Kevin J. Kelley
A debate is raging within the Bush administration over possible US recognition of Somaliland and a consequent shift away from its longstanding support for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.
According to an unnamed senior US defence official quoted last week in The Washington Post, the Pentagon believes Somaliand should be independent."
The provocative remark was made in the course of Defence Secretary Robert Gates's visit to the base in Djibouti that houses the US military's Horn of Africa Task Force. The official made explicit reference to the disagreements between the State Department and the Pentagon on Somalia policy that seldom seep into the open.
The Horn of Africa Task Force is eager to carry out missions in Somaliland, but the State Department is standing in its way, added US Navy Captain Bob Wright.
"We'd love to," Captain Wright told the Post. "We're just waiting for State to give us the OK."
The anonymous Defence Department source who urged US recognition of Somaliland also criticised the current American approach of seeking to strengthen central authority in Mogadishu in hopes of quelling the chaos that has engulfed Somalia for the past 16 years.
"The State Department wants to fix the broken part first - that's been a failed policy," the Pentagon official asserted.
By contrast, the Defence Department source suggested, formal recognition of Somaliland would add a key element to an alternative US strategy of encirclement and containment.
Close collaboration between the United States and the three countries bordering Somalia - Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti - has apparently helped prevent attacks in East Africa by Al Qaeda militants who, Washington says, are able to find shelter in Somalia.
Islamists hostile to the United States remain powerful in parts of Somalia despite last year's US-backed invasion by Ethiopia that was intended to rout Islamist militias and to bolster the pro-Western TFG. For now at least, the Bush administration is continuing to focus on efforts to stabilise Somalia by supporting both the TFG and the Ethiopian occupation force.
Somaliland, an area in northwestern Somalia that unilaterally declared independence in 1991, enjoys the inter-clan tranquility that Somalia itself so ruinously lacks. Somaliland has also managed to put in place a democratically elected government. These achievements have come about with little or any assistance from the West while Somalia has remained a failed state despite having received hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of US and European aid.
"Somaliland is an entity that works," a Pentagon official told the Post during Mr Gates' stopover in Djibouti.
Some mid-level American officials have visited Somaliland in recent years and leaders of the breakaway territory have likewise come to Washington in search of aid and recognition.
But the US remains reluctant to accord Somaliland full diplomatic status partly out of concern that such a move would encourage the further fracturing of already-splintered and ungoverned Somalia.
Washington's unwillingness to endorse Somaliland's claim of independence also reflects US agreement with the African Union's policy of discouraging secessionist tendencies on the continent. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer reiterated that position in the Post's December 4 story.
"We do not want to get ahead of the continental organisation on an issue of such importance," Ms Frazer said in an e-mailed response to questions posed by the Post reporter covering Secretary Gates's visit to Djibouti.
In addition, recognition by the United States and, perhaps, the European Union "would not give Somaliland legitimacy in the eyes of other Somalis," said Ted Dagne, an expert on the Horn who works at the Congressional Research Service in Washington.
Certification of Somaliland's independence would likewise encourage other centrifugal parts of Somalia to seek the same status, Mr Dagne added.
"What would be the containment mechanism to prevent there being four or five Somalias?" he wondered.
Offering a perspective similar to that of the State Deparment, Mr Dagne said, "At the end of the day, Somalia must develop some sort of federal structure that gives regional autonomy" to areas such as Somaliland.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Oil survey in Somaliland
Hargeysa, Somaliland, December 22, 2007 (SL Times) – A press communiqué issued by the ministry of Water and Minerals on 16 Dec. 2007 stated that the ministry will soon publish the data of the survey carried out by the Norwegian seismic survey specialists ' TGS-NOPED' early this year near eastern Berbera coastal area and parts of Sanag region as well as other data collected by TGS.
Ministry's statement:
The Somaliland ministry of Water and Natural Resources has been given the mandate to explore and extract the natural resources of the Republic of Somaliland. As a result of this mandate at the end of February 2007 an extensive Seismic Survey was inaugurated to explore the availability and quantity of natural resources within the borders of Somaliland as well as its coastline. The survey was designed to determine the presence of Oil and Natural Gas in Somaliland.
The survey will be conducted by the TSG/NOPEC Geophysical Company with the express agreement of the government of Somaliland. The survey was conducted in two parts, an Aeromagnetic gravity survey from the air, and a Seismic Survey of the sea, in North and East Somaliland.
The aerial survey will begin before the end of December 2007 and will be co-coordinated with current surveys that have begun in the Zeylac-Berbera corridor of Somaliland's Gulf of Aden coast.
In conclusion
It is the conclusion of the Somaliland ministry of Water and Natural Resources along with other invested Departments, such National Defense, Fisheries, Home Affairs, Finance, Civil Aviation and Public Works, as well a the residents of all Somaliland six provinces, that Somaliland's natural resources must be safeguarded and developed for the benefit of the people of Somaliland, the region and the World in an environmentally responsible manner.
End
Source: Somaliland Times
Ministry's statement:
The Somaliland ministry of Water and Natural Resources has been given the mandate to explore and extract the natural resources of the Republic of Somaliland. As a result of this mandate at the end of February 2007 an extensive Seismic Survey was inaugurated to explore the availability and quantity of natural resources within the borders of Somaliland as well as its coastline. The survey was designed to determine the presence of Oil and Natural Gas in Somaliland.
The survey will be conducted by the TSG/NOPEC Geophysical Company with the express agreement of the government of Somaliland. The survey was conducted in two parts, an Aeromagnetic gravity survey from the air, and a Seismic Survey of the sea, in North and East Somaliland.
The aerial survey will begin before the end of December 2007 and will be co-coordinated with current surveys that have begun in the Zeylac-Berbera corridor of Somaliland's Gulf of Aden coast.
In conclusion
It is the conclusion of the Somaliland ministry of Water and Natural Resources along with other invested Departments, such National Defense, Fisheries, Home Affairs, Finance, Civil Aviation and Public Works, as well a the residents of all Somaliland six provinces, that Somaliland's natural resources must be safeguarded and developed for the benefit of the people of Somaliland, the region and the World in an environmentally responsible manner.
End
Source: Somaliland Times
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Way to the recognition
Kevin J. Kelley
A debate is raging within the Bush administration over possible US recognition of Somaliland and a consequent shift away from its longstanding support for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.
According to an unnamed senior US defence official quoted last week in The Washington Post, the Pentagon believes Somaliand should be independent."
The provocative remark was made in the course of Defence Secretary Robert Gates's visit to the base in Djibouti that houses the US military's Horn of Africa Task Force. The official made explicit reference to the disagreements between the State Department and the Pentagon on Somalia policy that seldom seep into the open.
The Horn of Africa Task Force is eager to carry out missions in Somaliland, but the State Department is standing in its way, added US Navy Captain Bob Wright.
"We'd love to," Captain Wright told the Post. "We're just waiting for State to give us the OK."
The anonymous Defence Department source who urged US recognition of Somaliland also criticised the current American approach of seeking to strengthen central authority in Mogadishu in hopes of quelling the chaos that has engulfed Somalia for the past 16 years.
"The State Department wants to fix the broken part first - that's been a failed policy," the Pentagon official asserted.
By contrast, the Defence Department source suggested, formal recognition of Somaliland would add a key element to an alternative US strategy of encirclement and containment.
Close collaboration between the United States and the three countries bordering Somalia - Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti - has apparently helped prevent attacks in East Africa by Al Qaeda militants who, Washington says, are able to find shelter in Somalia.
Islamists hostile to the United States remain powerful in parts of Somalia despite last year's US-backed invasion by Ethiopia that was intended to rout Islamist militias and to bolster the pro-Western TFG. For now at least, the Bush administration is continuing to focus on efforts to stabilise Somalia by supporting both the TFG and the Ethiopian occupation force.
Somaliland, an area in northwestern Somalia that unilaterally declared independence in 1991, enjoys the inter-clan tranquility that Somalia itself so ruinously lacks. Somaliland has also managed to put in place a democratically elected government. These achievements have come about with little or any assistance from the West while Somalia has remained a failed state despite having received hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of US and European aid.
"Somaliland is an entity that works," a Pentagon official told the Post during Mr Gates' stopover in Djibouti.
Some mid-level American officials have visited Somaliland in recent years and leaders of the breakaway territory have likewise come to Washington in search of aid and recognition.
But the US remains reluctant to accord Somaliland full diplomatic status partly out of concern that such a move would encourage the further fracturing of already-splintered and ungoverned Somalia.
Washington's unwillingness to endorse Somaliland's claim of independence also reflects US agreement with the African Union's policy of discouraging secessionist tendencies on the continent. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer reiterated that position in the Post's December 4 story.
"We do not want to get ahead of the continental organisation on an issue of such importance," Ms Frazer said in an e-mailed response to questions posed by the Post reporter covering Secretary Gates's visit to Djibouti.
In addition, recognition by the United States and, perhaps, the European Union "would not give Somaliland legitimacy in the eyes of other Somalis," said Ted Dagne, an expert on the Horn who works at the Congressional Research Service in Washington.
Relevant Links
East Africa Conflict, Peace and Security Somalia United States, Canada and Africa
Certification of Somaliland's independence would likewise encourage other centrifugal parts of Somalia to seek the same status, Mr Dagne added.
"What would be the containment mechanism to prevent there being four or five Somalias?" he wondered.
Offering a perspective similar to that of the State Deparment, Mr Dagne said, "At the end of the day, Somalia must develop some sort of federal structure that gives regional autonomy" to areas such as Somaliland
A debate is raging within the Bush administration over possible US recognition of Somaliland and a consequent shift away from its longstanding support for Somalia's Transitional Federal Government.
According to an unnamed senior US defence official quoted last week in The Washington Post, the Pentagon believes Somaliand should be independent."
The provocative remark was made in the course of Defence Secretary Robert Gates's visit to the base in Djibouti that houses the US military's Horn of Africa Task Force. The official made explicit reference to the disagreements between the State Department and the Pentagon on Somalia policy that seldom seep into the open.
The Horn of Africa Task Force is eager to carry out missions in Somaliland, but the State Department is standing in its way, added US Navy Captain Bob Wright.
"We'd love to," Captain Wright told the Post. "We're just waiting for State to give us the OK."
The anonymous Defence Department source who urged US recognition of Somaliland also criticised the current American approach of seeking to strengthen central authority in Mogadishu in hopes of quelling the chaos that has engulfed Somalia for the past 16 years.
"The State Department wants to fix the broken part first - that's been a failed policy," the Pentagon official asserted.
By contrast, the Defence Department source suggested, formal recognition of Somaliland would add a key element to an alternative US strategy of encirclement and containment.
Close collaboration between the United States and the three countries bordering Somalia - Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti - has apparently helped prevent attacks in East Africa by Al Qaeda militants who, Washington says, are able to find shelter in Somalia.
Islamists hostile to the United States remain powerful in parts of Somalia despite last year's US-backed invasion by Ethiopia that was intended to rout Islamist militias and to bolster the pro-Western TFG. For now at least, the Bush administration is continuing to focus on efforts to stabilise Somalia by supporting both the TFG and the Ethiopian occupation force.
Somaliland, an area in northwestern Somalia that unilaterally declared independence in 1991, enjoys the inter-clan tranquility that Somalia itself so ruinously lacks. Somaliland has also managed to put in place a democratically elected government. These achievements have come about with little or any assistance from the West while Somalia has remained a failed state despite having received hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of US and European aid.
"Somaliland is an entity that works," a Pentagon official told the Post during Mr Gates' stopover in Djibouti.
Some mid-level American officials have visited Somaliland in recent years and leaders of the breakaway territory have likewise come to Washington in search of aid and recognition.
But the US remains reluctant to accord Somaliland full diplomatic status partly out of concern that such a move would encourage the further fracturing of already-splintered and ungoverned Somalia.
Washington's unwillingness to endorse Somaliland's claim of independence also reflects US agreement with the African Union's policy of discouraging secessionist tendencies on the continent. Assistant Secretary of State Jendayi Frazer reiterated that position in the Post's December 4 story.
"We do not want to get ahead of the continental organisation on an issue of such importance," Ms Frazer said in an e-mailed response to questions posed by the Post reporter covering Secretary Gates's visit to Djibouti.
In addition, recognition by the United States and, perhaps, the European Union "would not give Somaliland legitimacy in the eyes of other Somalis," said Ted Dagne, an expert on the Horn who works at the Congressional Research Service in Washington.
Relevant Links
East Africa Conflict, Peace and Security Somalia United States, Canada and Africa
Certification of Somaliland's independence would likewise encourage other centrifugal parts of Somalia to seek the same status, Mr Dagne added.
"What would be the containment mechanism to prevent there being four or five Somalias?" he wondered.
Offering a perspective similar to that of the State Deparment, Mr Dagne said, "At the end of the day, Somalia must develop some sort of federal structure that gives regional autonomy" to areas such as Somaliland
Friday, December 28, 2007
Strategic Interests
Published 20 Jul 06
Strategic Interests
by J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.World Defense Review columnist
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION
Dangerous Fiction: A Tale of Two Cities, Part II
to Part I
Last week, I began this "Tale of Two Cities" by pointing to the danger inherent in confusing real effectiveness for the juridical fiction of international diplomatic recognition. Specifically, I argued that putting too much stock – and, in this case, almost any confidence is overreaching – in the reliability of the so-called "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG) of Somalia, a ragtag outfit camped out (at least at the time of this writing) in the town of Baidoa, as an ally in what may prove to be the inevitable battle against the Islamist radicals: Those who have seized control of Mogadishu and seem poised, even eager, to transform it into the fashionable pied-à-terre for global jihadi terrorists who haven't already found a home there (like Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Salih Nabhan, and Abu Taha al-Sudani, who are wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as 2002 attacks on Israeli civilians in Kenya).
Now I want to turn my attention to the flipside of that dangerous fiction and another town in the former Somalia. If there is grave risk in making believe a potential ally is worth anything just because he or she enjoys the benefits of international legal recognition, there is equal if not greater danger in failing to appreciate another potential partner's attributes just because he or she may lack that little bit of diplomatic cover.
This is the tale of Hargeysa, the capital of former British Somaliland Protectorate which achieved its independence in 1960 a full week before the former Italian colony of Somalia, entered into a disastrous (and for Somalilanders, quasi-genocidal) union with its larger relation, and, on May 18, 1991, as the rest of the former Somali Democratic Republic collapsed into a ruin from which it has yet to emerge, reasserted its sovereign independence as the Republic of Somaliland.
As I have previously noted, Somaliland's trajectory since has been nothing if not extraordinary, being characterized by both social stability and democratic politics – the northern region's progress standing in stark contrast to the free fall of the rest of the former Somalia. And despite being cut off from international financial institutions, direct bilateral assistance, and other sources of development and investment capital – all for want of diplomatic recognition – the Somalilanders have rebuilt Hargeysa, which was leveled during the Siad Barre regime's brutal campaign against them, and resettled close to one million of their displaced citizens. All of this has been done on remittances from the diaspora and the paltry $35 million that the government makes each year on transshipments from the port of Berbera to landlocked neighboring Ethiopia.
Needless to say, Somaliland's success has attracted the ire of both the ineffectual TFG in Baidoa and the Islamists in Mogadishu who repulsed both by its democratic constitution – Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys, head of the Islamists' majlis al-shura, has pronounced democracy "contrary to Islamic teachings" and "anti-Islam" – as well as the prominent role that women play in its politics (the foreign minister of the government in Hargeysa, for example, is a woman, Edna Adan Ismail).
The Islamist threat to Somaliland is existential, not theoretical. In 2003-2004, the same extremists who are now ensconced in Mogadishu purposely targeted four foreign aid workers in Somaliland. Last September, Somaliland's security services managed to foil a plot by the same radicals to disrupt the parliamentary poll by attacking voting stations and killing the seventy-six international observers, including seven Americans led by retired Ambassador Lange Schermerhorn. Fourteen of the terrorists have already been tried and convicted by Somaliland courts and a number of others have been taken into custody.
With this record, one would have thought Somaliland would be a natural ally for the U.S. and the international community in their efforts not only to contain the Islamists in Mogadishu, but also to orchestrate regional counterterrorism efforts. Alas, Somaliland is not yet recognized and hence does not figure into the perspective of those who prefer form over substance.
Meanwhile, the Somalilanders in Hargeysa are left to their own not-inconsiderable ingenuity while resources from the International Contact Group and others flows to the make-believe "government" in Baidoa that would have a hard time making a case that it was even the effective municipal authority of that provincial town. This last, rather inconvenient fact did not, of course stand in the way the UN Security Council from having its president for July, Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France, read out a statement last Friday reaffirming the TFG and its grain warehouse kaffeeklatsch of a "parliament" as "the internationally recognized authorities to restore peace, stability and governance to Somalia." One should not be surprised by the surrealism of the whole exercise when one considers that the habitués of Turtle Bay hardly batted an eye when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed François Lonseny Fall, the discarded prime ministerial puppet of General Lansana Conté of Guinea – itself a country well on its way to failed state status – as the world body's chief envoy for Somalia, arguably the most failed state on the planet.
The entire story has all the makings of an opera buffa, except the very real specter of global jihadi terrorism renders it more akin to a Greek tragedy where the obstinate refusal to look beyond certain conventions – in this case the "non-recognition" of Somaliland and the "recognition" of the TFG – condemns many of the characters to disaster.
In the interest of avoiding that fate for the peoples of Somaliland and Somalia, their neighbors, and the international community, I suggest that American policymakers pursue the following courses of action to address the security challenge at hand, at least in the short and intermediate terms as a more coherent long-term strategy towards the Horn of Africa is crafted:
First, we need to get beyond increasingly abstract discussions about "international recognition" and down to the concrete question of whether or not there is any utility in keeping the TFG's life support going (I happen to think that the patient should have been pronounced terminal some time ago, but perhaps someone else might be able to turn up signs of life). In the event that there is some use in supporting the TFG, the U.S. should make clear to "President" Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad and such followers as he may still have that American support for the TFG's "sovereignty" extends only as far as the TFG can make its heretofore entirely notional authority respected. The TFG needs to be disabused of any delusions that America supports any of its irredentist claims to the territory of Somaliland or is going to back its charade of claiming international standing.
Our only interest as Americans in supporting the gang in Baidoa at all is only insofar as it proves itself to be useful to our interests in general and effective as a counterweight to the Islamist radicals in Mogadishu in particular. Certainly we should expect that any assistance we choose to give will not be used by the TFG to undermine the one stable part of the former Somalia, Somaliland. If we provide the TFG with any support at all, it ought to be with this condition attached as well as the clear understanding that we expect results and will not hesitate to pull the plug on Baidoa should it not be found wanting in either respect for our preconditions or general effectiveness.
Second, the U.S. should somehow find the mechanism to help the government in Hargeysa build up its capacity to defend itself – and, indirectly, others – from the terrorist and other radical threats emanating from the rest of the former Somalia. I'd prefer direct engagement to build long-term ties, but could live with American resources getting where they need to go through some other channel, including private military companies.
The government of Somaliland President Dahir Rayale Kahin stretches its meager resources quite far, but it faces an almost overwhelming task of securing almost 1400 kilometers of land borders, including 500 kilometers directly opposite the Islamists in Somalia, with its logistically challenged and under-armed army (in contrast, as I have noted before, the Islamists are armed to the teeth). The Somaliland coast guard, under the Ministry of the Interior, has precisely three speedboats to patrol some 900 kilometers of coastline (not that I'd underestimate the effectiveness of the crews considering that this year alone they have stopped 184 Arab jihadis headed for Somalia). And Somaliland has a good intelligence service – the foiled terrorist campaign during the parliamentary election last year was only one recent triumph – but it lacks communications and other equipment that would increase its effectiveness.
Somaliland is an eager supporter in its region of America's counterterrorism efforts, going so far as to offer U.S. forces the use of the Cold War-era American facilities at Berbera on the Gulf of Aden. This offer may be critical in giving us a full range of options, especially since Foreign Minister Mahmud Yusuf of Djibouti – where the nearest U.S. forces, the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, is based – told the London-based al-Sharq al-Aswat newspaper that America will not be allowed to use the base in his country to take military action against the Islamist militants in Mogadishu.
In short, even aside from the moral imperatives of our national principles and commitments which ought to dispose us to look with sympathy on Somaliland's struggle for recognition of its democratically expressed self-determination, in a global war on terror where we are reduced to often buying "coalitions of the willing," why wouldn't the U.S. support a friendly secular democracy that is already voluntarily fighting America's enemies?
United States policy in the Horn of Africa needs to jettison the fictions, juridical and otherwise, that will bring nothing but disappointment in their wake. Our policy choices, while informed by America's ideals, should be driven by a realist concern for her interests that measures results by privileging effectiveness and rewarding positive progress. A war on terror is no place for wishful flights of fancy, much less potentially lethal fictions.
to Part I
– J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.
Dr. Pham is the author of over one hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).
In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies.
© 2006 J. Peter Pham
Strategic Interests
by J. Peter Pham, Ph.D.World Defense Review columnist
PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION
Dangerous Fiction: A Tale of Two Cities, Part II
to Part I
Last week, I began this "Tale of Two Cities" by pointing to the danger inherent in confusing real effectiveness for the juridical fiction of international diplomatic recognition. Specifically, I argued that putting too much stock – and, in this case, almost any confidence is overreaching – in the reliability of the so-called "Transitional Federal Government" (TFG) of Somalia, a ragtag outfit camped out (at least at the time of this writing) in the town of Baidoa, as an ally in what may prove to be the inevitable battle against the Islamist radicals: Those who have seized control of Mogadishu and seem poised, even eager, to transform it into the fashionable pied-à-terre for global jihadi terrorists who haven't already found a home there (like Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Saleh Ali Salih Nabhan, and Abu Taha al-Sudani, who are wanted for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania as well as 2002 attacks on Israeli civilians in Kenya).
Now I want to turn my attention to the flipside of that dangerous fiction and another town in the former Somalia. If there is grave risk in making believe a potential ally is worth anything just because he or she enjoys the benefits of international legal recognition, there is equal if not greater danger in failing to appreciate another potential partner's attributes just because he or she may lack that little bit of diplomatic cover.
This is the tale of Hargeysa, the capital of former British Somaliland Protectorate which achieved its independence in 1960 a full week before the former Italian colony of Somalia, entered into a disastrous (and for Somalilanders, quasi-genocidal) union with its larger relation, and, on May 18, 1991, as the rest of the former Somali Democratic Republic collapsed into a ruin from which it has yet to emerge, reasserted its sovereign independence as the Republic of Somaliland.
As I have previously noted, Somaliland's trajectory since has been nothing if not extraordinary, being characterized by both social stability and democratic politics – the northern region's progress standing in stark contrast to the free fall of the rest of the former Somalia. And despite being cut off from international financial institutions, direct bilateral assistance, and other sources of development and investment capital – all for want of diplomatic recognition – the Somalilanders have rebuilt Hargeysa, which was leveled during the Siad Barre regime's brutal campaign against them, and resettled close to one million of their displaced citizens. All of this has been done on remittances from the diaspora and the paltry $35 million that the government makes each year on transshipments from the port of Berbera to landlocked neighboring Ethiopia.
Needless to say, Somaliland's success has attracted the ire of both the ineffectual TFG in Baidoa and the Islamists in Mogadishu who repulsed both by its democratic constitution – Sheikh Hassan Dahir ‘Aweys, head of the Islamists' majlis al-shura, has pronounced democracy "contrary to Islamic teachings" and "anti-Islam" – as well as the prominent role that women play in its politics (the foreign minister of the government in Hargeysa, for example, is a woman, Edna Adan Ismail).
The Islamist threat to Somaliland is existential, not theoretical. In 2003-2004, the same extremists who are now ensconced in Mogadishu purposely targeted four foreign aid workers in Somaliland. Last September, Somaliland's security services managed to foil a plot by the same radicals to disrupt the parliamentary poll by attacking voting stations and killing the seventy-six international observers, including seven Americans led by retired Ambassador Lange Schermerhorn. Fourteen of the terrorists have already been tried and convicted by Somaliland courts and a number of others have been taken into custody.
With this record, one would have thought Somaliland would be a natural ally for the U.S. and the international community in their efforts not only to contain the Islamists in Mogadishu, but also to orchestrate regional counterterrorism efforts. Alas, Somaliland is not yet recognized and hence does not figure into the perspective of those who prefer form over substance.
Meanwhile, the Somalilanders in Hargeysa are left to their own not-inconsiderable ingenuity while resources from the International Contact Group and others flows to the make-believe "government" in Baidoa that would have a hard time making a case that it was even the effective municipal authority of that provincial town. This last, rather inconvenient fact did not, of course stand in the way the UN Security Council from having its president for July, Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sablière of France, read out a statement last Friday reaffirming the TFG and its grain warehouse kaffeeklatsch of a "parliament" as "the internationally recognized authorities to restore peace, stability and governance to Somalia." One should not be surprised by the surrealism of the whole exercise when one considers that the habitués of Turtle Bay hardly batted an eye when UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed François Lonseny Fall, the discarded prime ministerial puppet of General Lansana Conté of Guinea – itself a country well on its way to failed state status – as the world body's chief envoy for Somalia, arguably the most failed state on the planet.
The entire story has all the makings of an opera buffa, except the very real specter of global jihadi terrorism renders it more akin to a Greek tragedy where the obstinate refusal to look beyond certain conventions – in this case the "non-recognition" of Somaliland and the "recognition" of the TFG – condemns many of the characters to disaster.
In the interest of avoiding that fate for the peoples of Somaliland and Somalia, their neighbors, and the international community, I suggest that American policymakers pursue the following courses of action to address the security challenge at hand, at least in the short and intermediate terms as a more coherent long-term strategy towards the Horn of Africa is crafted:
First, we need to get beyond increasingly abstract discussions about "international recognition" and down to the concrete question of whether or not there is any utility in keeping the TFG's life support going (I happen to think that the patient should have been pronounced terminal some time ago, but perhaps someone else might be able to turn up signs of life). In the event that there is some use in supporting the TFG, the U.S. should make clear to "President" Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmad and such followers as he may still have that American support for the TFG's "sovereignty" extends only as far as the TFG can make its heretofore entirely notional authority respected. The TFG needs to be disabused of any delusions that America supports any of its irredentist claims to the territory of Somaliland or is going to back its charade of claiming international standing.
Our only interest as Americans in supporting the gang in Baidoa at all is only insofar as it proves itself to be useful to our interests in general and effective as a counterweight to the Islamist radicals in Mogadishu in particular. Certainly we should expect that any assistance we choose to give will not be used by the TFG to undermine the one stable part of the former Somalia, Somaliland. If we provide the TFG with any support at all, it ought to be with this condition attached as well as the clear understanding that we expect results and will not hesitate to pull the plug on Baidoa should it not be found wanting in either respect for our preconditions or general effectiveness.
Second, the U.S. should somehow find the mechanism to help the government in Hargeysa build up its capacity to defend itself – and, indirectly, others – from the terrorist and other radical threats emanating from the rest of the former Somalia. I'd prefer direct engagement to build long-term ties, but could live with American resources getting where they need to go through some other channel, including private military companies.
The government of Somaliland President Dahir Rayale Kahin stretches its meager resources quite far, but it faces an almost overwhelming task of securing almost 1400 kilometers of land borders, including 500 kilometers directly opposite the Islamists in Somalia, with its logistically challenged and under-armed army (in contrast, as I have noted before, the Islamists are armed to the teeth). The Somaliland coast guard, under the Ministry of the Interior, has precisely three speedboats to patrol some 900 kilometers of coastline (not that I'd underestimate the effectiveness of the crews considering that this year alone they have stopped 184 Arab jihadis headed for Somalia). And Somaliland has a good intelligence service – the foiled terrorist campaign during the parliamentary election last year was only one recent triumph – but it lacks communications and other equipment that would increase its effectiveness.
Somaliland is an eager supporter in its region of America's counterterrorism efforts, going so far as to offer U.S. forces the use of the Cold War-era American facilities at Berbera on the Gulf of Aden. This offer may be critical in giving us a full range of options, especially since Foreign Minister Mahmud Yusuf of Djibouti – where the nearest U.S. forces, the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, is based – told the London-based al-Sharq al-Aswat newspaper that America will not be allowed to use the base in his country to take military action against the Islamist militants in Mogadishu.
In short, even aside from the moral imperatives of our national principles and commitments which ought to dispose us to look with sympathy on Somaliland's struggle for recognition of its democratically expressed self-determination, in a global war on terror where we are reduced to often buying "coalitions of the willing," why wouldn't the U.S. support a friendly secular democracy that is already voluntarily fighting America's enemies?
United States policy in the Horn of Africa needs to jettison the fictions, juridical and otherwise, that will bring nothing but disappointment in their wake. Our policy choices, while informed by America's ideals, should be driven by a realist concern for her interests that measures results by privileging effectiveness and rewarding positive progress. A war on terror is no place for wishful flights of fancy, much less potentially lethal fictions.
to Part I
– J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs and a Research Fellow of the Institute for Infrastructure and Information Assurance at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is also an adjunct fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C. In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.
Dr. Pham is the author of over one hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).
In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies.
© 2006 J. Peter Pham
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
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