Northwestern Somalia: Tobogganing with the Terrorist Theme

Ogaden Online Editorial
Aug 17, 2005
 

Now that the teacher, Abyssinia’s midget could not persuade the Americans to enable him exploit the terrorist theme to his own selfish aims, it is only logical that the student, rulers of northwestern Somalia, to attempt their luck at Britain to recognize their two city supposed country.

It is not the tradition of Ogaden Online Editorial board to respond to diatribe from self-serving and recognition seeking entities bent on exploiting human tragedies such as the recent terrorist bombings in Britain, however one has to call a spade a spade about the true intentions of the August 6^th editorial on the “Somaliland Times”. Although the user attempts to wade into a complex issue which he/she appears to have no innate knowledge as shown by the conflicting statements made in the terse promotional propaganda, but he/she does raise points of interest which proves, to the author’s chagrin, that ONLF is grassroots freedom movement fighting for the universally accepted people’s right to self determination.

It is self serving on the part of the author to compare “38” trucks supposedly burnt inside Ogadenia, with no single loss of life and after having been forewarned numerous times not to cross the Ogaden border, to the tragic July bombing of the London mass transit system. We wonder what logic he/she used to come to this conclusion? For those not familiar with the history of the relations or lack of relations between the people of Ogaden, and the self styled fiefdom in northwestern Somalia, ONLF did not start the hostilities. ONLF had at no time, used or planned to use this part of Somalia to wage war against the Abyssinian colonizers of the people of Ogaden. On the contrary ninety percent of our the livestock used to be exported to northwestern  Somalia prior to the year 2004; Ninety nine percent of the meaningful commerce from this fiefdom used to be trucked to Ogadenia. Although one would expect this fiefdom to go the extra mile in welcoming Ogaden livestock into its territory, since they are the main beneficiary of this one sided trade, Ogaden citizenry were subjected to all sorts of gimmicks in robbing them of their meager earnings from the sale of their livestock. Worse, this fiefdom started early in 1994 to detain and illegally hand over Ogaden civilians, some of whom were visiting their blood relatives at the time, to the Abyssinian colonizers,.

It is on the public record that ONLF repeatedly warned against the harming of Ogaden citizenry in northwestern Somalia. ONLF resisted retaliating against the people of northwestern  Somalia for the indiscretions of their rulers since it knew that the diminutive Abyssinian ruler would have become giddy in getting a proxy militia to fight ONLF on his behalf. Since these rulers failed to head ONLF’s repeated warnings, the last straw came when a couple of hundred Ogaden civilians were rounded up last year and some of them handed over to Ethiopia while the rest still languish in ramshackle prisons where, to our knowledge, the guards ask for a hundred dollars to set them free. Instead of waging a war against this fiefdom, which ONLF was and is capable of, it decided that the best way to bring the fiefdom to its knees was to close the border to any commercial traffic to and from northwestern Somalia. It is on the record as corroborated by the propaganda author, that the chairman of ONLF admiral Mohamed Omar Osman went on the BBC to warn the residents of this fiefdom that the Ogaden border will be closed and ONLF will enforce this closure in any way possible. Last time we have checked the human rule of law, it was not a crime for one to defend one’s territory. A question for the author is what were these trucks doing inside Ogadenia? Is a terrorist not one who goes to some one else’s territory to cause damage????

It is clear from the concluding remarks, that the author of this terse promotional piece wanted to toboggan with the terrorist theme in order to get recognition for northwestern part of Somalia. What the author appears to have missed or may be he/she has not learned yet is that It is immoral to use human tragedy such as the London terrorist bombings for the promotion of one’s frivolous agenda. Humanity unites us in condemning  terrorist acts meant to harm innocent civilians however burning a truck that illegally crossed into someone’s backyard and with no loss of life, is not a terrorist act but merely a self defense measure which any human being would engage to protect one’s territory.

Ogaden Online Editorial
editorial@ogaden.com
Aug 17, 2005