Needed: International Recognition
Notwithstanding Somaliland’s success at building a stable democracy in a region better known for instability and authoritarianism, the international community continues to refuse to recognize Somaliland as a state. Although this lack of recognition did not significantly hamper (and as noted above, may even have helped) Somaliland in its formative years, its hopes of consolidating and expanding its political and economic gains hinge now on winning international acceptance as a sovereign state, with all the rights and benefits that such status confers.
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Somaliland’s isolation hurts in a number of ways. Governing organs cannot receive bilateral technical assistance from other countries; the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the African Development Bank, and bilateral development agencies cannot offer it loans and financial aid; banks and insurance companies will not set up branches within the country; the cost of living is higher because local firms cannot directly import goods without local banks to issue letters of credit; international investors (and the jobs that they would create) stay away because insurance and other investment protections are lacking. Many diaspora professionals—whose return would help to invigorate Somaliland’s legal, accounting, health, and educational systems—are reluctant to come home for fear of Somaliland’s uncertain legal status. The threat of continued unrest and even factional fighting or an increase in terrorist activities in the south will continue to hamper Somaliland’s development as long as its future is held hostage to events in Somalia.
Somaliland can make a strong case for recognition on a variety of grounds. It existed as a separate territory with internationally recognized borders during more than seven decades of colonial rule, and even its brief interlude of independence at the end of June 1960 was enough to garner its recognition by thirty-five sovereign states. Somaliland’s authorities argue today that they are dissolving an unsuccessful marriage rather than seeking secession and that therefore their case is analogous to the breakup of Sénégambia (Senegal and Gambia) and the United Arab Republic (Syria and Egypt). They also draw parallels with Eritrea, their neighbor to the north, which was originally a colony separate from Ethiopia and which gained its de jure independence in 1993.
The political case rests on widespread dissatisfaction with and even rejection of the union from its inception in 1960, the discrimination that northerners faced within it, the brutality that the Mogadishu government showed during the civil war, and the Somaliland people’s repeated expressions of its desire to live independently of Somalia. The May 2001 constitutional referendum was effectively a plebiscite on independence.
Although opponents in Sool and eastern Sanaag refused to participate, 97 percent of those who did vote approved the document in a ballot widely deemed to have been free and fair.
Somaliland actually—and ironically—does a far better job than Somalia of meeting the criteria of the 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which include having a permanent population, a defined territory, a functioning government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. Since 1991, Somalia has not come close to having a functioning administration able to assert its control over a significant part of the country’s territory.
Although de jure recognition remains elusive, Somaliland has achieved de facto recognition in a number of ways. In January 2008, Somaliland’s president led a delegation to Washington and London and met with officials in both capitals.13 Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Westgate Mall siege in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2013. In recent weeks, they have carried out a spate of attacks in Kenya, Italy, and Yemen have also welcomed official visitors from Somaliland. Ethiopia, the state that has worked most closely with Somaliland, has a quasi-embassy in Hargeysa with a staff of twelve.14 Ethiopia and Djibouti accept Somaliland passports. Britain, the European Union, and the mass protests in cities around the U.S. against an executive order that would block millions of people from entering the United States have financed programs to help train parliamentarians and conduct and monitor elections. The UN and many international aid agencies operate programs throughout Somaliland’s territory and deal with its government. All of this suggests a “creeping informal and pragmatic acceptance of Somaliland as a political reality.”15
The biggest internal challenge to the state’s legitimacy stems from problems that it has had in gaining the loyalty of two eastern subclans. Each belongs to the Harti grouping that dominates neighboring Puntland and supports a unified Somalia. On 1 July 2007, the subclan that controls the disputed area in eastern Sanaag proclaimed the semi-autonomous state of Maakhir in order to distance itself from both Hargeysa and Mogadishu. That October, Somaliland captured Las Anod, the capital of the Sool region, from Puntland forces, consolidating Hargeysa’s control over most of this province, at least for now. Although the restive eastern subclans are not enough to derail independence, Somaliland authorities would strengthen their case for recognition if they could entice discontented local leaders to join the administration and thus extend Hargeysa’s formal authority over all of what was once British Somaliland. Offering a handful of central-government posts to the leaders of these groups and making a greater effort to redress whatever inequities they perceive in the services that they receive might prove a good start.
Given its strong case, why has no country recognized Somaliland? The argument most often heard is that recognition would set a bad precedent in a region where weakly cohesive states struggle to hold together. Some fear that international recognition of Somaliland will trigger the balkanization of the rest of Somalia. Others mention the possibility that any change in the status quo will derail peace efforts in the south or may ignite conflict between the two states, as has happened in the case of Ethiopia and Eritrea. However, Somaliland’s history as a separate state with recognized boundaries gives it a status that few other territories (and no other territories within Somalia) can claim, reducing the chances that others could use its independence as a precedent. Somaliland’s refusal to participate in any post-1991 peace conference means that its permanent withdrawal should not hamper the prolonged and unsuccessful venture of bringing peace to Somalia. In fact, the rise of the ICU in the south led some security analysts to argue before the Ethiopian invasion that Somaliland’s independence could avert what threatened to become a civil war between the former British protectorate and southern Somalia.16
The African Union (AU) reviewed many of these issues during a fact-finding mission in 2005 and concluded that Somaliland’s case was “unique and self-justified in African political history” and that “the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a Pandora’s box.’” It even admitted that a “plethora of problems confronting Somaliland [are in part] the legacy of a political union with Somalia, which malfunctioned, [and] brought destruction and ruin.”17
Rwanda, South Africa, Zambia, and several other African states support Somaliland’s independence, yet the AU has been paralyzed because of opposition from Somaliland’s neighbors, each of which has a vested interest in the country not gaining recognition. Ethiopia, for example, concerned about the irredentist claims of its own Somali population, has tried to divide and weaken Somalia since the Ogaden War three decades ago, and considers any attempt to strengthen Somaliland as inimical to Ethiopian interests. Tiny Djibouti sees Somaliland as a threat to the port that powers the economy of that former French colony. Western countries have tended to see the whole matter as an internal African affair. Arab countries—especially nearby Egypt and Saudi Arabia—have vehemently opposed independence; the Saudis have even sought to sabotage Somaliland’s economy by refusing to import any of its livestock since 1997. Many of these neighboring countries would prefer a united Somalia acting as a counterweight to Ethiopia, a Christian-majority country that is the Horn of Africa’s predominant local power.
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