Existing states are probably uncomfortable with the precedent. If Somaliland is accepted as an independent state, then why not Taiwan? Why not Northern Cyprus? And if a state recognizes Somaliland then it may be harder to continue to not recognize South Ossetia or Kosovo.

Invictus caught the essence of the problem right there, it sets a precedent. No matter how good the precedent is, it's "politically inconvenient".

I agree with the opening...Somaliland is one of the few economically stable, liberal democratic states in Africa yet it has not been recognized. Personally, I don't believe international recognition is particularly important or should be valued, but Somilaland is a legitimate self-governing region since 1991, not a "breakaway republic" like South Ossetia which is propped up by the Russians or Northern Cyprus, propped up by the Turks. Furthermore, Somaliland is not nearly as politically charged or contested a region as, say, Taiwan. It's hypocritical for (mostly Western) countries to recognize Kosovo and then refrain from recognizing Somaliland.

International recognition does matter, what are you talking about.

Membership in international organizations, embassies, recognized passports and status in international law.. etc.

Also no looming threat of getting.. like... expropriated as little more than a pretender or squatter.

I am curious as to what the government of Somaliland and its average citizen thinks about the idea of union with Somalia - whether they want to stay away or whether they are just away for now until Somalia gets its shit together.

They took a poll in the early 2000s and the result was pretty overwhelmingly against union now or at any point in the future. The government is also very anti-federation. This post was actually prompted by a paper on that subject and the differences between Somaliland and Puntland, which is much more open to the idea of a federation(Like cantons in Switzerland, was what the paper argued).

"It's hypocritical for (mostly Western) countries to recognize Kosovo and then refrain from recognizing Somaliland."

All these issues are pretty much sui generis. Kosovo, for example, has the experience of the war with Serbia and a whole mess of NATO and UN agreements behind it. Apart from the fact that Somaliland is also a breakaway part of a larger state there really isn't too much of a parallel.

The appearance of similarity, however, it important. Because of Kosovo, Russia has a legitimate argument to make for its satellite statelets in Abkahazia and South Ossetia. Probably a losing one in legal terms, but a legitimate one. If the international community recognized Somaliland then Nagorno-Karabakh would have a stronger case for its independence, for example. The dominoes could keep falling, as Taiwan, Northern Cyprus, Transnistria, and God knows what other pumpernickel principalities seek independence on that principle. In some cases that might be the best thing possible for the people, but it would also create instability and that's why existing states are uncomfortable with extending recognition.

i'm pretty sure that Western nations should follow the lead of the locals, and regional independence shouldn't be undermined by western (or even eastern) declarations.

http://mg.co.za/article/2006-02-10-au-supports-somali-split

AU should make a decision on whether to recognise membership of Somaliland, and the UN should follow their call.

Whether an organisation like the EU should use diplomatic means to influence the AU is largely up to them...

Invictus, I understand your concern, and I can pretty well guess that this is the pragmatic reason why the UN has been reluctant to accept Somaliland independence to this point, but I don't think it would be that difficult to set up strict guidelines to assert that this is a special case. Serbia and Montenegro broke up without anyone suddenly raising a fit about Transnistria. Why would this be any different?

It would be different because Serbia was willing to let Montenegro go, and its separation was the end result of a long, legal process. Somaliland has broken off as a result of war and I'd bet that none of the groups attempting to control the rest of Somalia would take too kindly to the idea of a third of the country leaving.

Guidelines to make this be a special case are unworkable if you want to pretend that international law is independent of the interests of powerful states, or even not so powerful ones. Senegal probably wouldn't like the idea of an independent Somaliland due to the separatists it has in Casamance, and neither would Spain due to Catalonia. And let's not forget about the cases of Tibet and Chinese Turkestan, let alone Taiwan.

If your question is about what is the right thing to do then I would agree the people of Somaliland deserve self-determination and should be independent if they want to be. If your question is about why this hasn't happened it's because states are likely too wary of the precedent it may set and the effects the precedent may have on their interests, or even their national territory. It also doesn't help that Somaliland isn't exactly the most important place on the planet.

I agree that there ARE people who are afraid of "slippery slopes" but I think they're a bit misguided.

If there is any slippery slope, we are decidedly already on it, because whatever slope there is would just be the notion that a group of people in an area who want self-determination should have it.

People already hold that idea.

And there are also hypocrites on every side for different reasons.

So I don't think one more breakaway would really change much - the only exception I can see is if there is a very nearby area that is in a similar case. Puntland is the closest example you can have, but as someone said it's not really the same.

South Ossetia, Kosovo, Catalonia, Casamance, Taiwan - these are all too far to have that much of an impact.

The world already does independence on a case-by-case basis, so I think that the "slippery slope" argument (already in itself a weak kind of argument) is fairly unjustified.

But here again we run into the dueling ways to discuss an issue like this: What we as thinkers and people advocate ourselves, versus accurately describing and predicting the behaviors of others (the powerful and/or state actors in this case).

I would probably personally support independence for Somaliland, for many reasons already mentioned - their de facto independence is always a strong reason, and the chaos of the rest of Somalia is too.

But I don't think they will be getting recognition without some sort of watershed event - protests, violence, a peace deal in Somalia... something.

The distinction is one that stalks every conversation:

1) The drive to "explain" or describe a process accurately, the debate centers around whose reasoning and facts are accurate.

2) The drive to "justify" and advocate a normative position - the debate centers around the merits of the proposal and the motivations of the advocates. It's more opinionated and ethical than is the explanatory question.

It's too bad our language isn't set up better to facilitate this distinction more clearly, because I think it's a fairly fundamental one and can muck of a lot of otherwise good discussions.

Deal with Somalia would be ideal, however given the failure of that state i doubt them capable of implementing any deal even if they wanted to...

What is more frustrating is Ethiopia is allowed to occupy and destroy the Ogaden, and Kenya is allowed to hold onto the Northern Frontier District. Somalia should be a united nation, not separated into tiny fragments. The whole reason Somalia has not functioned as a state was they were never able to resolve the pan-Somali question. The war with Ethiopia devastated the country, flooding it with refugees, and politics reverted back to clan particularism. Northern Somalia wants independence because it is overwhelmingly Isaq, and they were a favored clan in the pre-colonial and colonial days, since the Isaq controlled the Pan-Arab livestock trade and were also administrative professionals who were frequently went overseas for work. They resented their loss of prestige after Moqdishu became the new hub of the republic.

If Somaliland becomes independent it should be conjunction with union with the Jibuti & the Ogaden. Those clans are very similar, the Dir (Issa really) and Isaq. That would make the state viable, as they would be in a strategic position for trade along the Gulf of Aden and be connected by rail to Addis Ababa.

Not the Ogaden, but Jibuti for sure.

Is Jibuti related at all the Djibouti.

Seems like Jibuti is an anglicization of Djibouti.

Whatever, Djibouti is French name that has no indigenous history whatsoever. The area should be called Adal or something. Not named after a French created settlement.

Fair enough but what does "Jibuti" refer to? I'm not very familiar.

It is spelled that way in all my books on Somalia.

Who's on first?

Oh. Weird. So it does mean Jibuti then I wasn't sure if it was a coincidence or something.

Could be that that's an Arabic transliteration or somesuch thing.

Anyway, why no on Somaliland?

I think a better solution is Greater Somalia, not more clanism.

Somalia is the only country on the planet carved up into five parts by four nations.

It'd also be an unbelievable act of hypocrisy if the world recognized Somaliland. Since they refused to consider changing territorial boundaries when the Somalilands were all claiming that the Ogaden & NFD should be returned to Somalia, claiming that they were inviolable and that the polyglot multi-ethnic state boundaries of Africa were at risk if Greater Somalia was allowed to take place, and that Greater Somalia was an affront to Pan-Africanism because all African countries needed to respect each other's boundaries, even if the boundaries were shady to begin with.

I'm all for pan-Africanism, and also for any type of political integration, but as it was pointed out, Somaliland was at one time a separate entity.

Pemster: At your original post, I agree wholeheartedly and get similarly frustrated. Just to give a small example, this state is strong enough to maintain naval patrols and thus keep pirates out of its waters. That's not something Puntland, Yemen, the TFG or the Islamists in the south have been able to do.

If you want a similarly abandoned, yet entirely legitimate state, take a look at the R.A.S.D. of the Saharawi people. At least there, though, there are many states that recognize it.

"Somaliland was at one time a separate entity. "

Due to colonial partitions. Why should these be ratified?

@Putin, what should country borders be based on?

I wonder if Putin33 would support a Somali state controlling the Ogaden if Ethiopia still had a communist government.

"Somalia should be a united nation, not separated into tiny fragments. The whole reason Somalia has not functioned as a state was they were never able to resolve the pan-Somali question. The war with Ethiopia devastated the country, flooding it with refugees, and politics reverted back to clan particularism."

The war that Somalia started by invading Ethiopia? If Somalia had been allowed to take the Ogaden it would have legitimized aggression as a legitimate way to solve disputes once more. Hardly a constructive precedent. I'm aware of the USA and USSR switching sides in supporting either state. Right now I'm just talking about the bigger picture, not the cynical realpolitik strategies of the Cold War both sides were guilty of.

And given the clan particularism that's been the rule for over twenty years, wouldn't it be a pretty safe bet that Somali nationalism is built on as shaky a foundation as Arab nationalism or pan-Slavism? Perhaps these people really aren't as close as some intellectuals have made them out to be and given the choice for self-determination they would rather be separate. It should be a united nation if the people actually want it and territories outside Somalia are brought in without aggression.


"If Somaliland becomes independent it should be conjunction with union with the Jibuti & the Ogaden. Those clans are very similar, the Dir (Issa really) and Isaq. That would make the state viable, as they would be in a strategic position for trade along the Gulf of Aden and be connected by rail to Addis Ababa."

Bavarians and Austrians are virtually the same, speaking the same sort of German and sharing innumerable cultural values. Does that mean that an independent Bavaria (people want it) needs to join Austria? By your logic with regards to Somaliland and Djibouti it does. You're also taking a wild leap that Djibouti would even want that land, and the soured relations with Somalia and Ethiopia (a union is a victory for Somali nationalism), or that Somaliland would want union with Djibouti. Going back to the Bavarian-Austrian example, these people are very, very similar but also see themselves as entirely distinct. Jumping the gun to a union just because it suits your romantic notions about a united Somali nation seems a bit silly.


"Due to colonial partitions. Why should these be ratified?"

The alternative is even more wars, and Africa has had enough of those. The lines drawn by the colonizers have to stay, since it's just too impractical to try and dissolve and create states on the scale necessary to make Africa a collection of nation-states like Europe, at least peacefully.

Putin - if you don't think the colonial boundaries matter in real space and time and not just in the head of dead white men - go to Senegal and cross into Gambia.

And google the Senegambian Confederation.

Thucydides: Doesn't the lack of a Senegambian Confederation disprove your point?

By the way, I haven't read Putin33's comments.

No - my point is that colonial boundaries DO matter, Putin's is that they don't, or should not.

Whether they should or not is beyond discussion, because they just do.

If they did not, Senegambia would have worked. Besides their colonial history, there is nothing about Gambia that makes it different from the rest of Senegal. But thanks to imperialism you have an English speaking sovereign slice of Senegal. And there isn't much that can be done about it.

One day we will see political integration all over the world, but you can't force it on people who don't want it. Well you can try I suppose, it does work sometimes. But there is so little about Somaliland that ties it to Somalia proper, it's hard to imagine that happening for me. If anything you would probably say that Somalia was integrated into Somaliland, not the other way around lol.

Holding to colonial partitions as iron-clad in the case of Somalia is particularly debilitating, and sets Somalia up for failure. Unlike virtually every other state, Somalia was cut into multiple pieces and colonized by not only European but African countries. To say there is no going changing this, that Somalia just has to deal with their particularly pernicious colonial set-up, is unjust. I mean, the people of the NFD voted overwhelmingly to be part of Somalia in 1962, and they were just ignored. Ethiopia implemented a scorched earth policy in the Ogaden, and I suppose they just supposed to ignore it.

The argument is that had Somali boundaries been adjusted and the Ogaden & Hurd areas, which were forcefully seized from Somalia by the Ethiopians, was returned, there would be "wars" and "African already has so many of them". Actually, they don't. Africa is remarkable for having very very few interstate wars. The wars plaguing Africa are civil wars, and how exactly have rigid colonial boundaries helped Somalia out with that? What could be more devastating than two decades+ of civil conflict and state collapse? Furthermore how has Ethiopia been helped either?

"I wonder if Putin33 would support a Somali state controlling the Ogaden if Ethiopia still had a communist government."

Actually, yes, I would. Somalia, people forget, was the Soviet Union's first and most loyal ally in sub-Saharan Africa under Siyyad Barre. Ethiopia, under the Derg, carried out the very same policy that the Emperor had carried out before with respect to its non-Aramhaic territories. The Ogaden rightfully belongs to the pastoralists, and keeping pastoralists away from important grazing grounds is economic strangulation.

"The war that Somalia started by invading Ethiopia? "

That's simplistic. Siyyad and Somalia were precluded from peaceful negotiation of the Ogaden issue. Over & over again their concerns were ignored by the OAU and the UN, because Ethiopia had great prestige due to WWII. When Selassie's vile regime collapsed when it ignored its own people starving in 1974, an organic rebellion sprung up in the Ogaden and Oromia. At first Siyyad ignore the rebels and didn't support them, wanting to see if he could negotiate with the Derg. But due to the brutal campaign of the Ethiopian state, refugees began pouring in, and the Ogadeni clan, which had always been an important clan within the Somali military, was agitated heavily to support the WSLF. Somalia didn't have much of a choice. The rebellion was going on anyway whether Somalia supported it actively or not, but if they didn't support it Somalia could face armed insurrection themselves. This was the only chance to do something about the Ogaden issue.

As for them not being close, the parliamentary government in 1960 openly agitated for Pan-Somali reunification and Somalia did everything it could, while still a state, to reunify its lost territories. The reason its flag is what it is, a five-pointed star, is because it refers to the five Somali territories. When allowed to vote on these issues, the Somali population in Djibouti advocated for reunification with Somalia, as did the NFD. The Ogadenis expressed their votes by rebelling against the Ethiopian state since 1960, when Somalia was formed.

"Jumping the gun to a union just because it suits your romantic notions about a united Somali nation seems a bit silly."

Invictus, you reduce every problem to what would be good for your international order. Nothing else matters. The regional particularities don't matter. The fact that Somalia risked everything for this so-called "romantic idea" doesn't matter.

What is remarkable is that it took 12 years for the Somali state to collapse after the devastating war, not that it did collapse. Clan particularism only really raised its ugly head toward the end when security completely broke down. Prior to that Mogadishu was remarkably agile at diminishing the loyalties of clan.