Somaliland: Peaceful, democratic but unrecognised
Monday, 05 July 2010 10:53
 

Makwaia Wa Kuhenga
 

Not many people are aware that there is a country in the Horn of Africa known as Somaliland, quite thriving as a state and at peace with itself but internationally unrecognised. What is recognised is the almost collapsed state of Somalia with Mogadishu as its capital.

So because of this unfortunate non-recognition status, developments in Somaliland either go unnoticed or unreported by the mainstream international media. But recently, fortunately, when I tuned to Aljazeera television on June 26, that station broadcast an electoral process in motion in that small country in the Horn of Africa.

A correspondent for Aljazeera, a Qatar-based global television network, was reporting from Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland that the General Election was in place in that country. I was intrigued and I wanted to follow more.

I was intrigued because I know Somaliland. A couple of years ago, in June 2008 I was in Hargeisa. I will brief you on this trip in the latter part of this perspective. For now let us revisit the poll as it was being reported by Aljazeera.

As I watched the Aljazeera report, I could see long queues of Somaliland folks, men and women in their customary long dresses and headscarves for women. My observation was of quite peaceful queues of people waiting for their turn to vote; standard scenes of democratic polls anywhere.

Sampling reports the following day on the Internet, one report spoke of “high voter turnout and relative calm” marking the polls.

“Polls opened early in the morning in this part of the world on Africa’s northwestern horn known as Somaliland, an autonomous but unrecognised nation, looking forward to cement its democratic credentials among the international community,” said one report.

It went on: “Ballots are being cast for three presidential candidates: incumbent President Dahir Riyaale Kahin, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo and Faisal Ali Warabe. Silanyo represented that Kulimiye party, seen as the main rival to President Kahin’s United People’s Democratic Party (UDUB),” said an account one report.

After following the polls, there was a little lull on Aljazeera about the outcome of that polls. I was worried. Has there been widespread violence or something? My concerns were dispelled because the same station Aljazeera reported after five days that there has been announcement of a winner of the vote and the people of Somaliland have come to terms with that announcement equally peacefully.

The winner this time was opposition leader, Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo of Kulmiye Party that translates for “Peace, Unity and Development Party”.

He had won just under 50 of the votes cast and he expected to be inaugurated next month.
In the election, there was even an international observer group whose joint coordinator Michael Walls described the vote as reasonably free and fair, and by international standards.

He said: “This country now boasts of two peaceful parliamentary elections and a presidential election earlier in 2003 which was widely observed as free and fair.”
Now for someone not initiated with the geopolitical disposition of the Horn of Africa, the questions one would naturally ask are: What is Somaliland as opposed to Somalia? How did Somaliland come into being?

History tells us that pre-colonial Horn of Africa was carved in favour of three colonial powers, the British, the Italians and the French. What is known as Djibouti today was under the French while southern Somalia with Mogadishu as the capital was under the Italians and there was a territory to the Northwest of the Horn of Africa known then as British Somaliland.

So Somaliland was a British protectorate for over 80 years while Somalia in the southern flanks of the horn was Italian ruled.

At the dawn of the decolonisation of Africa in the late 1950s and 1960s, when the British and Italians called it quits, there was a spontaneous wave of Somali nationalism with the early leaders of former British Somaliland and Italy-ruled Somalia with its capital Mogadishu to the south calling for a unified Somalia Republic. Both territories, which won independence from the erstwhile colonial masters in June 1960 with a difference of only a few days hastily united into one country, Somalia.

But the civilian political leaders of a unified Somalia did not last long as Africa was engulfed in military coups in the 1960s and beyond. Somalia was not spared. Gen Mohamed Siad Barre pulled his coup, replacing a civilian government.

This move was totally unwelcome by the civilian leaders and those who had sought and brought about a hasty union regretted their move. Under the circumstances, some regrouped to struggle for the restoration of the former Somaliland.

But things went to a head when Gen Siad Barre was himself overthrown, plunging the country even deeper into chaos. During this time, in former Somaliland or northern Somalia, a national liberation movement was taking roots known as the Somaliland Nationalist Movement. It immediately embarked on a guerrilla war and on 18th May 1991, it made good of its struggle by reclaiming the rebirth of Somaliland.

So this was a country I visited in June 2008 at the invitation of a Tanzanian of Somali origin with contacts in Somaliland. What I saw in Hargeisa surprised me. I saw a people at peace with themselves completely in contrast to their neighbors in the South of Mogadishu’s Somalia.

People were going about their business normally. Can you imagine a place swarming with beggars and jobless people yet just adjacent there are stalls and stalls of money in banknotes including American dollars, British pounds and so forth in the open with no policeman around to secure those stalls of money?

This is the market place in downtown Hargeisa where I took a walk when on the visit! In fact, as I took a walk, watching several of these stalls of money, the owners were not around, they had slipped away to say their midday prayers, leaving the stalls unguarded and yet there were no scenes of shouts against thieves!

All said, this is the country, which has remained internationally unrecognised for the last 19 years of its existence as a state as we have seen, complete with democratic feats.

So what is holding the recognition of Somaliland by the councils of state such as the African Union and the United Nations? An AU fact-finding mission to Somaliland in 2005 says the African Union should be disposed to “judge the case of Somaliland from an objective historical view point and a moral angle.” It is a recommendation that is yet to be worked for.

But the very reason that Somaliland has managed to evolve over the last 19 years as a sustainable, peaceful and democratic state is sufficiently adequate reason to reward it with immediate international recognition to serve as a spur and encouragement to embattled Mogadishu’s Somalia now facing extremist armed groups.

The same reasons that may have spurred the United States and its western allies to offer recognition to the newly born state of Kosovo cannot be contradictory to what Somaliland deserves today.

Mr wa Kuhenga is a senior journalist and author.






Source:Thecitizen.co.tz