Saeed Mohamed Guleed

Inspired by last week’s event in which the Somaliland House of Guurti was honored for its valuable contributions to peace in Somaliland, I feel encouraged to pay tribute to the Director and workers of the Hargeysa Water Agency for their hard work to ease the water crisis that gripped Hargeysa from early 2003 up to early 2005.

By Rhoda A. Rageh, UAE

An Islamic scholar once visited our university in California to give a lecture about Islam. Many students, faculty and staff came to hear his lecture and during the course of his talk, a student asked him how a Muslim deals with depression. The scholar surprised everyone by prostrating first then addressing the student told him: we Muslims don’t get depressed. I left the lecture unsure about what he meant by that and was more puzzled by his daring statement that a Muslim does not become depressed. For many years, I thought about the difference between Mu’mins and others when things reach the breaking point.

To: H.E. Mr. Alpha Oumar Konare

Chairperson

African Union Commission

Dear Sir,

Somaliland American Guild urges the African Union to shift its current policy of noncommittal towards the Republic of Somaliland and address Somaliland’s fulfillment of all criteria required for statehood. Somaliland has legal validity to reclaim her independence under international law. The internationally recognized right to self-determination is attained when a distinct group is able to exercise its inalienable right regarding its political and economic future. The inhabitants are the indigenous people of the land which, in accordance with international law, is the indicator of territorial integrity, thus sovereignty. Somaliland had recognized borders in June 1960. These facts are not in question, therefore why is the AU ignoring the astonishing achievements Somaliland has made in just 14 years?

By Yussuf Abdillahi Mohamed,

Anybody who was following the news in Somaliland during the last month must have noticed the dispute that was brewing between the minister of posts and telecommunications in Somaliland and the private telecommunications companies in Somaliland. The dispute related to an alleged contract that the minister gave to an American telecommunication company known as Transcom Digital Inc (TDI). As per the contract, TDI was supposed to set up a center for interconnecting the several private telecommunication companies operating in Somaliland and for providing Somaliland with a ‘country code’.

By Ahmed Hashi Dhimbill

In a recent piece published widely, Dr. Tani suggested to Somali Landers that the two chairmen of the opposition parties ought to go home and exit our political environment simply because they hold no elected positions in the country and thusly, their status is questionable and, to quote a cynical harangue from the piece, “anyone else who tries to speak from a position of authority, without having an elected mandate from the people is a spoiler, a pretender, an impostor and someone who is just a leader in his own dreams”.

By Ahmed Ali Ibrahim [Sabeyse], Scarborough Canada.

The final dismemberment of the Somali Republic was a rendezvous with fait accompli- a self-inflicted mortal blow that finally consumed the vestiges of any shared values of our society, if there was any to begin with. The paradox is that periodically, some modern day crusaders of that long lost cause, in pursuit of self-gratification or personal aggrandizement, release ill-timed comparative and often biased analysis of the qualities of the current and past leadership of the ideal Somali state.