The Somalia Federal Government of Mogadishu voiced its vehement opposition to the recently approved UAE military base at Berbera in the Republic of Somaliland.
Hassan Abdi Haile, an advisor to Villa Somalia, the Somalia government seat, on political affairs and the voice it uses to communicate with the Arab world, argued that the United Arab Emirate’s proposed base in the port city of Somaliland will precipitate a full diplomatic recognition for a republic that built a modern, democratic state in the Horn of Africa alone and unrecognized by the international community for the past 26 years.
Asked why Somalia so opposed the establishment of the UAE military/naval base, he first brazenly tried to convince his host at the Hiwar TV (Al Adwa Alal Ahdath) tthat the Republic of Somaliland was, indeed, nothing but a member of the Mogadishu’s satellite federal states not different from, say, Jubbaland or Hirshabelle.
When confronted with the fact that Somaliland had never participated in the political turmoil that is Somalia, he reverted to the assertion that “the Emirates and its dealings with Somaliland was driving a wedge on Somalia’s quest for a reunion’ and that the establishment of the base would bring about an early ‘international recognition for Somaliland’
The United Arab Emirates submitted a formal application to the Republic of Somaliland in January to grant the Gulf State a military/naval base in the key port of Berbera, and, subsequently, the bicameral parliament of Somaliland approved the proposal on a resounding majority vote last week.
Somalia, on the other hand, has granted Turkey not only the largest military base in the continent of Africa, but, also, the largest Embassy and long-term concessions that handed over Mogadishu’s only airport and seaport to Turkey.
The former British Protectorate of Somaliland and Italian Somalia entered into an ill-thought of hasty union to form the Somali Republic in 1960 in order to attract the three remaining states of NFD (Kenya), Haud & Reserve Area + Ogadenia (Ethiopia) and the French colony of Djibouti to their fold to complete the Greater Somalia dream that the five-pronged star in the blue flag the two hoisted up indicated.
In contrast to a Somalia formed by a loosely knit number of ‘federal states’ which the international community wishes to stand on its feet one day, Somaliland has formed its own government structures with no or little help from the world. It has, for instance, conducted not less than five one-man-one-vote elections.
[…] SOURCE:SOMTRIBUNE […]