Majerteeniya’s Disgusting Maneuvering

EDITORIAL

On last Sunday, the ruler of the Majerteen enclave of Puntland, Adde Muse, arrived in Las-Anod, the capital of Somaliland’s Sool region. Accompanied by over 40 technicals in addition to large Lorries carrying quantities of rifles and ammunition, Adde Muse then announced that he was going to make a visit to Buhoodle, a district town in Somaliland’s Togdheer region and 130km south west of Las-Anod.

Adde Muse’s large military convoy and his disclosure that he intended to go to Buhoodle, have immediately raised tension around Las-Anod where Somaliland and Puntland troops still faced each other after fighting pitched battles in the past 3 years.

Since Abdillahi Yusuf (Puntland’s former warlord and current president of Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government) started laying claims to territories in Somaliland’s eastern regions several years ago, the Majerteen militia has been a source of menace to Somaliland. Towards the end of 2003, Abdillahi Yusuf sent his militia to seize peaceful Las-Anod which was until then under the administration of Somaliland.

However due to its preoccupation with the processes of state building and democratization, the Somaliland government resisted being deviated from its path by Puntland’s frequent incursions into it’s territories. This policy had indeed emboldened Abdillahi Yusuf to the extent that he started laying claims to territories in Sanag and Sool regions. His successor Adde Muse has adopted the same irredentist policy. He even raised greater ire among Somalilanders when he declared earlier this week that Buhoodle was part of his enclave.

But there are a couple of good reasons to suspect that the motive behind Adde Muse’s latest expedition was actually something other than acquiring new territories in Somaliland. First it seems illogic for Puntland to seek picking a fight with Somaliland at a time when the former is threatened by Mogadishu’s Islamic Courts whose militia has already taken control in almost all the regions to the south of the Majeerteen.

Why then Puntland, which is so vulnerable vis-à-vis to the courts, should at this moment try to provoke Somaliland which is even more formidable? The only rational explanation for this irrational action could perhaps be found in the proposed deployment of African “peacekeepers” to Somalia. It is no longer a secret that the only two places that would accept the presence of these troops are Puntland and Baidoa.

Apparently the Majerteen in order to keep the current status quo in Sool unchanged in their favor would like to spearhead the IGAD force up to Las-Anod on the pretext that they would be needed to play a peacekeeping role between Puntland and Somaliland.

Igad’s support for such a plan was already signaled by Kenya’s Foreign minister Raphael Tuju who stated last week that the peacekeeping troops will be deployed to the whole of Somalia including Somaliland.

But regardless of what has motivated Abdillahi Yusuf and Adde Muse to ignite a deadly conflict with Somaliland at this juncture, the Somaliland government must take the necessary steps to ensure that the mischievous Majerteen militia are evicted from Las-Anod and chased out of Somaliland territory. They must be crippled enough so as to be deprived of the capability of destabilizing peace in Somaliland’s eastern regions ever again.

Source: Somaliland Times

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