Washington’s “One Somalia” Delusion

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

Washington’s “One Somalia” Delusion

 

Writing in this forum, Tibor P. Nagy, Jr. and Joshua Meservey made an eloquent case for why the agreement granting Ethiopia—the world’s most populous landlocked country—naval access on Somaliland’s 740-kilometer coastline “has the potential to benefit the entire Horn of Africa region, Egypt, and the security of the Red Sea.” If such is the case, why are some of the harshest criticisms of the deal coming from the U.S. government, with National Security Council director of strategic communications John Kirby describing the White House as “troubled” by it? The Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs also reiterated the State Department’s support for “Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Alas, the case is another example of the foreign policy bureaucracy entrenching policy that is not only decidedly not in America’s interests but also appears hopelessly detached from any political realism.

Realpolitik must start with the facts. Somaliland was a British Protectorate that became independent on June 26, 1960 and received immediate recognition from three dozen states, including a congratulatory message from U.S. Secretary of State Christian Herter. Five days later, the former Italian colony-cum-trust territory of Somalia received independence, and the two newly independent countries attempted a union that was so botched that it might have qualified for farce if the subsequent human toll had not made it tragic. As even the African Union Commission has acknowledged on two separate occasions, “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 ‘opening a pandora’s box’” [italics in the original].

Since the de facto breakup between Somaliland and Somalia more than three decades ago, the two have gone along very different paths. Somaliland has largely succeeded in maintaining peace and security in its claimed territory and establishing a stable government based on one-person-one-vote elections. Unusual for the region, Somaliland’s incumbent presidents have been defeated at the polls, and the political opposition now holds the majority of seats in the legislature. Somalia, on the other hand, has undergone extended periods where its territory has been a haven for pirates and terrorists. Its so-called government can best be described as coopted, and the last election even approximating a “free and fair” contest with universal suffrage took place in 1969.

Given this context, there is no scenario remotely moored to reality under which the 5.7 million people in Somaliland—the majority of whom were born after Somaliland proclaimed its renewed independence in 1991 and have never lived under the “administration” of Somalia—would conceivably opt for a new union. Mogadishu’s claim to legitimacy could only be brought about by force, unleashing the conflict and bloodshed critics of the Ethiopia-Somaliland deal wish to avoid.

In fact, between the collapse of the Siad Barre dictatorship in early 1991 and the second term of the Obama administration, the United States did not recognize any government of Somalia until 2013. In 2010, a brief before the U.S. Supreme Court by then-Solicitor General Elena Kagan even went as far as to specify that while the United States supported “the efforts of the TFG [Transitional Federal Government] to establish a viable central government,” it “does not recognize the TFG as the sovereign government of Somalia.”

Although the legal brief did not delve into detail, there were well-grounded strategic and international legal reasons for the United States’ position.

First, sovereignty carries with it not only rights but also obligations, many of which, notwithstanding the Obama administration’s 2013 facile recognition, the unelected regime in Mogadishu still struggles to meet in any meaningful sense. The Chief of the General Staff of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, Field Marshal Berhanu Jula, underscored this point in an Addis Standard interview: “the Ethiopian military controls around 60 percent of Somalia’s land mass,” enabling the so-called government to stay in Mogadishu, and that “if the Ethiopian Army were to withdraw, [he] doubted that the federal government would remain.”

bureaucracy’s dogged insistence on “one Somalia” when such an entity has not existed for more than three decades—a period now longer than the unhappy cohabitation between the former British Somaliland and Italian Somalia. Unfortunately, in the real world—where terrorism, conflict, and famine loom large over the Horn of Africa—such fantasies exact an all-too-heavy toll.

Ambassador J. Peter Pham, a Distinguished Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Senior Advisor at the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy, is a former U.S. Special Envoy for the Sahel and Great Lakes Regions of Africa.

The National interest

[Duufaan]

Even Washington  has it’s limitations. Your better of  not paying Perer Pham anymore and instead  feed the starving people in your region any amount of resources the government of Somaliland has. Stop hoping the arrival of another withe man  to change the status of northern Somalia as happened in 1887 when your tribe signed a treaty with the British. This time it’s maybe better to hope the arrival of Chinese or somebody else

 

. Dawaco meeshay baruur kubaratay ayay macaluul igu bakhtidaa. 

[Xaaji Xunjuf]

in Somaliland we dont wish to be protected by an african man or a white man ,, Somalilanders control their land their people and their goverment what we want fromt he world is to respect our decscion to live in peace and harmony with our selves and our neighbours as free people. independence we have we have taken it its not given. by any one now we want our statehood to be acknowldged that is all . the chinese are worthless nobody needs these slave coperate companies that exploite africa have u seen what they have done with angola 

[Duufaan]

8 hours ago, Xaaji Xunjuf said:

in Somaliland we dont wish to be protected by an african man or a white man ,, Somalilanders control their land their people and their goverment what we want fromt he world is to respect our decscion to live in peace and harmony with our selves and our neighbours as free people. independence we have we have taken it its not given. by any one now we want our statehood to be acknowldged that is all . the chinese are worthless nobody needs these slave coperate companies that exploite africa have u seen what they have done with angola 

You are dreaming a statehood with expeensives of right owners of land and hoping outsiders will favorably give you because in return of services and shared value, right? It can not be any other logic. 
Taiwan is part of China and people are Chinese. You don’t hate all China.