Somaliland: Ali Khalif Galayd Seeks Peaceful but Conditional Reconciliation

Somaliland sells peace and development while Puntland verbosity only results in empty stomachs” Prof Ali Khalif Galayd.

At a time when we are at our most vulnerable it is imperative that we reconcile our political differences with the Somaliland authorities.

This was stated by the leader of Khatumo secession movement Prof Ali Khalif Galayd at a secret location in Baliád trading centre in Sool region and bordering Ethiopia where the khatumoists’ have been holding meetings.

The conference at Baliád which saw participants deliberate candidly on the status of their secession movement started in 2012 with the objective of creating a Khatumo state of Somalia that was to have been curved out of current areas of Sool region in Somaliland, concluded with a unanimous decision to negotiate peacefully with Hargeisa.

The Khatumoist leader and member of Somalia parliament in Mogadishu and US citizen Prof Ali Khalif upon acknowledging that his secession movement militia is at its most vulnerable courtesy continued onslaught.

According to the Prof the planned citizens of his Khatumo state are “Dulbhante clansmen who share common things like Culture, grazing areas and country etc.”

This sentiment in which the secessionist acknowledges for the first time that his purported constituency is part and parcel of Somaliland, the country he helped withdraw from union with Somalia in 1991 only to turn antagonist a few years later, also saw him state

“Somaliland sells peace and development while Puntland verbosity only results in empty stomachs”

thus publicly declare that his love-hate relationship with Puntland a Somalia administrative region is over in favour of peace and reconciliation with his motherland of Somaliland.

For the proposed talks with the Somaliland authorities Prof Ali Khalif Galayd revealed that he as leader of Khatumo shall constituter a reconciliation committee to be headed by Dr Ali Isse Abdi a Khatumoist leader based in Addis Ababa Ethiopia from where he heads The Horn Africa Economic and Policy Institute HESPI.

Apart from both being Dulhbahante clansmen Galayd and Dr Ali are of Somaliland origin holding US citizenship and owing political allegiance to the tenet of Somaliweine “Greater Somalia Union”

The reconciliation plans by the Khatumoists come in the heels of a recent showdown in Buhodle between Prof Galayd and Somaliland Health minister Dr Suleiman Isse ‘Haglatosie’ that concluded with the expedited exit of the prof to his current base in Baliád

Apart from the Buhodle fiasco that dented the prof and his secession his regular base of exile in the zone five Somalia administrative region of Ethiopia is unsecure following discussions by Ethiopian and Somaliland officials in the capital JigJiga.

While authorities in Somaliland are yet to react to the publicly announced acceptance of its oft urged peaceful reconciliation, the Khatumoists have indicated their talk’s conditions that are thinly disguised as suggestions namely:

1. Removal of all Somaliland Army personnel from their bases in the Dulbahante clan areas in Sool region and resettle them in Ainabo and OG districts in Toghdeer region.

2. Ensure equitable regional sharing of the Somaliland national budget before 2016.

3. For Dulbahante clansmen to be appointed to senior positions at all administrative levels of the country.

4. Equitable sharing of all project funds from UN agencies and other international donors. And

5. Somaliland authorities to revoke sovereignty remove related clause from its constitution and declare to the international community that it, Somaliland, is an administrative region of Somalia.

Well though Somaliland requires peace in its eastern regions this is a tall menu for landers whose sovereignty is not only irrevocable but not for negotiations as well.