Agriculture, Public Works And Interior Ministers Plotting Appropriation Of Haatuf Premises

Hargeysa, Somaliland, April 19, 2008 (SL Times) – The Somaliland ministers of Agriculture, Public Works and Interior are plotting the appropriation of the current premises of Haatuf Media Network which publishes the Somali language Haatuf newspaper and its two sister weeklies, The Somaliland Times and Al-Haatef Al-Arabi.

Public Works minister Saeed Sulub and Interior minister Abdillahi Irro were both criticized by Haatuf last week for making statements that incited people into hatred.

Sulub had accused the SNM of killing innocent people while Irro blamed the April 9 explosion at the Guurti headquarters on the KULMIYE opposition party.

But the 2 officials were actually angered by the paper’s reference to some of their shady past when both of them served under Siyad Barre’s brutal regime.

It was widely believed during the SNM’s resistance against Siyad Barre in the 1980s that Saeed Sulub was involved in the assassination of Sultan Hassan Bulbul in 1985.

Before his murder, Sultan Bulbul was one of the most powerful traditional elders who declared allegiance to the SNM immediately after the guerilla organization was launched in 1981.

Irro a former officer of the National Security Service, Siyad Barre’s dreaded Gestapo, and Sulub have been trying since last week to forge documents falsely claiming that the Haatuf newspaper premises belonged to the ministry of Agriculture.

The building that serves as Haatuf offices was actually built only several years ago on a plot of land that was donated by the owners, SOOYAAL VTC, to Muj Yusuf Abdi Gabobe, SOOYAAL VTC founder and currently the chairman of Haatuf Media Network.

The SOOYAAL VTC premises were granted to the SOOYAAL war veterans association in accordance with a resolution passed by the Somaliland council of ministers in 1995.

The minister of Agriculture’s motive in becoming an accomplice in this plot has never been a secret. He loves wining the blessings of the president and his wife.

Adan Ahmed Elmi was living in Norway where at one time he sold Qat and smuggled contraband cigarettes before coming back to Somaliland to become minister of Agriculture in 2005.

He thinks the idea of appropriating Haatuf’s offices may find favor with president Riyale and his spouse.

Source: Somaliland Times