Trivializing the Burco conference

Trivializing the Burco conference



First I would like to thank brother Abdullah for his spirited, humorous and civilized rebuttal. In the face of the never ending name calling and cheap shot scoring abundantly found in Somali websites, Abdullah take on the issue ought to be commended in this regard.

I concur with Abdullah when he says that he would prefer the debate on secession to remain at a more national level; however I chose to run the risk of being redundant to the reader and revisit the issue because the twisted account of the events that have taken place in Burco remain surprisingly the core arguments of all Siadists. To this day, they examine at will this conference, constantly rehearsing great fallacies despite their contentions being time and again roundly refuted. For example, in order to dispel the legitimacy of Somaliland independance, as recently as last month, Professor Abdi Samatar was referring to his research purportedly showing indeed that people were threatened INSIDE the conference by armed SNM members. In this regard, from the highly insightful account of Abdullah, it appears that the Siadist theory of people held at gunpoint by SNM members is sustained neither by media reports nor by participant testimonies.

However there is another reason why it is of prime importance to correctly represent both the process that led up to this conference and its fallout; Burco conference remain the only successful peace gathering in Somalia and the catalyst of Somaliland’s subsequent nation building and democratization in the very region of the biggest genocide in Somalia. However even after witnessing dozens of Somali reconciliation meeting failures, Siadists chose to set themselves against the legitimacy of Burco conference with questionable assertions instead of learning from this process. Haunted by the very evil they want to dismantle, Siadists, continue to claim that the conference saw one clan overtook the others while all reports on the ground hailed the discussion as consensual. And in this regard, Abdullah’s misleading rebuttal does not hold up to analysis and is totally unworthy of the historical importance of the Burco conference.

First, Abdullah’s reading of the conference is somewhat marred by his political stance against secession when he implies that Garaad Abdi Qani was afraid to oppose Somaliland’s independence declaration against the backdrop of the threat of a well-armed militia. During the conference, people have come on both side of the issue and second guessing and questioning the motives of each participant can only enable endless speculations. Abdullah’s highly speculative contention, variation of the nonsense Siadist gunpoint theory, trades on the assumption of a vengeful and all powerful SNM militia, hell bent on separating the country and ready to kill anybody opposing it. However, history teaches otherwise since Sool and Eastern Sanaag were already reaping the benefit of the peace deal signed between Mujahid Kahin and Garaad Abdi Qani. SNM clearly had the might to commit atrocities but fortunately it made clear that no Somalilander would be harmed regardless of the past allegiance, and in this regard, the smooth transfer of the besieged former governmental forces from Borama and Berbera to the South helped soothe jittery population. Unlike Mogadishu and Mudug, it is only fair to admit that no massive retaliation or tribal warfare ever happened in Somaliland after the collapse of Siad Barre dictatorship. And needless to say, no military reprisal was committed when parcel sof SSC began to look toward Mogadishu.

Secondly, Abdullah is right to advocate the right for Sool and Sanaag to renege on any agreements some of their leaders might have entered into with the SNM in the Burao conference regardless of whether those leaders did that under duress or not. Sure Garaad Abdi Qani has every right to turn to Mogadishu, after all Somaliland’s first president ended up serving Aideed junior. But the great fallacy conveyed by Siadists is that SSC was a hotbed of principled Somali unionism, and therefore opposed unanimously and from the beginning Somaliland separation. Nothing could be further from the truth and for example, Garaad Abdi Qani only began to voice his opposition to Somaliland when he entered in a power struggle with the late Egal; the Garaad never accepted that his protégé, Xaabsade, was sacked and replaced without him being in the know. As for Professor Galaydh, he shifted allegiance years later after trying to be elected president at the meeting that ultimately crowned Egal.

In conclusion, SSC is a region where divided loyalty, changing allegiance and political opportunism are the political norm. When president Rayaale was ambushed in Lascanood in 2002, then Somaliland commander in chief for Sool is today in the Puntland camp. And the mastermind of the attack against Rayaale has since settled in Hargeisa. Siadists should not therefore put too much weight on individual political stances in this region and focus on other ways to convince Somalilanders to come back to the fold.

Haboon Ali
haboon_ali@hotmail.com


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© 2007 Awdalnews Network
Views expressed in the opinion articles are solely those of the authors
and do not necessarily represent those of the editorial.