Hargeisa(Wajaalenews);Top Somaliland Military officers were killed in ‘Qorolugud’. Stop killing more in Gabiley. The shooting is in progress as we are writing this letter.

What has happened in ‘Qorolugud’ and what is happening in Gabiley are serious crisis of national proportion and it should be dealt as such? Crises happen. They happen to organizations, governmental or otherwise. That is said, how we behave in a crisis and how we manage crisis is the deal. There is a right way and a wrong way to address and manage crises. If we don’t behave in a way which addresses the crises in the right way and in timely fashion then we are doomed to escalate the crises in to an undesirable level and that is what Siilanyo Administration did and that is what is happening in Gabiley.

The government shot more civilian people in Gabiley. The people were peacefully demonstrating how the government disregarded the matter and how untimely they handled afterwards!

We believe Somaliland authorities (as usual) both the government and the Military failed to address the death of the chief of staff and the operations officer who were murdered by an ex-militia person from the President’s sub-clan who was recruited in to the national Army (wrongly) by Siilanyo’s administration as news media reported widely. The perpetrator also belongs to the same sub-clan which the powerful Minister of the Presidency belong. Our point is not whether the murderer belongs to one sub-clan or the other or who ever; our point is how the government and the Military behaved and how they managed the crises. How they managed was insufficient and wrong. The killer is not in custody! They shot more people in Gabiley instead! That is the wrong way to handle crises. It is a classical way to escalate crises. Let us take the behavior part

1-The president was supposed to address the nation because what has happened and the sensitivities it carries is not trivial in any measure. A chief of staff and an operations officer was murdered by a guy of the Presidents sub- clan. Instead the President was busy in his family affairs and his aides sent RRU to Gabiley to shoot the people. RRU is a misused force and the people will eventually sue the British who made them for a different purpose

2-The killed Military officers did not belong to the area the incident has happened. They were from Gabiley, a western region. Their bodies were not supposed to be dumped there. Their bodies were supposed to be transported to their families. Their families need to see their loved ones to say goodbye. The government and the Military failed this task. We are saying this because how the solder from the Western Rregions of the Somaliland state feel when he saw what has happened and how his officers were treated even in their death too! Put your self in his shoes.

Conclusion:

a) The government must stop killing and shooting more people in Gabiley

b) The government must bring back the bodies of the Murdered Officers to their families, and to their home town

c) The government must apologize to the nation and to the families of the murdered officers

Crises by nature bring change, some times big changes. They can change the entire course of one’s organization’s future. The President must Change his administration as well as the Military leadership. This will be part of remedying the crises in the Military discipline and the Military cohesion as well and the government itself as a whole.

If nothing of the above happens and if business as usual wins the day then let every body know that the ONLY GLUE that keeps the state together which is the national army will loosen and disintegrate and if God forbid this happens it is the end of it.

Somaliland Watch Group

Ottawa, Canada