Majeerteenya Proves That Crime Pays

EDITORIAL

It has become customary for the leaders of Majeerteenya (Puntland), whenever it suits their purposes, to say to the people further south, why don’t you establish peace and stability like us. Not only are such statements usually said in bad faith, but they are also designed to camouflage some ugly facts that are increasingly becoming hard to ignore. Most important among these facts is that, stripped to its essence, Majeerteenya is a massive criminal enterprise. Some would object that crime and criminal activity exist everywhere, so why pick on Majerteenya. The answer to this question is that yes criminals and criminality exist everywhere in the world, not just in Majeertenya, but what is unique about Majeerteenya is that its system basically relies on criminal activities to keep it going. To list a few of the illegal activities that are taken for granted in Majeerteenya, there is human trafficking which resulted in several hundreds of deaths at sea so far this year, illegal fishing, piracy, arms smuggling in violation of the UN ban on arms importing into Somalia, and charcoal exporting.

The question that naturally arises is why Majeerteenya’s extensive criminal activities have not gotten the sustained attention of the international community? And this is where Majeerteenya’s equally massive campaign of lies and deception comes in. An important part of this campaign is to divert attention from these criminal activities or give them a benign face. Just to give one example, the hundreds of Somalis who regularly perish at sea after being smuggled from Majeerteenya’s ports are portrayed as people who took their chances against the wishes of the authorities in Majeerteenya, when smuggling people, arms, and whatever, is, in fact, a well-regulated industry and one of the primary sources of income for Majeerteenya. The leaders of Majeerteenya are not even beyond exploiting the human tragedies that result from smuggling operations that originate from their ports. Thus when they are asked to do something about human trafficking that originate from their ports, they would say, we can’t do it because we don’t have the naval boats to control our coast, so if you want us to do it, give us boats and equipment.

Majeerteenya’s success in diverting attention and camouflaging the criminal nature of its set-up, has encouraged it to expand the sphere of its criminal activities. Warlord Abdillahi Yusuf’s assumption of the title of the “president” of Somalia is the boldest step in the direction of this expansion. All of this has not gone unnoticed by other Somalis, especially further south, and some of them are saying if Majeerteenya and Abdillahi Yusuf were rewarded for their criminality and lies, why not follow their model?

If the international community is serious about putting an end to crime and lawlessness in Somalia , it should demonstrate to Somalis that crime does not pay, and it can do so by ceasing its destructive habit of rewarding some of the main sources of that lawlessness, namely, warlord Abdillahi Yusuf and Majeerteenya.

Source: Somaliland Times

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