Ref: BPRC0016/15                                                                                                            Date: 16/11/2015

To:                  Minister for Interior and Federalism

                        Abdirahman Mohamed Hussein (Odowa)

CC:                 President of the Federal republic of Somalia

                        H. E. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud

CC:                 Prime Minister of the Federal Government of Somalia

                        H. E. Omar AbdirashidAli Sharmaarke

CC:                 Speaker of the Federal Parliament of Somalia

                        H. E.Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari

CC:                 The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General

                        Ambassador Nicolas Kay

CC:                 The international Community members: 

Sub:                 COMPLAINT: MARGINALIZATION AND NEGLIGENCE SUBJECTED TO THE BANADIRI COMMUNITY

Dear Sir/Madam,

                The Banadiri political Reformation Council (BPRC) is highly concerned about the deliberate marginalization and negligence subjected to our community by the government of Somalia, specially the ministry for interior and Governor and Mayor of Mogadishu.

As the donor community knows, all the formed regional states were given the opportunities to selected their members of the national consultation forum (NCF), which the Banadiri Community is neglected and have no members representing its interest. At this critical time, when the consultations started the Ministry of Interior and Mayor of Mogadishu, which was in charge of selection of delegations of the regions that have no federal states, we, the Banadiri community were offended by the MoI’s decision to deprive us the rights to select our representatives.

We met the minister and other parts of the government when the NCF was formed and explained our grievances to them, the minister promised to consider our complaint and respect our right to select our representatives, but the delegates were selected to the consultative meetings were rejected by the ministry, which intended to put there its own figures, which will not represent the Banadiri community.

We are a community that was subjected to war crimes and severe human rights abuses, we are the community that suffered from coordinated rape attack, kidnap for ransom, indiscriminate killings, property grabbing and sever political marginalization.

We need a break from the oppression subjected to us through the system of the governance, we need our government to treat us equal to all other clans, we need our government to respect our right to select our representative. All figures selected by the government, will represent the interest of the selected figures not the interest of the Banadiri community, and that is what happened when we were denied in the process of selection during 2012 election. 

Further negligence to the marginalized communities will serve for the interests of the groups that fight against the government.

Finally, we clearly confirm that we are a peaceful community, we are victims of the war, we are a community that needs a democratic system respects our rights as citizen, so that, we request our government, especially the ministry for interior to allow us the right to select our delegates and representatives instead of neglecting us.

We request the international community supporting the Somalia government to make sure the government leaders to respect all the Somali communities equal, allow equal participation of the process and respect to all communities to have right to select their delegations and representatives.

Chairman BPRC

Dr. LutfiShariif Mohamed