Why the US should recognize Somaliland independence is gaining renewed attention after Jaco Kleynhans argued that Somaliland represents one of the world’s strongest cases for self-determination and state recognition
By Saxafi Staff Writer
HARGEISA — The debate over whether the United States should formally recognize Somaliland has gained an unexpected international voice from South Africa, where Jaco Kleynhans, head of public liaison at the civil society organization Solidarity, has argued that Washington’s own political history offers a compelling case for supporting Somaliland’s independence.
In a post on X, Kleynhans framed Somaliland’s decades-long campaign for recognition within the broader historical tradition of American support for self-determination, arguing that few contemporary independence movements are as institutionally prepared for statehood.
“Why the US should recognize Somaliland’s independence,” Kleynhans wrote, before pointing to what he described as a long-standing American commitment to the principle that peoples should be able to determine their own political future.
“Self-determination has always been highly valued by the US,” he said. “Over the decades, the US has often supported the legitimate freedom aspirations of peoples — as in the past two decades in Montenegro, Kosovo and South Sudan.”
Kleynhans argued that Somaliland now stands apart from many other stateless or unrecognized nations because of the degree to which it has already constructed the institutions normally associated with sovereign statehood.
“While many peoples such as the Kurds, Flemings, South Tyroleans, Catalans, Mapuche and many more have a right to their own state,” he wrote, “none is currently more ready than Somaliland.”
His conclusion was direct: “Time for Somaliland’s independence to be recognized.”
An argument rooted in American political history
Kleynhans anchored his appeal in the history of U.S. foreign policy, particularly the doctrine of self-determination that became closely associated with President Woodrow Wilson following World War I.
Wilson famously argued that political legitimacy depended increasingly on the consent of governed peoples and their right to determine their own political status.
Kleynhans highlighted one of Wilson’s best-known statements on the principle:
“Self-determination is not a mere phrase. It is an imperative principle of action, which statesmen will henceforth ignore at their peril,” Kleynhans wrote.
He also invoked President Harry Truman, whose administration emerged at the beginning of the post-World War II international order and the accelerating global movement toward decolonization.
“We are aided by all who desire self-government and a voice in deciding their own affairs,” Truman said in the quotation cited by Kleynhans.
For advocates of Somaliland’s recognition, those words resonate with a central argument that has defined the territory’s foreign policy campaign for more than three decades: that Somaliland is not seeking to create a state from scratch, but to restore the sovereignty it briefly exercised before voluntarily entering into union with Italian Somaliland in 1960.
Somaliland gained independence from Britain on June 26, 1960, receiving recognition from dozens of countries before joining the former Italian-administered territory five days later to form the Somali Republic.
Following the collapse of that union and the downfall of Somalia’s military government, Somaliland declared the restoration of its independence in 1991.
Since then, it has developed its own government, security institutions, currency, electoral system and administrative structures, while remaining without formal recognition from most members of the international community.
“None is currently more ready”
The strength of Kleynhans’s argument lies in the comparison he draws between Somaliland and other movements for national self-determination.
Around the world, numerous communities continue to campaign for greater autonomy or outright independence. But Somaliland’s supporters argue that its situation differs from separatist movements still attempting to establish territorial control or construct functioning political institutions.
Somaliland already operates as a de facto state.
It maintains a government in Hargeisa, conducts elections, operates security forces and manages relations with foreign governments. Its leaders have repeatedly argued that international recognition would simply formalize a political reality that has existed for more than three decades.
That distinction was central to Kleynhans’s argument.
“None is currently more ready than Somaliland,” he wrote.
The statement reflects a broader shift in the international discussion surrounding Somaliland, where the question increasingly being asked is not whether the territory has built the institutions of a state, but why those institutions have not yet translated into formal diplomatic recognition.
For years, Somaliland’s recognition campaign faced resistance from governments concerned that recognizing its independence could encourage separatist movements elsewhere in Africa.
Yet supporters increasingly counter that Somaliland presents a legally and historically unusual case.
Rather than seeking to redraw colonial boundaries, Somaliland’s advocates argue that recognition would restore the borders of the former British Somaliland Protectorate — boundaries that existed at independence and are broadly consistent with the African Union’s longstanding principle of respecting inherited colonial borders.
A strategic argument for Washington
Kleynhans’s intervention also comes as Somaliland’s strategic importance has become increasingly difficult for foreign policymakers to ignore.
Located along the Gulf of Aden and near one of the world’s most important maritime corridors, Somaliland occupies a position overlooking the approaches to the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
The region has become a focal point of competition involving the United States, China, Türkiye, Gulf states and other regional powers.
For Washington, Somaliland’s supporters argue, recognition is therefore no longer simply a philosophical question about self-determination.
It is increasingly a geopolitical question.
The United States has expanded its focus on maritime security in the Red Sea, counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa and strategic competition with China, which maintains a military presence across the water in Djibouti.
Somaliland, meanwhile, has positioned its deep-water port of Berbera as a potentially important strategic and commercial gateway connecting Africa to the Middle East and global shipping routes.
Against that backdrop, advocates argue that American recognition could give Washington a stronger political partner in a strategically contested region.
But Kleynhans’s argument was rooted less in military competition than in political principle.
The United States, he suggested, has historically portrayed itself as a defender of peoples seeking the right to govern themselves.
That history, he argued, should now be applied to Somaliland.
The unfinished question of recognition
Somaliland’s pursuit of international recognition has often been described as one of Africa’s longest unresolved diplomatic questions.
For 35 years, the territory has sought to convince governments that its independence movement should not be viewed through the same lens as other separatist conflicts.
Its leaders emphasize Somaliland’s distinct colonial history, its brief period of internationally acknowledged independence in 1960 and its subsequent voluntary union with Somalia.
The argument advanced by Kleynhans adds another dimension to that case: historical consistency.
If Washington has supported self-determination in Montenegro, Kosovo and South Sudan, he argued, Somaliland deserves serious consideration.
“Self-determination has always been highly valued by the US,” Kleynhans wrote.
For Somaliland’s supporters, that statement poses a broader question to American policymakers: If a people have maintained peace, built democratic institutions, governed a defined territory and sustained an independent political system for decades, what additional threshold must they meet before their claim to recognition is accepted?
Kleynhans’s answer was unequivocal.
“Time for Somaliland’s independence to be recognized.”
The question now is whether policymakers in Washington are prepared to reach the same conclusion.
