By Adam Muse Jibril

HARGEISA, Somaliland, May 25, 2007 – The Somaliland’s House of Elders, the Guurti, the highest legislative authority in the country in their session on Wednesday, have issued an official decree forbidding Somalilanders from participating in any conference in Somalia, in the name of reconciliation or otherwise saying that attendance.

“Anyone who attends in any of such conferences will be seen as a renegade and traitor and will be condemned for his betrayal of his country as high Treason” stated the decree saying that participation entails not recognizing the Independence and Sovereignty of the Republic of Somaliland

Somaliland’s Minster of Information Mr. Ahmed Haji Dahir, the Chairman of Welfare and Justice Party (UCID) Mr. Faysal Ali Warabe, the Representatives of Somaliland traditional leaders among them the influential Sultan of the East of Somaliland Boqor Buur-madow, have all collectively rejected the invitation extended by Mr. Ali Mahdi Mohamed, the chairman of the Reconciliation committee of Somalia, which was widely publicized by the BBC Somali section, asking them to participate in the upcoming reconciliation conference planned to take place in Mogadishu in some time next June.

All of these personalities have recalled the fact that Somaliland is not part of Somalia but another independent country and Ali Mahdi and his company should have known that Somaliland had celebrated its sixteenth anniversary of its rebirth of 18th May1991, when Somaliland people unanimously declared their withdrawal from the inauspicious union which Somaliland entered with Somalia in 1960. And they have brought to mind the nature, the aims and objectives of the idea of Greater ‘ Somalia nationalism, an ultra outlook based on narrow ethno-religious and clannish ideology’ better known as Somali Irredentism. Which fascism oriented elite denied Somaliland people’s rights at the expense of their ambitious projects under the totalitarian state of Siyad Barre.

“Put your house in order first …You must face the realities as they are on the ground, put greater Somalia notion aside and conduct genuine South-South political and grass-root reconciliation conference unlike all 14 previous conferences.. Do not ask money from outside, get it through the commitment and sacrifices of your people, then others will come to assist you. This is the universal law and logic of any genuine national reconciliation process”, said their collective message to Mahdi.

“Any attempt at reviving Greater Somalia ambitions in the name of peace and reconciliation should be encountered with principled and resolute rejection by our people, Africa and the international community at large”, they concluded.

Source: The Sub-Saharan Informer

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