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World Ignores Somaliland's Campaign For Independence
By RAYMOND THIBODEAUX
HARGEYSA, Somalia, Oct 1, 2003 (Atlanta Journal Constitution) -- The rusting hulls of battle tanks and personnel carriers litter a cactus patch on a hill overlooking Hargeysa, Somalia's second city. They are remnants of wars that for decades battered this stretch of arid rangeland.
Mohammed Ali Ismail doesn't even notice the tanks and equipment anymore. They almost blend with the landscape.
"A businessman from Yemen wants to buy those tanks for scrap iron," said Ismail, a former government soldier who later fought for the rebels in this part of the country.
The clans in this stretch of desert in the country's north -- a region known as Somaliland -- declared their independence from Somalia after the collapse of Siad Barre's government in 1991. They have since maintained a degree of stability that is lacking in most other parts of the country.
The Somaliland region is about the size of Tennessee and has a predominantly Muslim population of about 3.5 million people. Most of them are supported by the more than $500 million sent every year from a diaspora living in places such as Britain, Saudi Arabia, Canada and the United States, according to Fatima Ibrahim, a human rights specialist for the United Nations Development Program in Somalia.
But the budding Republic of Somaliland has yet to be recognized by the international community, a refusal that puts the region in a diplomatic limbo.
Seeking recognition
With presidential elections last year deemed fair by international observers, many Somalilanders are wondering what other credentials are needed for the world to recognize their nationhood.
"We've shown that we can be democratic and that we can respect human rights. We are setting an example for the rest of Africa," said Somaliland Foreign Minister Edna Adan Ismail. "Where is our peace dividend?"
The biggest hurdle in Somaliland's struggle for recognition is the African Union, a coalition of leaders from 53 member nations who generally vote in favor of protecting colonial boundaries.
"We cannot stand for dismembering one of our countries. We cannot talk about African unity and then accept Somaliland," said Desmond Orjiako, a spokesman for the African Union.
Some analysts agree that supporting Somaliland's independence from Somalia, with a total population of about 8 million, sets a bad precedent, especially on a continent where rebel forces in Ivory Coast, Sudan and Congo, formerly Zaire, have split those countries in two. In Liberia, rebel groups control a majority of the country despite a shaky cease-fire and a power-sharing agreement.
Although Somaliland gained its independence from Britain in 1960, it opted days later to join its southern neighbor Somalia, a former Italian colony. The two countries shared a vision of a Greater Somalia that included parts of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti.
Partnership sours
But their partnership soured in the late 1970s when Somali forces failed to gain control of Ethiopia's Ogaden region, important grazing lands for Somaliland's goat, camel and cattle herders and a region with strong Somali clan ties.
The lasting resentment from that war ended Mogadishu's dreams of expansion, and prompted a rebel movement in Somaliland that eventually toppled Barre's dictatorial regime.
The rebellion cost Somaliland more than 50,000 lives, according to U.N. estimates. Government forces flattened the region's major cities: Berbera, Sheikh, Burao and the regional capital, Hargeysa.
A dangerous legacy endures. About 100 people are maimed every year from unexploded mortars, grenades and land mines.
The land mines are mainly American-made M14s that were used by the Somali army in its fight to keep Somaliland from seceding.
Most of the injured are children, aid workers say.
"Our union with Somalia was like a partnership that didn't work out, and when we tried to leave they held guns to our heads," said Mohamed Hashi Elmi, the commerce minister who was a founder of the region's rebel group, the Somaliland National Movement.
"No one is paying attention to the atrocities committed against us by the Somali government. They just expect us to stay with Somalia," he said.
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