You were in sensed because Ethiopians are remembering the Ethiopian heroes who sacrificed their life to revers Siadbar’s Somali unprovoked aggression and had crushed it at Kara Mara. And you wrote as if the Siadbar “army was martyrs who fought for Somali dignity, identity, language and Land!” Nothing could be further from the truth. Siadbare who lead the invasion of Ethiopia had killed more Somalis than anyone in the history of Somali’s people, including those who came to fight by his order and never made it back home. To hail him as a freedom fighter is an insult to Somali’s people intellect. The Ethiopian people has seen you as the most progressive person in Ethiopian political scene at this time, and I don’t think that would change because of your twit. Yes there are many Somali’s who fought alongside their Ethiopian brothers to protect Ethiopia in different part of Ethiopia. Yes there have been Somalis who fought for dignity of Somalis, Oromos, Amhars people alongside with their Ethiopian brothers , but the kar Mara war was a war of aggression and Ethiopans vanquished the enemy as the enemy of Ethiopians. One assumes your responded on spur of the moment without much thought, but the genocidal Siadbare had never been a freedom fighter, and the Ethiopians who died to reverse the aggression were our heroes who will be remembered for generation to come without ifs or buts . Here is the sample of what Siadbare did with out going into detales what he did on the other part of Somalia. He was the second man who designed “the final solution “ on his own people. And the United Nations charged him as genocider.
“Isaaq genocide”
In April 1981, a group of Isaaq businesspeople, students, former civil servants and former politicians who lived in the United Kingdom founded the Somali National Movement in London.[8] Initially, the aim of the various groups that merged to create the SNM was not to create an armed liberation front, but rather these groups formed as a direct response to the harsh policies enacted by the Barre regime against the Isaaq people.[9]
By 1982 the SNM transferred their headquarters to Dire Dawa in Ethiopia,[10] as both Somalia and Ethiopia at the time offered safe havens of operation for resistance groups against each other. From there the SNM successfully launched a guerrilla war against the Barre regime through incursions and hit and run operations on army positions within Isaaq territories before returning to Ethiopia.[9] The SNM continued this pattern of attacks from 1982 and throughout the 1980s, at a time the Ogaden Somalis (some of whom were recruited refugees) made up the bulk of Barre's armed forces accused of committing acts of genocide against the Isaaq people of the north.[11]
A policy letter written by Barre's son-in-law and viceroy in the north General Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan known as The Morgan Report[12] formed the basis of the Barre regime's retaliation against the Isaaq following a successful SNM attack on Hargeisa and Burao. The policy letter provided “implemented and recommended measures” for a “final solution” to Somalia's “Isaaq problem”.[13]
According to Rebecca Richards, a systematic state violence that followed was linked to the Barre government's belief that SNM attacks were receiving assistance from the Ethiopian government. The harsh reprisals, widespread bombing and burning of villages by Barre regime followed every time there was an attack by SNM believed to be hiding in Ethiopia.[14] The regime violence in the north and northwest was disproportionate, affected many communities, particularly Isaaq. The number of civilian deaths in this massacre is estimated to be between 50,000-100,000[15] according to various sources, whilst local reports estimate the total civilian deaths to be upwards of 200,000 Isaaq civilians.[16] The government attack included the levelling and complete destruction of the second and third largest cities in Somalia,[17] Hargeisa (which was 90 per cent destroyed)[18] and Burao (70 per cent destroyed) respectively through a campaign of aerial bombardment, and had caused 400,000 Somalis[19] (primarily of the Isaaq clan) to flee their land and cross the border to Hartasheikh in Ethiopia as refugees, creating the world's largest refugee camp then (1988),[20] with another 400,000 being internally displaced.[19]
A United Nations investigation concluded that the Barre regime's killing of Isaaq civilians was a genocide, and that the crime of genocide was "conceived, planned and perpetrated by the Somali government against the Isaaq people".[21]
Against the Hawiye