At an international conference in
Europe three years ago, I met General Gabre Heard, former supreme leader of the
Ethiopian military forces in Somalia. A friend, then a cabinet minister,
introduced me to the general, and I was caught off guard. We stood in a big halI
for a few minutes where dignitaries from many countries had convened to discuss
the situation in Somalia.
The first thing that came to my mind
was not the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia “to fight terror” but an incident in
2007 that involved Gabre and Abdullahi Yusuf, Somalia’s president at the time. Yusuf
had invited Ethiopia to enter Somalia and root out the regime of the Islamic Courts
Union (ICU). Gabre had become angry when Yusuf repeatedly complained about his
indiscriminate pounding of civilians in Mogadishu.
Gabre slapped Yusuf four times
until the president fell to the ground. Then, Gabre placed his pistol against
Yusuf’s head and threatened to kill him. Yusuf’s bodyguards were left disarmed
and Yusuf had to seek protection from the African troops in Mogadishu (AMISOM).
The next day, Yusuf’s spokesman denied the whole incident.
Gabre told a Somali delegate at the
European conference how Somali politicians and intellectuals continued to beg
him for government jobs.
“They ask me if I can help them
get appointed as ministers or ambassadors,” said Gabre. “I do not have such
power.”
When I first heard of that
infamous slap, I was neither disgusted nor surprised. I simply saw it as another
manifestation of how Somalia had degenerated.
In 1978, Abdullahi Yusuf became
the first Somali politician to seek refuge in Ethiopia, when he aligned himself
and his opposition group, the Somali Salvation Front, with Addis Ababa. The
tradition of seeking support from there has continued for 20 years among the
Somali leadership.
President Abdullahi Yusuf’s road
to public and political humiliation began when he was selected head of the transitional
government. He was unable to go to Mogadishu, the center of administration and
governance, because it was in the hands of Mogadishu warlords. Yusuf was hosted in
Jowhar, a town 100 kilometers north of Mogadishu, by a warlord named Mohamed Omar
Habeb, better known as “Mohamed Dheere.” Surprisingly, the warlord held Yusuf hostage
in a government house with no windows until the president’s advisors were able
to raise tens of thousands of dollars to whisk him out of town.
“When I saw President Yusuf in
Jowhar,” a former advisor of the president said, “his body was all bitten by
mosquitos.”
Mohamed Dheere was furious when
he found out about Yusuf’s departure.
Yusuf remained ambitious and desperately
wanted to rule Somalia, but he made a poor move when he invited Ethiopia to
invade his country.
Gabre shelled the presidential compound
because he wanted Yusuf to defer to him to the point of fawning.
“It was frightening,” said the advisor. “I
thought Gabre [would] kill us all.”
Gabre was eventually recalled—not
because he had humiliated the Somali president but because of his failure to
maintain order in Mogadishu and for being involved in a slew of financial
scandals.
Yusuf’s humiliation represents a
larger trend among Somali politicians, whose paths to political power are often
strewn with indignities and a predominance of self-interest over concern for
their nation.
At a social gathering in Nairobi
attended by former Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Ghedi, among others, Gabre
was reported to have criticized an IGAD meeting in Djibouti. He said only
Ethiopia cared about Somalia and wanted to help. A former Somali defense
minister immediately seconded that statement.
“Unfortunately,” Gabre added, “many
Somalis do not see it that way.”
