Somaliland:
Was it a sovereign nation?
In order for one to understand the validity
of Somaliland's assertion to political
self-determination and its quest for statehood
one has to put it in a historical perspective.
The Republic of Somaliland is currently
a de facto independent and sovereign state,
reasserting its sovereignty by withdrawing
from the union with rest of Somalia on
May 18, 1991. The state of former Somalia
came to existence by the merger of two
independent states in 1960 when Somaliland,
a British Protectorate united with Southern
Somalia, an Italian Trust territory. Somaliland
itself occupies the same territorial area
of British Somaliland Protectorate.
Center to the cataclysmic events which
have precipitated the breakup of this union
between the North and the South is a twenty
one year political and economic domination
and disenfranchisement which was imposed
on the people of the North by one of Africa's
most notorious and ruthless dictotor, General
Mohamed Siyad Barre who was from the South.
Somalilanders have nightmarish memories
of the past and cannot therefore return
to the status quo of a Somali Unitary State.
The Barre regime before its overthrow has
waged a relentless campaign of pillage,
blunder prosecution and gross human violations
against the people of Somaliland who succeeded
in ridding themselves from the yoke of
his repressive regime through a ten year
war of liberation. In 1988 nearly 50,000
people were killed and 600,000 fled as
refugees from the northern cities such
as Hargeisa, Buroa and Berbera to refugee
camps in northerwestern Ethiopia when the
forces of the Barre regime waged an all
out air/ground military campaign against
the people in the North as a last ditch
effort to quench their uprising.
The Northern Capital city of Hargeisa
for example was literally levelled to the
ground in 1988 by constant air strikes
and heavy artillery shelling and nearly
2 million land mines which continue to
claim lives every day were planted around
major northern cities and country side.
While Siyad Barre's regime were being defeated
in the North, his regime was crumbling
from under him in the South. In January
1991 the militry dictator was deposed by
the combined efforts of several liberation
movements in the country...
On May 18, 1991 after driving out the
remnants of the dictator's occupying forces
which have waged an all out genocide and
destruction, former Northern Somalia seperated
from the rest of Somalia and was proclaimed
an independent and sovereign state by its
people. Meanwhile, in the South, when the
Barre regime was toppled from its seat
of power in Mogadishu and was forced to
flee the country it was replaced by several
warring factions who could not agree on
any power sharing formula to govern what
was left of Somalia. Hostilities in the
South escalated while the rest of the world
stood by, what had happened to the innocent
and powerless who got caught in the middle
of these warring factions in Southern Somalia
needs no elaboration.
Having inherited a scorched earth environment,
the people of Somaliland continue to appeal
to the international community to lend
them a helping hand in rebuilding their
devastated land. Although Somaliland have
been experiencing relative calm and stability
compared to the chaos and anarchy in Somalia,
no measurable efforts was made by the international
community thus far to recognize it and
provide any any meaningful reconstruction
or development aid to this fledging country
that is rising from the ashes of a decade
long brutal civil war.
The lack of recognition of Somaliland
by the international community as an independent
and sovereign state is a major impediment
to its economic survival and development.
Any meaningful reconstruction and development
aid that may be available from other nations,
international organizations and financial
institutions will not be feasible without
recognition. SOPRI Insitute's efforts are
dedicated to help Somaliland in its quest
for recognition as an independent state
and to find it rightful place among the
family of nations.
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