Do We Really Know What is Going on in Our Country?

One night in the early nineties, when tribal conflict was at its speak I had a strange dream. A man with a paper in his hand landed at a makeshift airport in the outskirts of Mogadishu. He demanded complete and unconditional handover of the whole of Somalia to him, claiming that he is the rightful owner of this country tattered by tribal wars.

How can this be possible? I asked the man who was dressed so neatly with a black suit and a well matching tie. "Cool down, boy" he said calmly. "Just read this letter" I read the letter twice and looked the man up with shock and dismay.

I thought that I misread some of the words because I was not wearing my eyeglasses. But putting my glasses on to read it again didn't fare any better as nothing has changed in the wording and meaning of the letter. In fact nothing I did miss in the first reading It was all the same. The paper said:

"The bearer of this letter is a share holder of a War Company which has been financing all the wars in the world. Unfortunately the company went into bankruptcy and can no longer run its operations as efficiently as it was contracted. Since we cannot afford to cover the demands of shareholders with the available company finances, we resorted to divide the company assets among them.

"We have legally acquired Somalia in 1978 and have since been giving war projects to its past leaders and the warlords that subsequently emerged as a result of the widespread lawlessness in the country. Therefore you are instructed to transfer ownership of the country and its people to the bearer of this letter" END.

I just thought that this was a nightmare or the work of a devil, which disturbs people in their sleep. But it wasn't. In the morning, shortly after 7:00 -while I was in the middle of my tea - I slipped into my small reading-room, which is not so well stocked but enough to provide me some reading material for study as well as for reference.

While rambling the books and listening to tapes in which some narrations of Somali history was recorded, I came across of a story, which coincided with my dream. In the late 1950's when the Somaliland Independence was drawing closer, a team of young Somali teachers have taken a tour to Somali territory then under the rule of the British Administration. The purpose of their mission was to assess the situation and get themselves prepared for a takeover of their country’s political responsibilities in the event of attainment of independence from the British colonial power.

Much to their surprise they saw Ethiopian soldiers roaming around he locations they had visited. When the team returned to Hargeisa, capital of Somaliland, they contacted the British Governor of the Land and queried what the Ethiopians were doing there. Then the governor, himself not knowing the proper answer, dispatched a telegram to his superiors in the UK and this is what he had received as a reply:

“Now time has come to expose the truth to the Somalis. Tell them that, in an agreement signed between Britain and Ethiopia in 1897, a large tract of Somali territory has been transferred to the Ethiopians”
Until now nobody knows the terms of reference of that agreement