Somalia: Questions about the contraband arms quantities: Were they destined for oppressing opponents of Farmaajo?

The Somali government has announced the failure of an attempt to bring a large quantity of arms and ammunition on the country to destabilize security and stability in the country, according to a statement published by the Somali ministry of Information.

The statement reported that the government received information about an attempt by a network of Somali organizations, foreign countries and personalities to illegally traffic a large quantity of heavy weapons on the country, noting that the country follows strict laws and procedures for entering arms into the country, and that facilitated the surveillance process and ruined the trafficking attempt.

However, the statement did not provide more details about the source of the weapons and responsible parties, as well as the intended destination, or even the time of their failure.

Moreover, a source stated that the Somali government had received a letter from a United Nations committee supervising the arms sanctions imposed on Somalia, requesting it to provide clarification about the arms shipments and ammunition arriving from Eritrea in recent weeks. Besides, the UN message stated that the quantity and quality of weapons arriving in Mogadishu did not corresponding to the list of weapons authorized for the Somali state.

Furthermore, and to avoid any suspicion, the Somali government, according to the same source, published a statement on Monday January 25, 2021, in which talked about receiving news that foreign and Somali authorities were seeking to bring great quantity of weapons in the country, and it did not indicate any information over the party behind the above-mentioned activity, or the location of the attempted submission of the weapon, or even whether the authorities could in stopping the operation military, which made the statement ambiguous and increased many questions.

The ambiguity of the declaration and the insufficiency of the declared information increase many questions, the most important: Why the entering of those quantities at this time, as the country prepares for legislative and presidential elections? From sender and receiver? Was the shipment intended to oppress opponents of President Farmaajo’s regime to obtain another term?

The source indicated that the above-mentioned weapons were to arm the soldiers that Eritrea had trained for Somali President Muhammad Abdullah Farmaajo to use them to oppress the opposition and trickster the elections, while legislative elections were to be held at the end of the past year. However, political disagreements imposed an indefinite delay, while presidential elections are presumed to be held on February 8.

The United States had warned Farmaajo, in a well-established statement, to the consequences of holding unilateral elections that would put the fate of the country in the dark, and said: We would not accept unilateral elections, we would not accept unilateral elections, we would not accept parallel elections, and we would not accept violence because of the elections. The American message was sent to many parties, but it blocks the way for Farmaajo who announced his determination to move forward in the holding of elections whose integrity is doubted by the opposition.

There is only 15 days for the constitutional state of Farmaajo that puts the fate of the Somali elections in the unknown and threatens the political stability of the country, except that there would be an international plan to save the country from the violence.