Mohamed Dahir .

During my tenure as Somalia's Ambassador to the EU, in April 2014, Foreign Minister Abdirahman Beyle arrived in Brussels as head of the advance team before the arrival of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud for the 4th EU-AU Summit. This was his first trip overseas since he was just nominated, and it was the first time I had ever seen him. Since I was also non-resident Ambassador to France, I decided to take him to Paris for the weekend. The reason for the trip to Paris was to show him firsthand the deteriorating conditions of the two Somali diplomatic buildings in Paris. Somalia had two diplomatic buildings in Paris. One is the Chancery located near the most famous street in Paris, the Champs Elysees. The other is the Ambassador's residence located at the outskirt of Paris in Vacinet, twenty minutes away from the Embassy. For the entire train ride, we spoke about Somalia's unfortunate situation and how the country has collapsed because it has no leaders willing to defend it. He was telling me about the nationalist songs he had written himself. I was really impressed with the man. I thought to myself, this is a rare principled man. This man will serve the nation well. We were picked up by Ahmed Shire, one of the diplomats, and drove straight to our embassy in Paris, a building that had been left in total ruin. The moment we walked in, Dr Beyle placed his hands on the crumbling wall and broke down in tears. I was overcome with emotion and my own tears began to flow. It touched me emotionally in a deep way. A man nicknamed Tuute, the Military Attache who had lived in that building since 1991 to guard it and save all the diplomatic documents from being stolen or destroyed, looked at my tears and said to me, this man is a con artist. Do not trust him. I told him, do not judge him. This is a true patriot. I was wrong. Tuute was right. The man who wept over the ruins of our embassy now campaigns over the division of the country itself.