Hon. Abdillahi Duale, Foreign Minister for the Republic of Somaliland, reading a speech. On his right is Steve Mewuenyega

Hon. Duale answering questions from the Ghanaian media

Compiled by Bennett Akuaku

Accra, Ghana, July 14, 2007 – ONE SIGNIFICANT diplomatic scheming that seemed to have gone unnoticed by many during the 9th Ordinary Session of African Heads of State in Accra was efforts made to get Somaliland ‘regain’ her rightful place among the sovereign comity of nations on the continent.

While the jaw-jaw was going on at the Accra International Conference Centre during the Grand Debate, serious board-room diplomacy and public education were taking place elsewhere to bring Somaliland back on the map.

This is a country that had been held virtually ‘hostage’ for 16 long years for no apparent reason. While she is not part of Somalia, she had as well not been given the necessary international recognition to rub shoulders and minds with her peers, let alone given the freehand to develop.

One fact that seems a bit puzzling is that while the Somaliland authorities are threatening that they can wait no further, they are at the same time calling for diplomacy to take its path.

DAILY GUIDE brings to the fore some of the few strides chalked when the one week Summit ended. But are the strides sufficient to redefine the fate of the 3.5 million people there?

On 23rd June, 2007, Mr. Abdillahi Duale, Foreign Minister for the Republic of Somaliland, in the company of Steve Mawuenyega, that country’s Ghanaian and West African envoy, arrived in Accra with a message from His Excellency President Dahir Rayale Kahin to the Ghanaian leaders and possibly to the world at large, hoping the leaders would not only express genuine interest in their predicament, but also support their cause.

The Ghanaian Foreign Minister, NanaAddo Dankwa Akuffo-Addo welcomed the delegation from Somaliland to Ghana and reiterated Ghana’s commitment to peace and stability in the entire Horn of Africa, as a prerequisite to the proposed continental union.

Indeed, both parties acknowledged the need to advance and consolidate Somaliland’s stability and peace in the region.

According to a communiqué released after the Summit and signed by Mr. Steve Mawuenyega, both Ghana and Somaliland reaffirmed the need to identify key areas of cooperation, adding that Ghanaian business institutions expressed willingness to share their expertise, particularly for Somaliland’s up-coming presidential elections.

The delegation met also with key Ghanaian institutions such as the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament, the Commandant of the Kofi Anan International Training Centre, Head of Ghanaian Investment Development Centre, and other officials from Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, Cape Verde, Canada, Portugal, Turkey and the USA.

The delegation from Somaliland and its Ghanaian counterpart recalled that Professor Alpha Konare, Chairman of the African Union (AU) Commission, while presenting his annual report at the executive council meting emphasized that the continent had to deal with the reality of Somaliland.

Konare, in his powerful speech at the conference, stated that Somaliland had become a reality that could not be ignored.

“We cannot afford to close our eyes or shy away from that reality. It is in the interest of Africa to pay attention to these issues. There are positive developments in Somaliland, including the restoration of stability and peace, the establishment of democratic institutions and processes and the efforts deployed internally towards reconstruction. Some of these achievements in Somaliland should inspire the rest of Somaliland. This is an issue that is now known to the African Union policy organs and it should be discussed at an appropriate time.”

Even though the issue had now been brought to the fore at the Accra Summit, observers feared it could take some time before it was considered a critical continental one.

But Hon. Duale told the Ghanaian media at a press conference that his people could not wait indefinitely.

“How long shall we wait for Somalia and Mogadishu? We are held hostage for a ghost nation or a nation that does not exist. It is about time those who champion democracy came to the aid of a people who are nurturing democracy in a terrible environment. Ours is a homegrown democracy that would be a democracy for Africa,” he maintained.

Somaliland, a former British protectorate, gained full independence on June 26, 1960, but just one week after that, she, on 1st July, 1960, voluntarily joined Somali Democratic Republic in a union.

The union went disastrously wrong for Somaliland in the sense that when they were excluded in the decision-making process, the bigger partner, Somalia, descended into a civil war that seemed endless.

An AU fact-finding mission in 2005 acknowledged that getting out of the union would not prompt the redrawing of any colonial boundaries, adding that it simply meant that Somaliland would re-declare itself an independent state.

While President Dahir Rayale Kahin was elected in 2003, Duale was appointed Foreign Minister in August 2006.

Making a case for his country at the KAPTC, Hon. Abdillahi Duale said his country was not seeking to secede from Somalia, but rather to undo what he described as an ill-advised union between Somaliland and Somalia.

The ‘marriage of convenience’ eventually hit the rocks as in 1991, Somaliland officially opted out of it and had since stayed on its own as a de facto state.

According to him, the ‘divorce’ was dictated by an imbalance between the two former colonies, a growing repression of the Gen. Siyad Barre’s dictatorial regime, and the devastation caused by the protracted civil war in Somalia.

For now, while local Somalilanders say they were being held as prisoners because the international community was asking them to wait for the outcome of a Mogadishu National Reconciliation Conference, certain diplomats still think Somaliland is Africa’s Best Secret.

Source: DAILY GUIDE