SOMALIA: IRIN Interview with Major
General Muhammad Gani, former northwest military commander
ARTA, DJIBOUTI 31 August (IRIN) - Major
General Muhammad Hashi Gani was appointed military commander
of the northern Somalia region in 1980 by the former
president, Muhammad Siyad Barreh.
It was at a time when the northwest - now
the self-declared Republic of Somaliland - was suffering
repressive political and economic policies following the end
of the Ogaden war with Ethiopia. Gani, along with General
Muhammad Sa'id Hirsi "Morgan", is accused by
Somalilanders of human rights abuses, presiding over a
security machinery that allowed for civilian arrests,
detentions, torture and extra-judicial killings.
In a report about the civil war in the
north in the 1980s, Human Rights Watch said: "The
powers given to the military and security agencies under the
state of emergency gave them unlimited authority over
political life and led to violent excesses as a matter of
policy. Military measures whose apparent aim was to defend
the country from its internal enemies made the state itself
the enemy many Somalis feared the most. The repression,
particularly summary killings, increased dramatically after
1981, resistance intensified and the response became even
more violent" [Somalia: A government at war with its
own people.
Human Rights Watch 1990]. When the
Djibouti-hosted Somali peace talks officially opened in Arta
on 2 May 2000, Somalilanders - both those who joined and
those who opted out of the process - said the conference was
stigmatised by the presence of "war criminals".
IRIN put the charges to Gani.
QUESTION: What do you think Arta has
achieved?
ANSWER: I believe the best government
Somalia has ever had will be born here.
Q: Do you think it will be seen as a
national government?
A: I believe it will become a national
government and a real government, providing the Europeans
and the Americans and the Arabs do not have a separate
agenda and they support the will of the people of Somalia. I
believe it will be a good government.
Q: But what about within Somalia? There
are two regions whose administrations have boycotted the
talks?
A: We have information that in the regions
you are alluding to, the people now as we speak, are
celebrating what is emerging from these talks. They are
waiting for the new government and for it to be recognised.
Q: The Somaliland administration has
boycotted Arta because it says you, among others, are
"war criminals" and should not be attending.
A: If there is anybody - me or anybody
else - who are war criminals [pause]. I am not someone who
is running away from a crime I have committed against the
Somali people. And it's up to the Somali people and their
government to do something about anyone accused of
committing crimes against their people. I don't see myself
as a war criminal, and I'm not running from anything that
I've supposedly done.
Q: Do you think the new government should
address crimes committed under Muhammad Siyad Barreh's
regime and the civil war?
A: I don't believe that in this
transitional period it is something that this government can
address. But I believe that after the transitional period,
the new Somali government will be able to deal with it. It
can do two things: either it can set up a truth and
reconciliation conference like South Africa to find out what
happened, or it can chose to prosecute anyone accused of
committing crimes.
Q: You are accused of killings and human
rights abuses in the northwest. How do you see that time?
A: The human rights you are talking about
[pause]. Anyone can accuse anyone of violations. But human
rights - I was a soldier, I was defending a country. I was
defending that country from a guerrilla movement that was
backed by the Ethiopian government. I had obligations to
protect the territorial integrity of Somalia and I was
defending my borders. If you are going to call that action
"human rights abuses" - I don't know what to say.
I don't believe I have committed any human rights abuses.
Q: What do you think the new government
should do for an army?
A: I think the UN Security Council has
said it will support the new government, morally, materially
and economically. If that really happens and a show of force
is done by the powers that be, and the international
community might have to bring ships, for example, to the
coast. We need a three-month military force to assist the
new government, and to help demobilise and disarm the
militia and co-opt those that they can, and retrain them and
to start the police force. I think that something like that
can be done.
Q: And how do you sort out which soldiers
to co-opt and which to get rid of, to give the new
government credibility?
A: As you know, to select individuals for
the military or the police there are certain set criteria
that you have to follow, that they have to pass. We will
follow that criteria. For those others we cannot bring into
the new force we will have to retrain them and give them
some other means of making a living.
Q: And for yourself, General Gani, do you
expect to have a military role?
A: I am now a member of the Transitional
National Assembly. I have been away from the military for a
long time, including from the previous government - I was
removed from the military. Right now, in politics, I'm not
particularly interested in any military service. But if my
country decides they need me, I'll do it. And I want to ask
you a question - don't you think that what Europeans and
Americans did in Africa are human rights abuses? If you want
to talk about human rights abuses, lets talk about that.
