Why Are You Seceding… Brother?

To those who still do not understand why Somaliland is arguing its case for recognition and a seperate state, please read this excellent article below by Guled Ismail at Somaliland.org .

I recently posted on two Somali websites a piece titled “Recognition of Somaliland is good for Somalia”. In it I argued that recognition of Somaliland will not harm Somalia at all and may indeed have a positive impact for all concerned.

I also mentioned that most Somalis are inexplicably hostile to Somaliland and its people. As if to prove me right, almost every reaction on every Somalia website ranged between the merely mocking of the childish variety “You will never be recognised naah nanah nah nah!” to the viciously hateful of the “Death to all Somalilanders” type.

But amongst all the hostility there were one or two people who asked why is Somaliland seceding?brother? That question is particularly poignant when raised by young diaspora-born or brought up Somalis who were not part of the oppression of Somaliland during the 30 years of union with Somalia and did not participate in the ultimate destruction of united Somalia itself.

Below I will try to relate the facts that led to Somaliland seceding in 1991. I will try to be as objective as I can with the historical facts but I am willing to be corrected if anyone knows more than I do about the events that shaped this blighted land and Race over the last 50 years.

 

BACKGROUND

Somaliland became independent from colonial Britain on June 26^th 1960. Four days later it joined with Somalia after the latter gained it’s independence from Italy which was ruling it on behalf of the UN for ten years. It is worthwhile to remember that before July 1^st 1960, Somaliland and Somalia were never united as a nation-state or joined under any tribal or clan arrangements.

Somalilanders and Somalis were both swept along in the heady euphoria of nationalism sweeping throughout Africa at the time. But this was not part of the elite Africans’ utopia of Pan-Africanism, it was an essentially nationalistic local affair. Somalis were not interested in African unity they were interested in getting the Somali bits out of the rest of Africa and out of anybody else’s dominion and bringing them under one roof.. The union of this two was going to be the start of a `Greater Somalia’ encompassing all the regions in East Africa inhabited by Somali-speaking peoples: The Ogaden in Ethiopia, French Djibouti and Kenya’s Northern Frontier District. Whether one sees this as a noble cause of unity or distasteful nationalist chauvinism is a matter of opinion but at the time this was the wind of change blowing through the area and beyond. Both Somaliland and Somalia bought into it with typically unquestioning enthusiasm and warmth. And it was in that atmosphere of heady Somaliness that Somalilanders decided to join their brothers in former Italian Somalia.

FIRST BETRAYAL

The Late President Ibrahim Egal

When the Somaliland government led by its Prime Minster Ibrahim Egal came to Mogadishu one would have expected they will be part of a power sharing arrangement in the new united Somalia. Instead the Somalia government took the following posts of the first independent united Somali State: President, Prime Minister, Speaker of the House, Foreign, Interior, Finance. In fact initially they did not give one single post to the Somalilanders! That was a World first as far as voluntary unions of nations go, and to my knowledge, it remains unique in all Unions of all new nations and territories anywhere in the world.

When shell-shocked Somalilanders raised eyebrows and then kicked a little fuss the Somalia politicians offered the Defense portfolio which, interestingly, they considered lowly, to Mr. Egal. He made it such an important ministry that within two years they removed him and gave it to one of their own. They offered Egal Education which he turned down.

Somalilanders soon felt this was not a union but a takeover. They patiently waited for the referendum of 1961 which was supposed to ratify the Union and they promptly voted against it by a large majority. But since the referendum was across the new united Somalia, the more populous Somalia (Somalia population was 3 million and Somaliland’s just over 1 Million) overwhelmingly voted to keep Somaliland in the Union fold.

But Somalia’s corrupt politicians cheated anyway, just to make sure. In one infamous incident they resorted to a scale of ballot rigging that would have made Kim Il Sung and Saddam Hussein blush in unison. They claimed that nearly ten thousand people voted in the village of Wanlaweyn between Afgoi and Baidoa when in fact the hamlet had about 200 souls, and half of those being camels were, in theory at least, not eligible to vote!

Few days later the Shabelle River flooded killing most of Wanlaweyn’s camel and human populations. Some Somalilanders took this to be divine retribution and one anonymous Hargeisa wit asked God to deal with the Somalia politicians instead of picking on the poor hamlet.

“Oh the God who let the river wipe away Wanlaweyn?could you take away the government Ministers next week please?”.

The Wanlaweyn tag stuck as a symbol of what Somalilanders considered Southern corruption and treachery ever since. To this day Landers* call all Southern Somalis Wallaweyn although without any malice.

AN ATTEMPTED COUP

After the refrendum fiasco in 1961, a group of Somaliland military officers led by Col. Hassan Keyd attempted a coup in Hargeisa but were betrayed by a co-conspirator known as Capt. Inda Dillo(”The Eyes of the Prostitute”). Somalilanders point out this officer, although Somaliland-born, was of Southern parentage adding to Landers’ general mistrust of all things Southern.

A WELCOME COUP

One corrupt Southern-run regime followed an even more corrupt one till Siyad Barre, yet another southerner and his mainly southern military officers seized power in 1969. Some Landers saw an anti-Somaliland bias in the coup, perhaps unfairly on this occasion. The coup took place shortly after some Somalilanders worked their way up through the maze of the incomprehensible southern political alliances leading for the first time with Mr. Ibrahim Egal, sidelined in earlier Somalia governments, becoming the new country’s Prime Minister and one or two other prominent Northerners emerging through the ranks too. Egal was in power for less than a year when the coup took place and he was imprisoned in a Southern jail. He remained there for almost 12 years.

Nonetheless Siyad Barre’s revolution was widely welcomed in Somaliland because he promised to fight corruption and establish a just and meritocratic Somalia. Landers knew they will be the most likely beneficiaries if he delivered on his promises.

Somalilanders live in one of the driest and most unproductive patches of the Somali desert but they traditionally controlled huge chunks of the economy and were among the most successful businessmen in all of the Somali regions in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia and Somaliland. All these enterprising men and women needed was competent governance to let them trade and create wealth and Siyad Barre promised that. They rewarded him with wholehearted enthusiasm and loyalty.

NEGLECTED AGAIN

The euphoria of the coup soon turned stale when Somalilanders realised Siyad Barre was no more interested in Somaliland than any of his Southern predecessors. He did not build a single new college, hospital, sea or airport in Somaliland. This is all the more incomprehensible because the Somaliland Port of Berbera alone generated 80% of Somalia’s Foreign exchanges (see World Bank figures 1982). Before the Union with Somalia, Hargeisa, Burao and Berbera all had airstrips with international flights while Mogadishu was the only city in the South with an International Airport. By 1975 Siyad Barre’s regime stopped all international flights to land in any Somaliland Airport. He later re-opened Berbera’s because the USSR wanted to build a Military base there.

By contrast Siyad’s military regime lavished money and resources on far less important ports in Somalia from Kismayo to Bosaso. Mogadishu which did not export or import anything of value at all, was given a huge spanking brand new white elephant port built with EEC money. It remains a white elephant to this day.

Only when Siyad Barre realised that he needed a fast road to link the South and North in case he required his army to move up North fast for oppression purposes did he ask China to build a road linking the two parts of the country. Maybe he was also planning for invading Ethiopia which he did as soon as the road was completed.

Meanwhile the rot of Somaliland’s infrastructure under Somalia rule was typified by Somaliland’s second city of Burao. On the day of the union with Somalia in 1960 it had electricity, running water, two squeaky clean hospitals and two Secondary Schools (colleges). There were even few telephone lines for the most privileged.

The streets and buildings were so well lit the place shimmered like a gigantic diamond in the endless expanses of the Somaliland plateau. At night one could see its warm glow from nearly 50 miles away.

By 1980 after 20 years of Union with Somalia the water, electricity and the telephones were gone. There were still two hospitals but they were dirty and haven’t had a lick of paint for twenty years. The two secondary schools were now one. Burao no longer shimmered at night it was shrouded in permanent darkness.

 

 

OPPRESSION BREEDS RESISTANCE

Across Somaliland there was one area of exponential growth: Police stations and torture centres. Take Burao again. It had two police stations manned by unarmed cops when we joined Somalia on June 26^th 1960. By 1980 it had at least twelve known police stations and torture chambers some manned by seasoned torturers with succinctly descriptive names like “Dhabr Jebinta” (”The Backbreakers”) and HANGASH , a unit so sinister no one even knows what their acronym stood for. Their activities were better known though: kidnap, rape, torture, murder and looting.

Somalilanders had had enough. They decided to mobilise peacefully, and typically they tried to do something about the neglected infrastructure first. A group of young men and women decided to clean up Hargeisa General Hospital and give it a new lick of paint. The Somalia government saw this as an extreme existential threat and arrested the whole group. They were beaten, tortured and raped in Hargeisa, Adadley and Mandera torture centres. Somaliland leaders and businessmen who tried to voice their objections peacefully were arrested or worse. By 1982 there were constant curfews, executions, mass looting and systematic rape. Somalilanders came to the conclusion peaceful opposition wasn’t working so they organised an armed struggle under the umbrella of Somali National Movement (SNM). This was no determined clan movement waging clan war for clan supremacy as its detractors will have you believe, but a reluctantly armed bunch of amateurs desperately trying to make their people survive.

When two of SNM activists hijacked a Somali Airline plane they had one demand: the stay of execution of Somaliland teenagers and their teachers who were due to go in front of firing squad the next day. Their crime? They held a peaceful, unarmed demonstration against a curfew and subsequent looting by the army in the Waterfalls district of Hargeisa.

ALL OUT OPPRESSION

The Somalia government felt the establishment of the SNM gave it a carte blanche to indulge in mass oppression in Somaliland. A State of Emergency was declared and the whole place came under the military rule of Siyad Barre’s cousin General Ganni. He was soon replaced by Siyad’s son-in-law General Saeed Xirsi Morgan because Mr. Ganni was not oppressive enough for the president’s liking.

Soon water wells were poisoned in every village, looting was made perfectly acceptable and rape became common place. Militias were formed from the Ogaden and Oromo refugees living in Somaliland since the 70s Ogaden war and tasked to do some of the work considered too dirty even for the regular army to carry out. I will leave to your imagination what these militias did.

ITALY CONSPIRES

Italy with its historic link to Somalia decided to come to Siyad Barre’s aid and kill off the SNM movement once and for all. It convinced the then European Economic Community (EEC) in 1988 that it will be in the best interests of both Ethiopia and Somalia if both stopped harbouring opposition movements in each other’s territory. The SNM used as Ethiopia as a haven to escape Somalia’s oppression at the time. No one in the EEC seems to have queried how can strengthening two dictators by silencing their oppositions will be good for the region and its peoples.

So in 1988 an embarrassed Mengistu Haile Miriam called the SNM leadership and told them to leave the safety of the Ethiopian hinterland. He knew what he was telling them: surrender to your enemy.

But of course surrender was no option. The SNM instead marched into Hargeisa and Burao on May 28^th 1988 in a desperate last ditch effort to free their people.

ATTEMPTED GENOCIDE

The government’s response was as predictable as it was brutal. It shot every Somalilander male on sight. In Hargeisa, patients were pulled out of their hospital beds, put against the walls and shot. In far off Mogadishu special units started scouring the town for prominent Somalilanders. In one incident 46 Somalilanders were lined up and shot on Jesira beach outside Mogadishu. The Somali Nation State then decided to erase Hargeisa from the map and did exactly that. They ordered the whole of the Somali Airforce to bomb the town to smithereens and when one Somali pilot refused and landed his Mig in neighbouring Djibouti, they brought in Rhodesian mercenaries to do the task.

The British daily `The Guardian’ in headline titled “Somalis in a Genocide Bombing” said the following: “They just bombed and bombed till there was nothing left to bomb” it added that in the countryside too “They are conducting turkey shoots from the backs of Jeeps” Does this add up to an attempted genocide? I don’t know. I will leave that to those who know the legal definitions of what amounts to an attempted genocide.

SURVIVAL AND REBUILDING

Somaliland and its people survived the onslaught, just. The refugees returned to a country bombed back to year zero. There was hardly a building standing in the whole country. All the trained cadre and professional middle classes were decimated. There were no teachers, doctors, accountants, lawyers, plumbers or even mere farmers. Hargeisa region used to produce the best Sorghum(Elmi Jama) in united Somalia but no more. That is because they killed all the farmers or simply starved them to death by blocking their wells. The entrepreneurs who once made the North the most business-savvy region were either dead or went abroad. One commentator said to me at the time “Buildings can be repaired?.it is the human material that will take much longer to retrieve“.

Nevertheless Somaliland is rebuilding. Its towns now have some electricity, some running water and some of the hospitals are painted once in a while. It is nowhere as good as 1960 when Somaliland joined Somalia but its’ getting there! Landers are repairing the broken human material too. They are relearning peace and decency and compromise and democracy. They are relearning to speak freely as they once did and tolerate each other’s views. It is a hard slog after 30 years of suppression, trauma and sheer horror and it sometimes shows. They have an almost paranoid government that bans radio broadcasting and believes arresting political opponents is an acceptable practise in a democracy. But it doesn’t rob them or rape them or torture them. It does not line them up against walls and shoot them. And that is progress.

Conclusion

So the reasons of the secession include betrayal and sideling from power from day one of the union, oppression, taking away of people’s freedoms; complete and absolute neglect of Somaliland infrastructure and development; wholesale destruction and misappropriation of properties; venal corruption; denial of basic human rights and dignities and finally mass murder and attempted genocide of Somalilanders by the Somali Nation State.

But perhaps the most powerful argument for secession is the fact Somalilanders are now working really hard to attain the levels of development they had inherited from colonial Britain nearly 50 years ago. The Union, it can be reasonably said, had failed the people of Somaliland. That is why `we’ are seceding?..brother.

Thank you

Guled Ismail

Please note terms Southerners, South and Somalia mean previously Italian Somalia and its people while Somalilanders, Northerners and Landers mean Somaliland and its peop

Africa’s Success Story

Against all the odds, and with little international support, Somaliland is well on the road to stability and democracy.

Peter Tatchell

April 12, 2007

Too much of the news we hear about Africa is negative: famine, civil war, HIV, corruption and dictatorship. The latest horror stories from Darfur, Zimbabwe and the Congo grab the headlines, but quiet success stories like Somaliland rarely make the news.

I am talking about Somaliland, not Somalia. The contrast between the two states could not be greater. In the chaos and brutality of war-torn Somalia, more than 1,000 people have been killed or wounded in the last two weeks. Since February, nearly 100,000 refugees have fled the fighting in Mogadishu, bringing the total of displaced persons to more than 400,000.

Contrast this chaos and violence in Somalia with the tranquillity and stability of the north-west breakaway region of the republic of Somaliland. Imperfect, but moving in the right direction, next month the country will celebrate its 16th anniversary of independence. Against all odds, and with little international aid, the three million people of Somaliland have, by their own efforts, begun to establish a secure, functioning democratic state and a reasonable degree of economic stability and growth. This is a truly remarkable achievement in a region of Africa that has long been a byword for chaos, repression and war.

Somaliland, a former British protectorate, declared independence from the defunct republic of Somalia on 18 May 1991. The new state is based on the colonial borders that were recognised in 1960, when Somaliland briefly gained independence from Britain and became the first independent Somali nation to join the United Nations.

Over the last decade-and-a-half, the predominantly Muslim country has made the transition from an autocratic clan-run region, notorious for war and human rights abuses. It has emerged from the ruins of decades of misgovernance and conflict as a peaceful multi-party democracy. A referendum in 2001 led to the adoption of a new democratic constitution. Since then, Somalilanders have held successful elections for president, parliament and local government. While Somalia has not had a free election since the 1960s, each of these three votes in Somaliland has been largely peaceful and declared free and fair by international election observers.

In contrast to the clan conflicts that bedevil Somalia and many other African nations, Somaliland has found a way to negotiate and resolve them peacefully. It has bought previously often hostile clans together in a democratic system that minimises rivalries by incorporating the clan elders into the advisory upper house.

Somalilanders have achieved an enviable peace; progressively disarming and demobilising thousands of gunmen; whereas in Somalia to the south soldiers still run amok, looting, extorting and terrorising local populations. Many of Somaliland’s former clan fighters have been successfully incorporated into the mostly well disciplined national army. Unlike many other African states, the armed forces stay out of politics.

Moreover, Somaliland is committed to the rule of law, which is upheld by a largely independent judiciary. Discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, gender or opinion is prohibited. Human rights abuses, such as torture, are criminal offences. The right to protest is protected by law.

The country’s transition to democracy and the full observance of human rights still has a way to go. It has a multi-party system but only three political parties are allowed under the constitution. Islam is the state religion. While non-Islamic faiths are allowed, their promotion is prohibited. Muslims are not permitted to renounce Islam.

The legal system is based on Sharia law. Although rarely enforced with harshness, this does place inherent restrictions of the rights of women. The female sex is poorly represented in public life and state institutions. The constitution does, however, give women the right to employment training and property ownership. Although government corruption and inefficiency are not as bad as in many other African nations, they remain a problem according to critics of the regime.

Somaliland’s significantly improved record on human rights suffered a setback earlier this year with the arrest of four journalists from the independent newspaper, Haatuf. They were only released at the end of March, after being detained for 86 days on charges of allegedly spreading false information and offending the president. This worrying abuse of press freedom was, however, an exceptional curtailment of what is nowadays a fairly open and free media.

Despite a few flaws, Somaliland is mostly a success story – especially compared to the violence and chaos of Somalia. The Somalilanders have shown, without any pressure from the west, that a Muslim country can build a peaceful, democratic state that, for the most part, upholds human rights. It is a model for Africa and the Middle East.

Yet Somaliland remains unrecognised as a sovereign nation. While the United Nations and the international community focus on the civil war in Somalia, Somaliland’s achievement in building a stable, harmonious democracy is unrecognised and unrewarded. Betrayed by the Arab League and the African Union, it stands alone.

Instead of one-sidedly condemning Africa’s failures, isn’t it time the west did more to acknowledge and support its successes? For a start, Britain, the Commonwealth and the European Union should recognise Somaliland as an independent, sovereign state; and lobby the African Union, the Arab League and the United Nations to do likewise. A modest increase in British and EU aid and trade would go a long way to strengthen Somaliland’s economic base. Tackling poverty and unemployment, and improving health, education and housing, will help underpin and enhance Somaliland’s transition to a war-free, democratic future. Over to you, Margaret Beckett.

e-Petition for the recognition of the Republic of Somaliland

To all Somalilanders out there, please click on the link below which will take you to the Prime Ministers website which will give you the opportunity to sign an online petition urging the government to recognise Somaliland. For those of you who are not British Citizens , dont worry about the statement which says ‘you must be British Citizens to sign the petition’. Just go ahead and sign it:

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/Somaliland/

For those with blogs, add posts or links on this topic onto their blogs for it to get maximum exposure.

Ethiopian involvement in Somalia

I have in the past had sceptical thoughts on the Ethiopian intervention in Somalia. The main reason was plainly because of America playing an indirect role in this situation. There were reports of the US providing military equipment to Ethiopia. They also admitted that they were in full support of the mission. This was the case even though the UN Security council voted all foreign powers ie. Ethiopia and a suspect, Eritrea out of Somalia. Eritrea has nothing positive to contribute to this event and they will do anything to counter Ethiopian actions.

When you look at it from the Ethiopian side, they were being threatened with ‘jihad’ on a daily basis. In my opinion they had every right to help the defunctional, incapable TFG of Somalia. What would the Somalis have done if Christian extemists threatened Somalia ? Just sit back and watch? I dont think so. Governments have a right to eradicate threats before they materialise. The ICU were not good for Somalia whether in the short term or the long one. Somalia would not have progressed economically, academically and would maintain to be an isolated backwater that it is today.

Credit must be given to the Ethiopians for the mission that they are carrying out: helping the once hopeless Somali people to stand up on their own two feet, to form some sort of order and something that resembles a government. The Ethiopians said very clearly that they do not wish to occupy Somalia. They are apparently on the outskirts of the city. They also do not want to be viewed as occupiers but unfortunately, the majority of Somalis, especially right wing ones dont see it that way.

I hope that some semblance of order can be retained in Somalia and that the Somali people look forward to acheiving prosperity and stability rather than look backward to clanism, famine and chaos. And I hope that they would alos allow peace and stability to be maintained in other Somali regions rather than carrying out actions and policies that may be viewed as a threat, as this is not in the interest of Somalia.

Why The United States Should Recognize Somaliland’s Independence

The United States government should officially recognize the independence of Somaliland, a moderate Muslim democracy in the Horn of Africa. Such an argument may seem counterintuitive at a time when tensions are rising in the region. But I submit that it is precisely because of those rising tensions that it is time for the Bush administration to act, especially if it is truly serious about democracy promotion, counter-terrorism, and curtailing the spread of Islamic fundamentalism.

Why does Somaliland deserve U.S. recognition?

First and foremost, it is important to recollect that, after achieving independence from British colonial rule on June 26, 1960, Somaliland was duly recognized as a sovereign entity by the United Nations and thirty-five countries, including the United States. Several days later, on July 1, the independent country of Somaliland voluntarily joined with its newly independent southern counterpart (the former UN Trust Territory of Somalia that was a former Italian colony) to create the present-day Republic of Somalia. Somalilanders rightfully note that they voluntarily joined a union after independence, and that, under international law, they should (and do) have the right to abrogate that union, as they did in 1991. Examples abound in the second half of the twentieth century of international recognition of countries that have emerged from failed federations or failed states, including East Timor, Eritrea, Gambia, and the successor states of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The same legal principle should be applied to Somaliland.

The political basis for Somaliland’s claim is that the voluntary union of 1960 was derailed in 1969 by a military coup d’etat in Mogadishu that ushered in more than two decades of brutal military rule under the dictatorship of General Mohamed Siyad Barre. Himself a southerner, Barre destroyed the foundations of the north-south democratic compact, most notably by unleashing a murderous campaign (bordering on genocide) against northern civilians that resulted in more than 50,000 deaths and created over 500,000 refugees as part of a widening civil war during the 1980s. Even after Barre was overthrown in 1991 by a coalition of guerrilla armies, including the northern-based Somali National Movement (SNM), northern expectations of a government of national unity were dashed when southern guerrilla movements reneged on an earlier agreement and unilaterally named a southerner president, which in turn was followed by the intensification of inter and intra-clan conflict in the south. Nearly thirty years of unfulfilled promises and brutal policies ripped the fabric of the already fragile north-south political compact. A “point of no return” had been reached for Somalilanders intent on reasserting their country’s independence. In May 2001, a popular mandate was given to dissolving the union, when a resounding number of ballots cast (97 percent) in a national Somaliland referendum favored the adoption of a new constitution that explicitly underscored Somaliland’s independence.

Somaliland deserves recognition if the Bush administration is truly sincere about promoting democracy in the wider Middle East. In sharp contrast to southern Somalia where instability and crisis have reigned and in fact intensified in the last fifteen years, Somaliland has established a democratic polity that, if recognized, would make it the envy of democracy activists in the Muslim world. The essence of Somaliland’s successful democratization was captured by U.S.-based International Republican Institute and the National Endowment for Democracy in convening a September 2006 panel discussion on Somaliland. They wrote that “Somaliland’s embrace of democracy, its persistence in holding round after round of elections, both winners and losers abiding by the rules, the involvement of the grassroots, the positive role of traditional authorities, the culture of negotiation and conflict resolution, the temperance of ethnicity or clan affiliation and its deployment for constructive purposes, the adaptation of modern technology, the conservative use of limited resources, and the support of the diaspora and the professional and intellectual classes are some of the more outstanding features of Somaliland’s political culture that are often sorely lacking elsewhere.”

Somaliland also deserves recognition from a purely U.S.-centric national security perspective. The Somaliland government and population embody a moderate voice in the Muslim world that rejects radical interpretations of Islam, including that espoused by various portions of the Council of Somali Islamic Courts (CSIC) currently in control of Mogadishu and its environs. It would serve as a bulwark against the further expansion of radical ideologies in the Horn of Africa by offering a shining example (along with Mali and Senegal and other predominantly Muslim Sub-Saharan African democracies) of how Islam and democracy are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually reinforcing. Somaliland leaders are also eager to cooperate with the Bush administration in a variety of counter-terrorism measures, including working with the Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) based in Djibouti. They are currently prohibited from doing so due to U.S. legislation that prevents cooperation with unrecognized Somaliland authorities.

The critiques of the pro-independence position are numerous, but don’t stand up to close examination. One strand of thought is that Somaliland is not economically viable. This position is reminiscent of claims made by Europeans during the 1950s with respect to their African colonies, with the aim of delaying independence throughout Africa. In any case, the argument is belied by Somaliland’s creation of a highly self-sufficient, well-functioning economy even though it has no access to the economic benefits that would come with statehood, such as access to loans from international financial institutions.

A second critique, typically offered by African policymakers, is that recognition of Somaliland will “open a pandora’s box” of secessionist claims throughout Africa. However, as in the case of Eritrea, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, the Somaliland case does not call into question the African mantra of the “inviolability of frontiers” inherited at independence. The north-south union followed the independence and recognition of both the British and Italian Somali territories, and its dissolution therefore would constitute a unique case of returning to the boundaries inherited from the colonial era.

Others, especially those connected to UN efforts throughout the Horn of Africa, argue that recognition will derail the UN-sponsored “building blocks” approach to national reconciliation that includes the reconstitution of a central government in Mogadishu. This approach, however, has been an utter failure, as witnessed by the short-lived Transitional National Government (TNG) and its replacement by a Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the authority of which extends little beyond the town of Baidoa. What authority it has is largely due to the intervention of Ethiopian troops opposed to the further expansion of the Islamic Courts. It is time to recognize that the UN-sponsored “building blocks” cannot be stacked together to create a reunified central authority in Mogadishu.

A fourth critique claims that the “time is not right” for recognition because it will further intensify the widening crisis between the Islamic Courts and the TFG, and between their respective regional and international supporters. This argument has been heard repeatedly in the last fifteen years whenever efforts at reconstructing a unified central government were thought to be on the “verge of success.” Success has proved elusive over all this time, however, and it is now clear that southern Somalia will remain in crisis regardless of what is done with respect to Somaliland recognition. The most dire prediction of some Somali watchers is that the Islamic Courts movement will emerge victorious in the current conflict, assert its control over all Somali territories outside of Somaliland, and then threaten open warfare with Somaliland to bring it back into the Somali fold. If this should happen, it will likely be too late for the United States or others to intervene in a timely and effective manner to prevent Somaliland’s absorption into an Islamist Somalia. This reality makes recognition all the more urgent.

One of the more nuanced critiques of recognition is that loyalty to Somaliland in its eastern districts of Sanaag and Sool is contested, especially among the Warsengeli and Dhulbahante clans, and that any movement toward independence would potentially require the redrawing of Somaliland’s eastern boundary – which the leadership in Hargeysa ( Somaliland’s capital) is unwilling to entertain. It is important to reiterate that Somaliland’s current boundaries are those of the original British Somaliland Protectorate created in 1884 and the independent country recognized by the international community beginning on June 26, 1960, and therefore have a solid legal basis under international law. The 2001 referendum provided an unequivocal popular basis for the independence claim. One way of resolving this issue, as was done with Eritrea in May 1993, would be to hold a territory-wide, UN-sponsored and internationally monitored popular referendum on independence that would be binding. If, as would be expected, pro-independence forces prevailed, those unwilling to live under Somaliland rule would have to make hard decisions about whether to continue living in Somaliland. .

A final critique involves the concept of “African solutions for African problems.” Proponents contend that the United States should wait for African countries led by the AU to first recognize Somaliland. This approach is the topic of a thought-provoking International Crisis Group report, “Somaliland: Time for African Union Leadership,” published in May 2006, and was publicly endorsed by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer in a presentation on November 17, 2006 at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association. Although Frazer’s statement that the United States would recognize Somaliland if the AU acted first was welcomed by specialists on Somaliland, it is unclear when or if a AU recognition process will actually unfold. The encouragement of African action should not become the basis for inaction on the part of the United States.

The time for U.S. recognition of Somaliland is now, not only because it is right, but because it is in the interests of the United States. Recognition of Somaliland, followed by expanded engagement by Somaliland with the international community, would serve as a powerful lesson for other countries within the region (not least of all southern Somalia) of the benefits associated with the creation and consolidation of democratic systems of governance. Somaliland would become a model to emulate, and the United States would be congratulated for undertaking a proactive policy in support of a moderate, Muslim democracy.

Peter J. Schraeder is a professor in the Department of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. He writes on African politics and U.S. Africa policy.

Source: CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), Africa Policy Forum

Somalia Islamists Should Be Stopped

All I can say is that I totally agree with Bashir.

Bashir Goth – Somalia for Somalis! Let them run their country as they please. Easy words to say but difficult to accept when it means beheading people for not praying five times a day, chopping hands of those who steal to stay alive in a country where mere survival is a lifelong ambition. Difficult to accept when women are shrouding and denied to breathe fresh air or go about their daily business to feed their children. Difficult to accept when the country’s musical heritage is expunged as Satan’s work, the cinema is banned and tha watching of world sports is forbidden, thus depriving the youth of the only source of cultural interaction they have with the outside world.

Today we live in a global world where ideas travel faster than lightening and people and weapons cross borders with utmost ease; where human rights are universal; and where political upheavals in one country reverberate in far off countries. No country stands alone.

This is why the world cannot and should not ignore what the Islamist movement in Somalia does and says. Remember what happened when the world ignored Afghanistan under Taliban. When the world stood aside and watched as they destroyed the historical relics of the Buddha; when they trampled on human rights and herded women into dark rooms. We all have seen the enormous cost of such negligence. Sept. 11 was only the start.

This is why the Somali Islamists’ calling for Jihad against Ethiopia and the United States cannot be ignored. Ethiopia is the only country that has correctly seen the danger coming from the rise of Islamism in Somalia. Some may explain Ethiopia’s position as muscle flexing aimed at controlling its small neighbor’s ports, the only strategic resources that Somalia owns; but Ethiopia’s fear of the Islamist movement in Somalia has a historical precedent. The call for Jihad against Christendom, rekindles Ethiopia’s old memories of the 16th century when Imam Ahmed Gran launched a jihad against Christian Ethiopia with the help of the Ottoman Empire.

The Imam’s army marched through Ethiopia, looting and destroying churches including the Axumite Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion where Ethiopian emperors had been coronated for centuries; Axum, that old kingdom that ruled as far as Yemen and parts of today’s Saudi Arabia. In another attempt to revive the legacy of the Imam, Somalia’s former dictator Mohammed Siyad Barre also invaded Ethiopia in 1977. Economically drained by long droughts and civil war, the Ethiopian army crumbled before the Soviet trained Somali military while the whole Somali people sang Ololiyaay (burn, burn). It was only the Soviet’s switching of sides when a socialist military junta rose to power in Addis Ababa that saved Ethiopia from a complete collapse.

It is against this background that the Ethiopians quake when they hear the call for Jihad. The radicals of the Islamic Courts have also made no secret of their agenda to export their brand of Islam to Ethiopia; reviving an old dream of the Somalis and neighboring Arab countries to remove what they see as a Christian bastion from the Muslim region while forgetting that Islam owes its existence to Ethiopia. It was Ethiopia where the first Muslim exiles took refuge and found home and justice. The walled town of Harar, with its 99 mosques, thrived for generations under the Ethiopian rule as the most important seat of Islamic learning in the Horn of Africa.

Some may dismiss the Somali Islamists’ rhetoric of exporting their message to Africa and beyond as a political expediency or even a fantasy. But the world has seen the havoc and destruction that the fantasy of one man can cause. Hitler gave us WWII and the holocaust and Osama bin Laden has ignited a world war of unconventional nature. This is why the world should not take lightly the threats coming from another megalomaniac such as Colonel Hassan Dahir Aweys and his gun trotting jihadist brigades.

The question of whether Ethiopia should intervene is irrelevant. No sovereign country in the world would allow a hostile and ideologically driven regime to threaten its existence. Crushing the Islamist militia while it is still in a nebulous stage will be less costly for the Somali people, for Ethiopia, and indeed for the whole world than to let the Islamists march into Ethiopia and wreck havoc to a nation of 70 million and more than 80 ethnic groups. Letting Ethiopia crumble will not only create another Yugoslavia in the heart of Africa but will also deal a devastating blow to the economies of Djibouti, Somaliland and Somalia.

No doubt an Ethiopian invasion would trigger a wave of patriotism among the poor Somali masses whose emotions are inflamed by the Islamists’ call for martyrdom, but to deny the Islamists to run over the Transitional Federal Government, TFG, will be the only way to prevent the jihadist fervor spilling to neighboring countries. The world also needs to strengthen the defenses of the democratically robust breakaway republic of Somaliland and extend generous economic support to it. The UN approved African Peacekeeping force should also be rapidly deployed to the peaceful and autonomous state of Puntland whose resistance to the Islamists will not last long without an external help.

The international community should impose travel and economic sanctions on the UIC until they accept to stop their military onslaught, allow the deployment of AU forces and agree to start serious negotiations with the government under the AU and UN auspices. The UN should also take action against countries supporting the Islamists with arms and cash.

It will be unforgivable to allow a second Taliban to thrive in such a strategic but isolated corner of the world and let it unleash another wave of Al Qaeda martyrs to further saturate the already poisoned atmosphere between Islam and the West. It will also be a dereliction of duty on the part of the international community to watch the Somali people deprived of their basic human rights and do nothing. Yes, by saying this I cannot help but recall the horrendous pictures of the Somalis dragging the dead bodies of the American soldiers in the streets of Mogadishu. A crime that one of the Islamist leaders, Colonel Mohammed Yusuf Indhadde, had the audacity to brag about claiming to be one of the people who did this heinous action. He admitted this publicly while speaking to hundreds of people at the Mogadishu Sports Stadium.

But it is also worth remembering that sound-thinking Somalis watched with admiration as the United States Air Force delived tons of relief supplies to more than 100,000 Somali refugees in camps cut-off by flooding in north-eastern Kenya, thus making the Islamists’ call for jihad ring hollow.

 Source: WashingtonPost.com

Integration…….Integration…….Integration

What is Integration? As a Muslim, does it mean I should go with my Christian friends and join them in the pub and converse over a pint? Does it mean I should go and join them for Sunday mass? If this is what integration means , then no I dont integrate. There are some values and beliefs which I will not give up. If integration means going about the British way of life, respecting other peoples values and cultures, obiding the rule of law and at the same time maintaining my religious identity, then yes I integrate. I believe integration means keeping your own religious/cultural identity while appreciating others. Cultural identities are easier to give up than religious ones and this generally happens with anyone who comes to live in this country.

While living in the UAE, which is seen as a cultural melting pot, where you see people from every corner of the globe, I remember seeing white British families generally living in the same area, socialising mainly with fellow Brits and making absolutely no effort to learn Arabic, the local language.

It is natural for a certain cultural or religious group to stick together and live in the same area. This is the same with the Jews, Hindus as well as the Muslims in this country. But as usual, Blair is always finding a way of having a pop at the Muslims. The more Islamophobic this country becomes the more it will be seen that community relations breakdown and the more likely the notion of Multiculturalism will not work.

The situation is not bad at the moment, but if it does get bad, then as proud as a Briton I am, it will leave me no alterative but to leave Britain and find a safe haven elsewhere. I dearly hope that it does not come to that.

Bad times for Mogadishu arms dealers

Article : Mogadishu's unfamiliar calm – found here

Apparently there is calm on Mogadishu's streets for the moment. A very fragile calm at that. The people are benefitting from this so called peace but there is one group of people who are not.

" Before, there were always two or three groups that I could sell to. Now there is just the Islamic courts and we are worried that they will bring peace here and put us out of business," says one of the arms dealers.

All I can say is what a fool for saying that. Looks like some people prefer the murdering, killing and the uncontrollable crime that goes on in that region. I guess that is what happens when you grow up with war around you.

Islamists capture Jowhar

 

The Guardian article here

Well it looks like there is no stopping the Islamic Courts Union (ICU). They now control all of the Southern territory apart from Baidoa. That will also probably fall soon to them. I am also curious to know what their policy on Somaliland is. I ve not heard them mention this but those of you that do now, let me know.

Rageh’s new book

 

A Muslim boy goes to a madrasa in Mogadishu to learn the Koran. His parents take him on two pilgrimages to Mecca. He arrives in Britain as a child just as Somalia collapses into a state of civil war which will continue throughout his childhood and prevent him from going home. He watches Black Hawk Down in horror. He watches the invasion of Iraq in disbelief. To the media, government and general public this is the classic background story to the most feared figure of our times: the young, male, black, British, Muslim. It is also the story of Rageh Omaar's childhood.

Rageh Omaar's unique and profoundly moving book is the story of his childhood in Somalia, his family's attitude to religion, his double life as a British Muslim and that of other British Muslims: the failed suicide bomber from Somalia; his cousin who was stabbed in the neck on a London street on 8th July 2005. Full of humanity and rage, empathy and insight Only Half of Me takes us into lives that are widely misunderstood, and tries to make sense of our own fractured world.

Source: Penguin

From the man himself :

Dear Reader

I have spent much of the last ten years reporting on the Muslim world to a Western audience. However, in recent years, returning home to the UK after each reporting assignment has, at times, been a dispiriting and enraging experience. Reporting on the Muslim world for Western audiences and returning to live as a Muslim in Britain has revealed to me a chasm between the two worlds – one that is being filled with ignorance and misconceptions. Over the last three years, since the catastrophic occupation of Iraq, a chain of events has served only to widen this chasm: from the attacks on London last year to the controversy over the Danish cartoons earlier this year.

These days we are surrounded by grand statements in our newspapers and on our television screens about Islam or secularism, about freedom and civilisation but we rarely hear the voice of individuals. I wanted to write a book that returns the story of Islam in the West to the individual: to the man who runs a travel agent on a London high street; to the mother of two small children who fled to safety in Britain; to the individuals who have rejected their religion and those who have suffered persecution because of it. I wanted to return to my childhood in Somalia and then the Edgware Road in London and to my parents’ generation who have lived so many lives but who, in the end, offer the greatest hope.

I have called my book Only Half of Me in an attempt to represent the part of me, and the part of so many others like me, who are Muslim and British, that few people get to see or read about. I hope that my book goes beyond the caricatures we have seen so often in recent times. For these caricatures are no longer just a matter of prejudice – it is now a matter of life and death for ALL of us that we should have a greater understanding of the people who live alongside us in our towns and cities. Our joint future is too important to leave it to people whose only contribution is ignorance.

I hope you will enjoy the book.

Rageh Omaar
May 2006

I think this would be a good book and an interesting one. It also reflects me as well as I am British as well as a Muslim. Just going to place my order on Amazon. For those intending to buy the book, I would recommend Amazon.co.uk ( for UK residents) who are selling a copy for £11.99 while bookstores and the Penguin website are selling it for £17.99.