Sultan Hurre Remembrance Day
(SHHRF 0054/2005, 17 August 2005)
 

17 August 2005 is the third anniversary of the killing of Sultan Ahmed Mohamed Hurre, who symbolises for all the Somalis killed for political reasons. The respected, educated Sultan was killed point blank at Kalabayr of Puntland on August 17, 2002 by the bodyguards of Col. Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf, the current leader of the so-called transitional federal government of Somalia. The Colonel admitted that his bodyguards killed the Sultan while he was the disputed President of the Puntland State of Somalia.  Col. Yusuf did this admission in submission he made to the High Court of Justice in London, even though he had denied his knowledge of the death of the respected sultan. The fact remains that Col. Yusuf was in a stone’s throw when the Sultan was gunned down under his supervision.

Similar political assassinations have also taken place in Puntland and elsewhere in Somalia. Colonel Farah Mohamed Said (Farah Dheere), a respected businessman was gunned down by no one but the same bodyguards of the Colonel. It is also remembered that the special bodyguards of Col. Yusuf were implicated in the broad-day-light killing of Abdirahman Aidid, a well known Somali politician, in 1984 in Dire Dawa. Aidid was the Colonel’s political rival at the time while Col. Yusuf was the Chairman of Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF). 

Despite the dismal record of the Colonel, it was deplorable to see that the appointed Somali members of parliament elected Col. Yusuf as the “President” of transitional set-up in Somalia. 

As SHHRF had predicted, Somalia is moving towards another cycle of killings and civil war similar to that of the 1990s when armed opposition officers attempted to solve political problems with brute force. It is unfortunate that the fate of many innocent Somalis is written in the wall as Col. Yusuf is gearing up for a war to be waged against his political adversaries in the south of Somalia.
SHHRF is condemning the use of political violence in settling political differences. We remind the Somali people and the international community that the leader of Somalia’s fledgling interim set-up had eliminated his political adversaries and has no qualms in doing it again and again.

We urge all Somalis, the international community as well as the human rights agencies in Somalia and worldwide to take to task Somalia’s new dictator and his sponsors. No more killings of Somalis, let alone its intellectual leaders. 

 Sultan Hurre Human Rights Focus (SHHRF)