Bizarre Interview: U.S ambassador Yamamato calls for the “northern dominated SNA” to incorporate more southerners

[Farm]

CTC: To the extent that the United States is involved in combating al-Shabaab, can you walk us through how the United States has thought about it as a challenge and some of the efforts that the United States has undertaken either alone or in concert with others to fight al-Shabaab?

Yamamoto: So why is the U.S. in Somalia in general? Somalia was dead last in foreign assistance for years after the U.S. left the country in 1991. Why is it now in the top five of aid recipients? It’s because the United States is making a concerted effort to have greater stability in Somalia because of the threat that would emanate if we didn’t. [Particularly to] our main, core embassies in the region—in Addis [Ababa], Ethiopia, and in Nairobi, Kenya—our largest missions in Africa, our most important, would face risks from an unstable Somalia, so we need to look at how we can stabilize Somalia.

So what is the United States doing? We’re taking a different approach, as we came in last year, we went to the president [of Somalia] and said, “we’re not going to have just American troops out there every night. We want to see Somali troops.” And that’s why we’ve launched the first ever in Somalia joint military operation led by the Somali army and U.S.-trained Somali soldiers called Danab, which are specialized units. The United Nations, Great Britain, the European Union, the United States are the major supporters of sustaining this army against Shabaab. There has also been help from other countries—Turkey has trained troops, UAE, Qatar, and of course the Italians have done a great job. But again, it’s a long-range effort. It’s going to require generational change. My one caution is that Somalia must move to diversify its armed forces from a northern-based army and include more soldiers from clans and groups from the southern region of Somalia. There has to be more southern inclusion because Shabaab is based in the south.

Rest of the interview is below.

A View from the CT Foxhole: Donald Yamamoto, United States Ambassador to Somalia – Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

Ambassador Donald Yamamoto is the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia. Before this posting, he most recently served as Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. Previously, he also served as Senior Vice President at the National Defense University and in senior positions in...

ctc.usma.edu

 

[FBIsomalia]

Rest of the interview is below.

A View from the CT Foxhole: Donald Yamamoto, United States Ambassador to Somalia – Combating Terrorism Center at West Point

Ambassador Donald Yamamoto is the U.S. Ambassador to Somalia. Before this posting, he most recently served as Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of African Affairs. Previously, he also served as Senior Vice President at the National Defense University and in senior positions in...

ctc.usma.edu

northern.

 

[Crow]

The fact that the SNA is southern dominated is elementary knowledge. To see a U.S. ambassador make such a critical error is surprising when his only job is to know things like this. Someone this ignorant would be very easy to take advantage of.

But seeing the behaviour of the U.S. ambassador to Kenya on Twitter, I shouldn't be surprised. It seems the U.S. has sent bottom rail nepotistic appointments to all of East Africa.

 

[angelplan]

I think he meant to say southern dominated SNA should include more notherners.

 

[Awbarkhadle]

Nope he means hawiye when he’s saying northern. He thinks more raxanweyn .5 Dir and southern darood should be in rank and file.

 

[GBTarmy]

Nope he means hawiye when he’s saying northern. He thinks more raxanweyn .5 Dir and southern darood should be in rank and file.

He must mean northern hawiye, truth is people from central regions have history of abusing minorities while using SNA name so they turn to AS