with those of Somalia. Somaliland leaders also provided both financial and political support to Somalia’s political leaders to see that they put their house in order. For instance the late president of Somaliland- Mr. Mohamed Hagi Ibrahim Egal provided such a support to Abdiasim himself and others when they visited Hargeisa prior to the Arta conference. Had Qasim implemented the advice of Egal at that time as he promised he would, probably the cycle of death and bloodshed that occurs daily in the neighborhood of Abdiqasim’s home in Mogadishu wouldn’t have taken place.
Abdiqasim’s interview with Al-Jazeera shows not only a poverty of political vision, a bankruptcy of ethical politics, but a cynical denial of the facts on the ground and a misrepresentation of Somaliland history and people.
Mohamed-rashid Sheikh Hassan
Political Analyst
Hargeisa, Somaliland
07/03/2003
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