The Garowe Agreement : A threat to Unity Peace and Stability

Letter of Protest

To:      HE Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, President of FGS

            HE Mohamed Osman, Speaker of Parliament

HE Aydid Abdillahi Ilka Xanaf, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the FRS

HE Harriet Mathews, British Ambassador
HE Michael Keating, SRSG

HE Mohamed Affey, IGAD Envoy

HE Michele Cervone, EU Special Envoy to Somalia

 

The Garowe Agreement : A threat to Unity Peace and Stability

 

We the undersigned, on behalf of Dhulbahante, at home and worldwide, would like to first and foremost present our compliments to your esteemed excellencies. Secondly, we would like to convey to you our outrage at what took place in Garawe and our outright and unreserved rejection of the Garawe Agreement that enticed Puntland to end its opposition to the 4.5 formula for MPs election at our cost as people of SSC regions.

 

As we know, the Prime Minister of Somalia, Mr Omar Abdirashid, returned the other day to his native territory, Puntland, and to his home town, Garawe, leading a high-powered delegation from the Somali federal government. His mission, as it turns out,  was to woo and pamper Puntland to accept the 4.5 formula for the election of MPs to the federal houses of Parliament. To bolster the success of his mission, he was accompanied by bigwigs from the international community. Needless to say, what was earlier billed as mission impossible has ended in success with Puntland accepting what it has hitherto refused to accept.

 

One might ask what has suddenly changed the minds of the Puntland political establishment hitherto intransigently opposed to the 4.5 formula? We know now to our horror that what prevailed over Puntland was the booty offered which they could not refuse – the SSC regions, a gift which give them the power to manage the selection  of SSC MPs which Puntland will ensure are loyal to them than to their own Khatumo just like those  handpicked, so-called SSC “representatives” resident in Garawe. This is daylight robbery of the rights of SSC people, which in Somali parlance can only be described as “Biliiliqaysi” – the dispossession of the weak by the strong, a continuing relic from the dark days of the civil war.

 

Clearly, Puntland’s tactic for baulking at the 4.5 formula, all alone among the regional federal States, and holding out for a better special deal, has paid off, an achievement all the more sweet when their federal and international interlocutors have to come all the way to Garawe to offer tantalising concessions too good to resist. It is not the first time that Puntland triumphed over contrived crisis it generated and it would not be the last.

 

 

 

 

Puntland’s legal bases to challenge Khatumo

What is outrageous about the Garawe Agreement is the basis on which Puntland’s concocted claim on the SSC regions was endorsed. The P rime Minister, acting more like an advocate of his native Puntland region rather than a dispassionate national leader, spuriously justified his decision on the basis of the 1998 clan accord in Garawe that established Puntland. That was of course a voluntary accord among several kindred clans straddling the old colonial border between British and Italian Somaliland. Nothing in that accord deny any clan its right to freely withdraw from it without going through any prescribed legal or constitutional rigmarole. Only the national constitution proscribed that and the Puntland accord is not the national constitution.

 

The Establishment and Reality of Khatumo

The SSC regions, exercising their democratic rights, withdrew from Puntland and established their own Khatumo State of Somalia in 2012 at Taleex, the historically famous base of the Somali liberation hero, Sayid Mohamed Hassan((1901-1921). The Taleex conference was a regional and clan political assembly, the likes of it has not been seen before in Somalia. Over 4000 delegates attended it, including all the paramount traditional leaders, almost all the Chiefs, and representatives from all sections of civil society, above all the diaspora. Such was the pull of the conference nationally that it was covered by the leading Somali TV satellites of for the duration of the conference (see attached video clip showing each traditional leader supporting the outcome of the conference). Amin Amir, the well-known Somali cartoonist, contributed to the occasion with a memorable cartoon in tune with the times and moods of the Somali people (attached), depicting the dawn of democracy at the grassroots/regional level.

 

The conference decision to withdraw from Puntland and establish Khatumo State was unanimous and finally given the seal of approval and adoption by the traditional leaders, the highest authority of the SSC regions at the time. In order not to leave any doubts in the minds of Puntland political establishment and their civil society, and for the benefit of the wider Somalia and international attention, the traditional leaders also signed a separate document declaring the SSC’s formal withdrawal from Puntland. It was a decision bearing all the hallmarks of the exercise of democracy, inclusiveness, consensus and ownership. It represented the democratic will of the Dhulbahante clan hailing from the SSC regions. Those in Somalia who have no respect for these cherished democratic principles, are the ones, like Puntland, who are still hung up on the dark days of clan warlordism and the hegemony of the strong over others which brought down the Somali State and its disastrous aftermath still lingering to the present time.

 

Support for Khatumo from succeeding governments

The Previous transitional government an

 

d the current federal government have supported Khatumo as a State in their different ways. Strange as it may seem, the most forthright support came from the current nemesis of Khatumo,  President Abdiweli Gaas of Puntland. He was the first to de facto recognise Khatumo State when he, in his capacity as the PM of the Transitional Government led by Sheikh Shariif Ahmed, issued an official attestation (attached), recognising the existence of Khatumo. The newly bor

n State also had support from the two previous Prime Ministers: HE Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed,  in a letter to UN Secretary-General, Baan-ki-Moon (attached), “strongly” reiterated to the SG the commitment of the Federal Government of Somalia to peace, stability and security of the SSC Regions “in line with the will and the choice of the SSC people” – meaning their establishment of Khatumo.

 

Clearly, the current position of Puntland is one running counter to the free will of the people of the SSC regions and their democratic choice. It is also one in denial of the support it had from leaders of previous Somali governments, above all the current President of Puntland, Mr Abdiweli Gaas.