By Goth Mohamed Goth and Omar Mohamed Farah
The Speaker of Somaliland national assembly cum WADDANI Presidential Candidature Hon Abdurrahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Cirro” on Monday meets with Senior Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Congressman Chris Smith who also chairs the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations.
Hon Abdurrahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Cirro”, Speaker of Somaliland national assembly cum WADDANI Presidential Candidature during the meeting with Senior Member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Congressman Chris Smith which took place inside the congress discussed wide range of issues in which he briefed the congressman on how Somaliland had fulfilled all the necessary requirement of sovereign statehood as proclaimed by the Montevideo Convention signed in 1933 in Uruguay which defined the rights and definition of a state.
During the meeting with the Congressman Chris Smith, SL Speaker stressed the benefit which awaits both the peoples of Somaliland and the USA, if Somaliland gains full international recognition.
Hon Abdurrahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Cirro, in the follow up of series of meetings with the various representatives of the House of Congress and Senate reiterated the need for an increase in U.S Government aid to Somaliland.
On his part, US Congressman Christ Smith, termed the visit by Somaliland officials as enlightening and productive not to mention the numerous achievements and ever-growing global support towards Somaliland quest for self determination hence his future commitment to highlight and address the concerns of the internationally isolated East African in the future proceedings of the US Congress.
About Chris Smith (R-Hamilton, N.J.)
Elected in 1980, Rep. Chris Smith (R-Hamilton, N.J.) is currently in his 18th term in the U.S. House of Representatives, and serves residents in the Fourth Congressional District of New Jersey. Smith, 62, currently serves as a senior member on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and is chairman of its Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights and International Organization Subcommittee. He is Chairman and the highest ranking House member on both the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. He also served as “Special Representative” on Human Trafficking for the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. Previously, he served as Chairman of the Veterans Committee (two terms) and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs’ Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Operations and the Subcommittee on Africa.
Smith has long chaired a number of bipartisan congressional caucuses (working groups) including the Pro-life (33 years), Autism (17 years, co-founder), Alzheimer’s (15 years, co-founder), Lyme Disease (11 years, co-founder), Spina Bifida (11 years), Human Trafficking (11 years, co-founder), Refugees (11 years), and Combating Anti-Semitism caucuses, and serves on caucuses on Bosnia, Uganda and Vietnam.
According to the independent watchdog organization Govtrack, as of January 2016 Smith ranks thirdamong all 435 Members of the House over the last two decades in the number of laws authored. He has authored more than three dozen laws.
Smith is the author of the $265 million Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Reauthorization Act (H.R. 2820), which was signed into law on Dec. 18, 2015 and authorizes $265 million for cord blood and stem cell research and treatment over the next five years. He wrote the first Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 which established a nationwide program for ethical research and treatment using umbilical cord blood and bone marrow cells. That landmark law was reauthorized in September 2010 for another five years.
In 2014, Smith saw over five years of work come to fruition in the House and Senate passage and enactment of his groundbreaking the Sean and David International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act (now Public Law 113-150) to help bring American children unlawfully taken out of the U.S. to foreign countries back home. Named after a Monmouth County father-and-son who had been kept illegally separated by a non-custodial parent. Final passage of House of Representatives 3212 (HR 3212) was July 25, 2014.
