Why The United
States Should Recognize Somaliland’s Independence
The United States government should officially recognize the
independence of Somaliland, a moderate Muslim democracy in the Horn
of Africa. Such an argument may seem counterintuitive at a time when
tensions are rising in the region. But I submit that it is precisely
because of those rising tensions that it is time for the Bush
administration to act, especially if it is truly serious about
democracy promotion, counter-terrorism, and curtailing the spread of
Islamic fundamentalism.
Why does Somaliland deserve U.S. recognition?
First and foremost, it is important to recollect that, after
achieving independence from British colonial rule on June 26, 1960,
Somaliland was duly recognized as a sovereign entity by the United
Nations and thirty-five countries, including the United States.
Several days later, on July 1, the independent country of Somaliland
voluntarily joined with its newly independent southern counterpart
(the former UN Trust Territory of Somalia that was a former Italian
colony) to create the present-day Republic of Somalia.
Somalilanders rightfully note
that they voluntarily joined a union after independence, and that,
under international law, they should (and do) have the right to
abrogate that union, as they did in 1991. Examples abound in the
second half of the twentieth century of international recognition of
countries that have emerged from failed federations or failed
states, including East Timor, Eritrea, Gambia, and the successor
states of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. The same legal
principle should be applied to Somaliland.
The political basis for Somaliland’s claim is that the voluntary
union of 1960 was derailed in 1969 by a military coup d’etat in
Mogadishu that ushered in more than two decades of brutal military
rule under the dictatorship of General Mohamed Siyad Barre. Himself
a southerner, Barre destroyed the foundations of the north-south
democratic compact, most notably by unleashing a murderous campaign
(bordering on genocide) against northern civilians that resulted in
more than 50,000 deaths and created over 500,000 refugees as part of
a widening civil war during the 1980s.
Even after Barre was overthrown in
1991 by a coalition of guerrilla armies, including the
northern-based Somali National Movement (SNM), northern expectations
of a government of national unity were dashed when southern
guerrilla movements reneged on an earlier agreement and unilaterally
named a southerner president, which in turn was followed by the
intensification of inter and intra-clan conflict in the south.
Nearly thirty years of unfulfilled promises and brutal policies
ripped the fabric of the already fragile north-south political
compact.
A “point of no return” had
been reached for Somalilanders intent on reasserting their country’s
independence. In May 2001, a popular mandate was given to dissolving
the union, when a resounding number of ballots cast (97 percent) in
a national Somaliland referendum favored the adoption of a new
constitution that explicitly underscored Somaliland’s independence.
Somaliland deserves recognition if the Bush administration is truly
sincere about promoting democracy in the wider Middle East. In sharp
contrast to southern Somalia where instability and crisis have
reigned and in fact intensified in the last fifteen years,
Somaliland has established a democratic polity that, if recognized,
would make it the envy of democracy activists in the Muslim world.
The essence of Somaliland’s successful democratization was captured
by U.S.-based International Republican Institute and the National
Endowment for Democracy in convening a September 2006 panel
discussion on Somaliland.
They wrote that “Somaliland’s
embrace of democracy, its persistence in holding round after round
of elections, both winners and losers abiding by the rules, the
involvement of the grassroots, the positive role of traditional
authorities, the culture of negotiation and conflict resolution, the
temperance of ethnicity or clan affiliation and its deployment for
constructive purposes, the adaptation of modern technology, the
conservative use of limited resources, and the support of the
diaspora and the professional and intellectual classes are some of
the more outstanding features of Somaliland’s political culture that
are often sorely lacking elsewhere.”
Somaliland also deserves recognition from a purely U.S.-centric
national security perspective. The Somaliland government and
population embody a moderate voice in the Muslim world that rejects
radical interpretations of Islam, including that espoused by various
portions of the Council of Somali Islamic Courts (CSIC) currently in
control of Mogadishu and its environs.
It would serve as a bulwark against
the further expansion of radical ideologies in the Horn of Africa by
offering a shining example (along with Mali and Senegal and other
predominantly Muslim Sub-Saharan African democracies) of how Islam
and democracy are not mutually exclusive, but rather mutually
reinforcing. Somaliland leaders are also eager to cooperate with the
Bush administration in a variety of counter-terrorism measures,
including working with the Combined Joint Task Force—Horn of Africa
(CJTF-HOA) based in Djibouti. They are currently prohibited from
doing so due to U.S. legislation that prevents cooperation with
unrecognized Somaliland authorities.
The critiques of the pro-independence position are numerous, but
don’t stand up to close examination. One strand of thought is that
Somaliland is not economically viable. This position is reminiscent
of claims made by Europeans during the 1950s with respect to their
African colonies, with the aim of delaying independence throughout
Africa. In any case, the argument is belied by Somaliland’s creation
of a highly self-sufficient, well-functioning economy even though it
has no access to the economic benefits that would come with
statehood, such as access to loans from international financial
institutions.
A second critique, typically offered by African policymakers, is
that recognition of Somaliland will “open a pandora’s box” of
secessionist claims throughout Africa. However, as in the case of
Eritrea, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993, the
Somaliland case does not call into question the African mantra of
the “inviolability of frontiers” inherited at independence. The
north-south union followed the independence and recognition of both
the British and Italian Somali territories, and its dissolution
therefore would constitute a unique case of returning to the
boundaries inherited from the colonial era.
Others, especially those connected to UN efforts throughout the Horn
of Africa, argue that recognition will derail the UN-sponsored
“building blocks” approach to national reconciliation that includes
the reconstitution of a central government in Mogadishu. This
approach, however, has been an utter failure, as witnessed by the
short-lived Transitional National Government (TNG) and its
replacement by a Transitional Federal Government (TFG), the
authority of which extends little beyond the town of Baidoa. What
authority it has is largely due to the intervention of Ethiopian
troops opposed to the further expansion of the Islamic Courts. It is
time to recognize that the UN-sponsored “building blocks” cannot be
stacked together to create a reunified central authority in
Mogadishu.
A fourth critique claims that the “time is not right” for
recognition because it will further intensify the widening crisis
between the Islamic Courts and the TFG, and between their respective
regional and international supporters. This argument has been heard
repeatedly in the last fifteen years whenever efforts at
reconstructing a unified central government were thought to be on
the “verge of success.” Success has proved elusive over all this
time, however, and it is now clear that southern Somalia will remain
in crisis regardless of what is done with respect to Somaliland
recognition.
The most dire prediction of
some Somali watchers is that the Islamic Courts movement will emerge
victorious in the current conflict, assert its control over all
Somali territories outside of Somaliland, and then threaten open
warfare with Somaliland to bring it back into the Somali fold. If
this should happen, it will likely be too late for the United States
or others to intervene in a timely and effective manner to prevent
Somaliland’s absorption into an Islamist Somalia. This reality makes
recognition all the more urgent.
One of the more nuanced critiques of recognition is that loyalty to
Somaliland in its eastern districts of Sanaag and Sool is contested,
especially among the Warsengeli and Dhulbahante clans, and that any
movement toward independence would potentially require the redrawing
of Somaliland’s eastern boundary – which the leadership in Hargeysa
( Somaliland’s capital) is unwilling to entertain.
It is important to reiterate
that Somaliland’s current boundaries are those of the original
British Somaliland Protectorate created in 1884 and the independent
country recognized by the international community beginning on June
26, 1960, and therefore have a solid legal basis under international
law. The 2001 referendum provided an unequivocal popular basis for
the independence claim. One way of resolving this issue, as was done
with Eritrea in May 1993, would be to hold a territory-wide,
UN-sponsored and internationally monitored popular referendum on
independence that would be binding. If, as would be expected,
pro-independence forces prevailed, those unwilling to live under
Somaliland rule would have to make hard decisions about whether to
continue living in Somaliland. .
A final critique involves the concept of “African solutions for
African problems.” Proponents contend that the United States should
wait for African countries led by the AU to first recognize
Somaliland. This approach is the topic of a thought-provoking
International Crisis Group report, “Somaliland: Time for African
Union Leadership,” published in May 2006, and was publicly endorsed
by Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer
in a presentation on November 17, 2006 at the annual meeting of the
African Studies Association.
Although Frazer’s statement
that the United States would recognize Somaliland if the AU acted
first was welcomed by specialists on Somaliland, it is unclear when
or if a AU recognition process will actually unfold. The
encouragement of African action should not become the basis for
inaction on the part of the United States.
The time for U.S. recognition of Somaliland is now, not only because
it is right, but because it is in the interests of the United
States. Recognition of Somaliland, followed by expanded engagement
by Somaliland with the international community, would serve as a
powerful lesson for other countries within the region (not least of
all southern Somalia) of the benefits associated with the creation
and consolidation of democratic systems of governance. Somaliland
would become a model to emulate, and the United States would be
congratulated for undertaking a proactive policy in support of a
moderate, Muslim democracy.
Peter J. Schraeder is a professor in the Department of Political
Science at Loyola University Chicago. He writes on African politics
and U.S. Africa policy.
|