AP
Somali policemen march during the Somalia's Independence Day, at Konis
stadium in Mogadishu on July 1, 2013, marking 53 years since the
Southern regions of Somalia gained independence from Italy and joined
with the Northern region of Somaliland to create Somalia.
The Hindu
Thursday, July 18, 2013
At six in the morning on May 15 this year, the self-proclaimed sovereign
Republic of Somaliland banned all United Nations flights from landing
at this dusty airport overlooking the Gulf of Aden, sparking a
little-reported international incident that was defused two months later
on Monday.
On Tuesday, Reuters revealed excerpts of a confidential United Nations
report warning that western oil companies prospecting along the disputed
Somalia-Somaliland border could trigger further conflict in this
fraught region. In one instance, Somaliland and the adjacent Puntland
autonomous region have awarded overlapping prospective oil blocs to the
Norwegian oil company DNO and the Swedish owned Africa Oil Corp –
raising prospect of two countries, deeply involved in peace-building in
Somalia, competing for resource contracts in one of the most unstable
places in the world.
The UN standoff in the breakaway region of Somaliland, and the leaked
report, have tempered enthusiasm around Somalia’s purported return to
stability, and suggest that donors could be simultaneously creating and
resolving conflict in the region.
The history of the Berbera airstrip illustrates the diverse
international motives in Somalia. The four km rubber-streaked, asphalt
runway was laid by the U.S.S.R in the 1960s, earmarked as a landing
strip for American space shuttles in the 1980s as the tide shifted, and
looted by raiders in the civil wars of the 1990s, when the military
dictatorship of Siad Barre collapsed after 22 years in power.
In 1991, the northern region of Somaliland seceded from the union and
declared itself an independent state with its capital at Hargeisa. Since
then, as the rest of Somalia imploded, Somaliland gradually acquired
stability and security, civic infrastructure, regular elections and even
a rudimentary tax system but no international recognition.
“It is unfortunate that Somaliland’s achievements have become a victim
of the Somalia problem,” said Dr. Mohamed Omar, Somaliland’s Foreign
Minister, “Every five years there is a renewed interest in Somalia from
the international community and … a new administration getting all the
international support.” Each time there is relative stability in
Somalia, Dr. Omar said, Somaliland’s chances of international
recognition recede.
The Government of Somalia did not respond to interview requests.
“At the moment we recognize Somalia as one country. There has been no
discussion about Somaliland being independent within the AU,” said
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, Chairperson of the African Union, last month,
“What is important for all of us is that we should get Somalia back to a
point where it is stable.” The AU has discouraged secessionist
movements, calling on states to respect boundaries drawn at the end of
colonialism. The Somaliland government points out that the former
British protectorate gained its independence four days before the
Italian colony of Somalia.
“After becoming independent we decided on a voluntary basis to join
[Somalia],” said Dr. Omar, “In 1991 we come off from that. So there is
no secession, but there is dissolution of a voluntary union.”
“Somaliland has done extraordinarily well over the past 22 years, and
its skepticism of a reunion with an often chaotic south-central is
understandable,” said Abdi Aynte, Director of the Heritage Institute for
Policy Studies in Mogadishu, “However, Somaliland's quest for
independence is increasingly becoming untenable and that's largely due
to geopolitics. The AU sees secession as a dynamite issue, and has
consistently backed "territorial integrity", much like the UN and the
rest of the world.”
The standoff over UN flights suggests donors have struggled to walk
Hargeisa-Mogadishu tightrope. When Siad Barre’s regime collapsed in
1991, UNDP took control of Somali airspace and ran an aviation service
out of Nairobi that was funded from Somali over-flight fees. In April
this year, the organisation handed full control of airspace and
over-flight revenues to Mogadishu as an acknowledgment of the improving
security situation in the south. Somaliland accused UNDP of colluding
with Mogadishu and banned all flights.
The ban was lifted only after Somalia and Somaliland agreed to set up a
board to jointly control airspace from Hargeisa at the talks held in
Ankara last week. The Somaliland press reported that Hargeisa is pushing
for Somalia to honor Somaliland commercial contracts, such as those
with oil companies mentioned in the Reuters report, but no such clause
was mentioned in the final agreement. Talks will resume in October.