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THIS
IS ENOUGH!
Dear Mr.
Secretary-General,
It is
often said human rights and justice is the right of every
human being on earth. In practice human rights advocates must
be independent of power politics. It is intended to help secure
impartiality; their interpretation must be made in the light
of assumption and aspirations of the society in which they
live in or pay visit and accurately report all human rights
abuses committed by a bunch of dirty-minded vultures around
the Third World.
A visitor
from another Galaxy will clearly and quickly expose that these
dirty-minded vultures had no qualm about massacring thousands
of innocent civilians and in the process destroyed a country
once known as " The Pearl of the Indian Ocean."
In Imbagathi,
the warlords strongly believe that if they stay put and keep
their noses into the grindstone, they could be at the top
of the heap when the mess they created is over. Whoever said
there is honour among thieves knew what he was talking about.
For one thing the warlords have only one thing in common,
to cling to power at all costs.
Mr. Annan,
let me make clear the charges against the warlords. When the
military dictator was toppled in 1991 by ragtag militia gunmen,
the peoples' hopes for peace, democracy, respect for human
rights and a better future have been dashed and the country
went belly up, because the warlords, most of them former army
generals and colonels who left their ranks, uniform and pride
behind, enlisted their respective clans to turn their guns
on each other for the control of the capital, while others
were slogan-hurling Revolutionary Party bigwigs. The result
was wholesale massacre, doom and destruction unprecedented
in the history of Somalia.
The UN
Security Council have taken lightly the severity of the Somali
holocaust for a very long time and you only sent Dr. Ghanim
Najjar, a UN-appointed independent expert on human rights
on 11-day visit as recently as two weeks ago to monitor the
human rights abuses in Somalia, a country the UN had abandoned
in 1994. It is too little and too late, Mr. Annan.
I am still
curious why Mr. Najjar abstained from contacting Somali human
rights groups, such as Dr.Ismail Jumaale and Elman human rights
organizations in Mogadishu? These organizations have meticulously
kept impeccable human rights records as well as the names
of the people who committed them during the last 12 years.
Mr. Annan,
this is not an anger or rage, it is something beyond that,
an impassionate and deeply felt desire to see that justice
is done in a country where laughing or even smile are commodities
in short supply. Only daily mourning, screaming, weeping and
heartbreak are common occurrences, the sound of the apocalypse!
If an
individual, who is suffering from continuing abuse, mentally
and physically, finds that the international organs of law
and order fail to act in his defense, what is he supposed
to do? Even more, if some of the organs, which meant to protect
him, appear to be helping the criminal instead, what must
his reaction be? He will say, and he will be entitled to say:
"This is enough. I will have nothing more to do with
you unless and until you demonstrate that you propose doing
something effective against those who continue to wrong me."
Meaning no more empty words and "encouraging" reports
that will eventually end up on UN shelves in New York, gathering
dusty.
"Everyone
is entitled to a social and international order in which the
rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully
realized."
Article 28
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As you
are fully aware the world maintains that Somalia is a failed
state at present, as there's no central government worth mentioning
here, and ultimate responsibility for events that reside there,
in consequence, lies with the world body. If the Security
Council of the United Nations disagrees with what is being
done, or is not being done by those to whom it entrusted the
responsibility, then it must replace those people. If some
power hungry, gun-slinging war criminals try to derail peace
talks, as they did on a number of occasions in the past, including
the present parley in Mbagathi, the world body must reassert
its mandate and get rid of those individuals.
Needless
to say, Mr. Annan, the world body is the right place to go
to for redress. It is obvious for every right thinking person
that the warlords/faction leaders have not shown serious determination
to settle their long simmering disputes over power sharing
and it is only appropriate to replace them with a civil society
and traditional leaders, with the assistance of the world
community in the form of a UN Trusteeship Council until Somalia
could stand its own feet again.
There
is no need for me to dwell on the failure of UNOSOM II in
Somalia in 1993/94. It is sufficient to remember that the
chain of command between the United Nations officials and
the American military brass in Mogadishu had eroded beyond
remedy, which complicated the original aim of feeding the
hungry and restore peace. Even more tormenting for the law
abiding ordinary Somali was that the humanitarian mission
was turned into the hunt for one man in the smoking ruins
of the capital Hundreds had died just to try to bring in one
man, ignoring the bombed-out capital, the deplorable living
conditions of the population, the madness of the militia gunmen
and the degradation of the people.
It is
amazing how the people survived as long as they did in those
mind-numbing conditions. But now they are at the end of their
tether.
With new
approach and determination, and with Chapter Seven of the
United Nations Rules of Engagement in place, I am sure UNOSOM
III will be success this time. After all Somalia's independence
was chiefly through the UN Trusteeship Council in the 1950s.
Even the colour of the national flag was borrowed from the
UN flag.
Over to
you, Mr. Annan.
By M. M. Afrah©2003,
Email: afrah95@hotmail.com
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