United Nations is Guiding Somalia to a Fake Democracy
Dr. Said Mohamud
Chair of the Somali People’s Party
saciidciise258@aol.com
August 19 2014
OPINION
The UN has a special representative to Somalia and the envoy reports frequently every political development in Somalia to the UN Security Council. The UN recommends to the highest Somali government officials to comply with the guidelines set up by the UN envoy in Somalia. The collaborative loyalty with the UN will bring to the Somali government leaders to be compensated by casting a blind eye to their malpractice and power misuses.
The Somali people have noticed that the current Somali leaders are inept and corrupt. They have lost hope of seeing any positive developments in the political situation of the country. Somalia remains insecure and the country’s economy heads to a dip in the worst crisis since Somalia entered the civil war. Somali people are very concerned about experiencing the worst famine that has ever happened in the country. One thing is clear for them, and that is that the current government is no good in providing the benefits of public good and is ineffective in the public service delivery.
The Somali government has failed to establish a reliable security and stability to the country. There are many unnecessary efforts that the government is making itself busy to show off its scarce power.
Despite this the country is in a deep political crisis; the government has started fueling violent disarmament with the political dissidents. In pretext with the fight against extremists, the government has started forceful disarmament of former government officials who are a direct target from the threat of extremists. The country is in widespread lawlessness and citizens have the right to have small arms in order to defend their lives and their personal properties. No doubt the government is unable to defend itself, let alone to protect its civil citizens.
The government has shown intolerance with press freedom and has frequently shut down independent media, and are collectively arresting and torturing private media owners and journalists working in it. The demand is a clear message from an autocratic regime that violates the unalienable rights of civil citizens. On August 15, 2014, the poorly trained Somali security forces targeted once again the Shabelle Media Network and Sky Radio which are popular news sources that enjoy the largest audience in the country. The forces, as usual, destroyed most of media equipment and confiscated some of them, and indiscriminately detained journalists in the most inhumane secret prisons of the intelligence force where they torture people who are not content with the government performance and let them live in inhumane conditions.
The Government forces targeted Shabelle Media Network and Sky radio because they provide accurate information to the public and practice their freedom of press.
They broadcast directly the public discontents and concerns in regards to unsupportive government actions or poor government leadership.
The Somali government lately encountered an increasing pressure of political opposition due to its lack of progress and worsening of the security situation of the country. Dissidents believe that government’s intelligence unit is chasing unfavorable lawmakers and other political opponents carrying out secret missions of assassinations. In addition, the tyranny of a ruling group of a small sect in the state house planned to establish regional administrations led by their members. The aim of creating these regions is to loot the popular votes expected to happen in the election of 2016. Most of the Somali people are not welcoming this ill deceived preparation of creating federal states and bogus election in 2016. People want to own the ability of building bottom up administration on their regions and disregard the government initiatives of its own without their consensus or respecting the general will of the people.
The political battle ground became critical when the government began to silence critic voices of private media and dissident politicians. The government should consider first initiating a real reconciliation process that brings many diverse Somali people together with the aim of restoring the trust of living peacefully together and promoting better relations among them. Disarming politicians, dissidents, and clan leaders is a sinister agenda of an authoritarian regime that dreams to have the absolute power that have their say without opposition. With government’s inventive allegations of fighting terrorism, disarming warlords, reducing arms in the hands of criminals, and securing government forces against incursions from armed clan militias are all pretexts to intimidate, incarcerate, persecute, and prosecute anti government political opponents and the free press. The disarmament should not be localized to specific clan or particular city. First the government should secure the stability and after that seek a peaceful means of overall disarming people with heavy arms. People are willing to hand over the heavy arms in exchange of money compensation. We should not ignore that arms came to the hands of the people because they bought it. Forceful disarmament will bring the country back to civil unrest and it is worth to note that the general perception most people believe is that the arms taken by the government security forces will end up in black markets or in the hands of extremists.
The Somali people point fingers to foreign peacekeepers engaging internal political crisis by siding with the government leaders who are doomed to failure. The adverse attitude of the African peacekeepers will drag them to a situation where the people consider them as a bad force that are supporting government malpractice of injustice, ineptitude, and corruption. In addition, The UN is conceived as the mastermind of all the bad wickedness in the Somali government. It is the one that paved the way to unpractical and unethical clan federalism as a system of government in Somalia. The processes that introduced such system was undemocratic because the UN formed the constitution and as such was considered as a foreign owned concept, and then the UN made every possible threat to impose the people and its interim governments dictating the achievement of what was designed for them.
Now that the country has an official government that permanently represents the nation, the UN remains an insensitive guider behind the scenes and directs the government to achieve UN desired outcomes. One of the undeniable outcomes will be that Somalia will become a democratic country by name where polls are stolen or sold. The undergoing processes to implement creating federal states, constitution referendum, and popular election in 2016 are all misleading guidance to a fake democracy. Even though the UN recognizes the notion of self-governance and universal human rights, its principles don’t work in practice when it is engaged directly with Somalia. The UN saw the tyranny of a small group at the Somali state house that misuses the government power and abuse it as a tool of a personal retaliation. Nevertheless, the UN chooses to be silent and in certain circumstance appears to support malpractice and dysfunctional governance procedures.
The Somali People’s Party is very concerned about the role of the UN and AMISOM in Somalia. It is preferred that the Somalis solve their problems by themselves rather than with the intervention of UN and AMISOM interfering with internal affairs among the Somalis. Somalia is not the best place of implementing the UN theoretical experiment of new political orders. Even though UN is making great efforts of achieving its desired goals, it is not going to happen in the lifetime of the coming generations. There is no sympathy of comforting UN views in Somalia because of its unsuccessful operations in the past that make Somalis aware of its indifference.
Dr. Said Mohamud
Chair of the Somali People’s Party
saciidciise258@aol.com
 |
| Dr. Said Mohamud is the Chair of the Somali People's Party. |
Chair of the Somali People’s Party
saciidciise258@aol.com
August 19 2014
OPINION
The UN has a special representative to Somalia and the envoy reports frequently every political development in Somalia to the UN Security Council. The UN recommends to the highest Somali government officials to comply with the guidelines set up by the UN envoy in Somalia. The collaborative loyalty with the UN will bring to the Somali government leaders to be compensated by casting a blind eye to their malpractice and power misuses.
The Somali people have noticed that the current Somali leaders are inept and corrupt. They have lost hope of seeing any positive developments in the political situation of the country. Somalia remains insecure and the country’s economy heads to a dip in the worst crisis since Somalia entered the civil war. Somali people are very concerned about experiencing the worst famine that has ever happened in the country. One thing is clear for them, and that is that the current government is no good in providing the benefits of public good and is ineffective in the public service delivery.
The Somali government has failed to establish a reliable security and stability to the country. There are many unnecessary efforts that the government is making itself busy to show off its scarce power.
Despite this the country is in a deep political crisis; the government has started fueling violent disarmament with the political dissidents. In pretext with the fight against extremists, the government has started forceful disarmament of former government officials who are a direct target from the threat of extremists. The country is in widespread lawlessness and citizens have the right to have small arms in order to defend their lives and their personal properties. No doubt the government is unable to defend itself, let alone to protect its civil citizens.
The government has shown intolerance with press freedom and has frequently shut down independent media, and are collectively arresting and torturing private media owners and journalists working in it. The demand is a clear message from an autocratic regime that violates the unalienable rights of civil citizens. On August 15, 2014, the poorly trained Somali security forces targeted once again the Shabelle Media Network and Sky Radio which are popular news sources that enjoy the largest audience in the country. The forces, as usual, destroyed most of media equipment and confiscated some of them, and indiscriminately detained journalists in the most inhumane secret prisons of the intelligence force where they torture people who are not content with the government performance and let them live in inhumane conditions.
The Government forces targeted Shabelle Media Network and Sky radio because they provide accurate information to the public and practice their freedom of press.
They broadcast directly the public discontents and concerns in regards to unsupportive government actions or poor government leadership.
The Somali government lately encountered an increasing pressure of political opposition due to its lack of progress and worsening of the security situation of the country. Dissidents believe that government’s intelligence unit is chasing unfavorable lawmakers and other political opponents carrying out secret missions of assassinations. In addition, the tyranny of a ruling group of a small sect in the state house planned to establish regional administrations led by their members. The aim of creating these regions is to loot the popular votes expected to happen in the election of 2016. Most of the Somali people are not welcoming this ill deceived preparation of creating federal states and bogus election in 2016. People want to own the ability of building bottom up administration on their regions and disregard the government initiatives of its own without their consensus or respecting the general will of the people.
The political battle ground became critical when the government began to silence critic voices of private media and dissident politicians. The government should consider first initiating a real reconciliation process that brings many diverse Somali people together with the aim of restoring the trust of living peacefully together and promoting better relations among them. Disarming politicians, dissidents, and clan leaders is a sinister agenda of an authoritarian regime that dreams to have the absolute power that have their say without opposition. With government’s inventive allegations of fighting terrorism, disarming warlords, reducing arms in the hands of criminals, and securing government forces against incursions from armed clan militias are all pretexts to intimidate, incarcerate, persecute, and prosecute anti government political opponents and the free press. The disarmament should not be localized to specific clan or particular city. First the government should secure the stability and after that seek a peaceful means of overall disarming people with heavy arms. People are willing to hand over the heavy arms in exchange of money compensation. We should not ignore that arms came to the hands of the people because they bought it. Forceful disarmament will bring the country back to civil unrest and it is worth to note that the general perception most people believe is that the arms taken by the government security forces will end up in black markets or in the hands of extremists.
The Somali people point fingers to foreign peacekeepers engaging internal political crisis by siding with the government leaders who are doomed to failure. The adverse attitude of the African peacekeepers will drag them to a situation where the people consider them as a bad force that are supporting government malpractice of injustice, ineptitude, and corruption. In addition, The UN is conceived as the mastermind of all the bad wickedness in the Somali government. It is the one that paved the way to unpractical and unethical clan federalism as a system of government in Somalia. The processes that introduced such system was undemocratic because the UN formed the constitution and as such was considered as a foreign owned concept, and then the UN made every possible threat to impose the people and its interim governments dictating the achievement of what was designed for them.
Now that the country has an official government that permanently represents the nation, the UN remains an insensitive guider behind the scenes and directs the government to achieve UN desired outcomes. One of the undeniable outcomes will be that Somalia will become a democratic country by name where polls are stolen or sold. The undergoing processes to implement creating federal states, constitution referendum, and popular election in 2016 are all misleading guidance to a fake democracy. Even though the UN recognizes the notion of self-governance and universal human rights, its principles don’t work in practice when it is engaged directly with Somalia. The UN saw the tyranny of a small group at the Somali state house that misuses the government power and abuse it as a tool of a personal retaliation. Nevertheless, the UN chooses to be silent and in certain circumstance appears to support malpractice and dysfunctional governance procedures.
The Somali People’s Party is very concerned about the role of the UN and AMISOM in Somalia. It is preferred that the Somalis solve their problems by themselves rather than with the intervention of UN and AMISOM interfering with internal affairs among the Somalis. Somalia is not the best place of implementing the UN theoretical experiment of new political orders. Even though UN is making great efforts of achieving its desired goals, it is not going to happen in the lifetime of the coming generations. There is no sympathy of comforting UN views in Somalia because of its unsuccessful operations in the past that make Somalis aware of its indifference.
Dr. Said Mohamud
Chair of the Somali People’s Party
saciidciise258@aol.com
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