By The Star Staff Writer
MOGADISHU – Ethiopian forces under the African Union Mission in Somalia have arrested former Islamist leader Mukhtar Robow on Thursday, in an apparent bid to scuttle his candidacy for a crucial regional post whose election is due next week.
Senators from Robow’s southwestern Somali region termed the former Islamist’s arrest as “kidnapping,” demanded his release and called on all stakeholders in “SW to consider postponing the elections until there is a stable atmosphere that can be held free and fair elections.”
The Somali government-sanctioned move swiftly sparked violent riots in Baidoa, the main city in the region. At least several people have died during the confrontation that pitted supporters of Robow against Ethiopian and Somali security forces, according to local news reports
Videos posted online appeared to show a largely tense city, with residents burning tires and blocking roads and chanting “we don’t want Lafta-Gareen,” “we don’t Ethiopia.”
The arrest of Robow is likely to increase pro-government candidate Abdulaziz Lafta-Gareen’s odds of winning the critical election. Somalia’s national government has openly frustrated the efforts of independent candidates, like Robow.
A statement issued by the office of Mohamed Abukar Islow Duale, the internal security minister, said his ministry “arrested citizen Mukhtar Robow.” It didn’t comment on news reports that Robow was flown to the nation’s capital, Mogadishu, where he was immediately taken to the spy agency’s headquarters.
The government claimed without any evidence that Robow entered weapons and fighters into Baidoa city and mobilized an army whose objective was to threaten and create disorder in the country, particularly in Baidoa.
“That demonstrates that Mukhtar Robow didn’t ever renounce his extremist ideology and that he’s ready to harm the Somali people,” said the statement
According to the statement, Robow was required to publicly renounce extremist ideologies and support the Somali government. Under his defection deal, it said, he was also asked not to engage in anything that undermines the Somali government or regional administrations in the country.
Robow, who before defecting to the government in 2017 had a $5 million bounty on his head, was a favorite to win the Dec. 19th election for the post of southwestern region’s chief administrator, a powerful office whose holder can be a headache for the national government if he decides not to play along with its policies.
“The crisis in Baidoa can cause protracted hostilities, destruction. The Somali government should calm the situation down and allow Baidoa residents to exercise their political rights,” tweeted Zakaria Yusuf, a senior Somalia researcher and analyst with the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based anti-conflict think tank.
Although the region’s electoral committee has cleared Robow’s candidature, the national government constantly tried to stop him from vying for the region’s top seat. On Oct. 4, it issued a statement saying that the former Islamist didn’t fulfill all the conditions required to lift the international sanctions on him.
Baidoa residents, however, trust Robow’s ability to make good on his campaign promise to rid the region of al Shabab elements and reopen the road linking the region’s main city to Mogadishu. Before his defection, Robow was once the spokesman for al Shabab, the criminal militant group that controls much of the rural areas in south and central regions.
President Farmajo has several times expressed his desire to strengthen the national government and mocked regional administrators whom he accused of having ties to foreign countries, which are hell-bent on undercutting Somalis’ cohesion and their country’s territorial integrity.
In their statement, the senators from southwestern region decried Ethiopian forces’ action, saying it was “unfortunate” that the African Union peacekeeping mission in the region was “involved in Somalia internal politics” especially in Baidoa’s elections.
The news of Ethiopia’s role in Robow’s arrest is sure to reverberate across the nation, as many Somalis regard Addis Ababa’s presence in Somalia with suspicion. The two countries are yet to fully recover from the scars of their several wars in the past. Ethiopia, which still occupies a Somali land, has invaded Somalia in late 2006, but furious Somalis ejected them in 2009, ending two years of bloody occupation in which Ethiopian forces committed war crimes in the nation’s capital.
“…NO, this is blatant interference (in the) internal affairs of a sovereign country #Somalia. Any crime you commit against Somalia/Somalis will be recorded as we have done so for centuries,” tweeted Hussein Sheikh-Ali, the chairman of Mogadishu-based Hiraal Institute, which focuses on the Horn of Africa region’s security.
The UK Ambassador to Somalia David Concar also said he was “deeply concerned” about Thursday’s violence in Baidoa.
“To everyone with influence over what happens next I say: please act with and urge restraint, for the sake of the people of Baidoa, including the city’s many thousands of IDPs,” said Concar in a carefully-phrased Twitter message, referring to the internally displaced persons.