The Freedom Wire

  By Mohamed Garad The situation of the Somali nation demands a profound critical examination. Being one of the most homogenous nations on the face of the earth with the largest and most strategic territorial land among the nations in the Horn of Africa, the Somali nation lacks one basic element essential for its existence and progress: statehood. The cause of this is not the law of probability. It’s mainly the direct consequence and classical case of Edward Said’s Westphalia deferrals.  The destruction has two layers. First, the soil of the Somali nation was brutally obliterated and divided not by one but four colonial powers: Britain, France, Italy, and Ethiopia—Africa’s only colonial empire that persists to this day. Second, the Somali person is robbed of his/her core values and mainly reduced to a clannish entity impervious to obtaining a nation-state.  The second layer is the mortal one. As this article is being written, the juridically sovereign Somali territories a...

  National Independence Day, July 1, 2024 Mogadishu, Somalia. By: Mohamed Garad The war against the Somali nation is no longer waged over land, sea, or airspace. It is an assault on the very essence of being Somali—a calculated attack on our nationhood, our shared identity, and the fabric of our society. The enemy's strategy is devastatingly clear: dismantle the Somali nationhood, and everything else falls into their hands. Tragically, Somali "gov't" in #Mogadishu is unconsciously or deliberately a brokerage of this destructive campaign. They're the most instrumental force executing the war project. Most of them are unconscious of the sinister project they're undertaking. Only running behind the money, which mostly comes from looting the national assets. Gathering of the spoils of their own country.  The grand plan is unmistakable: permanently extinguish the possibility of a Somali state reemerging as a strong, unified state in the Horn of Africa. This mission...

From right to left: Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, foreign minister of Somalia, Hakan Fidan, foreign minter of Türkiye, Taye Atske Selassie, foreign minister of Ethiopia. Ankara, Türkiye July 1, 2024 By: Mohamed Garad      As all eyes are on Ankara in the mediation of the Somali maritime dispute between Somalia & Ethiopia, many have placed hope on UNCLOS to make a breakthrough. However, UNCLOS is not applicable or an effective tool to resolve the dispute. The dispute between the two countries lies over sovereignty & territorial integrity following Ethiopia's signing of an MoU with Somalia's breakaway region, Somaliland. UNCLOS explicitly rules that it doesn't override state sovereignty and territorial integrity, and if a country feels its sovereignty and/ or territorial integrity are in jeopardy, it can ban the transit state from its sovereign soil and maritime. In a state capacity, the Somali president officially declared Ethiopia's move to sign the MoU with Somaliland a d...

  EAC heads of states summit, March 2nd, 2016, in Arusha, Tanzania/  Source  Getty images   By: Mohamed Garad "There's quartz here, there's gypsum, there's uranium, there's iron ore, a lot of gold, potential gas, potential oil. All these things are waiting for East Africans to take came in and because they have not been exploited by Somalis because they didn't have good government. So, if the Africans want to become rich, they will join, they will let Somalia in."  These are not sentences from a historical text of a European "explorer" reporting back to imperial home in the late 19th century. Instead, they are said by a member of the Somali delegation speaking at Somalia's readiness verification summit organized by the East African Community technical team in Mogadishu, Somalia, January 22nd—February 3rd, 2023. A careful read of these sentences might convey that after years of experiencing many national atrocities, Somalia may now be yieldin...

Ethiopia's soldiers in Mekelle, capital city of Tigray, after they captured from TPLF forces, March 2021/Getty images  By: Mohamed Garad   About one hundred and sixteen years after the  Tripartite Treaty of 1906  in which the imperialists of Great Britain and France formally recognized “the independent African empire of Ethiopia,” Ethiopia proves to be an unresolved colonial empire that is burning in all its corners.    The world’s deadliest war is happening in the Tigray region, core region of Ethiopia’s State. Ethiopia’s National Defense Forces (E.N.D.F) and neighboring Eritrean military with the help of the Amhara regional militia called Fano are waging a full-scale war against the Tigray Defense Forces (T.D.F), a coalition forces led by Tigray Liberation Front (T.P.L.F), a former leading member of the ruling coalition of Ethiopia between 1991 to 2018.   The atrocities of the war in Tigray are catastrophic and devastating. So far, the de...

. The Statue of the the greatest hero of the Somali nation in 20th century,  Sayid Mohammed Abdulle Hassan (1856--1920), Mogadishu, Somalia  By Mohamed Garad The world we live in is full of mysterious events that sometimes change our perception of the globe forever. Among the events that sparked astound interests that the world has witnessed recently is the discovery of the archaeological remains of the great civilization of the Aztecs in Mexico City, Mexico. It was on the night of the 21st of February 1978 when a group of workmen digging electric cables hit struck the first stone of what once used to be a vast and advanced civilization just two meters into the earth. The discovery of this archaeological ruin was remarkable. President of Mexico, Jose Lopez Portillo, ordered the demolition of entire blocks of the city and a full-scale archeological dig of the area. The findings were astonishing. The more the archeologists dug in, the deeper they went into a vast empire bene...

  From right: President Hassan Sheik Mohamud at the podium of announcing his appointed PM Hamza Bare . June 15, 2022. Villa Somalia, Mogadishu. Photo by Villa Somalia For the last three-plus decades, Somalia has been dominating both in the literature and news headlines with one theme: a failed state. This has been the case due to the lack of an effective central authority in the country since the fall of the dictatorial regime of Mohamed Siad Bare in 1991 followed by the devastating civil war and famines and the new paradigm shift of the Somali agony: the piracy, terrorism and unvetted and malicious foreign interferences.  However, the Somalia I’m going to write about in this essay is not the one we know in the past 30 years of mayhem but a new one that is in the realm of the hands reach to create: a just and strong sovereign Somali republic that heals the past and inspires all Somalis to protect and live in it. By proposing so, one may think that it’s merely wishful thinking...