WHAT THE NEW SOMALILAND GENERATION NEEDS TO KNOW ABOUT
SOMALILAND
Our new generation needs to know that our Country, “Somaliland”, is
not an entity which was born after the disintegration of the Siad
Barre dictatorship, they need to know that in recent History
Somaliland was part of the ‘Uthman Empire under the Khalif of Egypt.
It was then known 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 Britain 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 mistaken impression that Somaliland is a renegade
region of Somalia.
On the 1st of July 1960 this country “ Somaliland “, has voluntarily
and against the wishes of the main body of the Political Leadership
is Somaliland, had united with Somalia in pursuit of the ideal of
creating a Great Somaliland, consisting of the five segments into
which the scramble for Africa had divided homogenous 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 Britain under Tory Government have
briefly accepted the idea and decided to relinquish the Somali
inhabited districts of Kenya to Somalia. But at the request of
Emperor Haile Selassie, President of America President Kennedy, have
prevailed upon his friend Mr. Harold Macmillan, the then Prime
Minster of Britain, to ditch the Somali cause. From the time all the
international community stood together solidly against the
unification of the Somali people.
Our Fathers and Grandfathers who have live 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 mow
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 should have carried the
continent to new heights of human endeavor. The men that should have
helped short of their eloquent rhetoric, the mediocre Harold Wilson
who coined “The diminished self-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 wooed 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 has been painfully nurtured and is now fully
established. We will choose a new government and we will elect a new
parliament that would lead this nation and this country to a renewed
social and economic leap. We hope that within the next future we can
redesign the pastoral nomadic existence 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 and in other cities of former Somalia who
having failed their 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 achievement. These men
have no say in our affairs, just like they have had no say in our
decision in 1960. In their utter poverty of political ideas and
innovations the are clinging to one slogan which they repeat like a
Parrot “ Babqaa “, unaware of its emptiness and insignificance. That
slogan is ; “ SOMALI UNITY IS SACRED “ SOMALINIMADU WAA MUQADIS “
They have never stopped to ask themselves whether that sacred unity
included the Republic of Djibouti, the 5th Region of Ethiopia , and
the NFD of Kenya. There is nothing sacred about something that does
to exit and we reject them and their childish slogan and their evil
blood –stained leadership. We apply ourselves to address directly
the whole international community and specially our brother in
Africa to take notice of our existence, to recognize our sovereignty
and to help the rest of Somalia to rid themselves of the painful
burden of the war lords and to rebuild their county and their lives,
as we did from grass roots of the Nation,” SOMALILAND “
ANIIS ABDILLAHI ESSA…..HEADS
SOMALILAND ADVOCACY GROUP
WASHINGTON DC USA
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