By Kassahun Addis

The “hypocrisy” and advertent reluctance of the international community, in general, and the African Union, in particular, is pushing Somalilanders in to the corners of desperation and extreme anxiety. My latest article entitled “New Strategy for Somaliland: Popular Diplomacy” apparently attracted a lot of attention from Somalilanders and I have received numerous emails from Somalilanders abroad and inside. One particular email from UK, however, caught my attention as it clearly articulates the sense of desperation of the ordinary people. Here is the unedited message in my mailbox:

‘I would like to thank you for the great article you wrote about the Somaliland and its recognition campaign. As you mentioned in your article we have been let down by our African brothers, we don’t want anything from anyone or any country, we just need recognition to become a member of the international community.’

We rebuilt our country without any international help, we have created peace and stability and democracy. We created good and peaceful relations with our neighbors country.

What else we can do? Why the international community is denying our God given and hard-won independence? Why they hate us? Are we not human being?

I think we need to change our policy, I think we need to make U turn and declare war against international community.

The Somaliland government should invite all known terrorists groups to our country, we should invite like the evil Osama Bin Latin and his friends, then we should give him good food and some (Khat, Mirra) then we should invite Al-Jazeera TV to record and broadcast their hate massages.

Then might be, just might be we will get the attention we deserve from Bush, Meles Zenawi and Gordon Brown.’

This message clearly shows to what extent Somalilanders are desperate because the AU and the international community have failed them repeatedly. The gesture of “Peace in a peaceful means” is not working for them, at least so far, and thus why not try to achieve ‘peace through violence’. This is the core of the email from the Somalilanders. Youths in the nation are increasingly forced to think this way.

Does the AU, US, UK or Ethiopia benefit from cornering Somaliland to desperation? No, I don’t think so! No one is benefiting from the desperation of the Asmara regime let alone from the desperation of an entire people. It is few desperate individuals that are constantly giving US headaches in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is also desperate, however small, people that are making the headlines in Middle East. So, the reasoning is that if few desperate can achieve such a degree of destabilization, then it is difficult to imagine what a desperate nation, both the government and the people, can do. If the international community insists on denying recognition to Somaliland, desperation would establish itself in Somaliland and spillover everywhere else, especially over the immediate neighboring countries. That, however, would be late. The fat is getting on the fire! •

Kassahun Addis is an independent analyst of politics in the Horn of Africa. He can be reached at kassax@gmail.com

July 28, 2007