01 Mar, 2006 - The East African (Nairobi), February 28, 2006 - Fred Oluoch, Special Correspondent Nairobi - The African Union is coming under increased pressure from the breakaway Somaliland Republic to accord it recognition.This follows revelations that an AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland between April 30 and May 4, 2005, had expressed the opinion that Somaliland had been made a "pariah region" by default.
It strongly recommended the country's recognition, saying that since its declaration of independence in 1991, Somaliland has been steadily laying the foundations of a democratic "modern state."
However, the report of the mission - which was appointed by former president of Mali and chairperson of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konare - has been kept under wraps and is yet to be discussed by the AU executive council for possible adoption by the heads of state summit.
The mission also noted that the lack of recognition ties the hands of the authorities and people of Somaliland as they cannot effectively transact business with the outside world in pursuit of their reconstruction and development goals.
It was of the view that while it is the primary responsibility of the authorities and people of Somaliland to make efforts to acquire political recognition from the international community, the AU should be disposed to judge the case of Somaliland from an objective historical viewpoint and a moral angle vis-a-vis the aspirations of its people.
The authorities of Somaliland have successively visited the AU Commission in 2003, 2004, and early 2005, seeking an observer status for Somaliland within the AU, not only to be able to follow developments on the continent, but also to gain a platform from which the country can state its case for being recognised as a sovereign state.
That proposed status is based on the recognition by the Somalilanders of the inherited colonial borders at the time of independence from Britain in June 1960.
As a result, there is a visibly emotional attachment to the reclaimed independence and a firm determination among the people of Somaliland not to return to the failed union with Somalia, whether or not recognition is granted.
Somaliland - situated on the northern tip of the former greater Somalia - boycotted the two-year peace process in Nairobi that culminated in the election of President Abdullahi Yusuf in October 2004.
The Somaliland authorities have consistently rejected the idea of reuniting with Somalia, and recently warned that should Africa and the international community insist on Somaliland re-establishing the union, the leaders and people of Somaliland would fight to preserve their independence.
The mission takes this line of argument by stating that the Union established in 1960 between Somaliland and Somalia brought enormous injustice and suffering to the people of the region.
"The fact that the union was never ratified and also did not work to satisfaction while it lasted from 1960 to 1990, makes Somaliland's search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history. As such, the AU should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case," the report recommends.
Furthermore, given the acute humanitarian situation prevailing in Somaliland, the AU should mobilise financial resources to help alleviate the plight of the affected communities, especially those catering for internally displaced persons and returnees.
The mission set out to assess the prevailing political, socio-economic, security, humanitarian and other related issues, as well as to listen to the concerns of the leadership and people of Somaliland, and duly report back the findings and the recommendations to the AU Commission for further action. It was led by the deputy chairperson of the Commission, Patrick Mazimhaka.
While calling upon the interna-tional community to consider the issue of self-determination objectively, the mission noted evidence of democratic institutions sprouting among them; the constitution of Somaliland, which entrenches, among other aspects, the separation of power between the three arms of government; the balance of political forces built upon the functional co-habitation of traditional governance institutions, as embodied in the political role of clan elders and elected representatives; the existence of active opposition political parties with some capacity to influence public policy; and a budding independent press.
The plethora of problems confronting Somaliland in the political, socio-economic, military, humanitarian and other sectors stem from the legacy of a political union with Somalia, that malfunctioned, bringing destruction and ruin upon the population.
Though credit has to be given to Somaliland for promoting a democratic order within a relatively short span of time, there are gaps that need attention from both policy makers and the individual citizens. One critical gap lies in gender relations in terms of the predominance of men in the various structures, institutions and processes.
The East African (Nairobi)
Welcome Friends of Somaliland
Wednesday 17 February 2010
Recognizing Somaliland: Forward Step in Countering Terrorism?
Kurt Shillinger.
RUSI (Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies )Journal. London:
Apr 2005.Vol.150, Iss. 2; pg. 46, 6 pgs
RUSI (Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies )Journal. London:
Apr 2005.Vol.150, Iss. 2; pg. 46, 6 pgs
"Withholding recognition from Somaliland runs contrary to the West's rhetoric about standing shoulder to shoulder with aspiring democracies".
Kurt Shillinger
Kurt Shillinger is a research fellow specializing in security and terrorism in Africa at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg
For the fourteenth time in as many years, the international community is attempting to restore central government to Somalia, which descended into clan-based fragmentation, statelessness and violence following the ousting of the Siad Barre military regime in 1991 and has yet to re-emerge. The new administration of President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is the product of more than two years of complex negotiations among rival groups hosted by neighbouring Kenya. Although the African Union (AU) has pledged thousands of regional peacekeepers to help the new government settle, prospects for its success are slim.
Conceived and constituted in exile, the Ahmed government was met with varying degrees of praise and violent protest during its first foray into Somalia in early March 2005. This followed the killing of BBC producer Kate Peyton, who travelled to Mogadishu in February to prepare stories on the new government's arrival. Those with vested interests in the status quo, including neighbouring Ethiopia, remain powerful and exercised. Tellingly, Ahmed and his prime minister did not venture into the strife-torn capital.
At the same time, with much less fanfare, the secessionist province of Somaliland in the northwest was preparing for bicameral parliamentary elections to be held on 29 March 2005.
While the south has festered, Somaliland has quietly and persistently demobilized its rival militias and erected the structures of statehood without external assistance. It has an elected president and a constitution that survived the death and succession of a head of state, and has drawn substantial inflows of aid and remittances to help rebuild its infrastructure devastated by a decade of civil war with the Siad Barre government prior to 1991. It now boasts reconstructed airports, ports, hotels, power plants and universities - but it remains unrecognized by the international community. Recognition, as the varying fortunes of both Somalia and Somaliland demonstrate, is not a prerequisite for statehood but, in the case of the latter, may well consolidate the process of nation-building at a crucial time both for Somaliland and a world fighting global terrorism.
"Somaliland now boasts reconstructed airports, ports, hotels, power plants and universities - but it remains unrecognized by the international community" Defence and International Security
As the pre-eminent British anthropologist I M Lewis noted in 2004, `the overall achievement so far is truly remarkable, and all the more so in that it has been accomplished by the people of Somaliland themselves with very little external help or intervention. The contrast with the fate of southern Somalia hardly needs to be underlined.'1Prior to the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, diplomatic attempts to restore order in Somalia were driven by desires to limit the potential for drug trafficking and regional destabilization caused by outflows of arms, banditry and refugees into neighbouring states. The events of 9/11 added a new, more urgent dimension to international engagement in a region that had already experienced the devastation of terrorism. The key question since then, set against the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, was whether the absence of state security structures would enable terrorist organizations to set up bases inside Somalia. For reasons that will be explored below, it has not quite worked out that way, but the 2002 hotel bombing in Mombassa on the Kenya coast illustrated Somalia's potential as a staging ground for terrorist activity and punctuated the region's overall vulnerability.
Given Somalia's location at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East, its susceptibility to conflicting destabilizing interests from Ethiopia and the Arab Peninsula, and the Muslim identity of its people, it is time to rethink how to solve the country's enduring crisis in the context of global terrorism. Despite exhaustive debate, the Kenya peace talks on Somalia failed to convincingly resolve the key question of whether to pursue a federal or unitarian solution in a patch-quilt political landscape of rival clan-based factions.
A better solution is partition. Although it runs contrary to the AU commitment to territorial integrity, recognizing Somaliland is consistent with the imperatives driving global counterterrorism. Emotively, the international community would be supporting the democratic aspirations of a Muslim state - a central pillar of the Bush antiterror `Liberty Doctrine'. Strategically, recognition would give the West expanded influence over 900 additional kilometres of coastline in a key transit zone off the Arab Peninsula and enable the international community to bolster regional security at a time when, according to the accumulated evidence of the different risks posed by failed and weak states, Somaliland is arguably becoming more vulnerable to exploitation by radical Islamist organizations the more it develops.
Bush Doctrine, Failed States, and Global Security
Re-casting his central foreign policy doctrine for an age of terror in his second inaugural address in January 2005, President George Bush stated that "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world..
America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.
Two immediate and correlative assumptions are implicit in this approach: that state repression promotes social radicalization, which in the current international security context poses threats to prosperous and peaceful nations; and that democracy is a universal and thus universally adaptable aspiration that, when realized, is the ultimate antidote to forms of ideological discontent that underpin transnational terrorism.
From these assumptions three critical questions arise. First, how are states or regimes determined to pose risks to global security serious enough to prompt foreign intervention? To put it differently, the selective application of force or coercion since 9/11 suggests that not all tyrants are regarded as the same, and some may even be acceptable. Saddam Hussein was overthrown on the premise - a false one, it turned out - that he was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction; Kim Jong Il is known to have nuclear weapons but is still in power. So is Robert Mugabe, who has neither long-range weaponry nor the desire to acquire them, but has dismantled the democratic edifice of Zimbabwe and suppressed popular aspirations through violence.
"Recognizing Somaliland is consistent with the imperatives driving global counter-terrorism"
Second, how are `democratic movements' identified and legitimated? The history of foreign meddling in the domestic affairs of far-off nations is troubled and inconsistent. Both Hussein and Osama bin Laden, the world's top terrorist, were once clients of Washington. Post-9/11, what interests - and whose - shape the process of helping `others find their own voice' and indeed determine which voices emerge? Third, what forms of external `soft' engagement are implied by Bush's pledge and how should they be weighed against the prevailing `rules' of regional politics? The war on terrorism has many fronts - Central Asia, Indonesia, North Africa, and the Horn as well as the Middle East. Effecting `regime change' through force as in Afghanistan and Iraq is neither logistically possible nor internationally justifiable. It follows, then, that `pre-emption' can utilize and, indeed, requires many means.
These questions are most relevant and problematic with regard to dysfunctional states, where poverty and poor or repressive governance can give rise to radicalization. Before 9/11, such states were regarded primarily as regional problems, incubating threats such as disease, refugee flows, environmental destruction, drugs and arms trafficking, and so on. But the 2001 attacks convulsed thinking about the intersection between faltering states and security in the context of global terror, and it has taken a few years for both analysis and policy to unpack the question - indeed to differentiate the relationship between terrorism and collapsed, failed and weak states respectively.
Two studies in 2002 illustrate the importance of clarifying those distinctions. John J Hamre and Gordon R Sullivan argued that `[o]ne of the principal lessons of the events of September 11 is that failed states matter - not just for humanitarian reasons but for national security reasons as well. If left unattended, such states can become sanctuaries for terrorist networks with global reach..'2 The Bush administration, meanwhile, concluded that `[t]he events of September 11, 2001, taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states.. [P]overty, weak institutions and corruption can make weak states vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within their borders.'3
More time has shown that the distinction between collapsed states, of which Somalia is the most glaring example, and weak states - such as Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, Kenya, Tanzania and Pakistan - matters deeply and has important implications for policy. As Ken Menkhaus shows in his excellent analysis of Somalia and terrorism, failed states lack the physical and financial infrastructure that terrorist organizations need to operate and are therefore unsuitable as havens, whereas weak states provide both the tools and the cover in a relaxed security environment: Terrorists, like mafias, prefer weak and corrupt government rather than no government at all. In the Horn of Africa, weak states such as Kenya and Tanzania are much more likely bases of operations for al-Qaeda.
They feature sprawling, multi-ethnic urban areas where foreign operatives can go unremarked; corrupt lawenforcement agencies which can be bought off; and a rich array of Western targets.. [A] collapsed state such as Somalia is more likely to serve a niche role as a transit zone, through which men, money or materiel are quickly moved into the country and then across the borders of neighbouring states.4
Similarly, Greg Mills concludes that the weakening of state functions manifests in a number of interrelated ways, including the alienation of sectors of society and the emergence of an alternative, anarchic counter-culture; the related inability to provide basic security functions and extend other state functions to the majority of its citizens; and the state's vulnerability to external influences, both state and non-state.. The weak nature of the African state and the corruptibility of the African political class have, over time, made it a soft target for terrorist groups.5
Thus, determining which states pose the greatest risk to international security in relation to terrorism and defining measures of effective intervention requires more than simply identifying tyrants, mobilizing coalitions of force, and orchestrating elections. Fledgling, faltering and nominal democracies present equal or greater threats in terms of the exploitable advantages they provide to terrorist organizations. And while geography matters, it is not a limiting factor - a point underscored by Libya's ongoing material support for Mugabe. In this regard, countering terrorism by strengthening democracy must involve addressing the structural and causal elements of weak governance, risk to investment, and social radicalization: corruption, constitutional imbalance, political exclusion, social exclusion (health and education), economic exclusion (trade), monetary mismanagement and resource depletion.
"Failed states lack the physical and financial infrastructure that terrorist organizations need to operate and are therefore unsuitable as havens"
Defence and International Security
Somalia and Somaliland
Prior to colonialization, Somalis organized themselves on the basis of a singular national identity. One of the largest ethnic groups in Africa, divided into a matrix of clans and sub-clans spread across some 400,000 square miles of the Horn, they speak just two common and intertwined languages - Somali and Arabic - and are almost all of them Muslim. In the latter half of the nineteenth century they were partitioned by the French, British, Italians and Ethiopians, a process that introduced a political element to Somali identity and over time created a tension of definitions of nationhood that endure today.
The modern state of Somalia - at least geographically - is an experiment in joining two distinct historical entities: Italian Somalia in the south and British Somaliland in the North. In 1940 the Italians captured the north and combined the country, but the merger lasted only seven months before the British recaptured their protectorate. Five years later the Italians lost much of their grip and British control extended deep into the south. The to-ing and fro-ing continued until 1950, when Italian control was formally re-established and the original boundaries re-affirmed under a ten-year plan overseen by the United Nations. Over the course of the next decade, a series of local elections and drafting of a constitution paved the way for independence in 1960 - first for Somaliland on 26 June and then, five days later, for Somalia. Each side was recognized separately by the UN, including each of the five permanent members of the Security Council, according to their colonial boundaries.
Unification became both a preoccupation and a source of enduring division. Although the two entities joined within the year, it was a tense marriage marked by deep-seated clan rivalries. During the next three decades, northern dissent was repeatedly crushed by the military regime of Mohamed Siad Barre in Mogadishu.When that government was finally overthrown in 1991, the south descended into factional fighting - and the north `seceded.' Since then, the two parts have followed dramatically different paths.While the international community launched one peace process after another to try to restore central government in Mogadishu, factional fighting - much of it foreign-backed - carved deep ethnopolitical furrows across the south. In the north, meanwhile, stakeholders engaged in the lengthy process of demobilization, reconstruction, and nation-building. In the course of three national congresses, an interim national charter was drafted, a bicameral parliament was established, comprising an elected house of representatives and a nominated house of clan elders, and a president and vice-president were voted in by congress delegates.
In 2001 the people of Somaliland ratified the new constitution in a nationwide referendum with impressive unanimity. Foreign-observed local elections followed in 2002, and when President Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal died during a trip to South Africa, peaceful succession followed through the ballot box, in line with the constitution, in which the victor emerged with a razor-thin 280-vote margin. The 29 March parliamentary elections marked the last step in creating a fully popularly elected government.
How does that position affect the two Somali entities vis-…-vis terrorism? Immediately following the 9/11 attacks Washington listed Somalia as a potential target in its war against terrorism and froze an estimated $500 million in foreign assets held by Somalia's al-Barakat bank and money transferring company.
But as Menkhaus observes, `Somalia is less than ideal as a safe haven for al- Qaeda for several reasons': one, the mono-ethnic nature of Somali society makes it harder for foreigners to blend in unobserved; two, there is an absence of Western targets; three, the south lacks the financial, physical and communications infrastructure required by modern terrorist organizations such as Al-Qa'ida; four, the prevailing lawlessness poses a threat to terrorists as much as to anyone else; and fifth, the lack of state control over security would enable US special forces based in neighbouring Djibouti to mobilize within Somali territory faster and with fewer legal restraints.
Rather, two points are of greater and more realistic concern: one, the rise of Al- Ittihad and Al-Islah, respectively radical and progressive Somali Islamist movements that either espouse anti- Western violence or are prone to manipulation by those who do; and two, evidence that terrorist cells are using Somalia as a staging point for operations elsewhere in the region.According to UN Security Council assessments, those behind the December 2002 bombing of a hotel in Mombassa and attempt to bring down an Israeli airliner in the Kenyan port transferred materiel through and acquired missiles in Somalia.
No such activity has yet been evidenced in Somaliland, but it is arguable that the territory is becoming more attractive to foreign terrorist organizations the more developed it becomes. Somaliland's political progress has attracted a steady inflow of funds.
The US Congress allocated $9 million in 1997 for government and military salaries. The same year the regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development launched an $18 million project to improve communications links between the port of Berbera and other regional ports. The EU has funded road construction, the Italians water works, and the International Development Bank education. The British company Digital Exchange Projects, meanwhile, was contracted to rebuild Somaliland's telecommunications systems. The list goes on. In 2001, for example, the Great Wall Chinese Oil Company announced plans to sink offshore oil wells and the Somali Diaspora sends an estimated $250 million annually to Somaliland to offset low forex reserves. Currently the Bank of Somaliland is pursuing ties with more established regional and German financial institutions.6
As the earlier discussion about failed and weak states indicated, Somaliland's development trend is also putting in place the very tools - banking systems, telecommunications, and transport links - that foreign terrorist organizations require in a tenuous security environment.
Notions of Territorial Integrity
Article Four of the Constitutive Act of the African Union states that `[t]he Union shall function in accordance with the following principles: (b) respect of borders existing on achievement of independence.' This rule, carried over from the AU's predecessor, the Organization of African States, has and remains the fundamental stumbling block in Somaliland's quest for statehood.
In January 2004 a delegation from the British Parliament's Select Committee on International Development conducted a visit to Somaliland. Upon their return, MP Tony Worthington questioned in a parliamentary debate British and international resistance to breaking from the sovereignty principle. He said, There is an understandable paranoia about changing old colonial borders in Africa, because of the fear that the habit may spread to other countries.
Somaliland is a rare exception, however; it wants to return to its old colonial boundaries at the time of independence.. The longer the world ignores the achievement of Somaliland in creating stability and democratic institutions, the greater the risk that wilder elements will take over. Although the country has been governed by a moderate form of Islam since it declared independence, there is always the possibility that it will give way to a form of Islam that plays into the hands of those trying to stimulate terrorism, and there is tension in the country as a result.7 There is broad international sympathy for this argument, but there is also a kind of stasis akin to penguins on an ice bluff: no one wants to jump first.
Washington, according to US diplomats in the region, want one of the African heavyweights - South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia or Senegal - to nod first. But Ethiopia, for one, has also stated that it would follow but won't lead an international movement for recognition.
The impasse is curious, and time will tell whether it may also be costly. Three points weaken the argument that recognition risks setting a precedent in Africa. First, as Foreign Minister Edna Adan Ismail argues, echoing the comment by Worthington, in the fortyfour years since it gained independence from Britain, Somaliland `neither resigned from our membership in the UN, nor given away our sovereignty to anyone, we still claim ownership of our independence and that of our membership in the UN.'8 Recognizing Somaliland, then, is more a case of affirming post-colonial boundaries rather than redrawing them.
Second, seen as an international rather than exclusively African issue, the principle of separation is already well entrenched. Recent examples include the peaceful and internationally recognized `Velvet Divorce' of the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.9 Third,Africa already has the precedent for partition set by Ethiopia and Eritrea, which was based on almost identical issues as those between Somalia and Somaliland.10 As part of a comprehensive peace settlement between those two countries, a UN boundary commission determined the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2002 based on historical and colonial maps. The European Union immediately endorsed the decision.
From legal, technical and diplomatic perspectives, therefore, recognition of Somaliland is neither as problematic nor precedent-setting as claimed, nor is international resistance as strong as suggested by the unanimous failure so far to do so.
Strengthening Somaliland, Countering Terrorism
In Somalia today, the mild narcotic shrub khat is as common as AK-47s. Once chewed primarily by men for occasional recreation, the drug is now consumed daily by broad segments of the population, including women and, ominously, the heavily armed young boys and youths aligned to various factional leaders.At the peak 150 flights ferried the drug into Somaliland from neighbouring states every day. Shortly after his election in 2002, President Dahir Rayale Kahin called for a decrease in inbound khat flights and banned all overland shipments. As Mills observes: If enforced, this would likely provoke a political backlash in a nation where unemployment is high and a fragile - if impressively nurtured - peace has drawn into government warring militias and clans. . Like the global drug problem, dealing with khat requires breaking a pattern of helplessness and addiction through offering better economic prospects.11
Somaliland is a fragile entity in a fragile region with large Islamic populations - all demonstrably susceptible to radicalization. Despite the various developmental initiatives, a relatively strong livestock export sector, and the generous inflow of annual remittances, unemployment hovers at destabilizing highs. The eastern border, meanwhile, although clearly defined and recognized at independence in 1960, has been the subject of increasing dispute with the adjacent Somali region of Puntland, which makes ethnic-based claims to the two easternmost Somaliland provinces of Sanaag and Sool.
Steven Simon has observed that in the current atmosphere of militancy and antipathy in much of the Muslim world, `Islam's warm embrace of the West is too stark a reversal to expect in the foreseeable future. However, it is feasible to lay the foundation for a lasting accommodation by deploying the considerable economic and political advantages of the United States and its allies.'12
In Somaliland, the West has an opportunity to broaden the terms of global counter-terrorism strategy - to balance with carrots a policy meted thus far with sticks. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has dedicated himself to tackling Africa's developmental challenges in 2005. He holds the chair of the G8 in the first half of the year and the EU in the second. Both groupings will debate initiatives to double aid, cut debt, boost investment, combat disease and improve governance on the world's poorest continent. Emerging from these discussions should also be clearly defined recommendations for recognizing Somaliland through the UN.
Politically, recognition would send a powerful signal to the Muslim world that "Somaliland is a fragile entity in a fragile region with large Islamic populations" "In Somaliland, the West has an opportunity to broaden the terms of global counter-terrorism strategy" Defence and International Security internally driven aspirations toward secular democracy will be acknowledged and supported.
Economically, strengthening Somaliland's nascent democratic institutions and underwriting its path toward viability will go some measure toward depriving radicalized elements of a potential recruiting ground, just as a stronger state and improved governance will assist in reducing the volatile cocktail of endemic poverty, social alienation, radicalization and terrorism.
Withholding recognition from Somaliland runs contrary to the West's rhetoric about standing shoulder to shoulder with aspiring democracies. But the question is more urgent than that. Given what has been learned after 9/11 about broader security ramifications of weak states in an age of terror, it may be dangerous. If the West fails to assist a Muslim people striving to build their own safe, prosperous and, critically, democratic state, they may well end up looking for - and finding - other patrons. _
NOTES
1. I. M. Lewis,`As the Kenyan Somali `Peace' Conference Falls Apart in Confusion, Recognition of Somaliland's Independence is Overdue', London School of Economics, 20 March 2004.
2. John J. Hamre and Gordon R. Sullivan, `Toward Postconflict Reconstruction',Washington Quarterly (Vol. 25, No. 4,Autumn 2002).
3. National Security Strategy document dated 19 September 2002.
4. Ken Menkhaus,`Somalia: State Collapse and the Threat of Terrorism',Adelphi Paper 364, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2004
5. Greg Mills, The Security Intersection: The Paradox of Power in an Age of Terror (Johannesburg: Wits University Press, 2005), pp. 237-9.
6. See the chapter on Somali in Africa South of the Sahara 2005 (London; Europa Publications, 2005), for a fuller digest of assistance inflows into Somaliland in recent years.
7. For the full debate on 4 February 2004 in the House of Commons, see www.publications.parliament.uk
8. Taken from comments presented at the South African Institute of International Affairs in Johannesburg on 3 February 2005.
9. The author is grateful to Dr. Chris Alden of the London School of Economics for discussions on this point.
10. See the final report of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission for detailed historical background.
11. Mills, Op. cit., p. 81.
12. Steven Simon, `The New Terrorism', in Henry J. Aaron, James M. Lindsay, and Pietro S. Nivola (eds.), Agenda for the Nation, (Washington: Brookings Institution Press, 2003), p. 425.
Source: http://www.mbali.info/doc2.htm
AU and IGAD should support Somaliland’s Homemade Democracy
Somaliland is committed to uniting the political powers so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the lost integrity from Somalia.
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Somaliland is committed to uniting the political powers so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the lost integrity from Somalia.
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Somaliland is committed to uniting the political powers so we move forward stronger and more ready than ever to take back the lost integrity from Somalia.
The government and Opposition Parties in Somaliland proved their compliance to protect the peace and stability in the country. They settled their differences over the timetable of the Presidential, Parliament and Municipal Council elections. Somaliland people said no to one party system that survives in many African and Muslim world; they established multiparty democracy with little support from outside world.
The international community including the regional authorities is closely monitoring the unity of the people of Somaliland towards establishing peaceful society. The world remains silent witness to the Somaliland democracy and development and does little to promote it.
Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and African Union (AU) are not taking courageous step to recognize Somaliland because of a fear that recognizing Somaliland may open chain of disintegration in the troubled region.
Both AU and IGAD should follow the report of AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland in 2005, led by His Highness the Deputy Chairman of AU Patrick Mazimhaka. The report recommended that Somaliland Case should be considered different from other parts of Somalia.
The mission ruled out IGAD’s fear of disintegration, which considered Somaliland recognition as opening Pandora box.
IGAD and AU should take the lead in helping the functioning parts of the black continent like European Union (EU) policies towards Kosovo. AU and IGAD should not let Somaliland democracy down; instead they should lead the way for Somaliland.
Why, we Africans cannot decide good destiny to our members? IGAD and AU know that Somaliland received independence from Britain on 26th June 1960 and than mistakenly united with Italian Somalia on 1st July 1969 – means four days after independence.
IGAD and AU know that Somaliland suffered 23 years at gunpoint due to the mistake of uniting with Somalia. The question lingering in my mind is, how many years more, do AU and IGAD want Somaliland to suffer?
Somaliland needs neither financial support nor democracy analyzers from AU, IGAD and even from the international community. Somaliland demands the world to admit its existence.
Somaliland built up the entire infrastructure needed in modern state including functioning institutions, Military, Police, Jails Authority, independent judiciary and many others. Somaliland has all eligibility to win seat at the United Nation.
Assistant Undersecretary of African Affairs at U.S. State Department Dr. Frazier highlighted the importance of recognizing Somaliland, and how such move will have positive impact on reducing the size of Somali problems.
"U.S. will encourage the Africans to recognize Somaliland but will not take first step of recognizing Somaliland before AU." Frazer said in an interview with Somaliland media during her visit to Hargiesa. This throws the ball on the table of AU.
AU should act fast on granting recognition to Somaliland, because the country needs it very badly, as they cannot do business with outside world. AU, as African authority, should support its people but not downgrading them.
Dr. Frazier visited Hargiesa – Somaliland Capital – in an attempt to show the goodwill of the United States of America towards Somaliland recognition. Recently, Frazier told Somaliland Times that U.S. government is willing to open diplomatic office in Hargiesa.
Also, U.S. Forces in the neighboring Djibouti are frequent visitors the Somaliland’s main seaport Berbera.
In 2006, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed his administration’s willingness to establish military base in Somaliland. These events can be good example to AU and IGAD to take courageous step in recognizing Somaliland. AU should know that Somaliland is held between two rocks and cannot deal with other countries due to lack of diplomatic recognition.
Somaliland case is timed bomb that can blow up if no proper support is provided. AU and IGAD should understand if Somaliland falls into chaos then the problem of Somalia will be double or may be triple. The Somali problems need to be solved in modules or units. Today, Somaliland is the most developed and functioning part in Somalia and they deserve to be saved from the chaos they paralyzed Somalia for almost two decades.
Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin officially submitted application to AU and IGAD to get membership but unfortunately till today, there is no response from both the organization.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed Somaliland delegate to London, even the delegate were invited to visit the British Parliament. This shows international community’s eagerness to support the Somaliland search of independence.
In other hand, Somaliland remains solid and strong in addition to committed to promote democracy and good governance in the country. This attracted both U.S. and UK but unfortunately IGAD and AU are unable to hear the voice of freedom and democracy development in Somaliland.
The problem of Somalia cannot be solved in one shot, Africans and UN Security Council should know that theory of "United Somalia" failed. Somali problem can only be solved if put into modules, which will make the process of reconciliation easier. The world should be fair with Somaliland and its unique homemade democracy.
Email:az.almutairi@yahoo.com
The international community including the regional authorities is closely monitoring the unity of the people of Somaliland towards establishing peaceful society. The world remains silent witness to the Somaliland democracy and development and does little to promote it.
Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and African Union (AU) are not taking courageous step to recognize Somaliland because of a fear that recognizing Somaliland may open chain of disintegration in the troubled region.
Both AU and IGAD should follow the report of AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland in 2005, led by His Highness the Deputy Chairman of AU Patrick Mazimhaka. The report recommended that Somaliland Case should be considered different from other parts of Somalia.
The mission ruled out IGAD’s fear of disintegration, which considered Somaliland recognition as opening Pandora box.
IGAD and AU should take the lead in helping the functioning parts of the black continent like European Union (EU) policies towards Kosovo. AU and IGAD should not let Somaliland democracy down; instead they should lead the way for Somaliland.
Why, we Africans cannot decide good destiny to our members? IGAD and AU know that Somaliland received independence from Britain on 26th June 1960 and than mistakenly united with Italian Somalia on 1st July 1969 – means four days after independence.
IGAD and AU know that Somaliland suffered 23 years at gunpoint due to the mistake of uniting with Somalia. The question lingering in my mind is, how many years more, do AU and IGAD want Somaliland to suffer?
Somaliland needs neither financial support nor democracy analyzers from AU, IGAD and even from the international community. Somaliland demands the world to admit its existence.
Somaliland built up the entire infrastructure needed in modern state including functioning institutions, Military, Police, Jails Authority, independent judiciary and many others. Somaliland has all eligibility to win seat at the United Nation.
Assistant Undersecretary of African Affairs at U.S. State Department Dr. Frazier highlighted the importance of recognizing Somaliland, and how such move will have positive impact on reducing the size of Somali problems.
"U.S. will encourage the Africans to recognize Somaliland but will not take first step of recognizing Somaliland before AU." Frazer said in an interview with Somaliland media during her visit to Hargiesa. This throws the ball on the table of AU.
AU should act fast on granting recognition to Somaliland, because the country needs it very badly, as they cannot do business with outside world. AU, as African authority, should support its people but not downgrading them.
Dr. Frazier visited Hargiesa – Somaliland Capital – in an attempt to show the goodwill of the United States of America towards Somaliland recognition. Recently, Frazier told Somaliland Times that U.S. government is willing to open diplomatic office in Hargiesa.
Also, U.S. Forces in the neighboring Djibouti are frequent visitors the Somaliland’s main seaport Berbera.
In 2006, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates expressed his administration’s willingness to establish military base in Somaliland. These events can be good example to AU and IGAD to take courageous step in recognizing Somaliland. AU should know that Somaliland is held between two rocks and cannot deal with other countries due to lack of diplomatic recognition.
Somaliland case is timed bomb that can blow up if no proper support is provided. AU and IGAD should understand if Somaliland falls into chaos then the problem of Somalia will be double or may be triple. The Somali problems need to be solved in modules or units. Today, Somaliland is the most developed and functioning part in Somalia and they deserve to be saved from the chaos they paralyzed Somalia for almost two decades.
Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin officially submitted application to AU and IGAD to get membership but unfortunately till today, there is no response from both the organization.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed Somaliland delegate to London, even the delegate were invited to visit the British Parliament. This shows international community’s eagerness to support the Somaliland search of independence.
In other hand, Somaliland remains solid and strong in addition to committed to promote democracy and good governance in the country. This attracted both U.S. and UK but unfortunately IGAD and AU are unable to hear the voice of freedom and democracy development in Somaliland.
The problem of Somalia cannot be solved in one shot, Africans and UN Security Council should know that theory of "United Somalia" failed. Somali problem can only be solved if put into modules, which will make the process of reconciliation easier. The world should be fair with Somaliland and its unique homemade democracy.
Email:az.almutairi@yahoo.com
Somaliland: On the Road to Independent Statehood?
Author: J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
Date Published: 2007-12-12
J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.
In October, in my testimony to a House Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health hearing on security in the Horn of Africa, I stated:
The most significant national interest at stake for the
I would be remiss if I did not avail myself of this opportunity to raise the question of the remarkable reemergence of the
Surely if
I make no apologies for constantly returning to this theme: it is to me incomprehensible that we continue to express concern about the state of democracy in the Horn of
Last week, in its December 4th issue, the Washington Post carried a remarkable article by Ann Scott Tyson. Under the headline “U.S. Debating Shift of Support in Somali Conflict,” the piece notes that “the escalating conflict in Somalia is generating debate inside the Bush administration over whether the United States should continue to back the shaky transitional government in Mogadishu or shift support to the less volatile region of Somaliland, which declared independence in 1991” and quotes two anonymous Department of Defense officials:
“Somaliland is an entity that works,” a senior defense official said. “We're caught between a rock and a hard place because they're not a recognized state,” the official said.
The Pentagon’s view is that “
In contrast, “the State Department wants to fix the broken part first—that’s been a failed policy,” the official said.
In conclusion, Navy Captain Bob Wright, head of strategic communications for the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) based at Camp Lemonier, Djibouti, was quoted as saying “We’d love to [engage Somaliland], we’re just waiting for State to give us the okay.”
The next day, December 5th, the Bureau of African Affairs posted to the State Department website a five-bullet point “fact sheet” attempting to explain what passes as “United States Policy on
· The
· As indicated in the full quote above, the
· In FY 2007, the
· While we continue to engage with the Somaliland administration, we do believe that the African Union is the most appropriate forum to address the question of recognition of
· However, as the African Union continues to deliberate on this issue, the
On the face of it, the Foggy Bottom’s position seems reasonable enough: the
First, as I pointed out in this column nearly two years ago: “From 1884 until 1960, Somaliland existed within its current borders as the protectorate of
Second, the African Union (AU) itself has acknowledged the unique circumstances surrounding
However, by punting the question to a body like the AU, which decides major political questions by consensus, while simultaneously continuing the delusional policy of recognizing the utterly ineffectual “Transitional Federal Government” (TFG) of Somalia, which asserts sovereignty over the entire territory of the defunct Somali Democratic Republic despite being unable to so much as control its putative capital, the State Department belies any pretensions of neutrality. The Africa Bureau knows very well that there is no way the phantasmal TFG will ever permit an AU consensus to be forged which recognizes the de facto
Fortunately, the TFG may not be a factor for much longer. Last week, its “president,” Abdullahi Yusuf, was hospitalized in
What “humanitarian background” does Dr. Rice refer to? His role as police colonel under the brutal dictatorship of Muhammad Siyad Barre? His tenure as deputy head of the despot’s “
The failure of the TFG should not be surprising. As I pointed out a year and a half ago, the pretender regime is little more than the product of a well-intentioned effort by the international community to conjure up yet another government for Somalia after the ignominious collapse the previous year of its previous attempt, the risible “Transitional National Government” (TNG), which went through four prime ministers and hundreds of cabinet members in three years before going bankrupt, having misappropriated millions of dollars in donor funds while governing nothing other than what was inside the confines of the four walls of “president” Abdiqasim Salad Hassan’s villa in nearby Djibouti. With even fewer prospects and, if it is possible, even less legitimacy than the TNG, the TFG’s leaders have little incentive to do anything other than leverage the international recognition which is their only real asset with which to enrich themselves.
One could hardly find a starker contrast to this than
In
Thus, among the many others which could be adduced, there are five compelling reasons for the United States to abandon the bankrupt, State Department-driven policy of preferring self-appointed “leaders” of a failed construct to an effective government of a real country:
▪ Counterterrorism. As the Pentagon has now publicly acknowledged (and as I suggested earlier this year), scarce resources would be better spent boxing in the troubled parts of Somalia, rather than vainly asserting the questionable claims by a clearly unpopular regime whose illegitimacy is actually a magnet for extremists. No less a figure than Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates declared last week while visiting
▪ Regional stability. Far from being destabilizing, as I told Congress earlier this year, recognition of
▪ Natural resources and economic opportunities. Earlier this year, I reported on mainland China’s play for petroleum resources in Somalia. Establishing formal ties with
▪ Moral imperatives. As I previously argued, “Somaliland’s trajectory…has been nothing if not extraordinary, being characterized by both social stability and democratic politics—the northern region’s progress standing in stark contrast to the free fall of the rest of the former
▪ Global leadership. Despite some major faux pas of American foreign policy in recent years – both in substance and implementation – the world still defaults to looking to the
At the very launch of this column series, I wrote: “Since the disintegration of the Siyad Barre’s oppressive Somali regime into Hobbesian anarchy and warlordism, the international community has staunchly defended the phantasmal existence of the fictitious entity known as ‘
J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in
Source: Family Security Matters Arcive
Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership
Africa Report N°110
23 May 2006
This report is also available in French.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
On 18 May 2006, the self-declared Republic of Somaliland marked fifteen years since it proclaimed independence from Somalia. Although its sovereignty is still unrecognised by any country, the fact that it is a functioning constitutional democracy distinguishes it from the majority of entities with secessionist claims, and a small but growing number of governments in Africa and the West have shown sympathy for its cause. The territory’s peace and stability stands in stark contrast to much of southern Somalia, especially the anarchic capital, Mogadishu, where clashes between rival militias have recently claimed scores of lives. But Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which is still struggling to overcome internal divisions and establish its authority in southern Somalia, also claims sovereignty over the territory, and the issue is becoming an increasing source of tension. The African Union (AU) needs to engage in preventive diplomacy now, laying the groundwork for resolution of the dispute before it becomes a confrontation from which either side views violence as the only exit.
In December 2005 President Dahir Rayale Kahin submitted Somaliland’s application for membership in the AU. The claim to statehood hinges on the territory’s separate status during the colonial era from the rest of what became Somalia and its existence as a sovereign state for a brief period following independence from Great Britain in June 1960. Having voluntarily entered a union with Somalia in pursuit of the irredentist dream of Greater Somalia (including parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti), it now seeks recognition within the borders received at that moment of independence. Despite fears that recognition would lead to the fragmentation of Somalia or other AU member states, an AU fact-finding mission in 2005 concluded the situation was sufficiently “unique and self-justified in African political history” that “the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a pandora’s box’”. It recommended that the AU “should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case” at the earliest possible date. On 16 May 2006, Rayale met with the AU Commission Chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konare, to discuss Somaliland’s application for membership.
Somaliland has made notable progress in building peace, security and constitutional democracy within its de facto borders. Hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced people have returned home, tens of thousands of landmines have been removed and destroyed, and clan militias have been integrated into unified police and military forces. A multi-party political system and successive competitive elections have established Somaliland as a rarity in the Horn of Africa and the Muslim world. However, the TFG continues strongly to oppose Somaliland independence.
Peacemakers have so far opted to tackle the issues sequentially: first trying to establish a government for Somalia and only then addressing the Somaliland question. European diplomats warn Crisis Group that even raising the Somaliland issue at this time could destabilise the peace process in the South. This approach risks both sides becoming more entrenched and the dispute over Somali unity more intractable. If the TFG’s authority expands, the dispute over Somaliland’s status is likely to become an ever-increasing source of friction, involving serious danger of violent conflict. Somaliland has reacted angrily to the TFG’s calls for the UN arms embargo on Somalia to be lifted so it could arm itself and has threatened to increase its own military strength if this happens. The prospect of a return to the major violence of the late 1980s is neither imminent nor inevitable but it is genuine enough to merit urgent AU attention.
For both sides, the issue of recognition is not merely political or legal – it is existential. Most southern Somalis are viscerally attached to the notion of a united Somali Republic, while many Somalilanders – scarred by the experience of civil war, flight and exile – refer to unity only in the past tense. For a generation of Somaliland’s youth, which has no memories of the united Somalia to which young Southerners attach such importance, Somaliland’s sovereignty is a matter of identity.
Resolving Somaliland’s status is by no means a straightforward proposition. A vocal minority of Somalilanders, including some communities along the troubled border with neighbouring Puntland (North East Somalia) and a violent network of jihadi Islamists favour unity. Some observers fear that, in the absence of a negotiated separation, the relationship between the two neighbours could potentially become as ill-defined and volatile as that which prevailed between Ethiopia and Eritrea prior to their 1998-2000 border war.
There are four central and practical questions:
- should Somaliland be rewarded for creating stability and democratic governance out of a part of the chaos that is the failed state of Somalia?;
- would rewarding Somaliland with either independence or significant autonomy adversely impact the prospects for peace in Somalia or lead to territorial clashes?;
- what are the prospects for peaceful preservation of a unified Somali Republic?; and
- what would be the implications of recognition of Somaliland for separatist conflicts elsewhere on the continent?
These questions need to be addressed through firm leadership, open debate and dispassionate analysis of the issues and options – not ignored, ostrich-like, in the hope that they will disappear. “The AU cannot pretend that there is not such an issue”, a diplomat from the region told Crisis Group. “The issue cannot be allowed to drag on indefinitely. It must be addressed”. Somaliland’s application to the AU offers an entry point for preventive diplomacy. The AU should respond to Somaliland’s request for recognition by seizing the opportunity to engage as a neutral third party, without prejudice to the final determination of Somaliland’s sovereign status.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the African Union:
1. Appoint a Special Envoy to consult with all relevant parties and within six months:
(a) report on the perspectives of the parties with regard to the security and political dimensions of the dispute;
(b) prepare a resumé of the factual and legal bases of the dispute; and
(c) offer options for resolution.
2. Organise an informal consultation for members of the Peace and Security Council (PSC) – modelled on the UN Security Council’s “Arria Formula” sessions – involving presentations by eminent scholars, political analysts and legal experts.
3. Pending final resolution of the dispute, grant Somaliland interim observer status so that both sides can attend sessions on Somali issues, make presentations and respond to questions from member states and generally be assured of a fair hearing.
Hargeysa/Addis Ababa/Brussels, 23 May 2006
Source : Crisis Group.
Let Somaliland Be An Independent Country, Int'l Think Tanks Say
Two influential international think tanks are recommending independence and diplomatic recognition of Somaliland "sooner rather than later". In its latest report, the Senlis Council underlines the need for quick and official recognition of Somaliland. This is echoed by the International Crisis Group, which also supports international recognition of Somaliland's right to statehood.
By Jason Cooper
Located in northern Africa, Somaliland has been 'de facto' independent since 1991 ... almost as long as Europe's Transdniestria
HARGEISA, April 24, 2008 – The Republic of Somaliland needs to be officially recognized as an independent country says a prominent global think-tank in its latest report on security and development. The Senlis Council, which was established in 2002 as a European-based organization, reveals its policy recommendations in a report entitled Chronic Failures of the War on Terror: From Afghanistan to Somalia which was published in London on Wednesday.
In its report, the think-tank emphasizes the need for official recognition of Somaliland.
" - Official recognition for Somaliland would send a clear message to all Somalis that peaceful transitions from stability are possible without the need to use overpowering military force, and will be rewarded," said Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer who is president and lead field researcher of The Senlis Council.
" - Up to now, Somaliland has toiled in relative anonymity without any recognition of its extraordinary success in creating the conditions for a viable, stand-alone state, and resisting the spread of extremism found in Somalia."
The Senlis Council is an international policy think-tank with offices in Brussels, Kabul, Kandahar, Lashkar Gah, London, Ottawa, Paris and Rio de Janeiro. It works in partnership with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), as co-organizer of an international conference held in February with the attendance of General David J. Richards, until last year the overall commander of NATO-ISAF.
ICG recommends independence
The International Crisis Group also recommends independence as the best way to build a future for the people of Somaliland. The ICG advocates that the African Union leads the way on international recognition of Somaliland's right to statehood.
In a special report, the research and advocacy group makes a clear political and legal case for recognition. ICG's research suggests that an independent Somaliland would add to regional stability, rather than representing a further cause of instability in the Horn of Africa. The International Crisis Group argues that Somaliland's case is unique, and would not - as some AU members fear - set a precedent for African secessionist movement.
The current internationally recognized state of Somalia is a state in name only. Aside from the briefest of intervals, the last 17 years has been characterized by varying degrees of chaos.
In Somalia, elections have not been held since 1969. Whereas in Somaliland, the 2005 Parliamentary elections were regarded as free and fair, and a test of independence.
But if Somalia is a state in name only, Somaliland is a state-in-waiting without formal recognition.
Of all of the states in the Horn of Africa, it is the self-declared yet internationally unrecognized aspirant state of Somaliland that offers President Bush with his most viable opportunity to claim an African success story. By all rational indicators of a state’s post-conflict development, Somaliland represents impressive progress, and consolidating an area of stability and governance in the Horn of Africa will reduce the vacant space for instability, conflict and extremism to fill.
Somaliland case not creating new precedent
Somaliland has achieved an extraordinary level of political and physical stability after being raised during the bitter civil war of the early 1990s. An embattled population found the resolve to reconstitute itself, establishing functioning organs of government without little upheaval – a rarity in post-conflict reconstruction. Its drive to create multi-party democracy upon a backdrop of relative peace and security has been impressive, if not without flaw.
Somaliland ’s considerable achievements must not continue to go unheralded, and the only substantial way to reward it is through full statehood, argues the Senlis Council in its report.
Somaliland ’s claim for full state independence is distinct from the majority of similar requests of other separatist enclaves/exclaves. Rather than seeking to secede from Somalia, Somaliland is looking to be re-constituted as an independent state. It held this status for five days between 26 June and 1 July 1960 - being recognized by 35 states in the process - before voluntarily uniting with Italian Somalia within the Somali Republic.
For most of its time inside Somalia, the territory was ruled by dictator Siyad Barre’s regime. Barre fell in 1991, along with the country’s political, economic and administrative institutions and any semblance of central government. On 18 May 1991, Somaliland revoked the 1960 Act of Union, and declared Somaliland independent. No country has officially recognized its statehood yet.
According to the report from the Senlis Council, the current policy vacuum needs to be filled by constructive engagement on the issue of Somaliland’s status at every diplomatic level, most notably within the African Union and United Nations. While this dialogue should necessarily be framed by the need for regional stability, the aim of some parties to establish a Somali Federation need not be an immediate focus of such discussions.
Somaliland declared independence in 1991, one year after the independence declaration of Pridnestrovie (Transdniestria). Both have been 'de facto' independent states for the better part of the past two decades, but neither one of them has yet obtained international diplomatic recognition. A first step towards broader international recognition will be for the two countries' Foreign Ministries to establish bilateral ties and recognize each other on a mutual basis.
Source: Tiraspol Times
Somaliland Times:
Yemen To Open Diplomatic Office in Somaliland
HARGEISA, 17 February 2010 (Somalilandpress) – Reports close to the Somaliland government say that Yemen is planning to open a new diplomatic office in Hargeisa. As part of the growing bilateral relationship between the two governments, San’a is now interested in setting itself in Somaliland.
Sources told Somalilandpress that the Yemeni government is sending an official delegation to Hargeisa in the coming few weeks to discuss the issue with the Somaliland authorities before the office is launched.
It is believed that the office will mainly focus issues concerning the relationship between the two countries, piracy, terrorism and trade.
There have been increasing common interest between the two governments since the Islamist groups in Southern Somalia threatened Yemen and vowed to bridge their fighting beyond the gulf waters to join their Yemeni Jihadists in the country. Struggling an increasing Islamist movements in Yemen, the government is now looking for other partners in order to tackle the Alshabab’s expansion to its country.
There is no official statement from Somaliland government so far.
Somalilandpress
Friday 12 February 2010
It's time Somaliland was declared independent by Jeremy Sare-
Jeremy Sareguardian.co.uk,
While Somalia in the south is in chaos, the north is safe and democratic – yet seems invisible to the international community
The recent spate of piracy off Somalia's coast is yet another symptom of the country's collapse of stability and some of its peoples' intense desperation. Reports that the pirates or hijackers of the Ukrainian vessel had begun shooting each other formed a perfect microcosm of Somalia's brutal inner turmoil.
But in the northern half of the country, known as Somaliland, there is no such mayhem. Given its close proximity to the ravaged "failed state" of Somalia, it is astonishing that Somaliland should be stable, safe, democratic and largely crime-free.
To most people, Somalia is synonymous with bloody anarchy – simply one of the most dangerous places in the world. Only the few people with an active interest in the Horn of Africa seem aware of Somaliland's peaceful existence. The leading authority on the region since the 1950s is Professor Ioan Lewis – his book, Understanding Somalia and Somaliland, published in July, leads you to the conclusion. In comprehending the unending enigma of the Horn, one course of action is clear – the peaceful north must be allowed to declare independence from the endless chaos of the south.
That view is privately shared by many governments in Africa and in the wider world, but Somaliland's declared independence of 1991 is still yet to formally recognised by any nation and it remains an "invisible" country.
Diplomatic recognition is the perpetual obsession of the Somaliland government; without it, the country remains starved of foreign investment and aid. In all probability, it would take just one country, such the US, to move on the issue and the rest, with a handful of exceptions, would be bound to follow. However, none of the main players wants to be first, so they are engaged in a multiple "Mexican stand-off".
The few countries who openly oppose recognition (Egypt and Italy) argue "former colonial boundaries should not be redrawn". But Somalilanders agree. The country was a former British protectorate which became independent in 1960 and simultaneously joined in union with the former Italian colony of Somalia. By the mid-1980s the union was rapidly disintegrating; the mass bombing in 1988 of Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa, where 50,000 civilians were killed extinguished any thoughts of reconciliation.
The collective policy of finding a peaceful solution in the southern half of Somalia has not progressed even after 15 peace conferences in as many years. One Somali commentator called this apparently pointless exercise, "the policy of following a blind camel". A Senlis council report published in April says, "the international community needs to be reawakened from its torpor on Somaliland".
But Ted Dagne from Washington's congressional research service argues: "Somalia must develop a federal structure that gives regional autonomy." For the Somalilanders in the north this political theorem is plainly non-sensical. They see the failed union like two brothers who went into business together – while one brother was sober and hard-working, the other went off the rails, destroying the company's stock along with its reputation. Yet it is to the "reckless brother" the international community relentlessly turns to for a solution.
The Somaliland president Dahir Riyale Kahin visited the US in April in the hope of broadening support towards the goal of recognition. Somaliland has certainly passed any democratic test set by Washington in establishing a multi-party system, holding free and fair elections and upholding freedom of speech.
There is now a division of opinion at the top of the US government on this issue. Pentagon chief Robert Gates sees Somaliland as "an entity that works". But Dr Jendayi Frazer, second in command at the state department said: "The US will not take the first step to recognising Somaliland before the African Union."
A change of president in January may alter that position, or before that Bush may be persuaded that Somaliland recognition could be part of his "African legacy". The military see the strategic importance of having a base in the Gulf of Aden as a bulwark against al-Qaida and the deep-water port of Berbera could be ideal.
Ultimately, these are the factors which are likely to determine Somaliland's chances of gaining equal nation status under the UN and not its efforts, against the odds, to create a democratic and free society.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/08/somalia.africanunion
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