SOMALILANDER CARRIES ON LONELY CAMPAIGN FOR RECOGNITION
BY: Michael M. Philips

February 20, 2015

WASHINGTON.DC ( DJ-EMR-WALLSTREET)—Who knows? If things had gone differently, Aniis A bdillahi Essa might be an Ambassador by now, presenting his credentials at the White house and toasting his country’s future at gala embassy receptions.

As it is, some newspapers ignore his letters to the editor, the U.N. rejects his request for dev elopment Aid. Such is the lot of the Director of the Somaliland Advocacy Group, a tiny, all-vol unteer corps whose end is to win recognition for the breakaway region of Somaliland.
“ When you do not get a response, sometimes you get tired,” admits Aniis, an elegant man who works as a Senior Consultant in HLS in Washington dc, when he is not producing newslet ters, penning verse or otherwise promoting Somaliland’s frustrated cause.

The region. Which border on Djibouti and Ethiopia, was known as British Somaliland prior to its fusion with Italian Somaliland to create independent Somalia in 1960. Later, it become the cradle of the rebellion that forced longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre from power in 1991.

Ssomaliland paid a steep price for its impudence. Its capital, Hargeisa, was pulverized by Siad Barre’s air force and artillery in 1988, killing Aniis’s Mother and thousands more.
Aniis Was jailed briefly in Mandheera for anti-government agitation and then fled to the United States, where he took up representation of the rebel Somali National Movement the SNM.
The experience left Somalilanders with little taste for unity with their southern cousin. The region declared itself independent shortly after Siad Barre’s ouster, and clan elders, through patient negotiations, established a semblance of a working government and functioning civil society.
The results are tangible, if fragile. Once the object of intense Superpower competition, the po rt of Berbera now ships livestock across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
Somaliland’s relative stability, however, makes it look like Sweden compared to the South, where civil war prompted a massive international military intervention in 1992 that stopped the starvation but failed to create a viable new nation.
The last U.N. Troops left in Somalia March 1994, and the militias moved quickly back into their old posts. Neither flareups in fighting nor the impending crop shortfall gets much attention in the U.S. these days.

The world, apparently, has lost its enthusiasm for helping Somalis…..Somaliland or Somalia.
No country has a yet established diplomatic relations with Somaliland, and, judging from Aniis’s experience, Some are likely to do so soon.

Aniis says he keeps up on the news back home through weekly calls or emails. He swaps reports with U.S. diplomats who make no promises, writes articles that never see print and edits a newsletter that circulates only when finances permit.
While U.S. diplomats and aid workers regularly deal with Silaanyo’s government, the State Department says he has not demonstrated enough popular support to warrant full recognition.

And, despite its achievements, the Silaanyo government faces continued, if sporadic, military opposition.
“We have not recognized Somaliland or any other people claiming to be representatives of a government in Somalia,” says one U.S. diplomat. “ We’re waiting for the Somalis to find some kind of political solution to their problems.”

The somalilanders say they have already achieved that. But they still want diplomatic recognition and the aid that U.N. status could bring from the world Bank, international Monetary Fund and other.
“ If we get recognition, then we can get everything,” says Aniis. “But without recognition, the country will be run into the ground.”

Source: DJ-EMR-WALLSTREET