Somaliland:An Open Letter to The US and EU Governments

An Open Letter to The US and EU Governments Concerning The Somaliland Situation

March 12th, 2009

We, the undersigned Somalilanders in the Diaspora, do hereby call for the president of the Republic of Somaliland, Dahir Rayale Kahin, to step down immediately at the end of his one-year extension of term of office by 6^th April 2009 because of his complete and utter failure to run the affairs of the country for which he was elected and his continual zigzagging and endless procrastinations to hold the presidential elections at the scheduled date. In particular we strongly support the growing chorus of the progressive forces in the country and the Diaspora calling for his immediate resignation due to the following treasonable offences, which he committed against the Somaliland state:

• That he has made endless procrastinations and continual zigzagging for the past five and half years and still continues to drag his feet to this date to hold presidential elections at the scheduled time.
• That he has knowingly and wilfully breached what has been agreed upon by the three major Somaliland political parties and the National Electoral Commission (NEC) in order to hold the presidential elections planned for 29 March 2009 by sabotaging the NEC's activities and intentionally creating conditions that gave rise to endless cycles of argument and petty squabbling.
• That he so wantonly and callously disregarded the rule of law and the constitution of the country by deliberately and calculatingly rejecting to honour any legislations/resolutions passed by the parliament that are not serving his selfish political ends.
• That he is constantly and treasonably undermining the democratic institutions of the country in an effort to advance his devious personal agenda. His conspiratorial attempts to unseat the chairman of the House of Elders, Suleiman Mohamoud Aden, and his ongoing campaign to disrupt and replace members of the National Electoral Commission in a bid to thwart the scheduled date for presidential election is a clear testimony to this fact.
• That he has repeatedly and wickedly rejected any attempts to bring agreements signed with foreign countries and business deals or commercial pacts struck with foreign companies before parliament for ratification.
• That he has seriously undermined the values of the people of Somaliland such as, honesty, candour, compassion and generosity in that he and his government indulge in excessive and unlimited corruption to the extent that the civil servants and other government employees have now succumbed to moral decay.
• That he is constantly engaged in either degrading or demolishing the democratic institutions of the country in an apparent attempt to dismantle the country's fledgling democracy and replace it with dictatorial rule.
• That he is operating under the directives of foreign leaders in a diabolical project designed to undermine the independence and sovereignty of Somaliland so as to weaken the country stealthily and eventually return it to the fold of pseudo Greater Somalia.
• That he has now made it the rule rather than the exception to blatantly lie to, humiliate and embarrass the traditional leaders of the country- the highest moral authority of our nation- by walking out of meetings whenever an attempt is made to discuss with him issues of great national importance that are not to his liking or fail to meet his selfish ends.
• That he has sold out our country by granting exclusive monopoly license, without the approval of parliament, to Egyptian fishing companies employing illegal fishing methods that had devastating effects on the coral reef ecosystem; and that he has offered exclusive monopoly license to an Arab millionaire regarding livestock exports while deliberately denying the same rights to the citizens of Somaliland as enshrined in the constitution of the country.
• That he so unabashedly and shamelessly steals from the national coffers by setting his salary at the staggering sum of $450,000 per annum while his people live in the most grinding poverty imaginable on the face of this earth; let alone the other millions of state revenue that is deposited in the Central Bank before the treasury takes account of it and from which he draws as he pleases.
• That he is constantly looking for ways and means to conspire against the democratisation process of Somaliland by involving the country in an endless argument such as questioning the competence of the commissioners of the National Electoral Commission of whom five of its seven members were handpicked by himself and his party; this includes his accusation of the commissioners of embezzlement of public funds when he is the biggest swindler in town by using international NGOs such as Interpeace to advance his devious plan to stop Somaliland's democratisation process in its tracks.
• That he has consistently weaved, without fail, a web of lies for the Somaliland people by setting up, from time to time, fictitious enquiry commissions whenever an incident involving bloodshed or scandal crops up in the country; the result being that none of these commissioners have ever produced a single report or recommendations.
• That he has a made it a routine business to incarcerate politicians and journalists who either disagree with him or disclose his unabashedly shameless thievery without even bringing them before a court of law.
• That he has destroyed the port city of Berbera, which represented a conduit for trade and economic prosperity of Somaliland since time immemorial to the extent that it is now a ghost now.
• That he has intentionally exceeded the original peoples mandate of five year term of office and is now poised to exceed the one-year extension of term of office approved by the upper chamber of the parliament which is due to expire on 6^th April 2009 in an apparent attempt to derail the process of democracy and cling onto power by illegitimate means until such time as he shall see fit to rig the elections.
• That he is now planning, upon the expiry of the term of his office on 6^th April 2009, to take the matter to the Supreme Court in order to exert maximum pressure on the court justices so that they could rule in his favour to continue to stay in power through illegitimate means from 7^th April 2009 to 31^st May 2009 and beyond if possible.
• That he has now brought the country to an explosive point where it is teetering on the brink of civil war.

In the light of these circumstances, we call upon members of the international community especially the EU and the USA to impose visa restrictions and other sanctions against president Dahir Rayale Kahin and his cronies with respect to their travels and to freeze and return all stolen financial assets invested abroad to Somaliland including those deposited in the names of their children or other family members. Further, we call upon the EU member states and the US to send an unambiguous signal to Rayale that it is not business as usual to repeatedly defy the will of the Somaliland people.

Rayale MUST step down at the end of his term on 6^th April 2009.
Jamal Madar

adammadar@yahoo.co.uk

For and on behalf of Somaliland Concerned Citizens Coalition

Cc:

The House of Elders- Somaliland

The House of Deputies- Somaliland

Somaliland Political Parties

All parties Concerned