By Cali Cusmaan

It was only a matter of time before Ethiopia and their unsuspecting dupes in the media began applying the “Terrorist” label to the Somali People’s popular uprising led by the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts against the Mogadishu warlords. For the past fifteen years, the warlords were the agents and emissaries for the Ethiopian regime; doing his dirt war against the defenseless civilian Somali population by killing, torturing, raping, stealing, extorting, and plundering their lives and resources. Those despicable warlords squandered every opportunity to salvage what was left of the Somali people and institutions of government. To add insult to injury the warlords conspired with foreign enemies to assassinate what was left of Somali intellectuals, religious scholars and prominent business men and to once and for all seal the faith of Somalia as an independent and a sovereign nation.

They established law and order by Islamic Sharia based courts to mediate conflicts and resolve civil and criminal matters in order to punish the offending aggressor and assist the weak and injured.  They propagated a message of peace, tranquility and respect for the human life, property rights, and respect for sound moral values.  They fought environmental abuses by preventing the destruction of the natural resources and land and marine mammals. They stopped the abuse and human trafficking of children and defenseless women perpetrated by the warlords.

Any humane person with no hidden agenda and cared about Africa and Somalia in general welcomed the popular uprising of the Somali people. The overwhelming majority of the Somalis welcomes this new development and actively supports the success and positive changes happening in Mogadishu.

When Ethiopia and their allies realized their agents are defeated and saw a new dawn in Somalia, especially in Mogadishu, it reared its ugly head once again and went full scale war in creating and fabricating unfounded allegations against The Supreme Council of Islamic Courts. Some of the tactics used to spread false information about the Somali popular uprising had the familiar Ethiopian dark libels without a shred of any evidence supporting their allegations. Here are examples of what the Ethiopian propaganda machine is spewing out: The Islamic Courts are the new “Taliban”; the horn of Africa is in danger of being taken over by a group of “Terrorist” zealots who want to destabilize the region. The moderate leaders of the Islamic courts are being replaced by hardliners and the world must eradicate, marginalize or even cut any contact with them all together. This is all from the Ethiopian Propaganda Cook Book to undermine the aspirations of the free Somali people. The world must take notice and take into account Ethiopia’s deliberate intervention in the internal affairs of the sovereign nation of Somali.  As I write this article, Ethiopia continues to send troops and death squads to destabilize the Somali republic.

Historically, Somalis are independent people and can’t be subjugated by an Ethiopian led butchers or Taliban style authoritarian for that matter. Somalis have no cultural affiliations with Afghanistan or the South East Asia. They are fiercely independent Nomadic pastoralist with strong tribal affiliation and therefore, The Supreme Council of Islamic Courts could not rule as the Taliban did even if one follows the twisted logic of Ethiopian propaganda machine. Somalia is an open society and no fugitive can hide in their midst.  In fact, many of the Islamic courts leadership are highly educated people who returned from abroad mainly the west such as Canada, United States, Europe, Sweden and in the Middle East to salvage what was left of their land.

Secondly, the current president of the weak transitional government Abdullah Yusuf is not Hamid Karzi of Afghanistan, he was a former warlord and a former defector to Ethiopia while his country was in full scale war with Ethiopia and majority of Somalis suspect his loyalty to Somalia. Mr. Yusuf himself admitted publicly in an interview with the BBC(as if though he is proud of his past) that he had a major role in the collapse of the Somali Nation and the resulting death, destruction and devastation that befell on Somalia due to the lack of functioning government in Somalia. Somalis simply don’t trust his leadership and that of his Prime Minister Mr. Ali Mohamed Gedi; a notorious ineffective Ethiopian handpicked prime minister.

It is a know fact that neither the President nor his Prime minister can question the marching orders from Addis Ababa. If this was the case they would have shown the courage to seek the support of their fellow Somali countrymen and work hard towards peace, unity, nation building and prosperity and in return they would have been recognized as the undisputed heroes the pulled Somalia out of extinction.

In fact one must ask who should be returning the favor’ Gedi and Yusuf or Miles Zenawi? Somalia has done more for the ruling TPLF than Ethiopia ever done for Somalia. In fact, Somalia provided Miles Zenawi a home base to operate from as well as military and material support while he was in exile in Somalia but Ethiopia has never done an iota of positive for Somalia. All Ethiopia has done was and continues to be: arm one warlord against the other to ensure that they continue to fight against one another so that Somalis could forget their Ethiopian occupied territories. Ethiopia’s approach towards Somalia defies logic because a land locked Ethiopia should have been working hard in finding a genuine solution that brings a stable and undivided Somalia so that they could be allowed to use Somalia’s ports. Rather, Ethiopia works hard to divide and cut Somalia into ever smaller pieces. For example Ethiopia actively supports cutting Somali into five more autonomous countries by supporting and creating fiefdoms such as Somaliland, Puntland, Hiranland, Benadirland, and Jubbaland an ever decreasing pie. Ethiopia currently has working ambassadors in some of these fictitious regional names.

It is no secret that the current TFG President Abdullah Yusuf came to power by the funding of the Ethiopian regime and was selected by a bunch of warlords who are mostly out of power. What ever legitimacy he had from the Somali public and international community evaporated when he and his prime minister dismissed offhand and refused to negotiate with the public uprising leadership and allowed the Somalia’s traditional enemy Ethiopia and nemesis to invade. They have not uttered a single word against the invading enemy army. Instead they foolishly denied it, even though the Ethiopian regime admitted their military units invaded Somalia’s sovereign territory. This is an act of treason of highest order. They further isolated their position by welcoming the dreaded and defeated warlords with open arms while rejecting the Khartoum sponsored peace negotiations. All intelligent Somalis with inquiring minds saw them as thugs and warlords that can’t be trusted for single moment. We have been misled to think they were different but rather they were “Ethiopian under cover agents” and realities on the ground unveiled them. Simply put, their actions for the past fifteen years and the Somali public opinion hung them and sealed their faith. They will end up the dark hole of irrelevance and go into oblivion.

Finally, Meles Zenawi is not George W. Bush, he is an unelected corrupted dictator who respects no democracy, international law and boundaries and would do everything in his power to deceive the world and project himself as the American friend while he himself undermines the democratic principles that all free people aspire to achieve. Not too long ago the Ethiopian dictator imprisoned his opposition and slaughtered some of them and would do anything that would enable him to declare marshal law so he can finish them off while he is making incursions into Somalia to divert his atrocities against his country’s opposition leaders. In fact the recent election in Ethiopia his own party did not win a single seat in Addis Ababa the Ethiopian capital.

We as the independent Somali people living in the Diaspora advise the international community specially the United States, Canada, Europe and Middle East to see the situation in Somalia from the perspective of the builders of Somalia, the people who love peace and demonstrated they are for nation building but not from the perspective of those who destroyed our country who killed us, tortured us, raped our women, pillaged our infrastructure, extorted us every intersection, and plundered our future youth. These people squandered every opportunity the international community tried to assist the Somali people and even killed those well-meaning foreign nationals who came to feed the needy and those who came to show the blight of Somali people.

We convey to the Ethiopian prime minister that Somalis have co-existed side by side with the their Ethiopian neighbors for over 5,000 years with peaceful and neighborly relations except when a dictator like him came along once for every several thousand years or hundred years and plunged both nations into perpetual war. If the dictator in Ethiopia is concerned about the blight of the Somali people let him feed the famine stricken indigenous Somalis living in the fifth zone of what is now under his leadership. Do not mislead the world and do not start a war you could not win by any measure. The Supreme Council of Islamic Courts are not a terrorists but are there by the will of the Somali people, we know it, you know it and the world is learning day by day your white lies and smoke you have created. If you choose to continue this aggression let be reminded that Somalis are born fighters and never has Somalia lost a war against Ethiopia. History attests that she always had to be rescued by foreign army intervention.

Regardless of the position taken by Ethiopia towards Somalia, we, the Somali public should offer a helping hand to the freedom fighters of OLF, ONLF. This way Males Zenawi will be busy trying to hold together the more than sixty different nationalities that make up present day Ethiopia. Basically, Mr. Zenawi would have to fix his own backyard before he could contemplate running the affairs of Somalia and/or weakening the nation of Somalia. Ethiopia’s strongman should realize that if it was possible to divide and destroy homogeneous Somalia, then it should take much less effort to create conflict and chaos amongst the different nationalities under his hegemony. Therefore, a final word of advice for the Ethiopian prime minister would be “leave Somalia alone before you are engulfed by an inferno with no exit” strategy.