Somalia Resuscitates Its Irredentism Putting the HOA Under a Pall of New Threats

The Somalia Embassy in Belgrade bared the hidden Somalia and Somalian fangs by posting that all of the original five Somali-inhabited areas in which the five-pointed star in the Somali flag represented Somali nationalism.

“Somalia has a very simple flag,” the Embassy post on its Twitter account stated, consisting of a white star on a light blue background. The white star is the Somali national symbol. Each of its five points represents a Somali homeland”.

These very simple words convey a very very powerful message to all and sundry.

This is the exact dream on which was based the ill-fated union between the former British Somaliland Protectorate and the UN Trusteeship, the former Somalian Italian colony to the south, in 1960. An independent Somaliland, recognized by over 35 countries, including UN Security members, rushed over to Mogadishu, as the two were the first of the five ‘Somali homelands’ that were hoped to eventually form the ‘Greater Somali Republic’ together.

The white star’s five points, thus, represented the former British protectorate, which became independent on 26 June 1960, the former UN Trusteeship which was released to go on its way on 1st July 1960, the Ogaden and Reserve and Hawd areas under Ethiopia (still are), the Republic of Djibouti, which since then became independent in 1977, and the then Northern Frontier District of Kenya – present-day northern Kenya province.

This kind of dream led to at least two major wars with Ethiopia, one with Kenya, and tens more smaller ones with both causing untold of population displacements, want, and deprivation on top of a region-wide instability and belligerance that still lingers on, remaining very much alive under the surface.

Somaliland soon realized that joining Somalia under unratified, illegal circumstances countermanded the development aspirations of its people. It tried to squirm from under it. Its first step was an attempt on the part of a handful of Somaliland-born junior officers (see below) to forcibly avulse their country back to its sovereign status. They failed and many of them were sentenced to death which was commuted later.

The second was a referendum. Where the vote should have been put to Somalilanders alone to decide whether they wanted to remain in the union or take back their destiny, it was put to both Somalians and Somalilanders. Since Somalia was more populated than Somaliland and Mogadishu had more figures on pen (most of which numbers were fake and rigged), the result was a foregone conclusion.

Somaliland eventually succeeded in wrenching back its sovereignty from the spoils of the collapsed central system of Somalia in 1991 following a ten-year war with the region that accounted for the death of more than 200,000 ‘Landers and the loss of untold of millions – if not billions – in property and destroyed cities. More than 500,000 of the Somaliland population – the then northern regions – sought refuge in neighboring countries and in more remote areas inside. Fighter planes took off from Hargeisa to bomb the same city, and other cities, and, on top of that, strave fleeing, unarmed civilians from above, killing and maiming women and children by the dozens day in, day out on indiscriminate sorties.

It is against this horrifying backdrop that the Somalian post rests. It is not only a revival of those horrors and injustices but, also, a resuscitation of the irredentist dreams of Mogadishu and its wanton plans to keep the whole Eastern Africa region perpetually destablized and on its toes.

The Serbian Somalia embassy post was preceded was another by the incumbent Somali foreign minister, Fiqi, posted before on the same note. He was the interior minister at the time he posted the message.“A message from the Minister of Interior, Federal Affairs and Reconciliation H.E Ahmed Moallim Fiqi.

“It is alarming that at a time when the people of Somalia are in a formal process to overcome past unrest and conflict, a neighbouring state would seek to bring about division and undermine years long efforts to establish a united and prosperous Somalia”, he said.

The Somalia messages are a stark testimony to Somaliland’s repeated calls to the world since 1991 alerting it to the rearing head of Mogadishu’s irredentism.

The messages place Ethiopia, Kenya, and Djibouti under a direct threat although Somalia will keep swearing that it did not mean so until it turns blue in the face – as always.