House Of ‘Guurti’ Select Committee On Internal Affairs And Security, Warn Of Impending Danger In Buroa

Mr. Obsiye, speaking to Somaliland Times on Monday said, “We have been aware that for some time in Buroa there has been a recruitment campaign by certain Buroa based religious sympathizers of the Islamic Courts to enlist former national army soldiers who were sacked in recent years to unite their grievances with their sharia cause.”

The Guurti, upper house select committee chairman said that “The former sacked soldiers all were ex-SNM fighters and were veterans of the long arms struggle against Siyad Barre’s occupation forces.” He said,“In a recent trip to Buroa with fellow Buroa constituency members in the Upper house we met the sacked army soldiers who are currently serving as security bodyguards, drivers and handymen to some religious institutions in Buroa and was told by these former servicemen that they were wrongly sacked by the army.”

Chairman Obsiye said,“Many of these men were involved in an incident sometime back when they openly staged a demonstration against visiting army officers for the nonpayment of their over-due salaries. Also, among these men are those who were sacked from the national army for petty offences and general army disobedience.” The chairman said, “the ex-servicemen number around 150 and that many of them are from the infantry and artillery regiments of the army.”

Mr. Obsiye said, “Those unscrupulous religious clerics who we know are sympathizers of the Islamic Courts sought to co-opted these hardened ex-soldiers with financial assistance and eventual employment so that they could be part to their eventual uprising and revolution against the Somaliland government in Buroa and surrounding regions.” The chair of the Upper house select committee on Internal Affairs and Security added, “It's no secret that these forces behind some of the Buroa religious community have direct links with the Islamic Courts in Mogadishu and if we in Somaliland continue to act as if their presences and their recruitment drive of ex-soldiers is not a threat to Somaliland’s existence, we are kidding ourselves and are to blame for incompetence and dire negligence.”

Mr. Obsiye said, “We have to do something concerning these sacked soldiers”. He said, “By all means the army must take these men back-on and give them back their employment in the national army, this is the only way we can make sure that the forces loyal to the Islamic Courts are kept at bay and left to their mosques and teaching institutions, in other words, out of harms way.”

Source: Somaliland Times

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