The ‘Minister’ for information and telecommunication of the Puntland regional administration of Somalia, Abdiweli Hersi Abdulle, did not even glance sidewise at diplomacy before jumping to quick ‘retort’ on a portion of the ‘State of Nation” address of the President of the Republic of Somaliland, H.E. Ahmed Mohamed Siilaanyo, relating to earlier flying allegations of the Puntland administration on Somaliland.
The President in his address mentioned that the ‘president’ of Puntland, Abdiweli Ali Gass, communicated with him to apologize for his administration relating Somaliland to terrorism several times before.
The President also stated that the two sides had a mutual stake at safeguarding regional security and maintaining peaceful co-existence with one another.
President Siilaanyo’s words aimed at allaying fears that the oft times abrasive accusations of Puntland on Somaliland may develop into an open escalation fo hostilities, especially, given that Puntland lays claim to large parts within the colonial borders of Somaliland as its own, based along clan lines. The
The President’s words, also, quelled Somalilander tempers inching upwards to a boiling point incensed by the consistent, unfounded allegations and ‘unjustified aggressions’ of the Puntland administration since the incumbent team came aboard.
In Somaliland cities, the reaction to the Puntland denial of the apology, and the repeated, very calculated accusation, again, became the center of heated expressions of indignation among residents.
A great number of messages flooded the social media sites and web blogs, too.
Some called Puntland a ‘tinpot administration’ spoiling for a fight the outcome of which it did not weigh properly’.
Others called it a ‘cheap shot’ on the part of the Abdiweli administration.
Others pointed out that the incumbent head of that administration, Abdiweli, was looking for other venues to channel his public’s frustration on him to. They said he was ‘kicked out of Mogadishu owing over seven months salaries to the army and the security forces’ and that he owed parallel forces in Puntland, today, over nine months of their meager monthly pay slips.
Whatever the case might be, seniority, peacefulness, statesmanship and the Somali’s traditional propensity to conflict resolution showed in President Siilaanyo’s words where, in the other, haste, ‘play-boyish’ muscle-flexing and rookie sense of bravado threatened to tip the barrel on regional status quo regarding its stability and political, military equanimity.
