… do the right thing and you will be celebrated as heroes. Or continue to kill and mayhem for Woyanne, and you are nothing but pigs.
Somali pilot returns to city he refused to bomb
Fri Jun 27, 2008 5:29am EDT
By Hussein Ali Nur and Guled Mohamed
HARGEISA (Reuters Life!) – On July 13, 1988, Somali fighter pilot Abdi Mohamed Hassan was ordered to bomb Hargeisa city as part of operations by dictator Mohamed Siad Barre to crush anti-government forces.
Hassan defied his superiors, and instead dropped his load on bare mountains close to the hilly city in north Somalia that is now capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Then he crash-landed on a beach in neighbouring Djibouti after running out of fuel, handed himself in to local authorities, and eventually won asylum in Luxembourg despite Somalia’s bid to bring extradite him.
Twenty years on, Hassan — now a businessman in Luxembourg — is back in Hargeisa for the first time, invited by the government as a guest of honour during this week’s celebrations of Somaliland’s independence from Britain on June 26, 1960.
“The instruction was to bomb Hargeisa city using Russian made Fab 500kg bombs,” the 56 year-old father-of-four told Reuters in the city, where ruins still bear witness to the massive bombardment of 20 years ago.
“But I had already made up my mind never to drop the bombs. As a soldier, I swore to protect my people. There was no way I could hurt my own countrymen.”
Now Hassan is thinking of moving back to his homeland — either Hargeisa or Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, where he was born.
In Hargeisa, a camouflaged metal replica of Mig fighters like the one Hassan flew stands in Independence Square as a memorial to the bloodshed and terror unleashed by Barre, who was toppled in 1991.
Somaliland, a former British protectorate, won independence in 1960 just four days before Italy relinquished the south. The two territories joined together to form modern Somalia.
Inter-clan hatred ensured the union was a difficult one, and those four days in 1960 now form the legal case for Somaliland’s 1991 declaration of independence.
Although it lacks international recognition, the northern enclave has held democratic elections and is relatively peaceful compared to the rest of Somalia, especially in the south.
The bespectacled and bearded Hassan is disgusted by daily violence in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the south, where insurgents are battling the Somali government and its Ethiopian Woyanne military allies.
“Innocent civilians die every day in the south. I wish to urge the combatants to spare our country and people. I long for the day when peace will prevail in my beloved country,” he said.
In Somaliland, Hassan is lauded for his decision 20 years ago. Peace activists gave him a certificate of appreciation.
“I am glad I did not drop those bombs here… I got a hero’s welcome. I miss home and will one day return to settle in Hargeisa or Mogadishu,” he said, showing the certificate.
(Writing by Guled Mohamed; Edit by Matthew Jones)
10 thoughts on “A lesson to those who are in the Woyanne military”
Well, I think we need to be a little bit careful here. sure, if they can do it, that is a mighty wonderful idea. But, the problem, as I see it, is these pilots may not get refuge really anywhere in the neighborhood for Djibouti or any of the Somali enclaves woud surely hand them over to the Weyanes without whose blessing they seem to be disfunctional regimes. Yemen is not an option at all. I never did ever trust Arabs anyway. The only obvious option is Eritrea, but for some reason many Ethiopians would rather live in some pipe dream than working with Eritrea as we had seen in the comments coming after the Ethiomedia Weyane’s article that was posted here at ER.
Elias,
how can you expect weyane to act with civility and humantiy?..That is the basic ingredient lacking from their wretched souls.
We Ethiopians are great when we unite.We also have a bigger problem not confronting Betrayal of our nation.Were are those great soldiers were are their childern.Do you really think some body comes from out side to save you?or do you think this will ease soon?Are you waiting A hero to be born?I dont know what are you thinking?the return of Christ menlik,Balcha,Alula,Bekele woya,Omer semeter,so many to wish for it is not going to happen.Let us face it we are the product of them minus GUTS.We as an Ethiopian we have to learn to get rid off WHAT IS FOR ME AND START WHAT IS FOR US.Condeme those Cowards and Flush out the ME in them.As soon as the pig read this, watch they will come out with lame excuse or try to write some bogus but you know better.
Yes, he is a hero not only to Somalia, but also for all human right advocates. Unfortunately, I have never heard of Ethiopians solders, past or present, doing something like this.
Meles Zenawi is one of the actors in the fim “Motherland” which is currently on production and set to be released in July 2009.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motherland_(film)
Elias
where they going to run to?
Neighbouring country are all supporter of criminal Weyane government!
Sudan love Weyane
Djibouti love Weyane
Kenya love Weyane
Somalia government love Weyane
The article country of Somaliland is Weyane bestfriend
Where can they go?
I dont think this army want to go out of army anyways they are all hodam weyane
elias,
have you read once Capitain Teshome Tenkolu wrote an article about fleeing from ethiopia is how hard to any neighbouring countries, even the arabs? did you read his (capitain Teshomes’)article that states about how many ethiopian air force pilots hand over to woyanne by neighbouring countries and killed by woyane double agents abroad(neighbouring countries)? the only place now is your dream heaven (eritrea). I better choose to die than fleeing to eritrea.
To comment #4 Baheilu
If you were a member of the former Ethiopian Air force or have a friend from there, they can tell you how our pilots refused(this is not by confronting derg upfront) to bombard the tigray and eritrea and dropped their bombs on deserts and bushes. if they were dropped all those bombs on the people of tigray and eritrea, this places now were history
Weyane is playing in our weakness.They consolidate their power by dividing our people-giving some nominal power to individuals like Addisu and Girma here and there.Weyane is a parasite that needs to be exterminated from the face of the earth.
To #7 Yohannes
The Ethiopian air force during the Haileselassie and Menghistu eras bombed many Eritrean villages to the ground, take it from an Eritrean who witnessed those bombings first hand, the majority of Ethiopians in the diaspora can’t even regrettably will never understand how many thousands of Eritreans were eradicated by bombs of Ethiopian and thier mercenary pilots from easter Europe, Cuba, North Korea (in case of Woyanne recently) and south Yemen. Menghistu ordered the destruction of Massawa after his huge army was defeated there in 1990, if you are not sure I have a video to show you. What most people who have never had destructed wars waged on them by occupiers don’t know is that no wars are won from the air. You can terrorize people from the air but you have to fight on the ground to subjugate people, that is the hardest part.
And yes the neigbouring countries to Ethiopia will send the pilots back to Woyanne except for one country, Eritrea but most if not all those who wear the Ethiopian uniform think of Eritrea as an enemy so they won’t think about going to Eritrea with their planes, that is a result of hatred that was given to them throughout their life time since the Haileselassie regime. It will take time to get rid of that kind of irrational hatred and I hope the G7 movement will be a start in making Ethiopians understand that their main enemy is within their land not in Eritrea.
to#9 Eritrawi
Do you know how many sorties (flights) were made to bombared eritrea and tigray for the past 17 years of mengistu? to be honest it was too many or a lot.
so, think about Hawzen. how many people died on a half day bombardment of that area? tens or tewenty thousands. if so the pilots dropped all their bombs on to the people of eritrea and tigray as they were ordered for the past 17 years of mengistus’ regime, do you think that was there any one for “were negari” on those places? no.
the other thing that you tried to mentioned is about massawa’s bombardment. (if you are shabia) sorry to use this term to call you, you guys were eager to handicuff mengistu at the graduation ceremony of naval officers by wrong information gathered from somewhere else that mengistu will be there and start firing your heavy artilary and machineguns at the ceremony and killed a lot families of the graduates and the graduates. then the bombardment comes next. because there is no one who gave his left after clapped his right by some one else. that was what I tried to explain how the pilots were kind and patient.