Somaliland Forum On IRIN’s Reporting On Somaliland

A study undertaken by Amina A. Jama and Dr. Abdishakur Jowhar on IRIN’s reporting on Somaliland and Somalia has revealed a consistent pattern of bias against Somaliland (See attached report). That pattern of bias against Somaliland consists of consistent under-reporting that ignores the major events, which have marked Somaliland over the past few years, and in particular over last year.

IRIN’s deliberate and consistent bias and misreporting about Somaliland is important because it is a major news feeder from the region of the Horn of Africa, and is capable of shaping the rest of the world’s opinion about what goes on in the Horn of Africa (Somaliland, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea). By reading IRIN’s reports one would not know or guess that a country called Somaliland exists, let alone about the level of stability, democracy, and economic progress it has achieved over the past decade. From IRIN’s few mentions of Somaliland, under Somalia titles, one would think that Somaliland is part of war-torn Somalia; when, in fact, Somaliland, formerly British Somaliland, has stepped back from the never-ratified association it had one time with Somalia, formerly Italian Somalia. That was back in 1991, over a decade ago.

Since 1991 Somaliland has forged ahead rebuilding itself from the ashes to which the government of Somalia had reduced to over the course of a decade from 1980 to 1991, when the people of Somaliland were engaged in a war of liberation. Today, Somaliland is an independent country with a constitution, a parliament of two houses, peace and a growing economy. Furthermore, Somaliland has pulled itself from the rubble by its own bootstraps while Somalia slid into the continuing anarchy that the world has been trying to rescue it from ever since 1991.

By consistently associating Somaliland with Somalia, and ignoring major newsworthy events in Somaliland such as the recent local elections, IRIN seems to subscribe to a policy of minimizing and burying under the carpet all the progress achieved by the people of Somaliland in order to present a picture of a region where no human development or government emerged after the fall of the Barre of Somalia regime. Never the less, despite IRIN’s best attempts to hide its very existence, Somaliland has received a lot of recognition and praise for its efforts from many international quarters; for example, in 1991 Somaliland was touted as being the most peaceful country in Africa (See Afafe Ghechoua, Jeune Afrique L'intelligent, "Somaliland: Et pourtant, il fonctione," number 2114, July, 2001, p. 28-31.).

We do not know the reasons for IRIN’s biased reporting about Somaliland, however, according to some accounts, its chief editor for Somali news is a close relative of the head of the Arta faction of Mogadishu, a man who claims to be the president of Somalia, and who moreover denies the existence of Somaliland, its historical separateness and the sovereign will of its people. Whatever the exact reasons are for IRIN’s consistent pattern of bias against Somaliland, benign neglect or orchestrated campaign, now when the truth is known about IRIN’S reporting patterns on Somaliland and Somalia, we are asking IRIN’s management and its funders to change the pattern of bias against Somaliland and give some credit to the progress and peace achieved by the people of Somaliland, without any help from the UN. We are especially appealing to the donor nations to put a halt to this pattern of bias by IRIN.

Somaliland Forum

Somaliland Forum is a non-partisan international organizatioin that represents the Somaliland-Diaspora. For more information, please visit: www.somalilandforum.com or contact:

Dahir A. Jama: Chair@somalilandforum.com
Ahmed Ismail: vice@somalilandforum.com
Omer Hassan: xubin@somallandforum.com

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