"General John Abizaid of the U.S. Central Command, which has military authority for the Horn of Africa, flew to Ethiopia recently to meet with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who has told American officials that he could cripple the Islamists "in one to two weeks."" (13 December 2006, Jeffrey Gettleman and Mark Mazzetti, New York Times )

"The people will continue fighting and defend the homeland. The Ethiopians must leave Somalia. I am telling the world, the Americans and Westerners, you are mistaken in this war. We will not be conquered! This is our land and they must leave it.” ( 20 January 2007, Nabaddoon Axmed Diiriye Cali, Radio Shabelle, Mogadishu)

On the 13th year Anniversary of the genocidal Ethiopian invasion of Mogadishu and Somalia in December 2006, it is important to commemorate not only the historic significance of this bloody chapter of the contemporary History of Somalia but the real heroes who gave their life and blood for the freedom that every single Somali enjoys today.

The American and belligerent Western powers fully calculated on arming the brutal Ethiopian regime of Meles Zinawi to officially erase Somalia and its Muslim people from the map. This was the pivotal culmination of centuries of colonialism and ideological Crusade campaigns in the Horn of Africa.

In December 2006, the CIA and the higher echelons of the war criminal George W. Bush administration in Washington, the allied British government of Prime Minister Tony Blair and the European Union were certain of the imminent Ethiopian military victory and complete annexation of Southern Somalia.

The Western Powers, using the unrestricted coffers of the United Arab Emirates, awarded the Ethiopian Tigrayan dictator Zinawi upwards of US $ 1.3 billion dollars in 2006 to strengthen the economy of Ethiopia for the expected historic war and genocide on Mogadishu and its people.

The Western policymakers were misinformed by neo-colonial informants led by Prof. Ken Menkhaus,  Prof. I.M Lewis, former US Ambassador Robert Oakley, neo-con warmonger Dr. J. Peter Pham, former  European Commissioner Louis Michel all of whom asserted publically that " only segments of Hawiye” would resist the upcoming Ethiopian invasion of Somalia.

 The Western propaganda machine, so called mass media at the time such as the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the CNN network completely disregarded the flagrant war crimes that were being perpetrated against hundreds of thousands of innocent Mogadishu civilians. Children, elderly and women were butchered by Ethiopian army, AMISOM Ugandan and Burundi mercenaries and allied puppet TFG clan militias through intentional bombardments, unrelenting aerial attacks, tanks and the deployment of the poisonous white phosphorus shells to destroy the city.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) used desperate criminal warlords in 2007 to quickly set up numerous "black sites”— detention centres in Mogadishu for mass torture, assassination and execution of innocent Somali doctors, students, and religious scholars.

Overnight, the United Nations reported that the Elasha Biyaha IDP camps— today a thriving economic satellite city on the outskirts of Mogadishu— had become the fastest growing internally displaced settlement in the world!

 Yet, the people will NEVER  FORGET the late Nabaddoon Ahmed Diriye Ali. It was Nabaddoon Diriye Ali who immortalized the undefeatable spirit of Somali courage to fight insurmountable odds, "We will not be conquered!” he declared to the Enemies of Human Freedom during the height of the Resistance to the bloody Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2007.

On this occasion, I therefore ask Prime Minister Ali Hassan Kheire to officially declare December the Month of Commemoration of Somali Heroes Who Fought and Died Opposing the Ethiopian Invasion and Occupation of Our Homeland.

This is the least we owe to the sacrifice they gave and the legacy that has made it possible to imagine a free Somalia today in 2019. Today, 13th bloody years later, Mogadishu is free!

Dr. M. Omar Hashi

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