Four important events, all of them related to the London conference, took place in Somaliland last week. First, Somaliland government agreed to attend the London conference. Two, the political parties endorsed the government’s decision. Three, the legislature agree to lift the article that prevents Somaliland government from attending such conferences. Four, Somaliland legislature backed government’s decision to take part in the conference and legislators shall be part of the President’s delegation to the conference. Besides the fact that it would not have been possible for the government to take part in the conference without the legislature’s approval, there are signs that the government sees the endorsement of the political parties and legislature as meaning that they are now its partners in this project, and therefore are equally responsible for the outcome, especially if the outcome is bad. If those signs are a true reflection of the government’s thinking, the government is very mistaken. For even though the political parties and the legislature would share in the blame if things go wrong at the conference, most of the blame and the primary responsibility would fall on the government, particularly its chief executive, Mr Silanyo. With so much riding on the outcome, the president and his team better have solid plans for preventing harm to the country’s interests and for advancing Somaliland cause. Of course, it would be foolish to announce their plans in advance, but plan they must. They just cannot go there, hope for the best, and think that things will somehow work in their favor.
In addition to being responsible for the decision to participate in the conference, another factor that would make failure a bitter pill to swallow, is that Somaliland has many assets in Britain that should help Somaliland’s government achieve a favorable outcome; so failure would mean the Somaliland government was unable to effectively deploy and utilize Somaliland’s diplomatic and other resources in Britain.
As we have mentioned before, the signs coming from London already are worrying, for one of the objectives of this conference is to help those entities that allowed terrorism and piracy to flourish, entities that also claim sovereignty over Somaliland. It is an example of the principle that crime pays on an international scale. Somaliland is adamantly opposed to piracy and terrorism, and that fact, in the strange logic (or illogic) of international affairs, is being used against it. Even on a purely conceptual level, it is difficult to see how such a setting could prove beneficial to Somaliland. But that is the setting that Somaliland’s government has decided to walk into. Now the onus is on it to prove that it knew what it was doing when it signed on to taking part in such a scheme. Adding members of other political parties and the legislature may be a good political move, but it is no insurance against failure. We hope to God that our government knows this.





























 

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