Mogadishu - The Condemned City

Abdullahi O. Ahmed (Keydmedia) - Mogadishu is not anymore the city of white walled and rolling sand-dunes by the roadsides where time and tide had changed hands since the early years of eighteenth century. Physically, the city grew more than 50 times during the past 21 years of the military regime that took over the country in 1969.
Editorial Keydmedia Online
Mogadishu - The Condemned City

Although most of the private buildings were invested on embezzled money from the coffers of the national treasury by the government officials, the City teetered more with privately owned villas and modern high raise buildings on the same footing with other capitals in East Africa.

The former beautiful maid looks more scarred day after day than any other city on the planet earth, and the AMISOM artillery barrages are echoing in the residential quarters. Ironically, the death and the destruction of Mogadishu are ongoing and UN pays the bills for the warring parties.

Again and again, the volleys of rocket impacts kill more people and destroy more properties year in year out while the investors of the war change only the hats and agenda as please them. At the down of the next day, the more antagonist parties are created and paid by the same actors.

Every event is dictated by the designers of the Somali conflict and the outcome is predicted before results are out, and as much of hat suits the policy-makers of the Somali tragedy.

At that point, the Somali people had lost even the right to fight for their own wars and settle on with their own terms, which is one thing that the Somalis are good at it. The Somalis know how to fight, sometimes caused by the least unpredictable triggers, and followed by brokering peace and settlement on their accord.

Since the fall of the military regime in 1991, Mogadishu is turned into the epicenter of a long living foxhole of protracted urban warring zone, and culprits are national and international opposing forces.

Ever since the Sulux-Manifesto short-lived administration has planted the seeds of the Somali Discord in 1991, we are still harvesting bitter crops that have no ending. The country suffers luck of justice, good governance and wide-spread corruption. Everything is feasible on corrupted equation.

The litigating forces had one objective in mind- never compromise and never give up the rule of the country. The pivotal point was when Sulux and Manifesto group failed to compromise with the militia forces that liberated the country from a 21 old military regime. The political disagreement ushered a new round of urban warfare which was followed the fall of the military regime.

Although Italian and Egyptian governments were the front runners of Somalian political disagreement still a local tragedy could have been prevented, but we lacked a willing, honest political broker at the time.

The warring sides fought with small caliber firearms and 95% of the buildings were habitable until USISOM came into the clan based fray and destroyed many building thought to be Aideed hideouts. In comparison, the Ethiopian and USA backed TFG govt made the heaviest destruction of lives and properties, yet no one had ever questioned the legitimacy of killing thousands of civilians and demolishing their properties.

Unlike many African leaders who massacred their peoples and destroyed their properties and ultimately brought to the court of justice, Somali criminals and their counterparts were never brought to the court of the justice. The human rights group echoed a feeble cry but made no skin-deep follow up to address the tragedy.

At the end of the Ethiopian retreat in 2009 almost 59% of Mogadishu City has been demolished beyond repair by Ethiopian rockets and artilleries. Again no one had ever raised his/her voice to compensate the internally displaced persons (IDP) whose properties were rendered inhabitable, and Mogadishu death toll never tallied and addressed. Forget about the pain and agony of civilians subjected to series of warring conflicts for the past 3 decades.

The Major contention bone of USA, EGAD and UN is the fragmentation of Somalia into satellite regional states for the convenience of regional stability and everything else revolves a pre-set pattern in which the expected outcome is already on the table. Now, everything is turned into a political expedience guided by economic drive and corrupted business.

To keep the flames of the discord torch shining, local genuine government official is sold out and replaced with a forthcoming character that pleases his protégées. A TFG President is shown the door and replaced with a ductile character in his place.

In this scenario, there should be antagonistic stakeholders guided by the directives of the USA state department and the UN and are delegated to EGAD countries, which carry the sludge hammer and miss always to hit the right head of the nail.

To borrow an apt metaphor, EGAD is like uncertified midwife that aborts the healthy delivery of a cesarean baby, where the UN is the dismissive medical doctor that prescribes the wrong medicines for the maternal recovery. And the theater is staged by remote control hotels in New York, Addis Ababa, Nairobi and Kampala.

The UN is an institution that safeguards the basic human rights. The residents of Mogadishu are denied such simple basic human rights. What the people want and what the designers of the Somali conflict want is always conflicting:

The following scenario explains the different points of view of the stakeholders between: (A) = the people. (B)=The UN. (C)= EGAD. & (D) = the State Department.

Here is the dialogue:

A: We want peace.
B: Not at this time of the year.
A: We want stability.
C: We will stabilize you on our own terms.
A: We want to settle down our problems by ourselves
D: Your problems are regional and International, now. We set the score for you.
A: We need an honest government
B: A transitional govt is not expected to be an honest government. Officials need to take bulging cash dollar bags before they leave office.
A: We need social and economic development.
B: We pay your bills. Just follow our guidelines.
A: Respect our human rights.
C: We will take care of that on our own terms.
A: We need reparations for the dead
D: That is written off as unfortunate, cross-fire accidents. Such reparation is not yet in the record books of UN.
A: We want reparation of destroyed properties
D: Urban warfare has no reparation code established yet
A: We need health care for the children affected by UNISOM & AMISOM wars in the past 2 decades
B: In war zone, no one gets health care benefits. Nothing of that sort is enshrined in our record books
A: We need assistance on the ground before drought tragedy takes its toll.
B: We have to be served before drought victims are served.
A: We want to be free of foreign interference.
D: In the lack of local doctor, we will provide you a doctor without borders of our choice
A: We want education and health care for our children.
B. Wait, don’t hurry. Political settlement comes before social services.
A: We want to elect our national leaders, our legislative body and our executive branch.
B. Don’t worry about accountability and transparency for now. We select the right people for the right positions at the right time.
A: We need good governance.
B: That will come after the end of the transition period.
A: We want to be a sovereign nation.
D: Don’t worry about sovereignty now. You are homebound and you have no recourse yet.
A: We want our natural resources spared for the future generations
B. Don’t worry; a gallon of gas in the market is better off a gallon embedded in the ground

Abdullahi O. Ahmed – Keydmedia.net Editor - London
Abdullahi.ahmed@keydmedia.net




Editorial 29 April 2022 13:51

Somalia is on the move. It is pushing for foreign investment, and large infrastructure projects are changing the face of its scarred capital city, Mogadishu. These developments could promise better fortunes for Somalis as the country emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic