Separatist Somaliland Escalates War on Somali Unification Movement

Pavan Kulkarni April 10, 2023 Pavan Kulkarni Admin, Africa, Archives
Evidence of shelling of SSC / credit: Peoples Dispatch
Evidence of shelling of SSC / credit: Peoples Dispatch

Editor’s Note: The following article, as well as the editorial note above it, was originally published by People’s Dispatch.

Somaliland is a self-proclaimed republic, with no international recognition, formed in 1991 as a separatist state, breaking away from Somalia’s northwestern region after the civil war. It spans over a strip of land of almost 137,600 square kilometers along the south of the Gulf of Aden – a crucial shipping route, including for petroleum, connecting the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea. It is now facing what many observers regard as an existential threat as the unionist movement for reunification with Somalia spreads across Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC), which is over a third of what Somaliland regards as its territory.

The protests calling for reunification began in December 2022 in the city of Las Anod, where a declaration was passed in February, proclaiming SSC as a part of Somalia and deeming the presence of Somaliland administration illegal. Somaliland has since been shelling the city. To understand the extent of the damage to the city and its administration under war, Peoples Dispatch spoke to Dr. Jaama Mohamed Mursal from the Las Anod General Hospital, Garad Mukhtar, one of the 14 clan elders of SSC region, and Elham Garad, a Somali unionist activist who arrived in the city to volunteer earlier this week.

Casualties mounted in Las Anod as the troops of Somaliland – a separatist breakaway from Somalia with no international recognition of its claim to sovereignty – continued attempts to reoccupy the city at the heart of the unionist movement to reunite the region with Somalia.

On Saturday, March 18, attacks by the Somaliland army left over 280 people injured and 47 dead, Jaama Mohamed Mursal, a medical doctor at the Las Anod General Hospital told Peoples Dispatch. The hospital has been severely damaged in the bombardment ongoing since early February.

On Sunday, when street-fighting between the Somaliland army and the local troops defending the city continued at a lower intensity, at least 12 more were injured, and two were killed. Somaliland’s troops have since withdrawn to its Goojacade base, about two kilometers on Las Anod’s outskirts, from where they shelled the city for two more days, killing one more on Monday, and three on Tuesday, according to the data compiled from the city’s five hospitals.

While there are no reports of shelling on the city itself since Tuesday, Jaama said that artillery fire could be heard in the Las Anod as the fighting continues on the frontline on its outskirts, as on the evening of Thursday, March 23.

Las Anod, which was captured by Somaliland’s troops in 2007 from Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland, has become the epicenter of the unionist movement for the reunification of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) with Somalia.

‘We Are Not Part of the Somaliland and Have Never Participated in the Secession Program’

Mass protests against the Somaliland administration erupted in Las Anod at the end of December 2022, calling for reunification with Somalia. These mobilizations were met with a violent crackdown by Somaliland’s security forces that killed at least 20 civilians before retreating to Goojacade.

The blue flag of Somalia was subsequently raised in several cities of the region, as the protests spread across SSC, which spans over a third of the self-declared republic, the majority of whose population has historically opposed secession from Somalia.

In this context, traditional elders of all the major clans in the SSC region – historically marginalized in Somaliland’s politics dominated by the Isak clan – held a nine-day long ‘self-determination conference’ in Las Anod.

At its conclusion on February 5, the conference declared “that we are not part of the Somaliland Administration and that we have never agreed to or participated in the secession program, although the Somaliland administration is trying to force it upon us…”

Declaring the SSC region as a part of Somalia and deeming the presence of “secessionist… Somaliland administration” in SSC as “illegal”, it elected a 33-member committee to govern the region independent of Somaliland until formal integration with the Federal Republic of Somalia.

It is this committee that has been running the local administration of the city since. The Mayor and local city officials, previously under Somaliland administration, are a part of this committee “because they were elected by the locals,” Garad Mukhtar, one of the 14 clan elders of the SSC region, told Peoples Dispatch. “They have continued work as before”, running the garbage collection, police stations, and other local administrative tasks.

The venue of the conference which elected this committee was shelled on its last day, disrupting the scheduled reading out of this ‘Las Anod Declaration’. “The attack on the city by Somaliland has never really stopped since,” he added.

“Almost every day, they have been attacking the city. The only difference has been in the intensity of these attacks. On some days, they only fire artillery from their base and other positions they have taken around the city. On other days, like the past weekend, we saw a full invasion and face-to-face fighting.”

‘Las Anod General Hospital Has Been Regularly Targeted by Artillery’

Between February 6 and March 20, at least 1,520 casualties, including 226 deaths, have been documented from Las Anod General Hospital and four other community hospitals, according to Dr. Jaama. In addition, there have been other deaths not documented in this data because it has not been possible to recover the bodies still lying between the two fighting sides, he said, adding that the actual number of deaths could be anywhere between 250 and 300.

Health workers have also been victims. Dr. Jaama reported that many have sustained injuries while rescuing and carrying the wounded to hospitals. Five medics have died. Abdisalan Said Musa, a worker with the Somali Red Crescent Society (SRCS), succumbed to his wounds on February 11. Mohammed Hassan, a nurse who was paralyzed after suffering a spinal injury in the shelling of the general hospital on February 7, died later that month while receiving treatment in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu.

Many health workers, he said, have left the hospital because work there has become too dangerous. The remaining medics are “trying to save whom they can,” but remain severely overburdened by the staff shortage. Due to the targeting of the hospital, many patients have been avoiding it altogether, fearing the possibility of getting further injured there.

“Las Anod General Hospital has been regularly targeted by artillery. This forced us to relocate the emergency ward to another safer location because the hospital’s roof is not concrete. The hospital’s oxygen plant, solar panel and a portion of the laboratory is damaged. The maternity department, pediatric department, the outpatient department – none of it is functional. Only the operation theater and (the partially damaged) laboratory are functioning here,” he added.

“When I came into the city, I thought I was in a ghost town. Schools, mosques, houses were all damaged,” Elham Garad, a UK-based Somali activist, told Peoples Dispatch. Elham arrived in Las Anod after the fighting on Sunday to volunteer. She added, “The general hospital has been absolutely mortared by Somaliland. Most of it is destroyed by shelling.”

Attacks Amid Mediation Attempts by Ethiopia

“We have taken a lot of damage,” Garad, the SSC clan leader, said. “Especially on Saturday, the damage was severe because we were not prepared for this attack. It was least expected. We were under the hope that the Ethiopian mediation was going to bear some fruits.”

Early this month, the Ethiopian mediators met representatives of the Somaliland administration in its capital Hargeisa and the leaders of the SSC in Puntland’s city of Garowe in an attempt to bring about a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

“We welcomed the mediators when they asked us to enter into a peaceful negotiation. But we explained that for peaceful negotiations to take place, there needs to be a ceasefire, which can only happen if Somaliland’s troops withdraw from our territory to their nearest city of Oog,” about 90 kilometers from Las Anod, Garad said.

Somaliland’s representatives, he alleged, lied to mediators, claiming that they had already withdrawn 30 kilometers from the city and were willing to negotiate peacefully, while in fact, they were gathering more troops and weapons in their base, only two kilometers from Las Anod.

‘POWs Allegedly Killed by Somaliland’

On Saturday, March 18, the artillery bombardment of the city, which started at around 5 am, was followed by an invasion of the army with vehicles. “Our forces met them and defended the city. We seized many of their army vehicles and also took prisoners,” he recounted.

“We are treating them with humanity. But we have learned that our troops taken by Somaliland as POWs [Prisoners of War] were first denied medical aid, and then their [military] court issued an order to kill them,” Garad claimed. The troops fighting on the side of the SSC, he explained, are former soldiers of the Somaliland army recruited from the region.

“They were on Somaliland’s payroll. When Somaliland started shelling civilians in Las Anod, they broke away from the army and joined our struggle. So they are the ones who are leading this fight. They have created their own command center and appointed their own general who has the final command. He reports on their actions and progress to us,” he said, referring to the 14 clan elders of SSC, including himself.

A delegation of clan elders, including Garad, along with members of the 33-member committee administering the city, met a UN Panel of Experts on March 13 in Garowe and submitted a report detailing the atrocities committed by the Somaliland administration.

“The report also explained the underlying issue here, which is the rejection of Somaliland’s separatism by the people of SSC,” Garad said. “The common-sense question we raised was this: Somaliland claims that Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) has been its part since its formation in 1991. If that is true, why did its troops capture Las Anod (capital of Sool) in 2007 if Sool was already a part of Somaliland since 1991? Did they capture their own city?” he asked.

“The constitution of Somaliland was voted for in its regions when it was formed in 1991. But people in the SSC region had never voted for this constitution. So this basic document giving their laws and the authority to its government was never ratified here. SSC region only had an agreement to establish peaceful relations with Somaliland, but it had never acceded to Somaliland” he said.

The region, he said, had remained independent after the civil war brought about the fall of united Somalia in 1991 until it joined Somalia’s Puntland autonomous region when it was formed in 1998.

“In 2007, when Somaliland’s forces invaded to capture Las Anod, Puntland withdrew to minimize destruction from the shelling. Somaliland has been occupying the region ever since.”

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A protest in Taleex, Somalia, on January 15 / credit: Khaatumo Media Office
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Protests in Breakaway Somaliland Call for Reunification with Somalia

Pavan Kulkarni January 18, 2023 Pavan Kulkarni Admin, Africa, Archives
A protest in Taleex, Somalia, on January 15 / credit: Khaatumo Media Office
A protest in Taleex, Somalia, on January 15 / credit: Khaatumo Media Office

Editor’s Note: Light editing helped conform this article that originally appeared in Peoples Dispatch to TF’s style.

Protests against secessionist rule are spreading across the Sool region of Somaliland, the breakaway region of northern Somalia. Unionist protesters are calling for reunification with Somalia and Somali activists and observers opine that the protests might soon spread across Somaliland, questioning the legitimacy of its unrecognized claim to sovereignty, which the United States and the United Kingdom have been seeking to strengthen with recent overtures.

On Sunday, January 15, protests were reported from the Taleex city, where Somaliland’s tricolor flags were removed and replaced with the blue flags of Somalia. Taleex is about 160 kilometers northeast of the epicenter of the protests, Las Anod, Sool region’s capital city. Las Anod was captured by Somaliland from Somalia’s autonomous region of Puntland in 2007.

The protests began in the city on December 28. In an attempt to put them down, security forces killed at least 20 civilians over the following five days, before reportedly retreating to the city’s outskirts on January 5.

Somaliland’s commander of Armed Forces, Brigadier General Mahad Ambashe, has, however, indicated his intention to take back the city, saying that his troops “shall continue staying in Las Anod and Sool region to ensure law and order has been followed by residents.”

Defiant, the clan leaders of the region held a meeting in Las Anod on January 12, calling on Somaliland’s forces to withdraw from Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (SSC), where a majority of the people have been historically opposed to secession from Somalia.

Pro-unionist troops under the command of the head of the Dhulbanate clan have taken over the city and sworn to defend it from Somaliland. “Everybody is waiting for the tribesmen in Las Anod to fully announce a war against Somaliland. And you will hear this very soon as they have formed a committee of 33 heads to come up with a roadmap to remove Somaliland from SSC,” Elham Garaad, a UK-based Somali activist whose unionist parents migrated out of Somaliland, told Peoples Dispatch.

The protests had spread to the city of Kalabaydh, 70 kilometers (43 miles) to the southwest of Las Anod, by January 12. Two days later, unionist demonstrations broke out in Xudun, 100 kilometers (62 miles) to the north of Las Anod, and in Boocame, 80 kilometers (49 miles) to its east. Protesters also took to the streets of Boocame’s neighboring Tukarak on January 15, and blocked a minister from visiting the city.

Badhaan, a city in Sanaag region, and Buuhoodle city in Cayn region, have also witnessed protests. The three regions together had formed the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (SSC) state of Somalia, before being forced into Somaliland by the secessionist Somali National Movement (SNM).

Waving the blue flag of Somalia, the protesters have been demanding the “right to self-determination” on the question of reuniting with Somalia, which was fractured after the civil war that ended with the collapse of its federal government in 1991.

‘Most Regions in Somaliland Oppose Secession’

“Until 1991, there was no such thing as Somaliland, except when the area was a British Protectorate,” Mohamed Olad, a Somali activist studying law in the United States, told Peoples Dispatch. “The idea of forming a country on the basis of this border of the British protectorate,” separating itself from the part of Somalia under Italian occupation, was opposed by two of the three original states of Somalia that came to be part of the self-declared Republic of Somaliland after 1991, he said.

Support for secession was largely limited to the North West state, a stronghold of the SNM, which fought in the war against Somalia’s federal government led by Mohamed Siad Barre. SSC and Awdal “have historically opposed” the notion of Somaliland, Olad explained, adding that Awdal was captured by the SNM with the help of Ethiopia during the civil war.

The SSC leaders, on the other hand, were tricked into signing an agreement on the guarantee that Somaliland would form itself into a single state within Somalia. “That agreement never included secession,” he said, adding that discontent against Somaliland’s rule has since been intensifying, and protests might also soon spread to Awdal.

Three of the four major clans—namely the Dhulbahante, Warsangeli and Gadabursi—along with the smaller Issa clan, had opposed the secession from Somalia, added Elham Garaad. Only the Isak clan, which dominated the SNM and had a strong presence in the North West state, supported the secession and formation of Somaliland. Other clans have since felt marginalized by the Isak, which wields disproportionate power in the government of Somaliland.

But currently, the “Isak themselves are divided,” Garaad said. “Gaarhajis, one of the largest tribes (under the Isak clan), has been vocal about the atrocities in the SSC region.” Defending the right of the people in SSC to be unionist, they have called on the Somaliland government to stop the killings. Garaad maintains that the current spate of protests may soon reach even Somaliland’s capital city Hargeisa, which has been a historic stronghold of the SNM’s secessionist politics, dominated by the Isak.

“SNM was led by the elite and petty bourgeoisie of the Isak clan. They have neither dealt with the class contradictions within the clan, nor succeeded in integrating other clans into the secessionist movement,” historian Mohamed Hassan told Peoples Dispatch. “While the Isak is supposed to be the ruling clan, in effect, what you have in Somaliland is a one-man rule by former army Colonel Musa Bihi Abdi, whose term had already expired in October 2022. [An] increasing number of people within the Isak clan are also supporting unionist politics.”

Somalia is among the most homogeneous countries in Africa, in terms of language and religion, explained Hassan, who is also an advisor to the head of Ethiopia’s Somali state. The clan system from feudal times, preserved under colonial administration as an essential tool for divide-and-rule, remains the key fissure exploited by imperialism to ensure Somalia remains a fractured nation, he argued.

Rising Tide of Somali Nationalism

“But hundreds of thousands from Somaliland are working and staying in Somalia,” he added. Youngsters from Somaliland make up a significant portion of Somalia’s national army. The large Somali diaspora is getting increasingly politicized and organized by international exposure. All this has contributed to a surge in Somali nationalism, he said, adding that even businessmen in Somaliland, who want a larger and integrated market, seek a unified Somalia.

The tensions between clans—whose leaders choose the MPs in most of Somalia, including in Somaliland—is only a surface manifestation of the tide of Somali nationalism churning from underneath, Hassan argued. In the face of this nationalist sentiment, Somaliland’s existence as an independent entity is facing a “crisis of legitimacy” internally, he maintains.

This crisis is accentuated by the fact that Musa Bihi Abdi’s presidential term expired last October, despite which he has continued to rule without having conducted elections yet. In September, the Somaliland Electoral Commission announced that elections cannot be held for at least nine more months due to financial and technical problems.

Opposition parties, which have 52 of the 82 seats in Somaliland’s parliament, had led protests in August demanding timely elections. At least seven people were killed and several more wounded in the crackdown on these protests. It was the assassination of a popular opposition politician, in the backdrop of a spate of killings of prominent people in the SSC region over the last decade, that triggered the protests on December 28 in Las Anod, which have snowballed into a unionist movement.

While Somaliland is thus unraveling, with internal rifts between ruling and opposition parties, mounting tensions between the clans, and sa urging unionist sentiment contesting its legitimacy, the United States and the United Kingdom have been increasingly legitimizing the secessionist state.

U.S. Military Base in Somaliland? 

The then-commander of United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) General Stephen Townsend met with President Abdi in Somaliland in May, becoming the highest ranking official to visit the breakaway state, whose claims to sovereignty have no international recognition.

While not recognizing Somaliland as a sovereign state, and officially adhering to ‘One Somalia policy,’ the United States has lately made several gestures seen as a dilution of this policy. Prior to Townsend’s visit, in March 2022, the Somaliland Partnership Act was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Republicans Jim Risch and Mike Rounds, and Democrat Chris Van Hollen.

The “Biden Administration has limited itself to the confines of a ‘single Somalia’ policy at the detriment of other democratic actors in the country. In this complex time in global affairs and for the Horn of Africa, the United States should explore all possible mutually-beneficial relationships with stable and democratic partners, like Somaliland, and not limit ourselves with outdated policy approaches and diplomatic frameworks that don’t meet today’s challenges,” Jim Risch had said.

The act was signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden on December 23, under the Fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, which was the first time a separate reference to Somaliland was made in U.S. law.

The Act commissions a feasibility study by the “Secretary of State, in consultation with the Secretary of Defense,” to determine “whether opportunities exist for greater collaboration in the pursuit of United States national security interests… with… Somaliland.”

It further seeks to identify “the practicability and advisability of improving the professionalization and capacity of security sector actors within the Federal Member States (FMS) and Somaliland.” While adding that “Nothing in this Act… may be construed to convey United States recognition of Somalia’s FMS or Somaliland as an independent entity,” it stops just short of doing that.

Somaliland’s port city of Berbera will also be one of the sites for the U.S.-led multinational 10-day military exercise scheduled to take place in February. On January 13, personnel from AFRICOM’s Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa [CJTF-HOA] visited Somaliland and surveyed the Berbera port.

“Berbera is now an American military base without settling the secession issue,” former Somali Special Envoy to the United States, Abukar Arman, wrote in the Eurasia review. “Stakes have never been higher for all actors. Against that backdrop, President Muse Bihi was given the nod and wink to march on ahead to secure total control over his claimed territory by any means necessary. He was also granted the reassurance that neither the central government of Somalia nor Puntland will interfere militarily or otherwise.”

‘Oil Companies Want a Weak and Divided Somalia’

In the meantime, Genel Energy, listed in London Stock Exchange, claimed the right to explore and exploit the oil fields in Somaliland last month. The oil ministry of the federal government of Somalia has said it “categorically rejects Genel Energy plc’s claim to own petroleum rights in Somalia’s northern regions and calls upon Genel Energy plc to cease its illegal claim to own petroleum rights.”

Insisting that it is the only body authorized to grant such rights, it warned: “Any authorization granted in violation of Somalia’s laws and regulations is unlawful and would be considered null and void.”

Refuting Somalia’s Federal government, Somaliland’s secessionist government has claimed “the authority to engage foreign investors in order to explore and exploit the Republic of Somaliland’s potential hydrocarbons and mineral resources. No one other than the Somaliland government has the authority to claim or award an exploration license within Somaliland,” a statement issued on December 29 said, amid the crackdown on the protests in Las Anod.

Las Anod is also claimed by Somaliland’s neighboring Puntland, which has been an autonomous region within Somalia in dispute with Somaliland over the SSC region. On January 9, Puntland declared that it will be independent of Somalia until the Federal Constitution is finalized.

Disputes over the rights to enter into partnerships with foreign companies over oil and other natural resources are reported to be among the key reasons behind tensions between the Federal government of Somalia and Puntland.

“Oil and gas has been found across Somalia, including in Somaliland and Puntland. British capital is heavily invested. These oil companies want a weak and divided Somalia, because a strong and united country will be more difficult to exploit,” Hassan said.

Puntland’s state government maintains that the provisional federal constitution and the constitution of Puntland state allows it to act as an independent entity until the federal constitution is finalized, and all the states’ constitutions are harmonized with it.

Pointing out that Puntland has a constitutional right to be independent until the finalization of the federal constitution, Olad said it is Somaliland that has been blocking the finalization of the constitution. The federal government of Somalia, he said, should ensure that Somaliland will no longer hold the process of finalizing the constitution hostage.

However, a lack of confidence in the federal government led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who is seen as inept and pliable by western powers, is perceptible, despite the surging unionist politics and nationalist sentiment.

The federal government can truly reflect the widespread sentiment of Somali nationalism only when it is elected on the basis of one-person-one-vote, argues Olad. Former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, aka Farmajo, who had become a popular representative of Somali nationalism, had promised to break the stranglehold of the clans by implementing universal adult suffrage, but failed to do so. He lost the clan-controlled election last year, and the current government of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has failed to materialize the aspirations of Somali nationalism.

Mohamed Hassan sums the situation up by citing [Italian communist] Antonio Gramsci: “The old is dying and the new is struggling to be born,” he says, adding that “the winds of change are most definitely blowing over all of Somalia.”

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Ilhan Omar’s Meddling in Horn of Africa Earns Boos at Somali Concert

Ann Garrison July 15, 2022 Ann Garrison Admin, Africa, Archives
credit: The Grayzone
credit: The Grayzone

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by The Grayzone.

Ilhan Omar was greeted with vigorous booing during a July 2 Minneapolis concert featuring Somali singer Suldaan Seeraar in Minneapolis. The booing was so profound and so sustained that it was impossible to mistake it for cheering, or all the thumbs down for thumbs up. It reportedly went on for ten minutes or more, punctuated with, “Get out!” and “Get the f*ck out of here!”

Ilhan smiled, gesturing at the crowd to tamp it down, as though the adulation was just too much. Her husband, Tim Mynett, stood at her side looking awkward and confused, then someone who seemed to be a concert manager gestured at the crowd more emphatically to tamp it down. Some say the booing went on even longer while Ilhan went through the process of presenting Suldaan Seeraar with some sort of award.

The singer shifted uneasily from one leg to another, seeming startled and unsure what to do, then reached out to gesture at the crowd, also asking them to tone down their gestures of disapproval. This seemed to be more than he had bargained for when he agreed to share the stage with the congresswoman.

Seeraar is extremely popular in the Somali community and was playing to a packed house; he’s unaccustomed to boos. This was his first concert in North America and he’s likely unfamiliar with Ilhan’s record in the House and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights, where she serves as vice chair. (Karen Bass currently chairs the subcommittee, and vice chairs the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime change wing of the U.S. government, and is all but certain to become the next mayor of Los Angeles come November.)

Ilhan, an African immigrant and the only Black person on the subcommittee besides Bass, is a shoe-in to become chair if Democrats hold onto the house, unlikely as that may seem.

Many Africans shudder at the thought, however –– not only in Somalia, her country of origin, and the rest of the Horn of Africa, but also in the African Great Lakes Region and in diasporas from both regions.

When I organized a Twitter space discussion with Somali American activists on Ilhan’s record, I heard an outpouring of anger not only over her perceived neglect of her district, where violent crime is surging, but also over her role in the removal of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and her support for a candidate affiliated with her personal clan. This was but one of examples of the congresswoman’s role in advancing U.S. meddling in the Horn of Africa.

Ilhan Omar Meets with Kagame and Tedros As They Plot Against Ethiopia

In October 2021, Ilhan traveled to Rwanda as a guest of its authoritarian president and war criminal Paul Kagame, a darling of global elites. She then proceeded to vote against a House resolution to call on Kagame to free political prisoner Paul Rusesabagina.

David Himbara, a former economic advisor to Kagame, and Tom Zoellner, author of Rusesabagina’s biography, slammed Ilhan in a Minnesota Post op-ed, writing that her relationship with Kagame threatened “to throw her entire stance on the U.S. criminal justice system into a light of hypocrisy.”

With regard to the Ethiopian civil conflict, Ilhan has directed her criticism squarely at the government, even as it defends Ethiopia from attack by the U.S.-backed Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled the country brutally for 27 years, from 1991 to 2018, and waged war against Eritrea.

On April 7 of this year, the congresswoman met with former TPLF Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to “discuss global health security challenges, including the status of the global COVID response, the global hunger crisis, and ways to improve digital technology to broaden healthcare access.”

Tedros has relentlessly abused his global platform as Director of the World Health Organization, in violation of UN rules about political neutrality, to advocate for Tigray — home of the TPLF — as though it were the only Ethiopian region suffering the consequences of the war. He never mentions the immeasurable suffering caused by TPLF invasions of Amhara and Afar Regions, both of which I traveled through in April and May.

After Ilhan’s meeting with Dr. Tedros, members of the Ethiopian community unsuccessfully demanded that they release the minutes of the meeting.

On several occasions, Ilhan has asked the State Department for “legal determinations” as to whether the Ethiopian government is guilty of atrocities. Meaning, in fact, illegal determinations, because the assumption she has advanced is that the U.S. has the right to rule that international crimes — most of all genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity — have been committed and action must be taken, as in Libya and Syria. According to international law codified in the UN Charter, only the UN Security Council can do that.

On December 21, 2021, while questioning Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, Ilhan requested an illegal “legal determination” regarding Ethiopian atrocities, called for an arms embargo on Ethiopia, which would make it unable to defend itself, and proposed a “carrot and stick approach” to bringing Somalia to heel.

Ilhan Omar Backs Cold War-Style Measure to Bully African Nations Into Submission

On April 27, Ilhan voted to pass H.R. 7311 – Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act, along with all the rest of the House Democrats and all but nine Republicans. H.R. 7311 directs the executive branch to bully African nations with sanctions and withdrawal of foreign aid if they get too close to Russia, and to “invest in, engage, or otherwise control strategic sectors in Africa, such as mining and other forms of natural resource exploitation.”

The House passed H.R. 7311 roughly two months after 17 African countries either voted to abstain or did not vote on a UN resolution condemning Russia for invading Ukraine, and Eritrea dared to vote no. The African states voting no comprised just over half of the 35 UN member nations that opposed the measure.

House Resolution 6600, a harshly punitive bill that would sanction Ethiopia and Eritrea, is now pending in the House Foreign Relations Committee. According to Ilhan’s constituents, she has not spoken out against it, although she did make a splash by voting against the embargo on Russian oil.

Why Was Ilhan Omar Booed at Suldaan Seeraar’s Minneapolis Concert?

This writer joined a July 6 Twitter space opened by Somali American community organizer Abdirahman Warsame; 294 Somali Americans and a few Somalis — despite the distant time zone — joined the space. Many of the Somali Americans participating were from Ilhan’s Minneapolis district, and some of the younger ones had attended the concert.

Abdirahman told me that activists with the #NoMore Global Movement for Solidarity in the Horn of Africa had planned to get a few front row seats at the Suldaan Seeraar concert to boo Ilhan and that once they started, it was like a match in a haystack.

Everyone in the Twitter space was furious because Ilhan did her best to help the U.S. displace President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, aka Farmaajo, whom they described as a decent, responsible, corruption-fighting anti-imperialist.

Farmaajo had joined Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki in signing the Joint Declaration on Comprehensive Cooperation Between Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, which ended the long-running war between Ethiopia and Eritrea, and promised a new day of regional cooperation between the three largest nations in the Horn of Africa. It said:

“Considering that the peoples of Ethiopia, Somalia and Eritrea share close ties of geography, history, culture and religion as well as common interests, the three countries shall build close political, economic, social, cultural and security ties. The three governments hereby establish a Joint High-Level Committee to coordinate their efforts in the framework of this Joint Declaration.”

That, however, was more peace and independence than the U.S. government could tolerate, as many on the Twitter space angrily confirmed. Now, with Farmaajo out of office, the alliance is considerably weakened. The peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea still stands, although the U.S.-backed TPLF keeps skirmishing with its troops on their common border, and Eritrea is helping Ethiopia in its civil war with the TPLF in Welkait.

Ilhan put an enormous effort into getting rid of Farmaajo in a parliamentary election, which many in this Twitter space said was actually clan-based and manipulated by bribery.

Last year, on December, she quote-tweeted a State Department threat to take action if Somalia did not hold elections immediately, stating: “Farmaajo is a year past his mandate. It’s time for him to step aside, and for long overdue elections to proceed as soon as possible.” Her comment was widely republished to make the case against Farmaajo in the U.S. press.

Both the president and the parliament were at that time in office past their constitutional terms. That made Farmaajo interim president, but the states of Puntland and Jubaland refused to recognize his authority. Elections had been repeatedly planned but postponed due to disagreements between parties and lack of election infrastructure. In addition, the Islamist Al-Shabaab was continuing to oppose the existence of a secular Somali state, and the U.S. was still bombing on occasion.

According to those in the Twitter space, Farmaajo had been fighting to establish a direct, one-person-one-vote electoral process to replace the corrupt system of parliamentary election. They said he would have won in a landslide had he succeeded.

As soon as Farmaajo was defeated on May 15 — even before the formal transfer of power — Biden announced a plan to reintroduce troops to Somalia. The New York Times reported the news without raising an eyebrow, but the fury expressed in the 194 reader comments was palpable.

Most commenters were Americans outraged that the U.S. would be introducing more troops anywhere after the Afghanistan debacle, but they also included this response by a Somali American (edited very slightly for punctuation and grammar):

Shakur Abdull

Columbus, OH May 17

Somalia’s federal government just re-elected former president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud less than 48 hrs ago.

The former president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, who was previously a U.S. citizen and resident of Buffalo, NY, has lost the election due to parliamentary bribery, corruption, and foreign nations’ interfering, spending millions of dollars to overthrow Farmaajo. Those nations included Kenya, U.A.E., & others.

It’s not surprising news to witness the Biden administration seeking to have U.S. military presence in Somalia, since Hassan Sheikh’s election because President Farmaajo would’ve opposed it. Furthermore, this move will only increase security risks and destabilize the Horn of Africa. Sending U.S. military troops now to Somalia is unnecessary, and those troops will be viewed as enemies to the nation and its serenity.

The Somalia army has been fighting Al-Shabaab and all terrorist activities within the region. The army are well trained by the U.S., Turkey, Eritrea, and so on, but the Somalia government is faced with an arms embargo which limits its abilities and its operations. If President Biden wanted to offer solutions or a hand, then the approach would’ve been totally different than resending American troops back into a hostile situation. Former U.S. President Trump’s hands-off position in foreign affairs was exceptionally appreciated.

Also as soon as Farmaajo was gone, and even before the formal transition of power, an oil and gas extraction contract with a U.S. corporation that Farmaajo had blocked was back in play.

The July 6 Twitter space on the booing of Ilhan Omar contained similarly angry commentary by Somali Americans about her imperialist foreign policy positions. After the discussion, several participants sent over the following pointed statements:

Deeqa, @Deeqa_lulu

I am a Somali woman and I think I would have obtained my rights and my future would have been better in Somalia if I had the opportunity to vote for President Farmaajo, but we didn’t have the one-person-one-vote system that he was trying to put in place. Ilhan Omar is originally from Somalia and she has a daughter my age who can vote for her own president in America. She says she believes in democratic principles and she’s a member of the Democratic Party, but she didn’t support a very important right for me, the right to vote in a one-person-one-vote election.

Is this about the Democratic Party or about U.S. foreign policy toward Somalia? Either way, I feel bad and frustrated that she hasn’t changed that. Why would I expect Joe Biden to understand my problem if Ilhan Omar doesn’t? I contacted my family in America and told them not to give their votes to the Democratic Party or to Ilhan. Our 2022 election here in Somalia was eye opener for us about the Democratic Party policy toward Somalia.

We want to vote here in Somalia. That’s one of my biggest dreams now. –Deeqa

Mohammed Caanogeel, @MCaanogeel1

Ilhan Omar is being used by the Democratic Party, whose foreign policy has been aggressive and counterproductive towards Somalia.

She got booed at the concert for two reasons:

Domestically, she promised the East African community help with gun violence and drugs in our community and she hasn’t helped us with that at all.

Internationally, she undermined our sitting Somali president, President Farmaajo, by tweeting and making speeches that he was no longer the president of Somalia even though the constitution of Somalia gave him legitimacy to continue until another president took over. She was helping the U.S. government undermine this president who had captured the hearts and minds of all Somali people.

Farmaajo enjoyed 90% popularity for good governance. This president introduced reforms into the economy to win debt relief from the IMF and World Bank, but Ilhan voted against debt relief here in the United States.

Farmaajo asked the U.S. to lift the arms embargo so that our army could fight the Al-Shabaab fundamentalists, but Ilhan refused to vote for that.

President Farmaajo was loved for his stability, transparency, and fairness. He made us proud by building the military and making our intelligence one of the top 10 in Africa. He built institutions back after 30 years of war, invited foreign embassies into Somalia, and established embassies abroad.

He became such a role model president that the Somali people bought him a home, library, and offices for future campaigns. Even poor people loved Farmaajo so much that they gave to this fund drive for him.

Ilhan joined U.S. policymakers in rejecting all his good deeds, rejecting what the Somali people wanted, rejecting one-man-one-vote, and instead threatened to cut off aid. She and the rest of the U.S. government seek only the worst for Somalia. As we write to each other, the U.S. military has overtaken Berbera Airport and brought a warship to Berbera shores. -Mohammed Caanogeel

Ilhan Ignores the Boos in a Safe Blue District

After the booing episode, Fox gleefully hosted Ilhan Omar’s Republican challenger Cecily Davis to mouth meaningless platitudes about how her opponent is “out of touch with her constituents,” claiming “they are ready for change and are seeking someone who represents their conservative values.”

Davis appeared to be completely ignorant about why an audience of Somali Americans might boo their Somali American representative. The same was true of other right-wing outlets who framed the booing as confirmation that Ilhan’s woke identity offends her own community and that their candidate was therefore a serious contender.

Shukri Abdirahman, a conservative Republican who previously ran to unseat Ilhan, also highlighted the congresswoman’s “woke” positions on social issues as a source of local resentment, but also made sure to point to Ilhan “becoming an election-meddling dictator in the foreign affairs of Somalia – a sovereign nation.”

Abdirahman Warsame (no relation to Shukri) told me that some culturally conservative Somalis had told him they were uncomfortable with Ilhan’s defense of abortion and LGBT rights, but no one expressed that discomfort in the Twitter space.

Minnesota’s 5th District is the bluest in the state, so the incumbent merely has to win the August primary to win the election, and she is expected to, though perhaps not by the margin she’d like. However, the House is all but certainly turning red, so the next chair and vice chair of the House Foreign Relations Subcommittee will in all likelihood be someone other than Ilhan Omar.

Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for promoting peace through her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes Region. She can be reached on Twitter @AnnGarrison and at ann(at)anngarrison(dot)com.