Ten days ago, on the 22nd June 2008, a great Ogadeni intellectual and political leader, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah, died in Abu Dhabi. His premature death (after 67 years of commitment and struggle) marks the end of an era for the tyrannized nation of Ogaden, ushering therefore the Ogadenis into a new phase of struggle for freedom, liberation, national independence, and self-determination.
It is certainly a good sign for the entire nation that, a few days before the passing away of the great Ogadeni leader, an important development took place, namely the publication of the HRW Report on Ogaden. With this, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah in his last days saw the struggle of his nation, and the ongoing, appalling Abyssinian tyranny over Ogaden, becoming a matter of international concern.
The internationalization of the Ogaden Crisis is de facto the beginning of the end for the illegal Abyssinian rule over Ogaden. And the internationalization started with the HRW Report in which the Abyssinian administration is held responsible for Crimes against the Mankind perpetrated against the mercilessly oppressed Ogadenis.
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah was one of the few remaining Eastern African protagonists of another era; his were the times of the nationalizations, the state run economy, the Pan Arabist explosion (he was just 11 when a pro-socialist coup overthrew the last Egyptian king and brought Naguib and Nasser to power).
Those days of the Cold War were very hot indeed for the entire area that stretches from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean; the decolonization was implemented in a way that triggered wars and perpetuated the pre-existing colonial structures. From Palestine to India, divisions and separations were viciously decided and unjustly implemented, bearing the ominous stamp of the English and French colonialism. In the Horn of Africa, long before Somalia became independent, the destiny of Ogaden, historically integral part of Somalia, had been mortgaged by England, following an irrelevant and illegal transfer of colonial authority from the departing English to the barbaric Abyssinian pseudo-king Haile Selassie.
Now, we live in a completely different era; the Cold War has ended, the dreams and the inconsistency of Pan-Arabism has been exposed, and the dangerous trap of pre-arranged conflict machination has been observed and examined.
Paying the last and eternal tribute of honour to the great Ogadeni intellectual and leader, today´s political, social, intellectual, and religious leaders of Ogaden, along with the Ogadeni Diaspora and businessmen must know ponder on a new strategy that will take Ogaden from the ashes of the Abyssinian tyranny to the gate of the United Nations.
The target of the national independence must be reinstated more strongly than ever, and a plan must be made; friends and supporters must be identified, and a great campaign must be undertaken. There is no doubt that the Final, Irrevocable, Ultimate Victory will be for Ogaden.
It will corroborate the struggle in which Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah was engaged, and it will reflect his life´s values and principles which, reassessed in our times, can give Freedom and Independence to Ogaden.
I will republish here two obituaries published in Ogadeni and Somali media; the first is the Statement issued by the ONLF, and the second is a biographical sketch written by one of Ogaden´s foremost intellectuals, Mr. Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza).
Death of Ogaden Somali Hero
http://www.onlf.org/ogaden_hero.html - June 12 2008
Early in the Morning on 22 June 2008 Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah died in Abu Dhabi.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla was born in Qalaafo (Kelafo) Ogaden in 1941. He finished his primary education in the Ogaden and went for further studies to Saudi Arabia in 1958 where he did his secondary education and University. He graduated From Imam Mohamed Bin-Sacud University in Mecca in 1970.
In 1973 he came to Somalia and became a teacher in the Secondary Schools in Hargheisa-Northern Somalia. He joined WSLF in 1976 and became WSLF representative in Abu Dhabi in 1981. He was also elected to the Central Committee of WSLF.
In 1984 Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla became one of the Founding members of ONLF. He came to the Ogaden and attended the First ONLF Congress in the Ogaden in 1991 and was elected its chairman. He was the Chairman of ONLF until 1998. He retained his Central Committee seat and was an active member of ONLF until he deceased. 1n 1999 he formed the institute of Strategic Studies of the Horn of Africa.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdallah was a writer and wrote the following books and many articles in different newspapers in the Middle East. Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla strongly believed in the Right to self-determination and freedom of the Somali people under Ethiopian rule. Sh. Ibrahim spirit will always be beside the Somali Fighters in the Ogaden.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla left behind four boys and four girls and their off springs who reside in Kenya, UK, USA and Ireland.
Some of the Books Sh. Ibrahim wrote are
1. The Third Defeat of the Abyssinians -1982 in Arabic
2. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
3. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
4. Ogadenia Stops the Ethiopians- Somali 1996
5. The Sum of Books (History of the Struggle) 2001.
Biography of Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed Shams
By: Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza)
Amongst others: http://www.ogadenpost.com/readarticle.php?article_id=46, http://www.ogaden.com/stanza250608.htm and http://www.dhahar.com/article.php?articleid=5000
His Early Life
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed "Mah" was born in the "Oil-Rich" but long time war-ravaged Ogaden region, at the historic town of Kallafo, in 1941 to a middle class family. He memorised the Holy Kur'an by heart at a very young age in the shanty village of Bargun. He also studied the rudimentary rules of the Islamic theology, the basic principles of Islam, and the calligraphy and graphology of the Arabic script under the tutelage of a dugsi, a locally administered Somali-style Islamic propagation centre.
His Basic Secular Academic Career
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle began his basic education in Kallafo, whereupon, he did his lower and upper primary schooling. After his outsmarting completion of the primary level, he left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for further studies in 1958 on foot. After performing his pilgrimage, he started secondary school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On successfully finishing high school, he joined the internationally acclaimed Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in the Holy City of Mecca in 1967. Graduating from the faculty of Islamic Sharia, he obtained his baccalaureate - bachelor degree (BA) IN 1970. It was reported that the deceased was a noted bookish and an avid reader during his stay at the university, and that is where his studious journey of life time student of history started.
Job Experience
On finishing his university studies, he came back to his beloved homeland, Ogaden, to shoo away the boiling nostalgia that evicted him from the Kindom of Saudi Arabia; and he became a teacher in the crops-rich city of Godey early seventies. After working as a teacher for a short period of time, he was promoted to the posts of education inspector and the head of the Teachers Union in Godey. The bodily perished and the theoretically living Somali Ogaden thinker, Mah, went to the then independent Democratic republic of Somalia in 1973 and on his arrival at Mogadishu, he was taken by the ministry of education as a secondary school teacher, whereby he was located in Hargeisa, the second capital city of Somalia.
His Middle Life as a Freedom Fighter
He resigned from the educational assignments that he was holding for Somalia and joined Western Somali Liberation Front in 1976, activating the military and political philosophy of the then Somali-backed movement, WSLF, under the auspices of the late dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre. After a short while, the lost hero, Sheikh Ibrahim, became an active member of WSLF central committee through all-agreed election. He was sent to Abu Dhabi in 1981, as a diplomatic representative for Western Somali Liberation Front. After the sheer military and political abortion of WSLF as a result of the direct military intervention of Somali armed forces, sheikh Ibrahim co-founded Ogaden National Liberation Front in 1984. In 1991, he was elected the chairman of ONLF and he had been holding that post till 1998. February 1994, Sheikh Ibrahim narrowly escaped from an assassination attempt by Ethiopian battalion based in Warder. He was defended by the people of Warder with the help of ONLF fighters scouting him, and, many Ethiopian soldiers and almost 100 civilians from Warder died because of him. It was reported that Sheikh Ibrahim took part in some of the deadliest armed confrontations between ONLF battalion and Ethiopian garrison in the war-torn Ogaden. Some tidings said that he acted field commander in the front line to give his soldiers moral support.
His Marital Status
Sheikh Ibrahim married three wives and he is survived by four sons and four daughters with a group of grand-children living in Nairobi, UK and the USA.
His Personality
Sheikh Ibrahim was a charismatic born-leader with adamant political objectives. He was an outspoken Islamic scholar and a profound patriot who believed in death for the sake of his country and in the defense of his Islamic belief. He was an honest and God-fearing man. He was a great ideologue yarning for Arab unity and Somalis nicknamed him "The pro-Arab campaigner in the Horn of Africa." He was a confident and firm freedom-fighter longing for the martyrdom of his targeted mission under any circumstance. My first and last meeting with him in Khartoum by the end of 2006, I put the following question to him, "Ethiopia has got one of the strongest armies in Africa and your fighting with it prolonged the suffering of the Ogaden citizens. Are you capable of vanquishing this powerful and regular force? If not so, why don't you negotiate with the government, Ethiopia?" Sheikh Ibrahim smiled and replied to me, "My No to Ethiopian colonization is stronger than the strong armed forces that you mentioned. We have gallant and stronger fighters than theirs, and, we are ready to fight them to the end till they peacefully withdraw from our homeland - Ogaden. Our brave and patient people can't accept the oligarchic colonial rule of the up-starts - the minority Tigray, under the despotic and autocratic instruction of the callow leadership of Mr Zenawi."
His Authorship
He was one of the greatest historians in Africa and the finest writers in Arabic language. He was an astute political scientist and a broad-minded researcher on African and Arabian political history. He was a hot political analyst; and an author of heaps of articles on different Arabic magazines and daily newspapers in the Middle East. He wrote over five books on African regional crises and he was now working on a linguistic analysis book about the lexicological interrelations between Arabic and Somali languages. Moreover, he currently finished a book he named "The War on Maps in The Horn of Africa" which is waiting for posthumous publication.
His Late Life
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle was the head of "The Horn of Africa Research and Strategic Studies Centre" in Abu Dhabi that he founded in 1999. He was also a member of ONLF central committee and the spiritual leader of the above mentioned separatist rebel movement waging war against Ethiopia for the complete independence of Ogaden region. He died in Abu Dhabi on 22 June 2008. He was buried in Abu Dhabi on 24 June 2008. According to postmortem examination, his death was natural.
P.S. (By: Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza)) I thank all those I have used their articles like: WWW.OGADEN.COM, WWW.QORAHAY.COM and the scholarly artilce of Dr. Abdirahman Sheikh Abduallahi (Abdirahman Madani) that was published on WWW.OGADEN.COM on 32/6/2008. I sturdily apologise for not citing these works in the centre of my articles for some reasons.
It is certainly a good sign for the entire nation that, a few days before the passing away of the great Ogadeni leader, an important development took place, namely the publication of the HRW Report on Ogaden. With this, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah in his last days saw the struggle of his nation, and the ongoing, appalling Abyssinian tyranny over Ogaden, becoming a matter of international concern.
The internationalization of the Ogaden Crisis is de facto the beginning of the end for the illegal Abyssinian rule over Ogaden. And the internationalization started with the HRW Report in which the Abyssinian administration is held responsible for Crimes against the Mankind perpetrated against the mercilessly oppressed Ogadenis.
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah was one of the few remaining Eastern African protagonists of another era; his were the times of the nationalizations, the state run economy, the Pan Arabist explosion (he was just 11 when a pro-socialist coup overthrew the last Egyptian king and brought Naguib and Nasser to power).
Those days of the Cold War were very hot indeed for the entire area that stretches from the Eastern Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean; the decolonization was implemented in a way that triggered wars and perpetuated the pre-existing colonial structures. From Palestine to India, divisions and separations were viciously decided and unjustly implemented, bearing the ominous stamp of the English and French colonialism. In the Horn of Africa, long before Somalia became independent, the destiny of Ogaden, historically integral part of Somalia, had been mortgaged by England, following an irrelevant and illegal transfer of colonial authority from the departing English to the barbaric Abyssinian pseudo-king Haile Selassie.
Now, we live in a completely different era; the Cold War has ended, the dreams and the inconsistency of Pan-Arabism has been exposed, and the dangerous trap of pre-arranged conflict machination has been observed and examined.
Paying the last and eternal tribute of honour to the great Ogadeni intellectual and leader, today´s political, social, intellectual, and religious leaders of Ogaden, along with the Ogadeni Diaspora and businessmen must know ponder on a new strategy that will take Ogaden from the ashes of the Abyssinian tyranny to the gate of the United Nations.
The target of the national independence must be reinstated more strongly than ever, and a plan must be made; friends and supporters must be identified, and a great campaign must be undertaken. There is no doubt that the Final, Irrevocable, Ultimate Victory will be for Ogaden.
It will corroborate the struggle in which Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah was engaged, and it will reflect his life´s values and principles which, reassessed in our times, can give Freedom and Independence to Ogaden.
I will republish here two obituaries published in Ogadeni and Somali media; the first is the Statement issued by the ONLF, and the second is a biographical sketch written by one of Ogaden´s foremost intellectuals, Mr. Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza).
Death of Ogaden Somali Hero
http://www.onlf.org/ogaden_hero.html - June 12 2008
Early in the Morning on 22 June 2008 Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalla Mah died in Abu Dhabi.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla was born in Qalaafo (Kelafo) Ogaden in 1941. He finished his primary education in the Ogaden and went for further studies to Saudi Arabia in 1958 where he did his secondary education and University. He graduated From Imam Mohamed Bin-Sacud University in Mecca in 1970.
In 1973 he came to Somalia and became a teacher in the Secondary Schools in Hargheisa-Northern Somalia. He joined WSLF in 1976 and became WSLF representative in Abu Dhabi in 1981. He was also elected to the Central Committee of WSLF.
In 1984 Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla became one of the Founding members of ONLF. He came to the Ogaden and attended the First ONLF Congress in the Ogaden in 1991 and was elected its chairman. He was the Chairman of ONLF until 1998. He retained his Central Committee seat and was an active member of ONLF until he deceased. 1n 1999 he formed the institute of Strategic Studies of the Horn of Africa.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdallah was a writer and wrote the following books and many articles in different newspapers in the Middle East. Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla strongly believed in the Right to self-determination and freedom of the Somali people under Ethiopian rule. Sh. Ibrahim spirit will always be beside the Somali Fighters in the Ogaden.
Sh. Ibrahim Abdalla left behind four boys and four girls and their off springs who reside in Kenya, UK, USA and Ireland.
Some of the Books Sh. Ibrahim wrote are
1. The Third Defeat of the Abyssinians -1982 in Arabic
2. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
3. Explaining the History (of the Struggle). Somali & Arabic 1992
4. Ogadenia Stops the Ethiopians- Somali 1996
5. The Sum of Books (History of the Struggle) 2001.
Biography of Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed Shams
By: Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza)
Amongst others: http://www.ogadenpost.com/readarticle.php?article_id=46, http://www.ogaden.com/stanza250608.htm and http://www.dhahar.com/article.php?articleid=5000
His Early Life
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle Mohamed "Mah" was born in the "Oil-Rich" but long time war-ravaged Ogaden region, at the historic town of Kallafo, in 1941 to a middle class family. He memorised the Holy Kur'an by heart at a very young age in the shanty village of Bargun. He also studied the rudimentary rules of the Islamic theology, the basic principles of Islam, and the calligraphy and graphology of the Arabic script under the tutelage of a dugsi, a locally administered Somali-style Islamic propagation centre.
His Basic Secular Academic Career
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle began his basic education in Kallafo, whereupon, he did his lower and upper primary schooling. After his outsmarting completion of the primary level, he left for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for further studies in 1958 on foot. After performing his pilgrimage, he started secondary school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On successfully finishing high school, he joined the internationally acclaimed Imam Mohamed Bin Saud University in the Holy City of Mecca in 1967. Graduating from the faculty of Islamic Sharia, he obtained his baccalaureate - bachelor degree (BA) IN 1970. It was reported that the deceased was a noted bookish and an avid reader during his stay at the university, and that is where his studious journey of life time student of history started.
Job Experience
On finishing his university studies, he came back to his beloved homeland, Ogaden, to shoo away the boiling nostalgia that evicted him from the Kindom of Saudi Arabia; and he became a teacher in the crops-rich city of Godey early seventies. After working as a teacher for a short period of time, he was promoted to the posts of education inspector and the head of the Teachers Union in Godey. The bodily perished and the theoretically living Somali Ogaden thinker, Mah, went to the then independent Democratic republic of Somalia in 1973 and on his arrival at Mogadishu, he was taken by the ministry of education as a secondary school teacher, whereby he was located in Hargeisa, the second capital city of Somalia.
His Middle Life as a Freedom Fighter
He resigned from the educational assignments that he was holding for Somalia and joined Western Somali Liberation Front in 1976, activating the military and political philosophy of the then Somali-backed movement, WSLF, under the auspices of the late dictator, Mohamed Siad Barre. After a short while, the lost hero, Sheikh Ibrahim, became an active member of WSLF central committee through all-agreed election. He was sent to Abu Dhabi in 1981, as a diplomatic representative for Western Somali Liberation Front. After the sheer military and political abortion of WSLF as a result of the direct military intervention of Somali armed forces, sheikh Ibrahim co-founded Ogaden National Liberation Front in 1984. In 1991, he was elected the chairman of ONLF and he had been holding that post till 1998. February 1994, Sheikh Ibrahim narrowly escaped from an assassination attempt by Ethiopian battalion based in Warder. He was defended by the people of Warder with the help of ONLF fighters scouting him, and, many Ethiopian soldiers and almost 100 civilians from Warder died because of him. It was reported that Sheikh Ibrahim took part in some of the deadliest armed confrontations between ONLF battalion and Ethiopian garrison in the war-torn Ogaden. Some tidings said that he acted field commander in the front line to give his soldiers moral support.
His Marital Status
Sheikh Ibrahim married three wives and he is survived by four sons and four daughters with a group of grand-children living in Nairobi, UK and the USA.
His Personality
Sheikh Ibrahim was a charismatic born-leader with adamant political objectives. He was an outspoken Islamic scholar and a profound patriot who believed in death for the sake of his country and in the defense of his Islamic belief. He was an honest and God-fearing man. He was a great ideologue yarning for Arab unity and Somalis nicknamed him "The pro-Arab campaigner in the Horn of Africa." He was a confident and firm freedom-fighter longing for the martyrdom of his targeted mission under any circumstance. My first and last meeting with him in Khartoum by the end of 2006, I put the following question to him, "Ethiopia has got one of the strongest armies in Africa and your fighting with it prolonged the suffering of the Ogaden citizens. Are you capable of vanquishing this powerful and regular force? If not so, why don't you negotiate with the government, Ethiopia?" Sheikh Ibrahim smiled and replied to me, "My No to Ethiopian colonization is stronger than the strong armed forces that you mentioned. We have gallant and stronger fighters than theirs, and, we are ready to fight them to the end till they peacefully withdraw from our homeland - Ogaden. Our brave and patient people can't accept the oligarchic colonial rule of the up-starts - the minority Tigray, under the despotic and autocratic instruction of the callow leadership of Mr Zenawi."
His Authorship
He was one of the greatest historians in Africa and the finest writers in Arabic language. He was an astute political scientist and a broad-minded researcher on African and Arabian political history. He was a hot political analyst; and an author of heaps of articles on different Arabic magazines and daily newspapers in the Middle East. He wrote over five books on African regional crises and he was now working on a linguistic analysis book about the lexicological interrelations between Arabic and Somali languages. Moreover, he currently finished a book he named "The War on Maps in The Horn of Africa" which is waiting for posthumous publication.
His Late Life
Sheikh Ibrahim Abdalle was the head of "The Horn of Africa Research and Strategic Studies Centre" in Abu Dhabi that he founded in 1999. He was also a member of ONLF central committee and the spiritual leader of the above mentioned separatist rebel movement waging war against Ethiopia for the complete independence of Ogaden region. He died in Abu Dhabi on 22 June 2008. He was buried in Abu Dhabi on 24 June 2008. According to postmortem examination, his death was natural.
P.S. (By: Mohamed Abdikadir Daud (Stanza)) I thank all those I have used their articles like: WWW.OGADEN.COM, WWW.QORAHAY.COM and the scholarly artilce of Dr. Abdirahman Sheikh Abduallahi (Abdirahman Madani) that was published on WWW.OGADEN.COM on 32/6/2008. I sturdily apologise for not citing these works in the centre of my articles for some reasons.
