An open letter to IGAD, AU, UNECA, AfDB, World Bank and UN organizations.‏

An open letter to IGAD, AU, UNECA, AfDB, World Bank and UN organizations.

Re: Reconstruction and Development Sabotage in Sool region of Northern Somalia by Dr Ali Issa

Dear All heads of organizations,

As Dr Ali Issa Abdi receives funding from your offices, we are very apprehensive the way Dr Ali’s Organization utilizes those funds, particularly to those funds allocated to Somalia as he is actively supporting and financing Khatumo militants, an armed rebel active in Sool and Buhodle of Northern Somalia since 2011.

He is either directly dispensing funds to Katumo group in person or through window-dressed other titles as those he has invited in the Conference on IGAD Economies and Federalism, co-organized by the Horn Economic and Social Policy Institute (HESPI) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) held in Addis Ababa on 22 October 2014.

Dr Ali Issa ,along with Dr Ali Khalif, has been in active role of mobilizing an armed militia to jeopardize the presences of Somaliland administration in Lascanod and other posts in Sool region, a sensitive area that was susceptible to attract extremists as the area was disputed by Somaliland (an independent administration from Somalia since 1991 with colonial time territory) and Puntland (self-governing state within Federal Government of Somalia) administrations since 1998 (founding of Puntland).

Now as the tribal militia claims statehood as of Khatumo State of Somalia (confined and active along the border between former Somalia and Ethiopia at Sool) and led by Dr Galaydh and Dr Ali Issa, being the main financier, the militia has caused unbearable hostility in the area which in turn caused an internal displacement to those village with in the limits of the insurgents.

As a matter of fact, the people in the region of Sool endured both social and economic setbacks and they are in dire need of better treatment and political solution rather than adding more fuel to the existing problems. However, It is clearly documented that Dr Ali Issa was the chief actor in the formation of Khatumo and as a resultant of that the displacement and the human life causalities witnessed since then in the area is far worse than the ones caused by the confrontations between Somaliland and Puntland administrations in Sool and Buhodle areas in earlier clashes, before Somaliland had taken over Lascanod in 2007.

Now both sides, Somaliland and Puntland, have abstained from having further direct clashes in Sool and Buhodle area (under the watchful eye and intervention of the International community) though the situation or the border argument remains unresolved so far.

As clearly the World Bank Group president Mr Kim said on his arrival in Mogadishu,29 October 2014, along with Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the UN, that political stability and human security are the two important prerequisites for reducing extreme poverty – a true statement that squarely applicable to Somalia but some Somali intellectuals or politician ,as per say, who have an invested interest are in disparity of that universal concept as in the case of Dr Ali Issa whose activities in Sool region is in contradiction to that statement by the current President of the World Bank.

unfortunately Dr Ali Issa, the Managing Director of HESPI, is a client of the World Bank, African Union, UN Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank, and IGAD who was supposed to adhere the principals of those entities that built on basic stability, security and social development rather than creating political instability and human insecurity in some parts of Somalia with the funds provided by those organizations which would have been used in a better and beneficial way.

Therefore, it is advisable to all funding organizations to exercise prudence in dispensing funds to Dr Ali Issa’s activities in those areas, as Dr Ali has now trespassed the norms of the NGO and involved in politics in a negative and harmful way. it is common sense that the organizations are culpable for their decision in approving funds to any entity using those fund to cause human distress in one way or the another as in this case.

Finally we are calling on those Organizations to monitor, scrutinizes and investigate properly all of the activity of the Horn Economic and Social Policy Institute in Somalia particularly in Sool area that located in the Northern part of Somalia.

Thank you

Mohamoud Hassan Arrale
arrale3@yahoo.com