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An Open Letter to The US and EU Governments Concerning The
Somaliland Situation
We, the undersigned Somalilanders in the Diaspora, do hereby call
for the president of the Republic of Somaliland, Dahir Rayale Kahin,
to step down immediately at the end of his one-year extension of
term of office by 6th April 2009 because of his complete and utter
failure to run the affairs of the country for which he was elected
and his continual zigzagging and endless procrastinations to hold
the presidential elections at the scheduled date. In particular we
strongly support the growing chorus of the progressive forces in the
country and the Diaspora calling for his immediate resignation due
to the following treasonable offences, which he committed against
the Somaliland state
.That
he has made endless procrastinations and continual zigzagging for
the past five and half years and still continues to drag his feet to
this date to hold presidential elections at the scheduled time.
.That
he has knowingly and wilfully breached what has been agreed upon by
the three major Somaliland political parties and the National
Electoral Commission (NEC) in order to hold the presidential
elections planned for 29 March 2009 by sabotaging the NEC’s
activities and intentionally creating conditions that gave rise to
endless cycles of argument and petty squabbling.
.
That he so wantonly and callously disregarded the rule of law and
the constitution of the country by deliberately and calculatingly
rejecting to honour any legislations/resolutions passed by the
parliament that are not serving his selfish political ends.
.That
he is constantly and treasonably undermining the democratic
institutions of the country in an effort to advance his devious
personal agenda. His conspiratorial attempts to unseat the chairman
of the House of Elders, Suleiman Mohamoud Aden, and his ongoing
campaign to disrupt and replace members of the National Electoral
Commission in a bid to thwart the scheduled date for presidential
election is a clear testimony to this fact.
.That
he has repeatedly and wickedly rejected any attempts to bring
agreements signed with foreign countries and business deals or
commercial pacts struck with foreign companies before parliament for
ratification.
.That
he has seriously undermined the values of the people of Somaliland
such as, honesty, candour, compassion and generosity in that he and
his government indulge in excessive and unlimited corruption to the
extent that the civil servants and other government employees have
now succumbed to moral decay.
.That
he is constantly engaged in either degrading or demolishing the
democratic institutions of the country in an apparent attempt to
dismantle the country’s fledgling democracy and replace it with
dictatorial rule.
.That
he is operating under the directives of foreign leaders in a
diabolical project designed to undermine the independence and
sovereignty of Somaliland so as to weaken the country stealthily and
eventually return it to the fold of pseudo Greater Somalia.
.
That he has now made it the rule rather than the exception to
blatantly lie to, humiliate and embarrass the traditional leaders of
the country- the highest moral authority of our nation- by walking
out of meetings whenever an attempt is made to discuss with him
issues of great national importance that are not to his liking or
fail to meet his selfish ends.
.That
he has sold out our country by granting exclusive monopoly license,
without the approval of parliament, to Egyptian fishing companies
employing illegal fishing methods that had devastating effects on
the coral reef ecosystem; and that he has offered exclusive monopoly
license to an Arab millionaire regarding livestock exports while
deliberately denying the same rights to the citizens of Somaliland
as enshrined in the constitution of the country.
.That
he so unabashedly and shamelessly steals from the national coffers
by setting his salary at the staggering sum of $450,000 per annum
while his people live in the most grinding poverty imaginable on the
face of this earth; let alone the other millions of state revenue
that is deposited in the Central Bank before the treasury takes
account of it and from which he draws as he pleases.
.That
he is constantly looking for ways and means to conspire against the
democratisation process of Somaliland by involving the country in an
endless argument such as questioning the competence of the
commissioners of the National Electoral Commission of whom five of
its seven members were handpicked by himself and his party; this
includes his accusation of the commissioners of embezzlement of
public funds when he is the biggest swindler in town by using
international NGOs such as Interpeace to advance his devious plan to
stop Somaliland’s democratisation process in its tracks.
.That
he has consistently weaved, without fail, a web of lies for the
Somaliland people by setting up, from time to time, fictitious
enquiry commissions whenever an incident involving bloodshed or
scandal crops up in the country; the result being that none of these
commissioners have ever produced a single report or recommendations.
.That
he has a made it a routine business to incarcerate politicians and
journalists who either disagree with him or disclose his unabashedly
shameless thievery without even bringing them before a court of law.
.That
he has destroyed the port city of Berbera, which represented a
conduit for trade and economic prosperity of Somaliland since time
immemorial to the extent that it is now a ghost now.
.That
he has intentionally exceeded the original peoples mandate of five
year term of office and is now poised to exceed the one-year
extension of term of office approved by the upper chamber of the
parliament which is due to expire on 6th April 2009 in an apparent
attempt to derail the process of democracy and cling onto power by
illegitimate means until such time as he shall see fit to rig the
elections.
.That
he is now planning, upon the expiry of the term of his office on 6th
April 2009, to take the matter to the Supreme Court in order to
exert maximum pressure on the court justices so that they could rule
in his favour to continue to stay in power through illegitimate
means from 7th April 2009 to 31st May 2009 and beyond if possible.
That he has now brought the country to an explosive point where it
is teetering on the brink of civil war.
In the light of these circumstances, we call upon members of the
international community especially the EU and the USA to impose visa
restrictions and other sanctions against president Dahir Rayale
Kahin and his cronies with respect to their travels and to freeze
and return all stolen financial assets invested abroad to Somaliland
including those deposited in the names of their children or other
family members. Further, we call upon the EU member states and the
US to send an unambiguous signal to Rayale that it is not business
as usual to repeatedly defy the will of the Somaliland people.
Rayale MUST step
down at the end of his term on 6th
April 2009.
Jamal Madar
For and on behalf of
Somaliland Concerned Citizens Coalition
Cc:
The House of Elders- Somaliland
The House of Deputies- Somaliland
Somaliland Political Parties
All parties Concerned
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