How a breakaway region of Somalia hopes to build a new country

 

 

By Paul Schemm December 26

By the afternoon, more goats than cars are to be found on the unpaved, sunblasted streets of Berbera, a sleepy port town on the Horn of Africa.

Yet this port is on the brink of a major expansion that not only could transform it into a regional transportation hub but also could fund the ambitions of a peaceful, orderly swath of Somalia to build its own state.

While Somalia descended into chaos after its government collapsed in 1991 and was racked by famine, clan warfare, piracy and later the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab insurgency, the northern half split off and formed its own country.

Although no nation officially recognizes it, Somaliland has its own police, army, flag and currency, and for the past 24 years has held regular elections for parliament and a president.

Somaliland has survived on money sent from its diaspora and livestock sales to Arab countries. It has a relatively weak government with a tiny budget that rules in consensus with the local clans.

Many in the country, however, feel that model has run its course. With high unemployment and a great deal of outward migration, Somaliland needs more income to survive and develop, they say — and the answer is to link its future to the far stronger economy next door, Ethi­o­pia.

The position of the international community, including the United States, is to help Somalia get back on its feet and reassert control over Somaliland. The people here, however, say that will never happen — many remember thebombing campaign carried out by Mogadishu in 1988 that flattenedSomaliland’s capital of Hargeisa when the region tried to secede.

“I’ll never forgive them for the bombing,” said Hassan Mohammed, a gray-bearded retired civil servant, as he stood in the center of town before a monument of a downed MiG-17 fighter that took part in the bombing.

For the 70 percent of Somaliland’s population of 3.5 million born since 1991, the idea of being ruled by a country rife with piracy and Islamist insurgency is a nonstarter.

For them, Mogadishu is something that happens on the news. It is a long way from the vibrant cafes of Hargeisa, where WiFi is plentiful and money changers sit behind stacks of currency in the main market with no guards in sight.

“Somaliland has achieved what it has achieved with limited assistance from the international community, in stark contrast with the billions poured into Mogadishu,” said Mahmoud Jama, the Somaliland ambassador to Ethiopia. “We think the international community has been flogging a dead horse for a long time, as far as Mogadishu is concerned.”

[The struggle to survive in Somaliland]

Landlocked Ethiopia has been looking to diversify its access to the sea for a while. About 90 percent of its trade goes through Djibouti, a tiny country with a huge port that rakes in around $1.5 billion in port fees from Ethiopia every year. Somaliland’s plan is to divert 30 percent of that trade through Berbera.

“They need access to a port, that’s something we know, and we are trying to leverage it,” said Sharmarke Jama, the trade and economic adviser to Somaliland’s foreign ministry. “It’s not just the road to the port, it’s the whole relationship.”

A memorandum of understanding on customs and transit was signed by Somaliland and Ethiopia a year ago, and its implementation is expected soon — even as negotiations have bogged down over which international company will provide the money and expertise to expand the port.

French ports company Bolloré has been in talks to expand and run the port for years, but different factions in the Somaliland government are now pushing other candidates, including the Dubai-based DP World.

The man responsible for running Berbera Port for the past 20 years, Ali Omer, said that it is too early to bring on a foreign partner — better to wait and negotiate from a position of strength.

Trade through the port has been increasing by 20 percent to 30 percent annually for the past few years.

“The idea is to start handling cargo with Ethiopia now, put the cargo through the road for the next year or so, and everything will be fine and then negotiate,” he said in his expansive office at the port.

Expensive renovations

But a lot has to happen to Berbera Port, which now handles less than 5 percent of Ethiopia’s trade, before the ships arrive. And the road to the border through Somaliland’s desert scrublands is a pitted stretch of asphalt cut in several places by sandy river beds. It looks ill-prepared for major truck traffic.

This kind of infrastructure is expensive, with estimates to refurbish the 300-kilometer (180-mile) road running about $300 million — Somaliland’s current annual budget — while the port expansion would be at least another $200 million.

Somaliland doesn’t have the kind of money for such projects and, unlike other developing countries, doesn’t have access to international financial institutions to borrow. Its largest foreign donor is Britain, its former colonial power, whose aid agency, the Department for International Development, is advising it on how to develop Berbera Port and the Berbera corridor for truck traffic to and from Ethi­o­pia.

The European Union was set to hold a fundraising conference for the road last month, but that was postponed after the Somali government demanded a voice in a project in what it maintained was still its territory.

“Sometimes the Mogadishu government tries to create problems when it comes to aid and development for Somaliland, even though in the last meeting in Djibouti they agreed to keep development out of politics,” Somaliland’s foreign minister, Saad Ali Shire, said in an interview.

The projected increase in trade at the port would give the government the means to develop the self-declared country and make it more difficult for the international community to continue to withhold recognition, officials think.

The port remains a sensitive issue — after all, it provides 75 percent of the government’s budget — and local Berbera clans fear they will lose power and influence if a foreign company comes in.

 

Decisions ahead

But Jama, the trade adviser, said a short list of potential port operators would be finalized by the end of this month with a final decision by April.

Mohammed Farah, of Somaliland’s Association for Peace and Development think tank, said the only way the port and corridor project will succeed is if the central government starts acting more like a true state.

“Without challenging the clan system, you cannot have economic development,” he said.

Until that happens, Somaliland’s economy will likely limp along, with its unrecognized status keeping away most international investors.

Abidrazak Mohammed, a Somalilander who grew up in London, sold his IT company and together with Malaysian partners is building a meat-processing plant to export this region’s renowned livestock around the world.

It took him a long time to convince his partners that there were two Somalias, with Somaliland very different from its southern cousin.

“The world has to realize that Somaliland is peaceful, it’s functioning, it’s a state you can do business with,” he said.

Read more

Somalia’s godfathers: pirates rich on ransoms

In Somalia, an exodus of the educated

Kerry makes historic Somalia visit to show U.S. support

That is Somaliland!

IS SOMALILAND A NEW HAVEN FOR REFUGEES? SYRIANS SAY MAYBE

 

Some 300 Syrian refugees have chosen to make the self-declared Horn of Africa nation their home, hoping to avoid the seemingly difficult trek to Europe and life in a refugee camp.

December 6, 2015

By Katie Riordan, Contributor

REUTERS/Feisal Omar

HARGEISA, SOMALILAND —Abdulrahman Al Khalaf and his wife are used to starting over. The couple, then unmarried, left Syria over 20 years ago for fear of political persecution under former President Hafez Al Assad.

They sought refuge in Yemen and built a comfortable life for their two daughters on Mr. Al Khalaf’s $1,500 monthly salary as a restaurant manager. The pair observed from afar as protests broke out in Syria in early 2011.  It soon turned bloody, and there was no going home. Then war came to Yemen in March.

“We didn’t have any place else to go but here,” Al Khalaf says from his newly rented home in Somaliland’s capital Hargeisa. He plans to open a bakery as a part of a burgeoning business community and put down roots in a country which a few months ago he didn’t know existed.

Amid a grinding civil war, Syrian refugees are facing tightening visa restrictions in neighboring Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan, as well as a political backlash against refugees in the US and Europe. The hunt for safe havens has pushed Syrians to unfamiliar corners, such as the breakaway state of Somaliland, an unexpected alternative for a small number of refugees.

“There are [millions of displaced Syrians], you cannot tell me the world doesn’t know [how to help us],” says Abdulqader Dabaq Kabawat, a Aleppo-born doctor who came to Somaliland a year ago to work at a radiology clinic, seeking a life outside a refugee camp.

In the late 1980s, this Horn of Africa nation was itself a source of refugees, as it fought for independence from Somalia. As a result, officials say the country has a welcoming stance on other refugee populations, including two of the most recent, Syrians and Yemenis. While Yemenis fleeing war are arriving by boat in their thousands, Syrians are arriving by air.

“Somaliland knows they hosted us in Syria,” says Immigration Commissioner Maxamed Cali Yuusuf, who says there are about 300 Syrians in Somaliland.

Although its incipient government offers limited services, Mr Yussuf says Syrians have found a way to make it on their own in Somaliland and remain a welcomed slice of diversity. But it remains tough to make a home here, given the limited resources and a sense of isolation amid a close-knit Somali culture.

Choosing Somaliland

Most Syrians that arrived before the war were men who worked as dentists and other skilled jobs, filling a gap in a country with  few skilled professionals and youth unemployment of 70 percent.

But as Syria’s war spread, a return home became unfeasible, so men employed here decided to bring their families to Somaliland.

Others, like Yasser, an engineer from Dier ez-zor, heard from friends that there might be jobs. He had seen friends stuck in refugee camps in Lebanon, and instead took a risk on a country that most confuse with its war-torn neighbor Somalia.

“I searched Wikipedia,” says Yasser who asked his last name not be used for fear of his family’s safety in Syria. “Wow, I thought, Somalia is a terrible place. I’ll be going from one war to another.”

But once he realized Somaliland was safe and had its own president, passports, and currency, he took the plunge. The country was desperate for engineers for major projects like the upgrading of Hargeisa’s airport in 2012.

Today, he feels differently. As the war in Syria drags on, the idea of return has faded and the daily hardships of life here grate.  As a single man in his 30s, Yasser, who works as a translator for a construction company, is also lonely and finds Somaliland’s conservative culture limiting.

He worries that his job might end and he could no longer send money to his parents back in Syria. He says his hometown is now controlled by the Islamic State.

“Sometimes I think about my friends going to Europe,” he says. “They get refugee status. But what do I do if I go there?”

Mr. Kabawat, the doctor, is experiencing a similar crisis. When work with his contractor fell through five months in, he worried that he would lose his visa, though immigration officials familiar with his case say that he doesn’t risk expulsion. And he says that despite his decades of experience and a lack of doctors in Somaliland, he is at a disadvantage due to tribal patronage.

But Al Khalaf, the former restaurant manager remains hopeful that Somaliland could be a new start for his twice-displaced family. Even before he opens his bakery, his wife is selling homemade Syrian sweets at a local market.

“Here you have entrepreneur opportunities, the country is booming,” he says. But for Syrians everywhere, “if you don’t have money, you cannot live anywhere.”

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

Somaliland: Is It Democracy or Hypocrisy?

We agree to walk in to political maze, or to the confusions we had experienced the days that Udub party had dissolved in to nothing, or Fragments of Ucid Party sought to get another name for their political aspirations. Because,  it appears that we are happy with the political context regardless its continuing contradiction to our constitutional content. The right to political participation is nothing more than an empty word scratched in the legal pages, when the reality shows that it is in Silanyo’s kitchen or in Faysal Ali Warabe’s briefcase.

A county, where it is a common for a political party to reflect the desire of a given clan, or the coalition of certain clans which seeks the benefits of the political power at the expense of other citizens, is my country. It happens here, where selfish individuals and blood-corporations strife to dominate the destiny of the Majority under the misleading status of their clans. In this regard, the contextual democracy in which the voters are not intellectually free from the baseless prejudices of clan mythology, from the ancient revelations of war-ensuing poets who never used to live in a complex, congested, urban dominated world like me, is not a democracy.

Those who argue that clan institutions are the nuts and bolts of Somaliland Politics are really hijacking the political discourse for their short-living aims. Yes, when all State institutions collapsed, clans where the only remained social institution that represents the people in the post-war period. They were the starting point of our state-building or in pre-constitutional stage, but not the ends of our statehood in the future.

But when there is a prevailing political incompetency, the demand for free-size political suits could be a dominant in the market. Then, Somaliland’s Political race course, is conceded to accommodate clan-activists who only know how to speak to their clans. Clans are the strategic engagements for those who neither have the guts nor talents to come up with personalities and persuasive political rhetoric that would attract broader support from the public at large.

Recently, experiences suggest that our traditional, consensus-based approach of our conflict management appears to be unproductive, while the Constitutional Court is used as an alternative forum for the solutions of non-legal,  political conflicts. We have seen the parliamentary quarrels mounting up to the extent that Speaker and his deputy scuffled before the cameras.  What a pointless experience!

People are too tired of towing the sea-drifted democracy that guarantees nothing more than fruitless and outdated elections. A democracy whose agenda proves to be excluded from the social matters that affects the lives of every citizen is not democracy but a disguised hypocrisy.

Mohamed Ahmed Abdi Ba’alul (Somaliland Informer)

About Somaliland!

THINK AGAIN: Is Somaliland still a good news story?

"In Somaliland, most politicians are known by their nicknames. So President Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud is ‘Silanyo,’ which translates to ‘skinny lizard’ – a throwback to his youth when he was tall and slim. President Silanyo is not skinny anymore, however, and nor should he be president – his term in office was supposed to expire on 26 June 2015.

But after the scheduled elections were repeatedly postponed, Silanyo is still in charge, and no one is particularly surprised. Although Somaliland is famed for its regular, peaceful elections – an oasis of peace and democracy in a region usually associated with authoritarianism and conflict – almost every election in its history has been subject to lengthy delays.

Somaliland’s last parliamentary elections, for example, were conducted in 2005, meaning that the current crop of representatives have served for five years longer than intended. The last presidential election (won by Silanyo), was originally scheduled for March 2008, but only took place more than two years after.

True to form, then, Somaliland’s upper house of parliament – the Guurti, or House of Elders – unilaterally extended the term of Silanyo’s internationally unrecognised government by 22 months, over the protests of opposition parties.

The habit of delaying elections illustrates the fragility of Somaliland’s progress

TWEET THIS

This habit of delaying elections illustrates the fragility of Somaliland’s progress. For more than 20 years, Somaliland has been the quintessential good news story in the Horn of Africa, proof that stability, development and relatively good governance is possible in the region. Its successes contrast sharply with the repeated failures of governments in Somalia, of which Somaliland is technically a part.

However, there are signs that Somaliland’s famed unity and stability are beginning to crack: small warnings that all is not right in the self-declared republic. The major shadow is Somaliland’s continued failure to receive any form of recognition from the international community. Somaliland views itself as an independent, sovereign nation, but this view is not officially shared by anybody else – and now Somalilanders are getting impatient.

‘The lack of recognition and development is an impediment on all issues related to development and aid. It might trigger hostilities of some kind. We have a lot of unemployment; a lot of poverty. People can’t wait forever. We don’t know what to expect,’ said Foreign Minister Mohamed Bihi Yonis in an interview with the Institute for Security Studies. Yonis’ argument is that the dream of international recognition is a powerful unifying force in the territory, and that this unity could fracture once it becomes clear that the dream is unattainable.

The dream of international recognition is a powerful unifying force in Somaliland

TWEET THIS

For now at least, recognition for Somaliland is simply not on the international agenda. The African Union (AU) is firmly behind the Somali Federal Government in Mogadishu – and weary of encouraging other secessionist movements across the continent. Other countries are following the AU’s lead. ‘Even if we wanted to recognise Somaliland, we couldn’t as long as the AU doesn’t,’ commented a western diplomatic source in Addis Ababa.

Another potentially destabilising factor is the changing nature of Islam in Somaliland. Over the last two decades, the Salafist school of Islam – more radical and puritan than Somaliland’s traditional Sufism – has become more popular and extremely influential. ‘Salafism is a very serious threat. It’s not obvious or openly organised as a political wing, as it is in most Muslim societies. Somaliland is not an immediate hotspot. But it will become one if the democratic system is not seen to work,’ said Dr Hussein Bulhan, President of Hargeisa’s Frantz Fanon University.

Bulhan worries that that radicals may seize on Somaliland’s failure to organise timeous elections, and its failure to obtain international recognition, to push for a different system of government entirely. Not all commentators agree, however. ‘Political Islam is a very important issue. We are not an island. Political Islam in the Middle East has an influence in Somaliland. But political Islam is not unified, and extremism of any kind has not had any space here,’ said Mo Farah, Executive Director of Somaliland’s oldest think tank, the Academy for Peace and Development. ‘It could be a long-term challenge, but not in the coming 20 to 30 years. We don’t see any formal political structure that these groups might represent. They have a great influence in business and education, but less in politics.’

Somaliland still needs all the help it can get if it is going to maintain its positive trajectory

TWEET THIS

Somaliland’s biggest existential threat, however, remains Somalia proper – at least in the eyes of the territory’s political and civil society leaders. ‘The foremost threat is that Somalia still thinks that Somaliland belongs to it. Somalia may try and get Somaliland back by force once it is stronger, and this would be a popular decision for any government in Mogadishu,’ said Guleid Ahmed Jama, a lawyer with the Human Rights Centre.

There is little sign of this happening in the near future, however, as Somalia’s government remains weak and dependant for its authority on the African Union Mission in Somalia. It is, however, a long-term issue for both Somalia and Somaliland – and one that neither side is eager to address. Turkish-brokered peace talks have gone nowhere, with neither side offering a compromise position. Somalia insists that Somaliland is part of its sovereign territory, while Somaliland insists on full independence. As Somalia gets stronger, this issue is only likely to become more serious.

Somaliland’s reputation for stability and democracy is well deserved, earned the hard way over more than two decades. It’s important to remember, however, that the territory’s progress is not irreversible, and that Somaliland still needs all the help it can get if it is going to maintain its positive trajectory. Long may the good news story continue."

Simon Allison, ISS Consultant

Go Somaliland!

Somaliland - Going it Alone - A functional part of a dysfunctional country

                                           She can always dream

"SAHRA HALGAN, a musician, fled Hargeisa in northern Somalia in 1991. The city she left was a smoking ruin; most of the population was scattered. But in 2013, after 22 years living in France and working as a cleaner, she felt the urge to return. “I love France, but my country is called Somaliland,” she says. And so she set up a restaurant. At weekends, it fills up with Coca-Cola-sipping young men in smart shirts and women in bright silk head-dresses. Musicians strum the lute-like oud and sing folk songs, as plates of camel meat and spiced rice circulate and the audience hold up their iPhones to take selfies.

Stories such as Ms Halgan’s abound in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a breakaway region which declared independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991. Unlike Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia proper, Hargeisa is broadly safe, and undergoing a remarkable economic boom. On its dusty streets, goats compete for space with Land Cruisers; new businesses such as “the English Beauty Salon” and “the Scandinavian hotel” are everywhere. In cafés Somalis with accents from London, Minnesota and Amsterdam sip frappuccinos. The boom is an indicator of how successful other parts of Somalia could be if the fighting could be stopped. But it also comes with tensions that could undermine the fragile peace.

Almost every building in Hargeisa has been constructed in the past two decades. In the city centre a Russian-built MiG is mounted on a crudely painted plinth: a relic from the Somali civil war, which ran from the late 1980s until 1991, when the city was comprehensively destroyed by Siad Barre, Somalia’s last military dictator. The war convinced many that they wanted nothing to do with any government in Mogadishu. On the plinth is the date “26th June”, the day on which, in 1960, Somaliland gained its independence from Britain, five days before it formally joined Somalia, newly independent from Italy. Most Somalilanders think the union was a mistake.

 

Recovery began with refugees sending money home through the hawala system (see related article). It accelerated dramatically in 2009, when Saudi Arabia lifted a nine-year ban on imports of livestock from Somalia. Last year some 5m animals were exported, more than for 20 years. The animal trade generates money which can be spent on consumer goods: shops are full of Vietnamese clothes and Chinese electronics. That in turn creates opportunities for investment, and so diaspora Somalis who had previously mostly sent money home began to set up businesses. They have helped to build a world-class mobile-phone network, a fibre-optic broadband link to Djibouti and a mobile-money system which is one of the most widely used in Africa.

Mahdi Abdi moved to Hargeisa in 2013 from the suburbs of Washington, DC; he had left Mogadishu in the 1970s as a teenager. In his American twang, he jokes about his mid-life crisis. “I had the house in the ’burbs, the dog, the business, everything.” But Hargeisa seemed more exciting. In his dental clinic he proudly shows off imported equipment with which he can build proper crowns and dentures—unknown until now in Somaliland.

Those who have lived abroad have plenty of advantages. Those with foreign passports can travel to business meetings. In a country where the local currency is traded in brick-sized bundles, they have greater access to foreign money (almost all large transactions are dollarised). Most of all they have education, which, 20 years after the civil war, is sorely lacking. More than a dozen universities have opened in Hargeisa over the past decade or so, hawking degrees to hopeful youngsters (the median age in Somalia is around 17). But few trust their quality.

But not all members of the diaspora are welcome. Newcomers are buying up land, pushing up property prices—which, in a country with a creaking legal system, can lead to bloody disputes. Their teenage children, whom Somalilanders often send home for the summer, are accused of flashing money around, flirting and generally making a nuisance of themselves. And tension simmers between two different diaspora groups: Westerners, and those from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the other Gulf states. Like Mr Abdi and Ms Halgan, Westerners tend to get busy setting up businesses such as cafés, restaurants and clinics. Those back from the Gulf, by contrast, are more involved in the import and export trades, livestock and the construction industry—through which they can exert a worrying political influence.

“This society used to be half-African, half-Muslim, not too deeply religious,” says one well-connected Somalilander. “Now the Wahhabis are everywhere.” The country’s early democracy has faltered: an election in Somaliland planned for this year has been delayed, ostensibly because of problems organising it. Corruption is endemic, and the media is seldom critical. Dissent is increasingly dangerous, particularly on the fraught issue of national identity. On September 27th, four musicians were arrested on their return to Somaliland: they had apparently waved a Somalian flag at a gig in Mogadishu. They were released only after widespread protests.

Still, life remains much better than in Mogadishu, where car-bombs and shootings continue to punctuate the night. The question is what happens next. Independence, most think, is a pipe-dream: politicians in Mogadishu are unlikely to want to lose a substantial chunk of the country. African neighbours such as Ethiopia, whose troops guarantee security in much of the rest of Somalia, will not approve either; nor, for that matter, will the West. No country has yet recognised Somaliland’s self-declared independence. But for a million or so Somalis living abroad, Hargeisa offers a model for how they might return to their homeland and to try to rebuild. If only the rest of Somalia could catch up." _ The Economist

Recognition of Somaliland

" Dear Patriot and Friend,

If you’re getting this message, then you’re considered one of the many privileged individuals who would actually believe in the perceived betterment of our autonomous, will-become-a-country, region of Somaliland. I don’t know if you might have realized or not, but statistics are not looking good for our homeland. I have read a lot of articles online recently, none of which actually preludes our country as a country. Therefore, we have to marshal our powers of patriotism and resilience, limited as they may be, to do something for our country. Like it or not, the future of this country rests on our hands, so might as well just embark on that journey right now. I agree, it might get dreadful and some of us will give up.


However, I refuse to accept that our leaders who died so that we can live a better life didn’t do so just so we can get rich and be that way. I refuse to accept to just stand there and watch when my country crumbles. I refuse to accept it. Therefore, my notion is simple, dear reader. All you have to do is take a picture with a poster that reads your name, I am a Somalilander, and what Somaliland means to you. For example, my names is X, I am a Somalilander, and Somaliland means the world to me (I’m sure you’ll come up with ones that are far more creative than that).



My goal is that by the end of this year, the whole world will know what Somaliland is and there are millions of people that it defines. We refuse to be called Somalia, just because we are not. Therefore, the choice is yours; in the eyes of the world, you can be a Somalilander or a Somalian. Your choice. If this peeked your interest, then maybe sharing it with your family and/or friends wouldn’t be a crime.


Thank you,


A Somaliland Citizen"