TO: GOVERNMENT OF USA AND UK
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE REPUBLIC OF
SOMALILAND
_________________________________________________________
First let me ask for your indulgence for
addressing this letter to you without the
ceremony of Protocol, but I believe it is
permitted in the face of great national
necessity to trespass on the finer
etiquettes of diplomacy and the subject of
my letter does, at least in my eyes, qualify
as such. I am writing for your information
and I beseech you to glance through it, a
memorandum on the origin of Somaliland and
its present dilemma. Diplomats refer to
Somaliland in a derogat ory sense as a
self-declared Republic. I see no shame in
that epithet but on the contrary I ta ke
pride in it, remembering that the Great
Republic which you have the honor to
represent started its glorious history as a
self-declared Republic.
From that day the word Republic has assumed
an honorable distinction a glory which has
nev er before been associated with it in an
international congregation of kings, Dukes,
Pretenders, Czars and Kaisers. The writing
memorandum gives you in nutshell the history
and the hope of our country and our people.
It also gives you a brief assessment of the
problem of Somalia its elf and a glimpse of
the pivotal role which the Republic of
Somaliland and its people can play in
solving the intractable problems of Somalia.
Our country, Somaliland, is not an entity
which was born after the disintegration of
the Siad Ba rre dictatorship. In pre-historic
times it was known as the land of Punt.
Many, including recent ly Ethiopia, lay claim
to that legendary name. However, two
undeniably basic facts prove beyo nd doubt
that the land of PUNT was what is now know
as Somaliland. First the land of Punt was
famed for its production of Frankincense and
that is why The Pharaohs believed that the
Land of Punt was the home of the spirits of
their God-Kings. There is no other place in
the Horn of A frica where that tree grows
except in the northern most region of
Somaliland. Secondly, all the ruined cities
of the people of Punt are located here in
Somaliland and an English army officer who
participated in the campaign against Sayid
Mohamed Abdulla Hassan has written a small
book which he called the ruined cities of
Somaliland. These two facts conclusively
prove that in ancient pre-historic times a
country existed in Somaliland which had its
own identity and its own geographical
contours.
In recent History Somaliland was part of the
Uthman Empire under the Khadif of Egypt. It
was then know as Arda Somal The Land
of the Somalis or Somaliland. In 1884, the
British have taken over from the
Turko-Egyption rule and established over
this land the British Somaliland
Protectorate. A country which on the 26th of
June 1960 had taken its independence from
Brit ain as the Republic of Somaliland.
These brief chapters are designed to prove
beyond doubt, that the Republic of
Somaliland was never an integral part of the
former Italian colony, and subsequently The
United Nations trust territory of Somalia.
People who are not aware of these facts are
invariably left with the mista ken impression
that Somaliland is a renegade region of
Somalia. On the 1st of July 1960 this
co u ntry Somaliland has voluntarily and
against the wishes of the main body of the
Political le adership in Somaliland , had
united with Somalia in pursuit of the ideal
of creating a Greater S omaliland, consisting
of the five segments into which the scramble
for Africa had divided a hom ogenous nation.
That ideal has atrophied under the
Dictatorship of Siad Barre and because of
the unrelenting opposition of all the
International Community. There was a time
when Great Bri tain under Tory Government
have briefly accepted the idea and decided
to relinquish the Soma li inhabited districts
of Kenya to Somalia. But at the request of
Emperor Haile Selassie, Preside nt Kennedy,
have prevailed upon his friend Mr. Harold
Macmillan, the then Prime Minster of
Brit ain, to ditch the Somali cause. From
that time all the International community
stood together solidly against the
unification of the Somali People.
Our fathers and grandfathers who have lived
through the magnificent years of the fifties
will never forget that great wind of change
which blew across the continent and that
great continental levee en masse which
for the first time in history produced a
black, purposeful solidarity throughout the
whole continent, and for a brief period gave
to the people of all the African Countries a
common initiative, a common purpose and a
spirit of a nationhood. The independence
which should have fostered that magnificent
spirit and should have built nations on the
Euphoria of the period and on the ashes of
tribalism, have failed miserably. No attempt
was made to pioneer a new form of
governance. Instead a band of black men have
merely taken over from the retiring former
colonial Civil Servants.
The system of colonial rule whether legal or
administrative was allowed to function as
severely and obnoxiously as it did in the
past with the only different that the
enforcers of the rule were now black men. In
few short years the petty dictators who have
taken over from the colonial governments
have dissipated the euphoria and dismantled
the levee en masse which shou ld have
carried the continent to new heights of
human endeavor. The men that should have
h elped to tame the dictators like the
flamboyant men of Camelot in America who
have fallen so very short of their eloquent
rhetoric, the mediocre Harold Wilson who
coined the diminished Britain and
burrowing deeply into his Mediocrity lead
the people of Britain into despair and se lf
pity. In France, de Gaulle was gone and the
search for a successor is still going on.
All these men in the pursuit of influence
and allies for the cold war have abetted,
encouraged and woo ed the Petty Dictators who
were ruining Africa. Nation building all
over the continent has come to an abrupt end
with independence. The people of Africa were
forced in silent rage to go back to the only
social and political organization they knew
tribalism. The unification of the Somali
people which was attempted in 1960 was part
of that nation building and like the rest it
died an untimely death.
Somaliland is now the only country in the
Horn of Africa where an effective program of
nation building is being vigorously pursued.
We have now conquered the anarchy bequeathed
to us by the disintegration of the Dictator
ship. Peaceful co-existence between all over
clans have been painfully nurtured and is
now fully established. We carefully chosen
new government and we elected a parliament
would lead this nations and this country to
a renewed social and eco nomic leap. We hope
that within the next future we can redesign
the pastoral nomadic existe nce of the nation
on the basis of a scientific ecological
engineering. We Somalilanders intend to
survey the whole country for underground and
surface waters and then zone our pastoral
land into seasonal zones.
There are men in Mogadishu, Bosaso and in
other cities of former Somalia who having
failed th eir people and ruined their country
and in the process shed rivers of innocent
blood, are now enviously trying to
compromise and hamper our progress and our
achievements. These men have no say in our
affairs, just like they have had no say in
our decisions in 1960. In their utter
poverty of political ideas and innovations,
they are clinging to one slogan which they
repeat li ke a Parrot unaware of its
emptiness and insignificance. That slogan is
: SOMALI UNITY IS SA CRED . They have
never stopped to ask themselves whether that
sacred unity includes the Re public of
Djibouti, the 5th Region of Ethiopia, and
the NFD of Kenya. There is nothing sacred
abo ut something that does to exist and we
reject them and their childish slogan and
their evil blo od-stained leadership. We
apply ourselves to address directly the
whole international commun ity and specially
our brother in Africa to take notice of our
existence, to recognize our soverei gnty and
to help us help the rest of Somalia to rid
themselves of the painful burden of the war
lords and to rebuild their country and their
lives, as we did, from the grass roots of
the nation.
The political map of the Horn of Africa with
the rise of Eritrea and Somaliland has also
change the New World Order favors the
downfall of African Dictators. That are
being swept by the current wind of change in
Africa. The break-up of cumbersome states in
Europe is also welcom e. The recognition of
the emerging states is the order of the day.
Though recognition is essen tially a
political decision the identical situation
of the emergent states of both continents
neith er be denied nor overlooked.
We have to realest that we are not different
from the former Yugoslavia, and former
Soviet U nion, who break-up into different
independent countries. If Ukrain, Latvia,
Estonia, Croatia, Bo snia and Southern Sudan
can be a Sovereign countries, why not in
Somaliland?!!!
We have to have the will, the political will
and collective will. We have a right to get
self-deter mination and get recognition from
the world.
We should therefore be considered for
immediate recognition and development in
order to hel p us cope with tremendous
problems we face.
ANIIS A. ESSA. HEAD
SOMALILAND ADVOCACY GROUP
WASHINGTON DC
aniis@yahoo.com
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