As one prescient writer recently envisioned in his article :”the comeback of the SSC” (Mahado Sheikh Dahir, Wardheerenws), the SSCconferenceat Taleex has finally unanimously proclaimed on Thursday 12 January the establishment of the Darwiiland State of Somalia for their SSC regions (Sool, Sanaag and Cayn) that would come directly under the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia(TFG).

This was an unprecedented proclamation, representing the first time in the political history of the SSC people when all the delegates, chiefs and traditional leaders, as representatives of the SSC people, have signed up to a declaration without asingledissent. As the voice of the SSC, it could not have a higher legitimacy within Somalia and the international community.

This was the SSC’s finest hour. Apart from the birth of a united independentSomalia in June/July 1960, no other event has engendered so much joyous celebrations among the SSCpeopleat home and abroad as the proclamation of the Darwish State of Somalia at Taleex. Now that the SSC voice has been heard loud and clear, that puts to rest any bogus claim by any other administration that they speak for the SSC let alone claim to “own” them.

No more place for malicious references to the SSCas “disputed” regions-contrived shenanigans meant to give implicit support to

Somaliland’s preposterous claim that these areas were bequeathed to them by the former British colonial power. No more red-herrings that the SSC people are divided between neighbouring Puntland and Somaliland. No more need for any self-respecting SSC personality, Xabsaade, Abdisamadet al, to continue giving allegiance to any other State in Somalia other than to Somalia first, and secondly to their own Darwish State.

The comeback of a free SSC people means much more than the exercise of their inalienable right to rid themselves ofSomaliland’s occupation and have their own Regional State. More importantly, it also means the revival of Somalia’s unity and a wake-up call to other regions in Somalia that they stand to gain strength, nationhood, and progress through unity, but would otherwise remain through division weak and easy prey for all ill-intentioned predators. Happily, Somali nationalism is still alive judging by the support and good wishes the Taleex conference and its proclamation are receiving from Somalis from all corners of the world.

Sadly, the only discordant voice is coming from the one-clan secessionist enclave calling itselfSomaliland. Still blindly beholden to their ingrained delusion that all the northern regions of Somalia (former British Somaliland) are their God-given patrimony, they see their claim to the SSC as incontestable, something everybody else in the international community sees as bogus. Clearly, the Taleex proclamation has come a bombshell to them. As former foreign minister of Somalia, Ismail Mohamoud Hurreh alias Bubaa (who hails from the area), counselled them the other day, this is the time for cool heads to prevail, the moment to come to terms with the realities and the inevitable demise of Somaliland, and a propitious occasion to rejoin their fellow Somalis in Somalia. But reason and cool heads are in short supply in the enclave. A war on SSC people to bring them to their heels is now the clarion call in the enclave.

When the cheerleaders for the battle cry against the SSC proclamation are senior government ministers, religious bigwigs, and the top traditional leader, the very people who were supposed to serve as role models for peace and Somali brotherhood, it is not surprising that the toxic hysteria gripping their masses is the kind that has led to massacres (and even genocide) elsewhere in our East African region. Even after allowing for their usual chauvinistic bravado to let off steam, yet one has to worry when their most senior citizen and parliamentarian, Haji Abdelarii Hussein, better knows as Abdi the Hyema, calls for the displacement or the ethnic- cleansing of the SSC people unless they toe their line; or when their leading traditional leader demands mass mobilisation of their clan and the arming of every child “who can reach the udder of a camel”. This is an invitation to their excited masses to take matters into their own hands and attack the SSC people living amongst them and those in the SSC regions proper.

It is easier to work the masses up but more difficult to control them once matters get out of hand. The possible consequences are too horrible to contemplate and their leaders should know better. Make no mistake: These leaders are playing with fire and they should know the ramifications of their ill-considered actions: for a start, a war on the SSC people could easily escalate into a war between Isaak and the Darood clans in the Horn. Not only are they not going to win such a destructive clan war, but the financial and human cost would be incalculable. Above all, such a war will destroy for ever the historical bonds between the brotherly peoples in the region and the emerging divide between them and SSC people would be unbridgeable.

More importantly from their perspective, they would also lose the sympathy and support of the international community which hitherto had rewarded them handsomely for their much hyped good governance. Last but not least,Somaliland leaders should be under no illusion that the new Darwish State would hold them responsible under the International Criminal Court (ICC) for any crimes committed against the SSC people in exercising their inalienable right to have their regional state and to remain part of Somalia. The indictment by the ICC of those in Kenya and Sudan for their crimes against their peoples should serve as a salutary lesson that no one in the secessionist enclave who committed crimes against civilians in the SSC, Awdal or anywhere else can remain beyond the reach of international justice.

For their part, the people of the newSSC State of Somalia, or the Darwiish State of Somalia — which ever name is given to it — will go out of their way to extend their hand of friendship and brotherly coexistence to their brothers in the secessionist enclave. For the sake of peace and stability in Somalia and the wider Horn, the international community should for their part put all necessary pressure on the secessionist enclave to refrain from attacking or destabilising the new SSC State, and to make it clear to them that no recognition can be granted to one-clan enclave. The choice between remaining stuck in a barren one- clan enclave for chauvinistic considerations and playing their full and pivotal role in the new Somalia is clear to most people. Hopefully, it will also dawn on them at last.

Osman Hassan

Chairperson SSC Foreign Relations Commissioin