by ANN GARRISON
Ilhan Omar was greeted with vigorous booing during a July 2 Minneapolis concert featuring Somali singer Suldaan Seeraar in Minneapolis. The booing was so profound and so sustained that it was impossible to mistake it for cheering, or all the thumbs down for thumbs up. It reportedly went on for ten minutes or more, punctuated with, “Get out!” and “Get the f*ck out of here!”
Ilhan smiled, gesturing at the crowd to tamp it down, as though the adulation was just too much. Her husband, Tim Mynett, stood at her side looking awkward and confused, then someone who seemed to be a concert manager gestured at the crowd more emphatically to tamp it down. Some say the booing went on even longer while Ilhan went through the process of presenting Suldaan Seeraar with some sort of award.
The singer shifted uneasily from one leg to another, seeming startled and unsure what to do, then reached out to gesture at the crowd, also asking them to tone down their gestures of disapproval. This seemed to be more than he had bargained for when he agreed to share the stage with the congresswoman.
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was booed last night by thousands of the Minneapolis Somali community last night at a Somalia Independence Day celebration concert.
“Go home! Go home!” pic.twitter.com/40TPX4M4NA
— Rebecca Brannon (@RebsBrannon) July 3, 2022
Seeraar is extremely popular in the Somali community and was playing to a packed house; he’s unaccustomed to boos. This was his first concert in North America and he’s likely unfamiliar with Ilhan’s record in the House and on the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, and Global Human Rights, where she serves as vice chair. (Karen Bass currently chairs the subcommittee, and vice chairs the National Endowment for Democracy, the regime change wing of the U.S. government, and is all but certain to become the next mayor of Los Angeles come November.)
Ilhan, an African immigrant and the only Black person on the subcommittee besides Bass, is a shoe-in to become chair if Democrats hold onto the house, unlikely as that may seem.
Many Africans shudder at the thought, however –– not only in Somalia, her country of origin, and the rest of the Horn of Africa, but also in the African Great Lakes Region and in diasporas from both regions.
When I organized a Twitter space discussion with Somali American activists on Ilhan’s record, I heard an outpouring of anger not only over her perceived neglect of her district, where violent crime is surging, but also over her role in the removal of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and her support for a candidate affiliated with her personal clan. This was but one of examples of the congresswoman’s role in advancing U.S. meddling in the Horn of Africa.
Ilhan Omar Meets with Kagame and Tedros As They Plot Against Ethiopia
In October 2021, Ilhan traveled to Rwanda as a guest of its authoritarian president and war criminal Paul Kagame, a darling of global elites. She then proceeded to vote against a House resolution to call on Kagame to free political prisoner Paul Rusesabagina.
In Rwanda on a private visit, Congresswoman Mrs @IlhanMN stopped by our offices today, for a presentation of the Foundation and other programmes, initiated by Our Chairperson @FirstLadyRwanda. pic.twitter.com/HNQBffJDy1
— Imbuto Foundation (@Imbuto) October 9, 2021
David Himbara, a former economic advisor to Kagame, and Tom Zoellner, author of Rusesabagina’s biography, slammed Ilhan in a Minnesota Post op-ed, writing that her relationship with Kagame threatened “to throw her entire stance on the U.S. criminal justice system into a light of hypocrisy.”
With regard to the Ethiopian civil conflict, Ilhan has directed her criticism squarely at the government, even as it defends Ethiopia from attack by the U.S.-backed Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled the country brutally for 27 years, from 1991 to 2018, and waged war against Eritrea.
On April 7 of this year, the congresswoman met with former TPLF Foreign Minister Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to “discuss global health security challenges, including the status of the global COVID response, the global hunger crisis, and ways to improve digital technology to broaden healthcare access.”
Yesterday, we met with @DrTedros to discuss global health security challenges, including the status of the global COVID response, the global hunger crisis, and ways to improve digital technology to broaden healthcare access. pic.twitter.com/VfifvVrcSL
— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan) April 7, 2022
Tedros has relentlessly abused his global platform as Director of the World Health Organization, in violation of UN rules about political neutrality, to advocate for Tigray — home of the TPLF — as though it were the only Ethiopian region suffering the consequences of the war. He never mentions the immeasurable suffering caused by TPLF invasions of Amhara and Afar Regions, both of which I traveled through in April and May.
After Ilhan’s meeting with Dr. Tedros, members of the Ethiopian community unsuccessfully demanded that they release the minutes of the meeting.
On several occasions, Ilhan has asked the State Department for “legal determinations” as to whether the Ethiopian government is guilty of atrocities. Meaning, in fact, illegal determinations, because the assumption she has advanced is that the U.S. has the right to rule that international crimes — most of all genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity — have been committed and action must be taken, as in Libya and Syria. According to international law codified in the UN Charter, only the UN Security Council can do that.
On December 21, 2021, while questioning Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, Ilhan requested an illegal “legal determination” regarding Ethiopian atrocities, called for an arms embargo on Ethiopia, which would make it unable to defend itself, and proposed a “carrot and stick approach” to bringing Somalia to heel.
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