After the Republic of Somaliland, the UAE and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia signed a tripartite agreement to invest and develop Berbera port as a regional hub for trade, the Farmajo- lead so-called government in Mogadishu issued floods of televised threats trying to intimidate Somaliland, Ethiopia and the UAE to submission. At first, they assumed that the International Community did not know that Somaliland was not part of Somalia, is not part of Somalia and will not become part of the failed state of Somalia.
Somalia warlords/ Al-Shabaab buddies overestimated their political legitimacy, their regional geopolitical and economic leverage and their other influences in and around the international arena. It took them hours to understand that they were not a superpower country. Once they realized their international stature they immediately retracted their bizarre terrorizing narrative and adapted to a more consolatory tone towards the tripartite agreement signatories.
All of a sudden, Farmajo remembered to claim deep-rooted relations between Somalia, Ethiopia and The United Arab Emirates. In point of fact, the Somaliland relations with the UAE and Gulf countries goes back centuries – there have been trade and cultural links between them since the beginning of times.
Somalia connections with the Gulf began only after Somalia established its embassy in Abu-Dhabi in 1970s then the first wave of Somalia emigrants came to the UAE. By then, Somalilanders were part and parcel of fabric of the Gulf communities. Furthermore, Ethiopia was the first country to host Somaliland civilian refugees fleeing Somalia’s atrocious war machine – and to those Somalilanders are very grateful.
The corrupt Mogadishu warlords in grey suits, talk in length of territorial integrity of Somalia. They call themselves the legitimate representatives of the Somalia people. No one in his right mind has problem in supporting the territorial integrity of Somalia, not Somaliland, not the Arab league and not even the UNO, as long as they do not claim Somaliland, Djibouti, the Somali administered region in Ethiopia or the NFD in Kenya. To be precise, let them stick only to the Italian Somalia and then call themselves with what name or government type they be happy with.
Now, let us dissect and go deeper and see if their rhetoric is marketable or not. To begin with, Somaliland is not the northwest regions of Somalia, as they love to call it. A Somaliland-Somalia union – the Somali Republic wasn’t formed within the ordinary international norms; to have an unconditional agreement between two entities there has to be a documented conformity between the consenting parties at least stating in a documented form that they agreed to unite.
There is no documentation of a signed agreement between Somaliland and Somalia to form a union- this renders Somalia’s deceitful claim of union with Somaliland null and void. Factually speaking, Somaliland was illegally annexed by then Somalia regime in July 1960.
Here and again, I do not want to bore to tears the readers by going back and referencing the history of Somaliland and Somalia from the partition of Africa conference in Berlin, the annexation of Somaliland and what transpired from the brutal Somalia dictatorship and then fast forward to the present day Somaliland status as an independent, peaceful and democratic country. Because there are enough volumes of literature out there in the archives, that the Somalian- Italians in Mogadishu do not want to read and may be out of their naiveté, they believe everyone else doesn’t know better and that they are able to rewrite history with fake televised emotional speeches.
Everyone knows that the Somalia leaders have no legitimacy and no loyal constituents which elected them to office and trusted them to run the country after fair, transparent and peaceful elections. Am I saying this, because the elections were rigged as it often happens in most of the developing countries?
In Somaliland the president, the MPs and the municipal councilors were all elected multiple times in one person, one vote systems and those elections were all certified by the both the international and national observers as transparent, free, fair and peaceful. Comparatively, those in Somalia who claim to be the sole representative of Somalia and Somaliland were never genuinely elected into offices, but they bought their seats from handpicked assemblage of about a hundred sham clan leaders, who were there to sell their illegitimate ballots to the highest bidders. And that is how Farmajo’s fake regime and his counterfeit parliament came into being.
We have an unlawful Somalia regime that claims the jurisdiction over the genuine Somaliland country and the IC continues to look the other side and it sees Somalia’s obvious illegitimate claim as justifiable. It is hard to understand why the International Community allows Somalia to illicitly occupy international organizations seats and continues to hold international organization memberships. No one knows if that is because of terrorism, piracy or charity fatigue or may be the International Community has run out somber ideas and it just wants to have some semblance of administration in that basket case – Somalia. If that is the case, then the international community needs to report to the nearest psychiatric clinic to check out the soundness of its sanity.
If this international careless political trend continues, the end of terrorism, piracy, illegal human- trafficking and elimination of poverty will never see the light of the day in Somalia, but the IC reluctance to act fairly will only further complicate this already uncertain situation in the Horn of Africa and its vibrations will be felt in distant countries, which are now beyond anyone’s imaginations. The only way out of this Somalia’s dark tunnel is to grant international recognition to the Republic of Somaliland and Somalia to be allowed to become a Somaliland Republic trusteeship.
As a final attempt, the agenda of the upcoming Somaliland-Somalia dialogue must be based on Somalia relinquishing its memberships and its seats in the regional and international organization back to Somaliland. Without this precondition, there must be no more time to waste and the Somaliland-Somalia talks must be suspended for good.
The logic of an illegitimate and nonfunctional entity claiming its jurisdiction over a legitimate, free, democratic and peaceful country is no longer sustainable or entertaining. The United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia and The UK should take lead and recognize Somaliland.
By Dr. Yusuf Dirir Ali, MD
Burao, Republic of Somaliland
E-mail: drdirir@gmail.com
