Somaliland’s Crimes in Erigavo By SSC Foreign Relations Commission
Somaliland’s Crimes in Erigavo
By SSC Foreign Relations Commission
10 November 2011
Somaliland’s revanchist crimes against the SSC people have now become part of its raison d’etre. It was Kalshaale last year when joint militias from the one-clan secessionist enclave based in Hargeisa and its affiliated clan went on the warpath in the SSC Cayn region. Territorial conquest, and notably the capture of the regional capital Buuhoodle, was their main objective. This latter day colonial-like gunboat adventure was ignominiously defeated notwithstanding the loss of many innocent SSC nomads and civilians. As if they had learned nothing from that experience, this renegade administration is at it again in their vainglorious clan hegemony. This time their target is the town of Erigivao in the north east of Somalia (Somaliland as the secessionists call it), a melting pot inhabited by four clans, two belonging to the secessionist camp and the others unionists under occupation.
Until the secessionists took over the area, Erigavo has distinguished itself as the one place in Somalia where all its diverse clans have lived harmoniously and settled peacefully any problem that arose without the need for external intervention. All that centuries old heritage changed with the advent of the secessionist control over the area and their misguided ideological quest for clan hegemony. Inevitably, this his has given rise to tit-for-tat killings and the current tension in the town. It is the responsibility of any authority worth its name and valuing communal peace to intervene in a timely fashion and in an even-handed approach and solve these tensions first and foremost through traditional Somali conflict resolution modalities. For Somaliland, however, generating or exploiting tensions between its supporting secessionist clans and recalcitrant unionist ones are part of its policy tools to maintain its control or expand its SSC territorial occupation. It happened in Kalshaale and it is now taking place in Erigavo.
The recent revenge killings in Erigavo has provided the authority the pretext to implement a wider agenda that has been in the works for sometime and entailing far reaching repercussions for the demography and balance of power among the clans in the town. In pursuance of this agenda, the authority launched on the 5th and 6th of November a coordinated attack only on the SSC section of the town deploying its heavily equipped militia and supported by armed militias from fellow clans. Disarming and “pacifying” the SSC residents in their quarter was the stated objective for this military onslaught on defenceless SSC civilians.
But these SSC people who are disarmed, under siege and left defenceless in the face of the combined hostilities from the authority and its revenge and land seeking clans have now been left with two clear choices: leave the town or face the consequences. Responding to this fait accompli, SSC residents have left the town in droves to seek shelter and security in the SSC heartland. Through ethnic cleansing, the town of Erigavo, hitherto a multi clan melting pot could end up as a purified unmixed one clan territory.
Somaliland’s latest actions in Erigavo are also politically motivated and have to be seen against the background of the forthcoming SSC conference in Taleex, scheduled to take place in due course. Somaliland perceives this conference with deep forebodings, fearing the emergence of an SSC Regional Administration that could end its occupation of the SSC regions and in the end unravel its quest for recognition on the false claim that the whole of former British Somaliland is under its control. Somaliland therefore has an interest to create facts on the ground while it has the time and, if possible, do all it can to undo this conference.
Given its mindless disastrous adventure in Kalshaale in the Cayn region, Somaliland’s current actions in Erigavo in the Sanaag region has all the hallmarks of a possible repeat of that history. Already several SSC residents have been killed and scores wounded, most of them women and children. But the casualties are likely to rise as many injured victims are forced to remain indoors and denied access to medical treatment. As the pressure on them builds up and people are forced to leave the town, a stampede could easily ensue.
The looming humanitarian crisis needs no amplification. On behalf of its community, the SSC External Relations Commission is calling on the UN Humanitarian organisations based in Nairobi to respond in time to the needs of the SSC community in Saanag, whether those besieged in Erigavo or those displaced in the hinterland. It also calls on the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, H.E. Augustine Mahiga, as well as the UN Independent Expert on the Human Rights Situation in Somalia, Dr Shamsul Bari, to give the situation unfolding in Erigavo the attention and action it merits.
Foreign Relations Commission SSC Regions of Somalia
Email: sscforeignrelations@gmail.com