.....(Hal-ku-dhigyo Dhaxal-gal Noqday) = ..... President, C/raxmaan A. Cali: ''Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland dib ayay ula soo Noqotay Qaran-nimadeedii sidaa awgeed, waa dal xor ah oo gooni u taagan maanta (18/05/1991) laga bilaabo''...>>>>> President, Maxamad I.Cigaal:''Jiritaanka Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland'' Waa mid waafaqsan xeerasha u-degsan Caalamka! Sidaa darteed, waa Qaran xaq u leh in Aduunku aqoonsado''...>>>>> President, Daahir R. Kaahin: ''Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland waa dal diimuqraadi ah oo caalamka ka sugaya Ictiraafkiisa''...>>>>> President, Axmed M. Siilaanyo: ''Jamhuuriyadda Somaliland, Boqol sano haday ku qaadanayso helista Ictiraafkeedu way Sugaysaa! Mar dambena la midoobi mayso Somalia-Italia''.....[***** Ha Jirto J.Somaliland Oo Ha Joogto Waligeed *****].....

Thursday, May 17, 2012

U.S. State Department Official: Somalia Must Find Own Way

Donald Yamamoto Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Donald Yamamoto testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the Obama Administration's decision to send 100 Special Forces soldiers to Africa's Great Lakes Region to advise troops there on the killing or capture of Joseph Kony and other commanders in the Lord's Resistance Army October 25, 2011 in Washington, DC. Formed in Northern Uganda in the late 1980s, the Lord's Resistance Army and its leader Kony, a self-styled mystic and religious prophet, have sown death and destruction and used kidnapped children as soldiers and slaves in Uganda, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.

- A U.S. State Department official told local Somali leaders that it’s up to them and other Somalis, not the U.S. government, to forge a new course for the broken country.

The United States has been trying to stabilize the country through institution-building — health care, schools, training Somali troops — said Donald Yamamoto, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for the Bureau of African Affairs. He spoke to local Somali leaders in Columbus yesterday.

“We can only do so much. It’s their country,” Yamamoto said.

“They have to do the work.”

Abdikarim Omar agreed.

“Somalis have to call the shots,” said Omar, a local Somali leader who was the Somali ambassador to the United States from 1988 to 1991, when the regime of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre collapsed and the country disintegrated into civil war.

Yamamoto was in town as part of a three-city swing that also included Minneapolis and Seattle, home to two other large Somali communities. He talked to not only Somali leaders but also federal, state and law-enforcement members at the Ohio Department of Developmental Disabilities in Franklinton.

The transitional government in Somalia, backed by the United Nations and the U.S., is to cede power to a newly elected government by Aug. 20.

Abukar Sanei, the director and treasurer of the Muslim American Society in Columbus, said the Somali military and police have to be in place before a new government is formed.

Somalia remains a dangerous place. In April, the bombing of a theater in the capital of Mogadishu killed 10, including two top Somali sports officials. The extremist Islamic group al-Shabab claimed responsibility.

Al-Shabab “is still a power to be reckoned with,” Omar said.

Although older Somali leaders are concerned about what happens in their homeland, Yamamoto said he has found that younger members of the community just want jobs, want youth to stay away from gangs, and don’t want to be harassed.

“They want the American dream,” Yamamoto said.

By Mark Ferenchick /Columbus-dispatch
 
Origin;

No comments: