The Somaliland people are experiencing serious challenges including poverty, 95% unemployment, illiteracy, high birth rate, and young democracy that provide the right to express themselves and demonstrate when necessary. Unfortunately, the people have no experience in how to demonstrate peacefully and usually their demonstrations include unacceptable level of disorderly and property damage, and the police force have not been trained in how to control peaceful demonstration nor have been provided the necessary equipment to control peaceful demonstrators. The results have been excessive force by the policy using live bullets to control the crowd, which leads to the death of innocent civilians in the hands of the policy whenever there are demonstrations anywhere in Somaliland . These unnecessary deaths have been taking place too many times in the last few years and many people have died by the hands of the police force that were supposed to protect them.

You'll think President Rayale's administration who have experienced these difficult situations more than dozen times in the last few years would be seriously looking into finding a way to solve this problem and eliminate the death of civilians by the hands of the police. You would be wrong. No one has made any attempt to solve this problem beyond blood-money payments and the killing of innocent civilians by the police continues – the latest one happened few days ago in Hargeysa. The latest incident was prompted by a disagreement between the Water Authorities in Hargeysa and the Southern district communities in Hargeysa over a promises to dig 6 water wells that were made to them, and the decision by the Water Authorities to stop work and remove equipment after one well has successfully been completed. Because there are not enough resources to meet the social needs of the people in Somaliland these types of disagreements about sharing resources will continue to bring strong disagreements between authorities and people in Somaliland. Quick research in Somaliland revealed to me that the Somaliland Police force (anywhere in Somaliland) have never received training on how to control demonstrations nor have they been provided any equipment that will help them to do the job of controlling unruly crowd.

It is reasonable to ask the question, how do other democratic societies deal with this problem? The answer is very simple; the police receive basic training on crowd control and receive equipment that will help them to do the job. There are various types of equipment available to help police including tear gas, pepper spray, plastic bullets, and electric Tasers. In some cases, riot squads may also use water cannons, armored vehicles, police dogs or mounted police on horses. Officers performing riot control typically wear protective equipment including: riot helmets, body armor, gas masks and riot shields. I'm aware that the budget of Somaliland Police authorities may not afford the resources to be fully equipped with all the tools that are available, but it is inexcusable that they do not have any equipment or training at all to mitigate the situation – none. In such circumstance the police are faced with very bad options; violent crowd and demonstrators that are determined to hurt them and lack of proper equipment that will help them control the situation, which means the only tool available to them is deadly weapons (live bullets) – which they have consistently used and hence caused the death of dozens of civilian demonstrators in most major cities in Somaliland over the last few years.

This is simply happening because of lack of leadership and the fact that President Rayale does not consider this an important issue that needs to be a priority for his government. The recent press release of Mr. Ahmed Mohamed Sillanyo, chairman of Kulmiye, where he expressed sympathy for the families of those who lost their lives and asked the authorities to bring those (police officers) who committed these crimes to justice gave me hope, and it seems to me that there is a chance that this problem might be solved. Chairman Ahmed expressed the need and promised to (if given the chance) to provide training to the Somaliland Police force in the methods of controlling peaceful crowds and at the same time providing them the necessary equipment to do the job, which he promised will save the lives of many citizens. Until then, the Somaliland Police force is between rock and hard place – their only choice is to get hurt and allow property damage by demonstrators or kill your own people. It is obvious which option they have taken.

Rashid Nur

Somaliland American Council

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