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

"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.'1

Prior 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

Somaliland: On the Road to Independent Statehood?

Author: J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.

Date Published: 2007-12-12

Somaliland: On the Road to Independent Statehood?

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 United States in this complex context is to prevent al-Qaeda (or another like-minded international terrorist network) from acquiring a new base and opening a new front in its war against us and our allies…

I would be remiss if I did not avail myself of this opportunity to raise the question of the remarkable reemergence of the Republic of Somaliland amid the ruin of Somalia and multiple conflicts wracking the Horn of Africa. With the collapse of the Somali state, the Somalilanders reasserted their independence and created a functional government, complete with all the accoutrements of modern statehood save, alas, international recognition…

Surely if America’s national commitment to support and strengthen democracy as a bulwark against extremist ideologies and terrorist violence has any real-world application, it is certainly the case here. The point I made at last year’s hearing on the expanding crisis in the Horn of Africa is even truer today: “The people of Somaliland have made their choice for political independence and democratic progress. While they have stumbled occasionally along the way, their efforts deserve encouragement through the appropriate economic, political, and security cooperation—which, in turn, will anchor Somaliland within America's orbit as well as international society.”

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 Africa while all but ignoring a New York-sized region that has held internationally-monitored elections for the presidency as well as national and local legislatures. Talk of mixed signals!

Last week, in its December 4^th 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 “Somaliland should be independent,” another defense official said. “We should build up the parts that are functional and box in” Somalia’s unstable regions, particularly around Mogadishu.

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 5^th, 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 Somaliland”:

· The United States currently engages the Somaliland administration and has provided assistance, for example to the election effort. Our policy on recognition is to allow the African Union to first deliberate on the question. We do not want to get ahead of the continental organization on an issue of such importance.

· As indicated in the full quote above, the United States continues to engage with the administration in Somaliland on a range of issues, most directly Somaliland’s continued progress towards democratization and economic development.

· In FY 2007, the United States provided a total of $1 million through the International Republican Institute to support training for parliamentarians and other key programs in preparations for the upcoming municipal and presidential elections in Somaliland. We expect to provide an additional $1.5 million in continued support for the democratization process in Somaliland following the elections.

· 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 Somaliland as an independent state. We understand that Somaliland is pursuing bilateral dialogue with the African Union and its member-states in this regard.

· However, as the African Union continues to deliberate on this issue, the United States will continue to engage with all actors throughout Somalia, including Somaliland, to support the return of lasting peace and stability in the Horn of Africa.

On the face of it, the Foggy Bottom’s position seems reasonable enough: the United States does not want to be blamed for opening up a veritable Pandora’s Box by backing a secessionist attempt to redraw colonial-era boundaries in Africa which could cause a ripple effect across the continent; better to let the African Union make that call. However, the artful facade the diplomats put up to cover their geopolitical inertia is utterly mendacious, despite the truly diplomatic efforts of Somaliland Foreign Minister Abdillahi Duale to welcome the State Department’s positive comments about the country’s “continued progress towards democratization and economic development.

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 British Somaliland. On June 26, 1960, Somaliland was granted its independence by the British Crown and was internationally recognized as a sovereign state. When, a week later, the United Nations trust territory that had been the Italian colony of Somalia received its independence, Somaliland joined it to form a united republic. The union, however, was troubled from the beginning…Amid the anarchy that ensued following Siyad Barre’s ignominious flight in January 1991, clan elders in Somaliland issued a declaration reasserting the independence that the northwestern region had briefly enjoyed in 1960.” There is no question of – much less precedent set for – redrawing colonial frontiers.

Second, the African Union (AU) itself has acknowledged the unique circumstances surrounding Somaliland’s quest for recognition. The official report of an AU fact-finding mission to the republic in 2005 led by AU Deputy Chairperson Patrick Mazimhaka concluded: “The fact that the union between Somaliland and Somalia was never ratified and also malfunctioned when it went into action from 1960 to 1990, makes Somaliland’s search for recognition historically unique and self-justified in African political history. Objectively viewed, the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a Pandora’s Box’. As such, the AU should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case.”

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 Republic of Somaliland. Thus the State Department’s support for the fictional Somalia’s continued presence at international forums like the AU is fundamentally irreconcilable with functional Somaliland’s ever getting a fair hearing. So the only thing conceivably worse than the State Department being cynically duplicitous in its Somaliland policy is the possibility that its denizens don’t realize this and, hence, are criminally incompetent in their guidance of U.S. policy in the geopolitical sensitive Horn of Africa.

Fortunately, the TFG may not be a factor for much longer. Last week, its “president,” Abdullahi Yusuf, was hospitalized in Nairobi, Kenya, and had to cancel a meeting in Addis Ababa with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; should his condition worsen, that charade will be over. The meeting that did take place between TFG “prime minister” Nur Hassan Hussein and America’s top diplomat was farcical to anyone with historical knowledge of the region. The secretary said she hoped “Hussein will draw on his humanitarian background to facilitate delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid.”

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 “National Salvation Court,” a military tribunal that sent thousands of regime opponents to their deaths? Or perhaps his leadership of the Somali Red Crescent Society where he “did well by doing good” – so well, in fact, that as Somalia descended into chaos and its luckier citizens fled, his children inexplicably found the capital to open a string of internet cafés and currency exchanges in Great Britain to meet the needs of their displaced countrymen? And while the secretary could only “encourage” the self-appointed TFG “to develop a timeline for the remainder of the transitional process by early January” in the hope of staging elections sometime in 2009, Somaliland has already held several sets of the internationally-monitored free polls, the most recent, the parliamentary elections of 2005, was observed and reported on by an International Republican Institute (IRI) delegation led by Ambassador Lange Schermerhorn, a former U.S. envoy to Djibouti who has also served as political advisor to the CJTF-HOA. (I served as an election observer with the ambassador in Nigeria earlier this year.)

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 Somaliland. As former World Bank economist William Easterly, hardly someone who looks at Africa through rosy lenses, noted in his realistic, if somewhat pessimistic, volume, “The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good”:

In Somalia, the “international community” has sponsored fourteen rounds of fruitless peace talks since the collapse of the government in 1991, not to mention the failed UN/U.S. military intervention. Meanwhile, without outside intervention, foreign aid, or even international recognition, the breakaway Republic of Somaliland in the north of Somalia has enjoyed peace, economic growth, and democratic elections over the same period.

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 Camp Lemonier that his “biggest concern for Somalia is the potential for al-Qaeda to be active there.” Formal ties with Somaliland would permit closer ties between U.S. military and intelligence personnel with their counterparts in the small country’s services. Access to Somaliland territory, including the onetime NATO installation at Berbera, would also expand the scope for counterterrorism and other operations by CJTF-HOA as well as the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) which will subsume it next year.

▪ Regional stability. Far from being destabilizing, as I told Congress earlier this year, recognition of Somaliland would “show the countries and peoples of the sub-region our resolve to reward progress as well as give the lie to those who argue that our anti-terrorism and pro-democracy objectives are not subterfuges for an anti-Muslim agenda. (Somaliland’s population is almost exclusively Sunni Muslims and the shah?��dah, the Muslim profession of the oneness of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God’s final prophet, is emblazoned on its flag.)” Furthermore, U.S.-led diplomatic recognition of Somaliland would not only allow the country much-needed access to international institutions and finance for development of the country itself, but also spur regional integration and prosperity. To cite just one example, America’s close partner Ethiopia, whose cut-off from the sea is a factor in the border dispute with Eritrea which I discussed two weeks ago, would benefit directly from access to Somaliland’s 900-kilometer coastline along the Gulf of Aden.

▪ Natural resources and economic opportunities. Earlier this year, I reported on mainland China’s play for petroleum resources in Somalia. Establishing formal ties with Somaliland would not only open opportunities for American firms to bid for similar concessions in that country, but also to invest in what could be a significant regional market. Conversely, ties with American commercial interests would also help anchor the strategically-placed country in the orbit of the United States as it joins the global economy. On the other hand, Somaliland’s considerable potential for economic and social progress is jeopardized not only by the maelstrom in neighboring Somalia, but also, as the AU has reported, by “the lack of recognition [which] ties the hands of the authorities and people of Somaliland as they cannot effectively and sustainably transact with the outside to pursue the reconstruction and development goals.”

▪ 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 Somalia. And despite being cut off from international financial institutions, direct bilateral assistance, and other sources of development and investment capital—all for want of diplomatic recognition—the Somalilanders have rebuilt Hargeysa, which was leveled during the Siyad Barre regime’s brutal campaign against them, and resettled close to one million of their displaced citizens.” Somaliland has already had democratic presidential, legislative, and local government elections; even the State Department has acknowledged that its upcoming presidential and municipal elections are more than credible enough to deserve U.S. funding.

▪ 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 United States to take the lead in critical arenas like the Horn of Africa. A number of governments, both African (including those of Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zambia) and European (including those of Great Britain, Germany, and Sweden), have either entered into de facto relations with or at least made friendly overtures to the Republic of Somaliland. In June, the German federal parliament even passed a resolution calling upon Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government “to work towards mitigating dangers for Somaliland’s stability that may arise from the current Southern Somali scenario,” including “initiatives to advance the resolution of the question of an international recognition of an independent Somaliland.” However, nothing is likely to advance without American leadership or at least tacit approval – in any event, the opposite of the State Department’s passive attendance on the AU’s capacity-challenged policymaking and implementation processed (see my column last week on “The Challenge of Peacekeeping in Africa”).

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 ‘Somalia.’ Now, however, is the time for the United States to break ranks and let realism triumph over wishful thinking, not only recognizing, but actively supporting Somaliland, a brave little land whose people’s quest for freedom and security mirrors America’s values as well as her strategic interests.” If anything, that counsel is even truer today than ever before, as many of our military officers have now publicly acknowledged. The only question is whether or not America’s elected political leaders will have the vision and fortitude to finally instruct their unelected diplomatic mandarins on the real stakes: diplomatic, military, and economic.

FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor

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 Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA).

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.

It's time Somaliland was declared independent by Jeremy Sare-

Jeremy Sare
guardian.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

Somaliland: A Year From The Terror Attack

On Thursday, October 29, 2009, was marked the first anniversary of the suicide bombings in Hargeysa, which left twenty four people dead and more than thirty others wounded. It was the first of it’s kind in Somaliland since the declaration of it’s independence from the rest of Somalia in 1992.

On the 29th October 2008 at around 10am the first car bomb exploded at the UNDP office, after one minute another one exploded at the Ethiopian Trade office just behind the presidency and the third one exploded in about two minutes after that at the Presidential Palace.

The unimaginable has occurred in Somaliland and majority of the people were not aware of what was happening. The whole city was under panic as the smoke raised to the sky, human bodies flying over and the sound of the explosion filled the ears of the city residents. People started to move here and there, all curious and wanting to know what was taking place at their city and country.

In no time, it was clear that what has always been seen on the TVs has arrived home. Car bomb, suicide attack and the similar things that are happening in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries are not that far from Somaliland anymore. The same thing happened in Somaliland that day while people were witnessing.

Hargeysa hospital was full of dead bodies and those wounded in the attacks. With it’s limited medical assistance and equipment it managed to give the first medications to the victims. Some were flown to Nairobi, Djibouti and other countries for medication. The rest were treated by Hargeysa hospital’s heroic physicians and nurses.

After all, it was clear that the Al-Shabaab group who is based in Southern Somalia was behind the attack. The suicide bombers were identified and some were arrested in connection with the incident while others managed to escape to Mogadishu.


Since that time, Somaliland security forces have been proactive in carrying out operations against suspected terrorists in order to prevent such incidents from taking place in the future. The whole population is know helping the authorities in order to prevent from another tragedy. Many were arrested in the last couple of months and some explosives were captured by the police due to police and citizens being proactive on the fight against terrorism.

The attacks carried a message for the world that can be summarized as:
• Anything that is happening elsewhere in the world can happen in Somaliland and in the Horn of Africa. The actions of Al-Qaeda in Asia can be transferred to other places in the world be it in Somaliland and other countries.

• Al-Shabaab is specifically targeting Somaliland this time. They believe the country is a partner with Ethiopia and United States in the war against terror.

• Destabilizing Somaliland is a great opportunity for Al-Shabaab to expand their operations elsewhere in the Horn of Africa where they can establish new training camps and carry out attacks against other countries like Djibouti and Ethiopia.

• Al-Shabaab is not different from Alqaeda when it comes to the objectives, operations and danger. In a recent video, the Al-Shabaab leaders were praising Osama Bin Laden as being a hero and promised to take his path.

One year from that catastrophe day Somaliland has learned to improve it’s security and to take stronger measures against any possible attack in the future. Somaliland leaders need to focus on the external enemies that the country is facing rather than the internal affairs that is currently consuming most of the country’s resources. There is also a need to focus on the educational system in the country. The youth must be given enough awareness against such extreme ideologies.

Today marks a very sad day for the Somaliland people. Many families will remember their loved ones who died during the attacks and wounded will also remember the horrible situation they faced on that day.

Source: Somalilandpress Team
http://www.somalilandtimes.net/sl/2009/405//35.shtml

Accepting Somaliland May Help Stabilize Africa's Horn

By Dr Charles Tannock

After almost two decades as a failed state torn by civil war, perhaps the world should begin to admit that Somalia – as it is currently constructed – is beyond repair. Some of the country, however, can meet at least a basic standard of governance. The northernmost region, Somaliland, situated strategically at the opening to the Red Sea and home to roughly 3.5 million of Somalia’s 10 million people, is more or less autonomous and stable. But this stability fuels fears that Somaliland’s people will activate the declaration of independence they adopted in 1991.

At the end of September, Somaliland will hold its third presidential election, the previous two having been open and competitive. Unlike many developing countries, it will welcome foreign observers to oversee the elections, though, unfortunately, most Western countries and agencies will stay away, lest their presence be seen as legitimizing Somaliland’s de facto government.

But Somaliland’s strategic position near the world’s major oil-transport routes, now plagued by piracy, and chaos in the country’s south, mean that independence should no longer be dismissed out of hand. Indeed, following a fact-finding mission in 2007, a consensus is emerging within the European Union that an African Union country should be the first to recognize Somaliland’s independence. A 2005 report by Patrick Mazimhaka, a former AU deputy chairman, provides some leeway for this, as Mazimhaka pointed out that the union in 1960 between Somaliland and Somalia, following the withdrawal of the colonial powers (Britain and Italy), was never formally ratified.

Ethiopia is the obvious candidate to spearhead recognition, given its worries about jihadist unrest within Somalia. Moreover, landlocked Ethiopia uses Somaliland’s port of Berbera extensively. Yet Ethiopia may hesitate, owing to its fears that formally recognizing Somaliland’s independence could undermine Somalia’s fragile Western-backed Transitional Federal Government (TGF). But, as Somalia’s new president, Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, is a former head of the Islamic Courts, Ethiopia may choose the current status quo in Somaliland over the dream of stabilizing Somalia.

The key regional obstacle to recognition is Saudi Arabia, which not only objects to the secular, democratic model promoted by Somaliland, but is a strong ally of Somalia, which is a member of the Arab League (despite not being Arab) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Saudi Arabia supports the TFG financially and politically. Saudi pressure on Somaliland has ranged from banning livestock imports between 1996 and 2006, to threatening to reject the Somaliland passports of Hajj pilgrims.

When Somaliland’s people vote at the end of September, they will not be deciding explicitly on secession, but their steady effort at state building does amplify their claims to independence. So, two years after Kosovo’s independence, and a year after Russian troops wrenched Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia, it is high time for diplomats and statesmen to provide some guidelines as to when and in what circumstances secession is likely to be acceptable.

Does any self-selected group anywhere have the right to declare independence? If so, the richest parts of any country could decide to go it alone, thus impoverishing their fellow citizens. Even if greed is ruled out as an acceptable motive, in favor of traditional ethno-cultural nationalism, a profusion of tiny tribal states might make the world far more unstable.

Moreover, does anyone, for example, want to see China return to the years of bloody warlordism of the early 20th century? Not likely. Thus clear principles are needed, as neither self-determination nor the inviolability of national borders can be treated as sacrosanct in every case.

So let me attempt to outline some basic principles: First, no outside forces should either encourage or discourage secession, and the barriers for recognizing secession should be set high. Secession is in itself neither good nor bad: like divorce, it may make people more or less content.

Second, a declaration of independence should be recognized only if a clear majority (well over 50 percent-plus-one of the voters) have freely chosen it, ideally in an unbiased referendum.

Third, the new state must guarantee that any minorities it drags along – say, Russians in the Baltic States, or Serbs in Kosovo – will be decently treated.

And fourth, secessionists should have a reasonable claim to being a national group that, preferably, enjoyed stable self-government in the past on the territory they claim. Nations need not be ethnically based; few are entirely. But most nations are unified by language, a shared history of oppression, or some other force of history.

On this, admittedly subjective, measure, Somaliland qualifies as a nation. It was briefly independent (for five days) in 1960 after the British withdrawal, before throwing in its lot with the formerly Italian south, a decision which its people have regretted ever since. In this brief period, 35 countries, including Egypt, Israel, and the five permanent members of the Security Council, recognized Somaliland diplomatically (interestingly, Israel was the first to do so).

If Somaliland’s imminent multiparty elections are reasonably fair and open, the outside world, including the AU and the United Nations, will need to reconsider its status, which has been fudged since the collapse of Siad Barre’s regime in 1991. All three of Somaliland’s parties contesting the forthcoming election are adamant about wanting recognition of the region’s independence, which was confirmed overwhelmingly by a referendum in 2001. So there is no question of one clan or faction imposing independence on the others.

Given the interests of all the world’s great powers in stabilizing the Horn of Africa, there does seem to be movement toward accepting Somaliland’s claims. An independent Somaliland could be a force for stability and good governance in an otherwise hopeless region. So the world may soon need to test whether the controversial principles it brought to bear in Kosovo have the same meaning in Africa.

Charles Tannock is spokesman on the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee for the European Conservatives and Reformists Group. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org).

Source: The Daily Star, Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Israel says ready to recognize Somaliland

HARGEISA (Somalilandpress) — The government of Israel is ready to restore the de jure recognition it has offered to Somaliland in 1960 as it eyes the Red Sea and the Horn, an Israeli spokesman says.

According to a local source, Golisnews, Mr. Yigal Palmor, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman is quoted on the Israeli newspaper of Haaretz Daily saying his government was ready to recognize Somaliland again. He cited Israel was the first state to recognize Somaliland in 1960 when it received its independence from Great Britain.

However, Mr. Palmor admitted Somaliland government has not contacted the Israeli government to seek ties.

When asked a question regarding Somalia, Mr. Palmor answered: “Somalia looks like the Afghanistan of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, historically speaking we know the Somali people have different believes and politics. The Somali people have different political values of which they unified in 1960 that led to the whole misunderstanding and ultimately the collapse of Somalia,” he told Haaretz Daily.

While answering to a question regarding Somaliland-Israel ties, he said: “Israel was the first nation to recognize Somaliland and indeed was the first country the State of Israel has recognized, after it received it’s Independence from Great Britain. When it unified with Southern Somalia, again we were the first to recognize it. We always wanted a relationship with a Muslim country in East Africa and which we can share the Red sea with.”

Mr. Palmor said his country was ready to restore Somaliland’s old status however currently the two states have no bilateral ties.

He added Israel has ties with number of East African countries including Tanzania, Uganda and even Djibouti.

Many analysts believe Israel has growing national interest in the Red Sea region, a key shipping route. According to well-informed regional sources Israel believes the region is also a key route for arms from Iran for Hezbollah, Sudanese regime and number of other groups in Palestine. The Red Sea gives Israeli ships access to the Arabia Sea and are within cruise-missile range of Iran. Israel also concern about Arab nations such as Egypt blocking it’s commercial shipping lines.

There are unconfirmed reports also suggesting Israel wants to deploy submarines in the Somaliland port of Berbera and possibly establish a military outpost. Many Arab states have in the past expressed concerns about the proposed Israeli-base in the Horn of Africa seeing it as Israel surrounding them.

The region is well known for it’s strategic importance and it was days ago when an Al Qaeda spokesman, Said al-Shihri, said “taking control of Bab El-Mandeb, will constitute an escalating victory: the Jews will be crushed in a vise, because it is through the Strait that the United States brings its support to Israel.” Bab El-Mandeb, which means “tears of gates” in Arabic is a 20-mile long inlet located in the narrowest point of the Red Sea, between the shores of the Horn of Africa and Yemen.

It is no secret to Somaliland though, the former president, Mr Ibrahim Haji Egal addressed the very issue in a letter to the former Israeli head of state, Mr Yitshak Rabin in 1995. Fifteen years ago, Mr Egal saw the threat of Islamic fundamentalism and the importance of Bab El-Mandeb.

Mr Egal, who became prime minister of Somaliland at the age of only 30, wrote: “Today, however, although the West had won the cold war and the threat of communism appears to be vanishing in many parts of the world, we, in the Horn of Africa, are being threatened by a more sinister and pernicious enemy in the form of encroaching Islamic influence.”

Mr Egal continues, “my government firmly believes that owing to this region’s strategic geopolitical importance as a result of its propinquity to the oil routes and the narrow Bab El-Mandeb entrance, as well as its proximity to the Gulf, the Middle East and the access to the Indian Ocean.”

Egal, who was a champion politician, died May 3rd 2002 in the South African capital Pretoria. He was succeeded by the current leader, Mr. Dahir Rayale, who is said to have avoided approaching Israel in order not to harm Somaliland’s current fragile relations with the Arabs and Muslim world, which it heavily relies on for it’s only surviving economic engines – livestock.

However many of the youths in Somaliland believe ties with Israel is better for Somaliland’s economic environment because of it’s economical and technological achievements. Many argue livestock is not sustainable economy because of health issues, climate change and urbanisation and prefer developing economy based on service and high-tech sector, similar to that one of Israel and Taiwan.

Somaliland, like Israel, finds itself politically isolated, in the middle of a hostile region and at a thorny crossroads and if anyone is to reach out to the unrecognized republic, it would be Israel. It too knows how it feels to be denied it’s statehood and self-determination. While Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, Somaliland is the only Muslim democracy in the region.

Somaliland has it’s own hybrid system of governance under a constitution was former British protectorate which gained independence 26th June 1960 and was recognized by 34 countries including Israel and the United States. It later joined South Somalia in a union that was never rectified which lasted until 1991.

Somalilandpress, 11 February 2010

http://somalilandpress.com/11628/israel-says-ready-to-recognize-somaliland/