The UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) ‘advises’ that a letter which was purportedly written by Mr. Michael Keating, Assistant Representative of the UN Secretary-General to Somalia, going viral on Somali-related social media sites was ‘fake’.
The content of the letter implied that it was a response to an official communication from President of Federal Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, asking the UN and international partners stationed in Mogadishu to support his vision of a united Somalia by supporting Waddani party of Somaliland since that party was more supportive of a reunification between the Republic of Somaliland and the Federal Government of Somalia (FGS).
Mr. Keating, it was alleged, rejected Mr. Farmajo’s proposal, pointing out that neither the UN nor other international partners were keen to contribute to anything that could potentially jeopardize the relative stability of Somaliland.
In one of the Tweets on the subject (below), quoting an article published on the alleged communication between President Farmajo and the SRSG, Mr. Keating, UNSOM said: “UNSomalia advises that this letter from the SRSG to President Farmajo regarding #Somaliland election on social media is FAKE“.
It was followed by another as below which generated an exchange of views questioning or supporting the veracity of the original letter. Those who discredited it especially pointed out the grammatical errors and omissions it carried which could not be attributed to an official communication from a UN office. The other camp insisted that even if Mr. Keating had written the letter, he would not have owned up to it or admitted writing it in any way.
See below.
.@UNSomalia advises that a letter purportedly from @SRSGKeating to @M_Farmaajo re #Somaliland election on social media is FAKE
— UNSOM (@UNSomalia) October 26, 2017
UNSOM says letter purportedly from @SRSGKeating to Farmaajo regarding #Somaliland election is FAKE … #SomalilandVotes
— Rooble Mohamed (@Rooble2009) October 26, 2017
Shame that an individual would forge letters in an attempt to gain more votes for 1 party & tarnish the othr party as being against SL indp.
— Sayid Madar (@SJMadar) October 26, 2017
@UNSomalia are the last people I would believe on this issue. They have been working against SL recognition for years & are highly corrupt.
— Robleh Mohamud (@RM_Laf) October 27, 2017
I think if you read it carefully, instead of jumping to conclusions you'd realise that it's riddled with grammatical errors and mistakes! pic.twitter.com/atL1ZVwBCw
— Hanad Darwish (@HanadDarwish) October 27, 2017
Just because Keating forgot to add a couple of commas doesn't make it fake. It's not like he care anyways lol, its the President of Zoomalia
— Robleh Mohamud (@RM_Laf) October 27, 2017
Can be seen a mile away when it referred to the government as TFG
— Sir Fuad (@itsfuad) October 27, 2017
