Somalis criticize U.S. Ambassador for saying Washington will just ‘degrade’ al Shabab

By The Star Staff Writer

MOGADISHU – Somali Twitter users ripped the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia Donald Yamamoto for saying that his country will just “degrade” the militant group of al Shabab, remarks interpreted by many as evidence of Washington’s half-hearted effort to fight terror in Somalia.

In a Twitter message after Yamamoto’s meeting with the nation’s Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire on Tuesday, the U.S. mission in Somalia said that, “Amb Yamamoto reinforced that degrading al Shabaab & providing stabilization efforts for all Somalis is a top priority of @US2Somalia efforts in the areas of diplomacy, development, and defense.”

But Somalis angrily reacted to the tweet, with one Twitter user calling Washington’s anti-terror strategy in Somalia “nonsense” and “bullshit.”

“Sir, not degrading but rather eliminating terrorists should be the focus,” said a Twitter user, adding that only well-armed national army can root out al Shabab militants.

“Anything short of that is lip service,” he said, arguing that the militants are being used to “scare” Somalis. “We say no more,” he added.

Somali Twitter users appeared particularly perturbed by the U.S.’s seeming lack of serious commitment to help Somalia equip its army to eliminate the Shabab, a criminal gang that many believe is being supported by foreign nations hell-bent on keeping the Horn of Africa nation in perpetual lawlessness.

“How can we fight against alshabab, whose only goal is death and destruction, without any arms?” asked a Twitter user, Warwaaqsame, referring to the decades-old, Washington-backed arms sanction on Somalia that was on Nov. 15 renewed amid strong protest by the Somali government, whose Ambassador to the UN dubbed the measure “outdated.”

“The sanctions lack clearly defined benchmarks,” Abukar Dahir Osman, the Somali envoy, told the Security Council members, 12 of whom voted for the extension of the sanctions, while China, Equatorial Guinea, Russian Federation abstained.

On Nov. 15, Osman, Somalia’s envoy to the UN, said the world body’s decision to renew the arms embargo on Somalia had failed to “take into account Somalia’s new positive reality and are not properly aligned with the Federal Government’s efforts to rebuild a unified, equipped Somali National Army capable of safeguarding its own people and territory.”

Osman said for more than a decade the world had spent millions of dollars on monitoring teams and the Panel of Experts, but that didn’t “properly address the root causes of the problem.”

Somalia’s partners, he said, should instead invest in improving the Somali government’s capacity to control its borders in order to curb the flow of foreign fighters and illegal weapons into the country.

In his response to the U.S. Embassy’s tweet, Abdi Moalim, a Twitter user, said “lifting arms embargo is essential” to develop the Somali national army.

“No army can fight without arms,” he wrote. “We thank all the support you provide for Somali security forces.”

According to the U.S. Embassy’s tweet, Ambassador Yamamoto’s talks with Prime Minister Khaire focused on “Somalia’s progress towards peace, stability, & prosperity.”

But those discussions too have come under fire.

“It’s ludicrous to see the U.S. Embassy talking of peace and prosperity in Somalia when President Trump has publicly expressed hatred toward Somali refugees in the US,” said Mohamed Haji Ingiriis, a fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science. “Somalis are too smart to fall for such a shallow statement.

“If the U.S. cares about Somalia,” he told The Somalia Star, “it must refrain from Somali politics, try to equip the Somali army, stop its blind support for the Farmajo regime and end its murderous drone attacks on villagers and farmers on the pretext of fighting al Shabab, whose top leaders freely roam around in southern Somalia’s flat terrain.”

In their book, “Border Wars,” The New York Times’ journalists, Michael D. Shear and Julie Hirschfeld Davis, wrote that president Donald Trump demanded that former acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke ban refugees from “f*****g Somalia” from the U.S.

“Both he and [Stephen] Miller seemed to have a particular dislike for Somalia, often citing it or its nationals when they spoke of the potential dangers of refugees and other immigrants,” the authors wrote, referring to the White House senior policy adviser.