The leadership of President Egal, Somaliland’s second president (1993—2002)
It is important to note that when Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal was elected in Borama in 1993 as the second president of Somaliland, he took leadership of a country that was without a state for all practical purposes and ruled by the gun rather than the law [[3]]. The political climate of the time was highly polarized because of the political differences between SNM’s military and political leaders. This was made worse by the fact that the SNM veterans, who liberated the country and remained loyal to their commanders rather than the government, had not yet been disarmed.
From the beginning, President Egal’s administration took an integrated approach to reconciliation and peace-making, which it later extended to institution-building, democratization, and development. While internal conflicts hindered the process of state-building, such infighting was not enough to thwart Egal’s administration in its pursuit of proactive foreign policy, even if it did have a negative impact.
Egal’s foreign policy was based on the political dictum, “The best foreign policy is a good internal policy”, and, for this reason, Egal emphasized internal nation-building programs, which he contended were essential for Somaliland’s quest for recognition. Because there are a number of legal conditions for statehood, which any aspiring state must fulfill—particularly a country seeking to remake itself while in a critical condition—President Egal focused his efforts on undertaking the kinds of social reforms that would enable Somaliland to meet these criteria. The tasks he had to perform mostly related to the state-building that his government was expected to firmly establish.
Looking externally, President Egal’s foreign policy initiative involved clarifying and affirming Somaliland’s political stand against the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM) in 1993. The political analyst Matt Bryden (2003) explains how Egal dealt with UNOSOM during his first months in power:
“He [Egal] got his first high profile opportunity soon after taking office in 1993. When the United Nations Operation in Somalia (UNOSOM), an international nation-building mission with over 30,000 troops deployed in the south, began courting opposition figures from Somaliland as part of its efforts to form a new national government, Egal took the top UN official in Somalia to task for undermining Somaliland’s peace and stability. His protest earned a contrite reply from the UN Secretary-General via his Special Envoy, Admiral Jonathan Howe. But, within a matter of months, UNOSOM was back at its political intrigues, and Egal ordered the expulsion of the UNOSOM representative in Hargeisa”. [[4]]
Bryden (2003) further adds that President Egal saw written diplomatic communication as an important tool in making a case to regional and global leaders: “Colorful orator in both Somali and English, Egal’s campaign for international recognition took the form of a kind of literary stream of consciousness: a flow of idiosyncratic letters and faxes often under his own signature to foreign diplomats, UN officials and heads of states [[5]].”
The relationship between Somaliland and the United Nations was shaky and tense for many years. This is evidenced by the fact that President Egal declared representatives of the UNOSOM office in Hargeisa persona non grata on several occasions in the early 1990s. A Somaliland government policy paper put out in 2001 characterized that the relationship between Somaliland and the United Nations: “Have borne the mark of polite, sometimes anguished enmity of their respective assertion on Somaliland’s independence [[6]]”.
Similarly, the late renowned Ethiopian Scholar, Kinfe Abraham, explains why Somaliland’s relations with the United Nations remained difficult in the early years of President Egal’s rule:
“Somaliland’s relations with the UN remained tense throughout the period of 1991-1997 for a number of reasons. Chief among them is the erstwhile UN Secretary General’s position on Somaliland’s independence because Secretary Boutros-Ghali’s position was influenced by his foreign policy doctrine during his time as a Foreign Minister for Egypt, which was mainly not to accept the breakup of Somalia [[7]]”.
With regards to President Egal’s foreign policy toward Somaliland’s neighboring states, Egal maintained peaceful diplomacy, the premises of which were based on the notion that Somaliland’s stability and security are dependent on the stability of its neighboring states. In light of that, one of the primary foreign policy goals of Egal’s administration was to establish cordial relations with Ethiopia. Egal was well aware of Ethiopia’s diplomatic influence over other African nations, as well as its close ties with western powers.
As a result, Egal fostered an atmosphere of diplomatic understanding with Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and succeeded in convincing him to establish formal diplomatic representative offices within Somaliland. Nasir Ali, academic, and an analyst on the Horn of Africa, elucidates how relations between the two neighboring states started:
“In May 1993, when Egal came to power, relations between the two sides started to take shape. The activities carried out by Egal were the foundation stone on which current bilateral relations between Thousands upon thousands of cassette tapes and master reels were quickly removed from the soon-to-be targeted buildings. They were dispersed to neighboring countries like Djibouti and Ethiopia and Somaliland were built…. This move also caused the military commanders of the Ethiopian armed forces in Hararghe to contact their counterparts in Somaliland to collaborate in order to maintain peace and stability along the border areas between the two sides[[8]]”.
President Egal’s diplomatic relations with Ethiopia strengthened following Egal’s milestone agreement with Prime Minister Zenawi in 2000 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Professor Iqbal Jhazbhay (2007), renowned African Scholar and diplomat, elaborates further:
“Towards the end of 2000, Somaliland signed agreements with Ethiopia, aimed at boosting trade and communications. This was announced following a visit by the late President Egal on a three-day official visit to Addis Ababa. The core of the agreement centered on enabling greater use of the strategic port of Berbera (on the Gulf of Aden) by improving the road link to the Ethiopian border. Ethiopia would install a microwave communication link between Burao, Hargeisa, and Berbera. Ethiopia and Somaliland central banks intended to facilitate trade by providing links to the outside world. From Hargeisa standpoint, the agreement was seen as a significant boost for Somaliland in its efforts to gain international recognition [[9]]”.
[su_button url=”https://saxafimedia.com/somalilands-foreign-policy-analysis-the-first-four-administrations/4/” style=”soft” size=”12″ wide=”yes” center=”yes” text_shadow=”0px 0px 0px #FFFFFF” rel=”lightbox”]CONTINUE READING ON THE NEXT PAGE >[/su_button]
