JUBALAND WORST FORM OF LAND-GRABBING AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’ RIGHTS

BaidoaNews Editorial Blog (BN Bolg is not same as BaidoaNews.com)

Jubaland Worst Form of Land-Grabbing and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights

Before the Sultanate of Muscut (Oman) back in 1800s, the Digil Mirifle people more specifically the Geledi Sultanate owned this land, this before Harti-Ogaden invasion of Jubaland. With cities still called and named what Digil Mirifle ancestries called/named in distinct Somali language of Maay. It is all in history books, and currently the most recent population count indicate that majority of the eople in Kismay and other Juba towns are Digil Mirifle, Bajunis, Wagosha, Shiiqaal, Ormale, Gaal Jecel and the settlers.

The Digil Mirifle elders and members of their communities across the world manifest and make it clear to the world especially the IGAD, neighboring countries and the Somali government that the indigenous people of Digil Mirifle and their allied clans have special relationship with their land. The close ties of indigenous people of Digil Mirifle with their 6-regions and land must be recognized and understood as the fundamental basis of their cultures, their spiritual life, their integrity and their economic survival … their relations to the land are not merely a matter of possession and production but a material and spiritual element, which they must fully enjoy even to preserve their cultural legacy and transmit it to future generations. This manifestation comes after increasing land-grabbing efforts and more aggression and invasion of Harti-Absame alliances supported and financed by Puntland wanting to reignite regional civil war between settlers and indigenous people.

After long civil war and mass attacks against the indigenous people of Jubal regions and shabelle are now faced new invasion. From the lower Juba, thousands of Digil Mirifle and Bantu farmers fled across the border to Kenya, where they joined Ormale and Bajuni victims of the earlier land removals ( Prendergast June 1994; Menkhaus 1993, No. 1). Now with the help of Kenyan forces and ex-Shabab members led by Madoobe Islam want to take away Digil Mirifle lands without regard of any government laws, Somali constitution or any other regional laws.

The Harti-Absame factional militias are working to consolidate control over Digil Mirifle territories especially areas where their clansmen were numerically dominant. UNHCR data from Kenya suggests that repatriation had accelerated after Absame capture of Kismayo, especially among refugees from the Majerteen, and Ogaden clans (UNHCR Sept. 2013). These are causing more worries on none-invasion law-abiding clans who are still subject to threats from Harti-Absame invasion. In Juba regions, Harti-Absame whose numerical strength in the region had been deliberately built up by Siyad Barre's land resettlement programs of the 1970s and 1980s, are seizing farm land from the Digil Mirifle and allied clans, forcing them into dependent tenancy or flight to Kenyan refugee camps. Making things worst, the influx of Ogaden refugees from Ethiopia (chiefly Mohamed Zubeir supporters of former warlord Omar Jess' SPM and now Ahmed Madowe Islam) into the hinterlands of Kismayu and now setting their own unbalanced local federal state.

Currently, everyone is calling to won or to have lived once in Kismayu because of the problems caused by Harti-Absame alliance and their agenda for land-grabbing as depicted in these cartoons by Amin Amir. Somali government, IGAD and other world powers have to intervene this messy situation of land grabbing and come to the aid of the Indigenous Digil Mirifle people.