OPINION / FIKRAD

January 21, 2010 (QOL) The city of blood, target killings, indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas from all competing sides. The city of deadly poverty where it’s future generations die in the seas and deserts in hundreds. Mogadishu: The city where every person is a dead body walking, the open prison! The city of the most resilient people on Earth.  The city of Spies and informants where the hearts and minds of the nation diminish! The city of the deadly poverty and desperation. The bleeding city that doesn’t deserve all of these! The Capital  city of our Beloved Nation: Mogadishu!

Mogadishu: The Open Prison!

Jaabir, a friend of mine in Mogadishu once said “We are in an open prison with all the worst problems on earth happening on us and nowhere to escape”. He was right!

It is an open Prison because even students who want to pursue an academic career have to come to Kenya or Ethiopia just for IELTS and TOEFL!

It’s a place where you don’t have that much room for movements. The more you limit your movements and going out, the better you feel little secure although there is no guarantee that you’ll be safe even at your home, because of the indiscriminate shelling BUT most dangerously; the target killers will pursue you even under your bed, the day you become their valuable target.

Imagine THIS! One of your loved ones is severely wounded and the local hospitals say we can do nothing about him/her “which happens most of the time” But thanks God, you got the resource to take him/her out of the country for Emergency Medical treatment. You won’t get daily flights. You have to wait specific days for that, but worst of all, the Airport may not be operational and closed- as happened before-. So your loved one will simply die without the much needed medical help, with all the love and resources you could offer to help him/her out -A stupid death, as they call in the west: When a life that could be saved is just left to diminish and die-

Mogadishu: the City of the most Resilient people on this Earth

Their main source of Income (Bakara Market) is shelled all the time and here they go to the same place on daily basis- or they have to. Many are massacred and the remaining people just go ahead with their lives as nothing happened-or they have to. Bullets are flying everywhere but people are behaving like business as usual. They just take ablution and get ready and prepared in case the time is up! They are denied for everything: for peace, Business and economy, education, healthcare and most important for hope but in spite of all of these THEY REFUSED TO GIVE UP!

Mogadishu: The City of Spies and informants

I learnt in a course called “Organizational behavior” in the Chapter of Power. “If you want to control people, you have to create a need, through that need you create dependency and if you are in control of the unique resources that can satisfy that need, YOU DICTATE”. Imagine! The poverty, desperation and lack of hope that prevails in Mogadishu, Imagine! How easy it is to recruit-As spies and informants especially when they have got Families and mouths to feed with no help from any one!-former soldiers who have got no other skills, people who used to work for the NSS (National Security Service) but now have got nothing to do to survive and are told that they’ll be paid “Generously” to do all the dirty jobs. THEY WILL!!!

All foreign countries who are interested in Somalia know that anyone who is in control of Mogadishu is actually in the driving seat and so as principle THAT PERSON has to be “Their person no matter how”

We have neighboring Enemy countries that have got “The chance” now for Somalia and are determined to keep Somalia the way it is now “For generations to come”. They have all their native dirty spy cells, Local informants, Puppet & so called politicians, so that Somalia will never ever again become THE SOMALIA .Since Mogadishu is the largest city, the most populated and the capital, you can now understand why Mogadishu refused to be peaceful!

America killed Aden Hashi Ayrow; a well trained Mujahid, an extremely vigilant who never accepted Public pictures. A man who only attended mostly late night secret meetings. THEY got him, how? They probably have done that with the help of a watching eye (Spies) who were reporting his movements till the end.

The Americans have also killed another Senior Leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, a man we only hear through the media and never appeared in public. A man who himself knew he was hunted and perhaps only allowed certain senior trusted leaders to meet him only when necessary. They also got him “In a middle of a road”! How did they know where he was? When he was leaving? With whom he’s leaving and so on?

In the Era of Warlords which was before the Emergence of the Union of Islamic courts (UIC), there was a great Islamic Scholar called Sheikh Mohammad in the double story building Mosque/Masjid of Madina District in Mogadishu who was killed and even after burial, his grave was dug and his head taken to a neighboring country! As a proof that he was gone!

It is well known Fact that there were so many foreigners pretending to be new comers to Islam, Representatives of International NGOs, teachers of Local schools/institutions and just Poor Mad people in the streets of Mogadishu But later came out-After a Neighboring country invaded our land in 2006- as lieutenants, Coronels, major-Generals and high ranked secret services officers of neighboring countries.

There were well published raids in Mogadishu especially in SOS district of Cover operations from elite and highly equipped Forces wearing their foreign uniforms in the early mornings and of course with the help of inside spies and informants, where some high valued targets (Mujahideen/Sheikhs) where either eliminated or taken to some unknown Secret places.

A great Somali Islamic scholar was arrested in “An Asian country” and was told to shut his mouth while he was in that country before deporting him back home but to every one’s surprise! He was made to talk to Agents in Mogadishu who told him that they are there as well and will do “Anything necessary” if he opens his mouth!

It is a well known fact the CIA’s funding of the former Warlords for killing or capturing some wanted Islamic Scholars and/or Mujahidin and then exporting them to CIA secret locations.

That is what “All Interested countries” are doing to get their dirty jobs done in Somalia in General BUT in Mogadishu in particular.

“Many of our Somali people say: Mogadishu is the way it’s just because people from Mogadishu don’t want and refuse law and order, peace, stability and government. Well they need most. The Truth of the Matter is; those people who say that are either unaware of the facts or overlooking what the reality is for whatever reason”

Mogadishu: The City where the hearts and minds of Somalia diminishes!

Our Somali Religious scholars are eliminated in series of target killings because they are preaching an Islam that is not welcomed by sides(s). The Well educated and experienced bureaucrats of the nation are brutally slaughtered on baseless allegations and unproven charges of all kinds. Our Somali Young men die for “Proxy wars” in which they are even unaware of, until they are gone once and for all!

Mogadishu: The City of the Deadly Poverty and Desperation

It’s so sad when you see in Mogadishu, a 7-month pregnant mother who’s carrying a heavy parcel of Commodity because she has got 6-Kids at home to feed with no shoulder to cry and no one to help and then sadly delivers the baby in the middle of the street on her way back home with some help from by passers!

It’s so sad when a father in order to feed his family has to purchase a position in a store and pay a lot of money more than what he can afford! Where another man will work as a carrier of goods on his shoulder (Xamaali)!

It’s so sad in Mogadishu, when Civilians are indiscriminately shelled in the middle of the night at 4:00AM and those who are slaughtered are done but the severely wounded can’t get medical help since the risk of going out that time is too much, more over; most of the  roads are blocked from everywhere and  those wounded are taken to Hospitals where basic medical equipments are of no reach, most qualified doctors left for fear of persecution and those operating in there Hospitals are Somalis (not all) and foreigners who want to become Surgeons “BY Practice” who Simply say “Nothing can be done” that is when you don’t meet with the daily Killers of the medical knives and the so called International Staff who in order to become certified Surgeons want to get their needed Practice on “The Lives of our beloved people ”Instead of “corps” in their home country.

Dr. Mohamed Yusuf who is the director-general of Madina Hospital and one of the most senior surgeons said in the days of the Ethiopian occupation “There are so many wounded people every day, sometimes 150 (ONE HUNDRED AND FIVETY)” some severely wounded and very few Surgeons. I asked myself if he gives the much needed medical attention to one lucky patient-Which might take hours- What about the remaining 149-patients?

I once asked a friend of mine back home in 2003 whose father was in a critical condition because of extreme diarrhea, why don’t you take him to the hospital and give Drips there. His answer was shocking! He said “Since people are so desperate, some started filling the Drips with the salt water of the sea and when it’s injected in to the patient, he/she automatically dies. The sad thing is, it is there in the Hospitals! So, he said, we purchase the genuine one and use it at home with some help from a doctor or nurse”

Conclusion

Somalia is sadly a country where People are killed on the daylight in the middle of the market and streets where killers just walk away recognizable by everyone around but no one can do anything at all what so ever. The concept of Autopsy, post Mortal report, Forensics and investigation in to the cause of death is not there because there has not been a capable central government that could have done that. Once you die no matter how, you are done, chapter closed and the next only step taken is the burial procedure and even that is for the lucky ones because the corpse of some are never found at all.

Dedication

I dedicate this Article to the long suffering people of our nation: Somalia, in particular to the most devastated ones in Mogadishu.

Acknowledgement

I thank my younger brother Eng. Ali Mohamed Osman ‘Ali Nur” for the tireless efforts he has done in contributing to this article

About the Author

Abdulkadir Mohamed Osman “Cabdiboqor” is a Post Graduate Degree Holder (MBA) from Bahria University; Karachi-Pakistan. He is currently a Marketing Executive in MNC called Tradekey (Pvt) Ltd and owns his website: http://www.cabdiboqor.com/. He can be reached on his personal ID:abdulkadirphd@hotmail.com.