UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT: HEARING BASHE ABDI YUSSUF V Lt. Gen. MOHAMED ALI SAMATER

On Wednesday, March 3rd 2010, the preliminary hearing of the above case finally made to the chambers of the United States Supreme Court. This is a landmark case as far as the atrocities of the leadership of the repressive Somali military regime is concerned. It is also a significant milestone for those who suffered so long under the tight grip of military dictators and tin pot despots elsewhere in the world. It is about time to change the perception that Human Rights violations in Africa are always consigned to the dustbin of history. Let justice takes its own course and let the international community know what happened in Somalia and who will take the responsibility for the disaster.

The International Court of Justice set up Special Tribunals for the Rwandese and Bosnian Genocides; comparatively, the crimes of the Somalia’s military government are worse than what transpired in Rwanda and Bosnia. If the International War Crimes Tribunal set up a Special Court in Hague for the likes of Slobodan Milosevic, Radovan Kradzic, and Charles Taylor, then it is natural to apply the same criteria to Lt-General Mohamed Ali Samater and the rest of the surviving members of Somalia’s military government.

The defendant in this case, Lt-General Mohamed Ali Samater, had enjoyed a position of command and control in the national politics of the defunct Somali state for over twenty-one years. Therefore, he is a high value target in the hierarchy of decision-making process of the said regime. He was a Minister of Defense, Prime Minister, Vice-President, Chief of Staff of the Somali National Army, and a long time special confidante of Major-General Mohamed Siyad Barre. The leadership of Somalia from October 21st, 1969 to January 27th, 1991 has a collective responsibility for all the human rights violations and as such should be held accountable for their past crimes. It is also the moral responsibility of the world community and International Human Rights Organisations to investigate this dark chapter of Somali history.

Furthermore, the onus is on the defendant, Lt-General Mohamed Ali Samater, on the wider issue of war crimes and human rights violation when the armed conflict broke in what was then called the Northern Regions of Somalia. Executing the national policies of the military regime in his capacity as the commander of the Somali National Army and Air force, the Lt-General gave the final orders of the aerial and artillery bombardment of Somaliland cities of Hargeisa and Burao. These two densely populated metropolitan centers suffered disproportionately high civilian causalities exceeding sixty thousand lives. On top of that property, infrastructure, and environmental damages were estimated at tens of billions of dollars. The Lt-General and the living members of the military junta are liable for the total destruction.

On the other hand, the Plaintiff, Mr. Bashe Abdi Yussuf, spent eight years in solitary confinement in one of the most notorious military prisons in Somalia. As a member of a group of thirty businessmen, doctors, Engineers, Teachers, and Economists, Mr. Bashe and his colleagues volunteered for the noble mission of rehabilitating the dilapidated Hargeisa General Hospital. Successive Somali governments have neglected the maintenance and the upkeep of Hargeisa hospital for more than twenty-two years.

This volunteer group hired dump trucks to remove tones of garbage from the compound of the Hospital. With their money and through donations, they refurbished the hospital by purchasing beds, linen, mattresses, and furnishings. The renovations gave the derelict hospital a new lease on live. However, volunteer activities of these young men were anathema to an infuriated regime.

The state security forces rounded up the volunteers and while in detention, they were subjected to the most detestable forms of human torture to extract incriminating evidence. Accused under the sedition section of the Somali Penal Code [an amalgam of Italian and Indian Penal Codes], a kangaroo Court decision in February 1982 meted out sentences ranging from three years to life imprisonment. This court ruling has a special historic significance: The occasion coincided with the first anniversary of the formation of the opposition organization-the Somali National Movement. On February 20th, 1982 High school students started a series of demonstrations throwing stones at Armoured Personnel Carriers. The state security forces resorted to scorched earth tactics- Firing live ammunition at young students throwing stones. The end result was unacceptably high civilian death toll. In retrospect, the student uprising was the watershed for the gradual downward spiral of Somali state into an irrevocable state of disintegration- the beginning of the end of brutal dictatorship.

For over twenty-eight years, the wheels of justice have been grinding too slowly for Mr. Bashe Abdi Yussuf and his group. They have lived with the physical scars of their ordeal, as well as the life long mental and psychological tribulations. At the end of the case, justice and truth will prevail. The outcome of this trial will send a clear signal to all authoritarian regimes in Africa and elsewhere.

Finally, The international community is sizing up to its responsibility to apprehend and bring to justice the war criminals of Somalia.

At the end of the Napoleonic of the early and late 19th Century and the Crimean war of 1853-56, the powers of continental Europe signed the First Geneva Convention on August 22nd 1864. The high fatalities of the Napoleonic and the Crimean Wars, forced the European nations to set a Covenant on the rules of engagement in the field at times of war. The Geneva Conventions have been amended over the past hundred years or so to reflect the disastrous effects of modern warfare. To safeguard the dignity of mankind in times of armed conflict, the United Nations Organisation starting with the outcome of the Nuremberg Trials of the leadership of Nazi Germany adopted a series of internationally binding agreements on the treatment of non-combatants.

The defendant, Lt-General Mohamed Ali Samater, and the leadership of the failed Somali state have collectively violated all norms and conventions of International Humanitarian Law, such as:

1. The Charter of the Military Tribunal of Nuremberg of August 8th, 1945 as acknowledged by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution Number 95(1) of December 11th, 1946;

2. United Nations General assembly Resolution Number 3(1) of February, 1946; Resolution number 170(II) of October 31st 1947: “The Punishment and the Extradition of War Criminals;

3. United Nations general Assembly Resolution number 260(III) of December 9th 1948: “The Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide;

4. United Nations General Assembly Resolution number 217(III) of December 10th 1948 adopting: “The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

5. The Geneva Conventions of August 12th, 1948 and the subsequent four Protocols of June 8th 1977

6. European Convention on Human Rights, signed on November 4th 1950, and ratified on September 3rd 1953;

7. International Convention on the “Non-applicability of The Statute of Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity” of December 26th 1968

8. American Convention on Human Rights, Signed in 1969; took effect on July 18th 1978;

9. African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, Adopted on June 27th 1981, effective from October 21st 1986;

For Mr. Bashe Abdi Yussuf and the other 27 members of the UFO group, I will say this to you: The years of solitary confinement and torture in Labaatan Jirow prison were not in vain. Your personal suffering and perseverance in jail was the catalyst to the birth of a new nation called THE REPUBLIC OF SOMALILAND-the phoenix that rose up out of the ashes of the old Somalia; the pride of each and everyone of us and the envy of our eternal foes. For posterity, your names will be etched in the history books. The people of Somaliland will be indebted to you forever.

Ahmed Ali Ibrahim Sabeyse

Scarborough, Ontario, Canada

Email: Ahmed Ibrahim