Great news from Somaliland - release of Haatuf journalists
Great news from Somaliland, where the journalists of the Haatuf newspaper have been pardoned by the President and released.
There is more on the Somaliland Times website here (also permanently linked in in the righthand column)/
Further in issue 271 (31st March 2007) there is a very good article pointing out the fallacies in Tony Blair's pathetic response to the petition he was presented with regarding recognition of Somaliland's de facto independence in the article called 'Noteworthy Historical Facts Challenging Blair’s Perception Of So-Called ‘Somali Territorial Integrity’. It makes one almost ashamed to be British.
We British do go round the world thinking that everybody likes us and respects us, we British with the mother of Parliaments, with our great history, sense of fair play, manners and our sense of humour. However, it is not so long ago that we were a calculating imperial power, playing local people off against each other, with very little respect for these people.
There are so many places in the world which have to live with the results of Britain's scheming and calculating. Not just Somaliland, but also, very tellingly, Palestine, Iraq and Iran. What has come out of the current hostage crisis is the knowledge that when Iranians want to blame somebody for something which has gone wrong, it is a part of their culture to blame the British, not necessarily literally, but metaphorically.
We owe it to places and peoples to do what we can to help them deal with the consequences of our actions, especially if they ask us, as Somaliland and its people are doing so currently. It is time we shaped up and deal with the problems of our own making rather than run around after other people's problems.
And further good news in that the foreign (Lebanese, British and Dutch) hostages in Nigeria have been released tday as well!
posted by Charles Roffey and Fred O at 15:05
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