Are Puntland and Somaliland Administrations Preparing for a Military Showdown?

[Muslim Somali]

Are Puntland and Somaliland Administrations Preparing for a Military Showdown?

 

More than two months have passed since Las Anod, the capital of Sool region of Somalia, was captured by Somaliland forces. The brief armed confrontation that sealed the fate of the former Puntland adminstration’s presence in Las Anod owes less to the military might of Somaliland but more to the Las Anod’s influential politicians whose clan militias switched allegiance from Puntland to Somaliland.

A group of traditional leaders from Sool met in Boo’ame town near Las Anod several weeks after Somaliland adminstration had captured the town. They have called for Somaliland to withdraw its forces, a call that Somaliland snubbed. Since then the political temperature in the contested region has kept increasing. President Rayale of Somaliland reiterated that Somaliland forces would reach the colonially demarcated border between the former before Somalia become a republic in 1960.

Puntland People’s Assembly has kept pressure on and urged General Adde Muse, the Puntland president , to recapture Las Anod. President of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, has joined the war of words over Sool. In remarks for the press In Baydhaba, he said that Somaliland would not be allowed to divide Somalia into two parts and demanded that Somaliland adminstration withdraw its forces in Las Anod.

 

Clan Factor

 

 

The Sool political landscape has always been treacherous. The late Somaliland president, Mohamed Ibrahin Egal, opted for a policy that regarded Sool as an ungovernable part of Somaliland before and after Puntland came into existence in 1998. He knew that inhabitants of Sool did not have an armed opposition front like the former Somali National Movement and Somaliland Salvation Democratic Front that drew support from ***** and ********** clans respectively. The absence of political mobilisation experience meant that a project like Somaliland born of the armed struggle against the military dictatorship would not be easy to sell to people of Sool who did not share political goals with the proponents of secession.

Some analysts believe that President Rayale has become susceptible to the whims of a select group of Sool politicians who have no support base within their constituencies.

Writing in somaliland.org website, an opposition party member of Somaliland parliament has raised question about the long term impact of militarily conquering Las Anod, a decision that, according Abdirahman Yusuf Artan, can “undermine the democratic processes in Somaliland.” Artan cites the donor nations’ decision to channel the 2008-20143 assistance package for Sool through Somaliland while Las Anod was under Puntland adminstration as political blow that rendered Puntland’s “ clan-based argument irrelevant ” and labels President Rayale’s policies towards Sool stratagems that benefit some financially motivated Sool- born politicians in Somaliland.

Given the renewed war of words between Somaliland and the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, the region that boasts relative stability may plunge into civil war that can undo peaceful coexistence that Puntland and Somaliland populations have enjoyed for more than a decade.

 

Liban Ahmad

 

 

Source http://www.holhol.net/view_latest.php?articleid=2415