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Omar’s conduct can be described in one Somalian word: Ceebta (Shameful)!

Rep. Omar Ignores Her Homeland’s Crisis as UN Expresses Deep Concern



Rep. Omar Ignores Her Homeland’s Crisis as UN Expresses Deep ConcernDemocrat Rep. Ilhan Omar is the first Somali American and African refugee in the United States Congress. She was born in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. After spending four years in a Kenyan refugee camp to which Ilhan Omar and her family fled as Somalia descended into civil war, she and her family moved to America. They settled in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood in downtown Minneapolis, which is nicknamed “Little Mogadishu” because of its high concentration of Somali American residents. Ilhan Omar became a U.S. citizen in 2000 and was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018. She was re-elected in 2020.

Omar made the Palestinian issue a cornerstone of her congressional activism

Omar is a member of the House Foreign Relations Committee and has recently been named Vice Chair of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights. Rather than use her prominent congressional platform to speak out on behalf of the suffering Somalian people who are not as lucky as she was to live the American dream, Omar has singled out Israel with a barrage of anti-Semitic remarks. Omar has also turned her ire here at home on America’s political and socio-economic system. The United Nations has tried to help Somalia overcome its multitude of severe problems, including the current political stalemate that threatens to bring even more violence to a country already beset by terrorism. Last month, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres warned that the protracted political stalemate in Somalia “carries significant risks for the stability of the country and the welfare of the Somali people, who are already facing a dire humanitarian situation and precarious security conditions." The stalemate has worsened in recent days, bringing Somalia to the brink of a full-blown crisis. You would think that Omar would be at least as concerned about her country of birth as the United Nations. But that is not the case in the slightest. Michael Rubin wrote an article for The Hill in June 2020 in which he reported on what dozens of Somalians had told him about Omar during his multiple visits to the region. Many of them had “hoped that Omar would focus sustained attention on the region and on diplomatic efforts to restore democracy to Somalia and advance U.S.-Somali ties. Instead, Omar made the Palestinian issue a cornerstone of her congressional activism.” Rubin added that “many of those back in Somalia appear disappointed that Omar’s Middle East activism represented a missed opportunity for U.S. ties to a long-neglected region of Africa.”

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Somalia is still literally a bloody mess

Somalia is still literally a bloody mess. It has never recovered from the civil war that sent Omar’s family fleeing to Kenya. Suicide bombings have killed or wounded several people over the last several days as terrorist violence and human rights abuses remain a way of life. A United Nations human rights investigator reporting on Somalia last fall said that she has continued to hear of “incidents of rape and other forms of sexual violence against women, girls and boys, occurring for the most part with impunity, forcing victims and their families to turn to other avenues, which seem to provide a semblance of justice, but in reality, continue to fuel violence.” She also spoke of “attacks against health care and aid workers,” and “excessive use of force by law enforcement agencies resulting in the death of civilians.” According to writers of a World Bank blog, “Decades of civil war and political fragmentation have made Somalia one of the poorest countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly seven of 10 Somalis live in poverty…” The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization warned last February that Somalia is experiencing extreme food insecurity. Omar could not care less about the plight of her own homeland’s people. She is too busy attacking Israel, which should be considered a model of what a pluralistic democracy can look like even in one of the most troubled regions of the world. And Omar would rather project the grave problems of her birthplace onto the United States, which took her in to become an American citizen and live the American dream.

The most fraudulent political events in Somalia’s history

The immediate crisis that Somalia is now facing stems from an ongoing political stalemate regarding the holding of a presidential election following the end of the current president’s four-year term, which expired last February. He is Somalian President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (known as “Farmaajo”), whom Omar had reportedly endorsed in the 2017 presidential election. That election has been described as one of the “the most fraudulent political events in Somalia’s history." Farmaajo and the five regional leaders had reached an agreement last September on a revised one-person-one-vote presidential election model. The deadline for holding parliamentary elections expired last December. And now Farmaajo’s presidential term is over. Instead of the planned presidential election this year, Farmaajo and regional leaders are deadlocked on how to proceed. “The president is solely responsible for the delay to the election,” Ilyas Ali, an opposition senator, told Al Jazeera. “He had four years to organise an election but he didn’t do that. Now, his term has ended. We don’t recognise him – and he only has himself to blame.” The United Nations and other multilateral organizations, including the African Union, met last week “in light of the gravity of the ongoing political stalemate in Somalia over the holding of delayed elections, and the continuing impasse in dialogue between the Federal Government and some Federal Member State leaders,” according to a joint communique released following their discussions. They noted that the political stalemate was “impacting negatively on peace, security, stability, and prosperity in Somalia and beyond.”


When it comes to the crisis that threatens to push Somalia over the edge, Omar has been quiet

On Sunday, the UN, along with its multilateral partners, called on Somali leaders to “prioritize the national interest” and resolve their political impasse. That did not happen. Instead, the lower house of Somalia’s parliament decided on April 12th to unilaterally extend Farmaajo’s term for two more years. Somali opposition leaders and two regional states, as well as Somalia’s senate, have rejected the lower house’s decision. A police commander in Somalia’s capital who had tried to prevent what he called a “power grab" was summarily fired. Former Somali Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire tweeted on Monday that Farmaajo “will solely be held responsible for what happens today or will happen.” What has Rep. Ilhan Omar, the Vice Chair of the House Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Global Human Rights, been tweeting about this month so far? On foreign affairs, she remarked on Yemen, Israel, and Saudi Arabia. As to domestic matters in her adopted country, Omar tweeted on April 7th that “we don’t live in a country where government officials are held accountable for human rights violations or war crimes against brown and black people.” When it comes to the crisis that threatens to push Somalia over the edge, Omar has been quiet. To date, Omar has not joined this past week’s chorus of international calls to end the current state of political chaos in her homeland through constructive compromises by all participants in the political process. Omar has not to date criticized the apparent power grab by the man she endorsed to serve as president of Somalia in 2017. She has not complained about lack of accountability in Somalia. Omar’s conduct can be described in one Somalian word: Ceebta (Shameful)!

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Joseph A. Klein, CFP United Nations Columnist -- Bio and Archives

Joseph A. Klein is the author of Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.


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