Somalia - Response Letter from Yusuf

C O N F I D E N T I A L NAIROBI 002614

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/E AND A/S FRAZER

E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/25/2017
TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER SO
SUBJECT: Somalia - Response Letter from Yusuf

REF: Nairobi 2578

Classified by PolOff Hodan Hassan. Reasons 1.4 (d)


1. Following on the transmission of a letter to TFG
President Abdullahi Yusuf, the Ambassador received a
response on June 22.


2. The text of the letter from Yusuf reads as follows:

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

Your letter of June 21, 2007, is clearly in line with other
previous letters that showed similar concerns of excesses,
brutalities, violations of human rights and heavy
handedness on Somali civilians in Mogadishu. I
fundamentally value your genuine and ever present concerns
for the betterment of Somalia and the people of Somalia.
These concerns can be a source of wake up calls and they
can potentially give us some corrective direction and
better policy choices.

However these alarming reports and allegations can be best
understood within their own context without which they
would become empty and cruel deceptions that are meant to
mislead. The basic conflict and the nature of the problem
here in Somalia is combating insecurity and terror. The
situation on the ground is fluid and steady acts of terror
are taking place daily. Official reactions and
investigations to these acts of terror may, on occasion,
lead the TFG authorities to certain houses, premises and
properties. When that happens somebody somewhere cries wolf
and the international community falls for that. Hence, the
source(s) of the allegations and reports of government
brutalities are very much correlated with the perpetrators
of terror acts in Mogadishu and Somalia. Like every
criminal at lose, they would very much want to evade the
long arm of the law.

Mr. Ambassador, I want to officially reassure you that
there are no hundreds of people arrested, let alone
thousands and there are no private compounds turned into
makeshift detention centers. These are exaggerations and
those behind them have their own reasons to exaggerate,
circulate and recycle them.

In principle though, even the unlawful detention of a few
Somalis, scanty violations of rights and low scale
brutalities should not be tolerated. So the argument here
is not about quantity but quality. Violations of rights at
any scale are not acceptable and no one in the TFG is
immune of subsequent indictment and the legal due process
of the land.

To my mind the best way to get to the bottom of this and
recourse out of this, is to send a team and investigate
these allegations. In my judgment, the whole thing will
boil down to snowy nothingness. In the event, credible
violation are found, I assure you to match it with
indictments to whoever is found to be involved.

Under my watch, Somalia would never deviate from the road
to liberty, rights and freedoms and good governance. END


RANNEBERGER