Next on their target is Buuhoodle, the capital of the Cayn region, and the second biggest town in the SSC regions. Rather than go for a costly frontal attack, their chosen option is a stealthy creeping encroachment on the town; occupying new areas and moving forward as new opportunities arise. This was partly the tactic they used to capture Lascanod. What is new this time, however, is the use of their clan to play their part in the struggle while at the same time dispossessing the SSC people of their land to the extent possible. Taking advantage of the inevitable clashes between the SSC defenders and the clans from the other side, Somaliland militia, masquerading as peacekeepers, would then move to the area and stay put. This is what is now happening at Kalshaale. Next time, the same scenario will be repeated at other areas closer and closer to Buuhoodle.
Taking their signal from their militia at Kalshaale, a motley of Somaliland peacemakers, consisting of traditional elders and officials from the different organs of its administration, are now on their way from Hargeisa heading to the new "front" pretending to be peace makers. As much as the SSC people are peace-loving people, they can not be fooled by the motives of a high powered "emissary" from the secessionist administration whose presence in the area is not so much to make peace but to portray themselves as the legitimate government of the area and its people. This is unacceptable to the SSC people. They can not sit down with secessionists whose mission is not only to dismember Somalia but also to subjugate the SSC regions and its people.
The SSC people, however, would welcome peaceful dialogue with their traditional counterparts but any agreement reached must be based on mutual respect for each other's territorial patrimony. While neighboring clans can share grazing and water as they have done in the past to the benefit of all, the SSC people would not accept any encroachment on their land through "settlements", "baraako" and other facts on the ground, meant as a front to the eventual claim of the area. This is how Qorulugud has passed to the wrong hands in the first place.
A number of factors are encouraging Somaliland to embark on its misguided adventure in the SSC regions. For one thing, it fears no military intervention from a Somali government itself struggling for its survival. Secondly, Somaliland correctly sees the Puntland regional administration, of which the SSC regions are co-founders, as a toothless bull-dog having no stomach to defend or liberate the SSC regions. Indeed, many SSC people accuse it, rightly or wrongly, of not only failing to defend the area against Somaliland's incursion but to have connived in this act and continues to do so.
But if Puntland's administration has betrayed the SSC regions, that does not go for its kindred clans. What the SSC people are facing is basically an aggressive clan masquerading as a State, albeit a rebel secessionist enclave. In the absence of intervention from a Somali government or Puntland administration, it behoves other kindred Puntland clans to come to their brethren's rescue. Puntland was created as a collective defense of its constituent members against outside threats. What is happening now to the SSC regions could happen tomorrow to others in Puntland.
No matter how long and painful it might it entail, the SSC people, true to their history, will never succumb to the secessionist aggression but will resist it and ultimately defeat it. The rest of Somalia needs no reminding that this aggression is not only against the unionist SSC people alone. It is against Somalia and its unity. It therefore behoves the Somali government and all Somali unionists to speak up against this heinous crime against the unionist SSC people. The international community for its part, and above all the AU, the Secretary General of the UN as well as to his Special Representative for Somalia, and all who have stakes in peace in Somalia and overall stability in the Horn of Africa, would need to be more than passive spectators in this dangerous situation in SSC regions.
NSUM ,
Executive Committee.
Be aware fellow Dhullos
