'' ..the United Kingdom and its allies are morally and strategically obligated to lead and reaffirm the sovereignty of Somaliland ..''
- I am sure the “United Somalia” empty slogan will be shouted some trillion times or perhaps zillion times both inside and outside the conference hall before and during the up coming international London conference on Somalia. There is a special significance to this slogan and is used tactfully to conceal the well documented terrible Somalia oppression that finally led to the internationally ignored genocide in Somaliland.
The international community needs to better understand an unwritten malevolent rule that exists in the minds of the Somalia people. They believe that Somalia will not be able to stand on its own feet and sustain itself politically without a Somaliland that can be ill-treated and loathed in times of Somalia’s political upheavals and frustrations. Not only that, Somaliland is used as scapegoat, nuisance- relief and as a punching bag by the gory Somalia public and equally by their hard-nosed political leaders.
Thus, the only thing that Somalia people agree upon without reservation is the motto that says: “Somaliland independence and development must be fought and be destroyed”. Among many other malicious smearing political campaigns and violent acts – Somaliland insurgency groups are created and supported by the Somalia people from Garoowe in Puntland to Mogadishu.
To better understand the mentality of the people in Somalia, we need to go back to the last few months that preceded the independence of Somalia from Italy and the early days of the Somaliland-Somalia union. The political leaders of Somalia were on each others throat and there was a political disaster that was waiting to happen in Somalia, which was gratefully then averted by the Somaliland-Somalia union. The politicians in Somalia got an outsider – Somaliland, whom they all agreed to oppress.
In contrast to Somalilanders expectation of fair power sharing process, Somalia opportunistically opted to unilaterally take the Presidency, the Prime Ministerial post and almost all the other Ministerial portfolios of the newly formed union and without consulting with the Somaliland’s democratically elected politicians.
Subsequently, the ratification of the union by the Somaliland legislative assembly was ignored and in the end Somaliland was annexed through Presidential decree and not through bilaterally agreed legal process. This was not done entirely through political blunders of Somalia, but the elected Somaliland politicians, who were better educated than their counterparts in Somalia, played a crucial part in negligently accepting the colony status in the name of creating a wishful and deceptive Greater Somalia phantom state in the Horn of Africa.
The Somaliland politicians naively thought that Somalis from Somalia were their brethren and were not bothered very much by the power hungry Somalia politicians. Because, Somalilanders didn’t quite understood the political culture and ulterior motives of the Somalia people, they thought the inconvenience and maltreatment they faced in Mogadishu was just a trifling ingredient of the growing pains caused by integration of two different countries into one united state – The Somali Republic.
In Somaliland power sharing was always and still is based on negotiated compromises and through reasonable democratic processes. But in Somalia the political culture was much different; it was based on “the strongest clan gets all” and unfortunately that political meanness still exists in Somalia. On the other hand, Somalia politicians took Somaliland’s courteous accommodating political concessions and amicability for granted and wrongfully interpreted it as a weakness.
After all these historical happenings the people from Somalia erroneously concluded that they will be able to use that failed tactics of the 1960s to inveigle and at times intimidate Somaliland to rejoin the union. They believe the international community will finally succumb to their misguide arguments and twisted logical as long as they continue obnoxiously shouting the out of date and insincere “United Somalia” slogan and in that case the international community will get fed up and will consequently impose the abhorred union on Somalilanders.
Finally, it is up to the international community to allow the people of Somaliland to be either exterminated or recognized to breathe in their own country as dignified sovereign people. Thousands of Somalilanders bravely fought and died alongside the allies as loyal British soldiers in both World Wars. Therefore, Great Britain must not let the Somaliland blood that was shed to defend this country to go in vain.
The UK government has once before accepted and recognized the legitimate right of self determination for the Somaliland people in 26th June 1960, now the United Kingdom and its allies are again morally and strategically obligated to lead and reaffirm the sovereignty of Somaliland and not to listen to the eerie sounds from Somalia and other doomed to failure Somaliland enemies.
By Yusuf Dirir Ali,MD
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