Limbo World - They start by acting like real countries, then hope to become them.

[NGONGE]

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/04/limbo_world?page=full

 

 

Abkhazia, along with a dozen or so other quasi-countries teetering on the brink of statehood, is in the international community's prenatal ward. If present and past suggest the future, most such embryonic countries will end stillborn, but not for lack of trying. The totems of statehood are everywhere in these wannabe states: offices filled with functionaries in neckties, miniature desk flags, stationery with national logos, and, of course, piles of real bureaucratic paperwork -- all designed to convince foreign visitors like me that international recognition is deserved and inevitable. Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian separatist enclave within Azerbaijan, issues visas with fancy holograms and difficult-to-forge printing. Somaliland, the comparatively serene republic split from war-wasted Somalia, prints its own official-looking currency, the Somaliland shilling, whose smallest denomination is so worthless that to bring cash to restock their safes, money-changers need to use draft animals.

 

These quasi-states -- which range from decades-old international flashpoints like Palestine, Northern Cyprus, and Taiwan to more obscure enclaves like Transnistria, Western Sahara, Puntland, Iraqi Kurdistan, and South Ossetia -- control their own territory and operate at least semifunctional governments, yet lack meaningful recognition. Call them Limbo World. They start by acting like real countries, and then hope to become them.

 

In years past, such breakaway quasi-states tended to achieve independence fast or be reassimilated within a few years (usually after a gory civil war, as with Biafra in Nigeria). But today's Limbo World countries stay in political purgatory for longer -- the ones in this article have wandered in legal wilderness for an average of 15 years -- representing a dangerous new international phenomenon: the permanent second-class state.

 

This trend is a mess waiting to happen. The first worry is that these quasi-states' continued existence, and occasional luck, emboldens other secessionists. Imagine a world where every independence movement with a crate of Kalashnikovs thinks it can become the new Kurdistan, if only it hires the right lobbyists in Washington and opens a realistic-looking Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its makeshift capital. The second concern is that these aspirant nations have none of the rights and obligations of full countries, just ambiguous status and guns without laws. The United Nations is, in the end, binary: You are in or you are out, and if you are out, your mass-produced miniature desk flag has no place in Turtle Bay.

 

My tours of Limbo World over the last few years have taken me around the full spectrum of these enclaves, from the hopeless chatter of virtual Khalistan, a Sikh separatist state that talks a big game and has a president in exile, but not a postage stamp of actual land, to the earnest dysfunction of Somaliland to the slick-running, optimistically almost oil-state of Kurdistan. Each of these would-be countries is, in its own way, an object lesson in the limits of statehood.

 

They are also ghosts of war-zones future -- most have enemies keen to take back the breakaway territory -- and past. They represent the wars that time forgot, frozen in unresolved crisis because it is either too convenient to keep them that way or too problematic for the Real World countries on their borders to come to a more lasting solution. Limbo, it turns out, is useful because it lets actual countries punish each other by proxy and allows them to exact loyalty and tribute from the quasi-countries dependent on their patronage. If Limbo status didn't exist, someone would invent it.

Unfortunately for these states, winning the full Rand-McNally, General Assembly treatment is more difficult than merely hiring a professional-quality printer to start cranking out the passports. Carving land from other countries is nearly always bloody and in most cases leaves borders that bleed for decades. Somaliland and Abkhazia have existed for almost 20 years, with little indication that widespread recognition is imminent. Indeed, the rare successful cases these days of countries making the leap from troubled enclave to independent nation have pretty much bypassed Limbo entirely. Think East Timor and Kosovo, which jumped from brutal occupation to U.N. administration to independence to become two of the first new countries of the 2000s. The Limbo countries tend to start with violence and then get stuck in the next stage: a path that leads on and on and on, apparently to nowhere.

Encouraging states like Abkhazia to flourish and proliferate has created precisely the kind of second-class statehood, with uncertain rights and responsibilities in the international system, that diplomacy was designed over the last several centuries to avoid. The Peace of Westphalia established an international order of fixed boundaries in 1648 and made no provisions for the existence of functionally independent enclaves in Brandenburg-Prussia, say, that France could use for leverage. The whole point was to come to conclusions about what was sovereign territory and agree to knock off the warfare and ambiguity. That was in part for the welfare of those enclaves, so they were not trapped in uncertainty and used as proxies -- or worse, neocolonies -- by first-class states. But Limbo World suffers that exact fate today.

 

Ethiopia, smarting from the loss of its actual colony Eritrea two decades ago, effectively adopted an unofficial second one on the northern edge of Somalia, called Somaliland. Somaliland was among the most noisome and rebellious areas in Somalia under the dictatorship of Muhammad Siad Barre. In the late 1980s, Siad Barre killed hundreds of thousands in bombings of its main city, Hargeisa, and the countryside. When Siad Barre fell, Somaliland rapidly asserted itself as an independent state, and it is now approaching 20 years of relative peace. The coastline that Ethiopia lost in Eritrea it has effectively gained back in Somaliland, with the port of Berbera now a key trade valve into the Gulf of Aden. Ethiopia's support for Somaliland also represents a perpetual outrage to the Somalis of Mogadishu. While continuing to fight among themselves for nearly two decades, most factions agree that Ethiopia is a mortal external threat, especially because it invaded Somalia proper in 2006.

[NGONGE]

Like the Abkhazians, the Somalilanders are as helpful as they are hapless, as I found from the moment I stepped into their small representation office in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. At most African embassies, the diplomats regard visa applicants as captive sources of revenue. But rather than a droopy-lidded kleptocrat, the Somaliland office produced a slim, energetic young man with an endearing eagerness to show off his country. He came out to stamp my passport and sat down next to me to sketch a map of the complex land journey between Addis and Hargeisa. "They grow the best khat here," he said, referring to the mildly narcotic chew popular in the region. His index finger traced a proud little circle on an area just on the Ethiopian side of the border. For $20, he pressed into my passport a full-page visa, as official-looking as any in Africa.

 

On the journey he described, there was an emphatic lack of officialdom, a studied denial by Ethiopia that any border existed at all. At Jijiga, 10 hours from Addis and the last big town before I would cross into the nonexistent country of Somaliland, I had to hunt down a police officer to get him to inscribe my passport with a note confirming I had exited Ethiopia legally. This was a border that existed only by request.

Once on the Somaliland side it took about two hours of off-road driving -- through hills of desert scrub, past herders crouching in huts made of discarded U.N. and usaid flour sacks -- before I met anything resembling a sign of government. At the edge of Hargeisa, a hilly town whose lights were the one glowing dot on the horizon as I drove, two men with machine guns intercepted the car to demand my papers. This, I thought, would be my cue to do what one does at so many other African borders, which is to wink and offer smokes and a small bribe in exchange for safe passage. But before I could phrase my tentative offer, they found the inky blue stamp in my passport and waved me through, asking only that I register with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the next day.

Unlike Abkhazia, Somaliland did not exactly enchant me as a place beautiful enough to die for. Perhaps it was the heat -- well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, with nothing to drink, due to strict enforcement of the Ramadan fast -- or perhaps the buggy eyes and green-flecked teeth of the khat-chewers outside my hotel room each night. The standard meal, spaghetti and ground camel meat, eaten with the hands, made clear why I had never been to a Somali restaurant outside Somalia.

 

The Somalilanders, of course, had already done quite a bit of dying for their land and for their spaghetti, and they missed no chance to tell me how cynical and cruel the international community had been by not recognizing their state. At the foreign ministry satellite office set up to stamp in the rare tourist, two excitable Somalilanders pointed out that Somaliland had multiparty elections, a free press, and an anti-terrorism policy that the government enforced with zeal. It had done all this without recognition and without help from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, or any other agency that requires an international rubber stamp to operate. If this was illegitimacy, other African governments should try it.

 

And in any case, what was the alternative? A reconstituted Somalia would require reconnecting Somaliland with what may be the world's most spectacularly failed state. Where Somaliland has a fledgling coast guard, Somalia has flourishing pirates, and where Hargeisa has a form of democracy, Mogadishu has howling anarchy punctuated by fits of sharia law.

 

Yet this is the alternative urged by nearly everyone in the region. Arab states are reluctant to see Somalia, a fellow Arab League member, sliced up and leased to predominantly Christian Ethiopia. The African Union worries that the Somaliland example will persuade separatist movements that if they just fight hard enough, they'll eventually get their own U.N. seats. Somaliland, of course, retorts by pointing out that Somalia is being used by foreign states just as surely as Ethiopia is using Somaliland. Moreover, Somaliland asks whether peaceful and responsible democracy isn't something worth incentivizing, regardless of whether the peaceful and responsible democracy is being practiced by separatists. For now, even Ethiopia, Somaliland's closest regional ally, hasn't bestowed recognition, and there is no sign it intends to.

 

Critics charge Limbo Worlders with having things backward, even practicing a form of cargo cultism. Just as New Guinean tribes built crude airstrips to lure planes bearing valuable cargo, quasi-countries build crude foreign ministries in the vain hopes of luring ambassadors bearing credentials from London, Paris, and Washington. These critics say Limbo World countries are fatally misled about how independence is supposed to work: Recognition precedes, rather than follows, the creation of an actual state. The list of Limbo World alumni -- countries that gained independence by acting like independent states first, and then getting recognition -- is small, and the few examples of partial success (Kosovo is stuck on 63 recognizing countries, Taiwan on 23) suggest Limbo is a permanent condition when it is not a fatal one.

 

Indeed, once Limbo World countries have reached a certain level of development, many of them start considering the possibility that independence isn't the brass ring it once appeared. Abkhazia might have entered that phase. After Georgia suffered an embarrassing defeat trying to reclaim South Ossetia (the other quasi-state within its borders) in 2008, Abkhazia became emboldened and developed its trade and infrastructure significantly with Russian backing. It expanded its sea trade, despite a blockade vigorously enforced by the Georgian navy. (Occasional Turkish merchant vessels break the blockade by sailing to the Russian port of Sochi and then skirting the coast until they reach Sukhumi.)

 

Some in Limbo World are at least temporarily content with this ambiguity. In his Sukhumi office, Maxim Gundjia pointed out that being Russia's pawn is no less embarrassing than being America's pawn, like Saakashvili. And in any case, recognition is overrated, as long as the quasi-state's economy is poor. "What's the use of being recognized like Afghanistan?" he asked. "They have the first flag at the U.N. square, but who wants to live there?"

That evening, as I limped along the Black Sea boardwalk (gingerly, to keep my leg from tearing back open), it was easy to see his point. Indeed, it wasn't obvious why Abkhazia was pursuing recognition so fervently, when even if it achieved legitimacy it would probably have to rely on Russia for most everything, including security. For now, a glance at the shore showed that Abkhazia had more than most real countries: the beauty of a moonlit sea, and the beginnings of prosperity from a flow of tourists glad to disgorge their rubles to buy fancy hotel rooms, cheap wine, and rich Caucasian pastries. The Russian holiday-makers who walked past me were a constant reminder that the desire for true independence, from Georgia and from Russia, was not a realistic one, no matter how hard Abkhazians worked to achieve it. But as I looked out on the scene, the moonbeams caught a ship in the distance, and the uncertainty over whether that ship flew a Georgian flag made me understand, for a second, what keeps them trying.

[AYOUB]

Good read, thanks for posting Arabeto.

[Jacaylbaro]

Great read indeed ,,,

[Peace Action]

That was in part for the welfare of those enclaves, so they were not trapped in uncertainty and used as proxies -- or worse, neocolonies -- by first-class states. But Limbo World suffers that exact fate today.

 

Good and realistic read. For secessionsts, the choice is a proxiy, neocolonie forever dependent on others or proud and brave people who help reconstituted a new Somali state based on justice and equality.

[NGONGE]

Peace Action;682192 wrote:

That was in part for the welfare of those enclaves, so they were not trapped in uncertainty and used as proxies -- or worse, neocolonies -- by first-class states. But Limbo World suffers that exact fate today.

 

Good and realistic read. For secessionsts, the choice is a proxiy, neocolonie forever dependent on others or proud and brave people who help reconstituted a new Somali state based on justice and equality.

That is one opinion but not necessarily the only one.

[NASSIR]

Great read. I agree with his main argument.

 

"Encouraging states like Abkhazia to flourish and proliferate has created precisely the kind of second-class statehood, with uncertain rights and responsibilities in the international system, that diplomacy was designed over the last several centuries to avoid."

 

Also, the chief concern of our Arab brothers in the Arab League resonates well with what Somali patriots from all walks of life know is true will happen. AU's concern is also legitimate in light of thr integration of Europe and the rise of the Asian economy led by China.

 

United we stand.

[NASSIR]

Btw, Ngonge thanks for the read.

[xiinfaniin]

Great read indeed! The irony is had a unionist were to write this piece, our brothers would’ve protested simply because a unionist told the truth. It is good to see a white man tell them the futility of their bid.

Ilaahow soo hanuuni

[AYOUB]

^ Ameen to that and the same to you.

 

The difference is not whiteman/blackman, but rather the so-callled "unionist" would never ask:

 

And in any case, what was the alternative? A reconstituted Somalia would require reconnecting Somaliland with what may be the world's most spectacularly failed state. Where Somaliland has a fledgling coast guard, Somalia has flourishing pirates, and where Hargeisa has a form of democracy, Mogadishu has howling anarchy punctuated by fits of sharia law.

[xiinfaniin]

Ayyoub, you know it and I know it that Somaliland is not seceding because Somalia has 'spectacularly failed', nor it is seceding because Somalia has 'flourishing pirates' while Somaliland has a 'fledgling coast guard'. It's clear that the author is not familiar with Somaliland's rationale for separation. What the author is familiar with and superbly highlighted is the fate of self-declared countries, those who 'start by acting like real countries, then hope to become them'

[AYOUB]

^ Like the the man said; If this was illegitimacy, other African governments should try it.

[NGONGE]

xiinfaniin;682379 wrote:

Great read indeed! The irony is had a unionist were to write this piece, our brothers would’ve protested simply because a unionist told the truth. It is good to see a white man tell them the futility of their bid.

Ilaahow soo hanuuni

I posted it because it was an interesting take on things not because I agreed with everything he said. More importantly, when a "unionist" says similar things he/she does so with their own agenda. Ninkaan cad wuu iska hadlayaay and it were interesting to see an "outsiders" view on things.

 

P.S.

Eating with his hands in Hargeisa was either a trick they played on him or the man was just too "white" to ask for a spoon.