By Daily Jubba Editor
More than 61 years after Somalia’s Independence partly from the chief international colonizer Britain and well into the Lord’s year of 2021, it seems like the United Kingdom still thinks Somalia is one of its prized possessions that it can also gift away to anyone if it so desires.
The United Kingdom signed a Defense Cooperation Agreement to tackle what they call “shared threats” across East Africa. I and as I am sure many Somalis believe that one of the shared threats is the reemergence and their subsequent displeasure of Somalia reinforcing its sovereignty again after a few rough years.
The United Kingdom just committed to a 5 year Defense Cooperation Agreement with a defense budget of more than 1 Billion Dollars, which after getting ratified by both Kenyan & UK parliaments will come into effect. The lofty plan is an outlandish one aimed to train Land, Air & Sea forces of Kenya to be taken into to a Somalia that has increasingly taken care of her security sector and one that stands for its sovereignty by saying NO to a perpetual limbo imposed on it.
Kenyan Cabinet Secretary for Defence, Dr Monica Juma, and UK counterpart, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace, signed the new DCA on 27th July at the UK’s Ministry of Defence offices in London.
Kenyan Defense Forces unilaterally went into Somalia in October 2011 under the guise of guarding the porous border from infiltration by Al-Shabab, which was taking a toll on the Kenyan interests and disrupting their tourism sector. A full decade later Al-Shabab controls considerably swaths of land across the Jubba regions and occasionally strike into and also move at will in North Eastern province Kenya while they simultaneously many Kenyan born terrorists with the Al-Hijra wing inside wreaking havoc in Somalia.
One of the concrete undeniable threats is the presence of the Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group Al-Shabab, whose violence kills more Somalis than any other known cause of death in Somalia. The United Kingdom sees no problem in arming part of the African Union forces in Somalia particularly Kenya’s Sector 2 division in Jubaland but not the actual Somali National Army, heck they even consistently vote against the lifting of the Arms Embargo imposed on Somalia from 1992 at the United Nation’s Security Council. If the UK really wants Al-Shabab defeated surely why would it take the constant recurrent task of ensuring the Somali National Army is ill equipped with the same light weapons the terrorists possess. To show you how unfair that is to Somalia; there is no UN arms embargo on Afghanistan but there is an arms embargo on the Taliban- a clear distinction on who the international bodies want to win!
The United Kingdom has a training base in Southwest State of Somalia where they purport to train a section of the Somali National Army with I kid you not, wooden gun models! That is how the UK is committed to the rebuilding of the Somali National Army. In contrast other international partners like Turkey and United States train highly effective units of the youthful Somali National Army who have proven capable and able to dislodge Al-Shabab from any place they decide to; this is no more clearer in practice than the current offensive against Al-Shabab in Southern Mudug and the Shabelles with no single help from the 22,000 so called peace keeping AMISOM troops who have no stomach to defend what is not theirs but somehow have it in their “assessment reports” the urge of feeling the need to stay on until 2026, Somalia should say NO to this cash cow project!
Somalia legally standing for her sovereignty just like the United Kingdom does against voices of secession in her island should never be a thing to shy away from because for so long the United Kingdom has been an obstacle to it, I say that because Somalia much like the UK as with many countries on this earth battles with fringe separatist elements within her borders. The nudge nudge wink wink of the UK is clear as day with their British Office in Hargeisa, calling northern Somalia a country-Somaliland and overtly meeting with Kenyan and international bodies on her behalf as though it is an infant that needs the supervision and the tender care of a “benevolent” island that is thousands of miles away.
Here is a few instances that Somalis were stunned by the United Kingdom’s officials in Somalia:
Almost every Somali knows the role of Britain in separating brethren across the globe and in particular the Somali nation in the horn of Africa and that is painful enough a memory. To encroach on our sovereignty will be affront to the nation home to descendants of the honourable Sayyid Mohamed Abdulle Hassan, whose legacy forever lives on in our hearts.
