Ignoring Somaliland’s Interests Damages US Interests

Hargeisa, 1 July 2009 – In order to get an idea of what is wrong with US policy towards Somalis, one only has to look at the title of the congressional hearing that took place on the 25th of this month: “Somalia: Prospects for Lasting Peace and a Unified Response to Extremism and Terrorism.”

Three problem areas immediately jump out of this title. First of all there is the obvious problem of whether there is a coherent entity called Somalia that can be approached as a single unit. For anyone who is familiar with the Somali situation, the answer is, of course, there is no such entity. The Obama administration often ignores this glaring fact, which gives its overall Somali policy the quality of being based more on wishful thinking than on reality. What is that wishful thinking? It is that there is a unified country called Somalia, with a legitimate government called the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) that governs all over the Somali territory, when in fact there is neither a unified country nor a legitimate government.

The second problem is that of peace. Clearly there is no peace in Somalia. So if the US says it is interested in bringing peace to Somalia, it is a rational even admirable thing. But the question that US policymakers have to answer is if they are really interested in establishing an enduring peace among Somalis, why they have not helped strengthen the peace in Somaliland by extending development aid to Somaliland and thereby showing all Somalis that indeed there is a peace dividend for those who take the path of peace instead of the path of the war?

The third problem is the problem of terrorism. It is this issue that is really driving US policy toward Somalis. But here, too, the US wants Somalis to protect US interests without any regard to Somali interests. As a matter of fact, it could even be said that the US wants Somalis to participate in their own disenfranchisement. This is clear from US policy toward Somaliland for the last two decades, whereby Somaliland has assiduously contributed to anti-terrorism, peace and democracy in the Gulf of Aden and Horn of Africa region without reciprocation from the US when it comes to development assistance, recognition, or even political engagement at a level commensurate with the growing geopolitical weight of Somaliland in the Horn of Africa.

The net result of this US policy of wishful thinking has been failure on two important fronts: it has failed to defeat terrorists in the south and has alienated many people in Somaliland. The invitation of both Somaliland and Puntland to the latest congressional hearing is a somewhat tacit admission of the failure of the previous approach of focusing US policy only on the TFG, but the fact that the US is still insisting on a “unified response” even at this late stage of the game, shows that the US is still attached to the previous policy though with some modification.

That modification is not enough for Somaliland, and that was probably why Somaliland declined to attend the congressional hearing as well as whatever talks that were scheduled behind the scene. As a democratically elected government, Somaliland’s government cannot allow itself to be perceived as one of the parties in Somalia’s conflict, because such behavior is unacceptable to Somaliland’s people who consider their country as sovereign country, not part of Somalia.

To make a long story short, US policy toward Somaliland whether in its previous form or in its latest modified form has been harmful to both Somaliland and the US. This policy does not take into account Somaliland’s interests. If the US wants to protect its interests in Somaliland, then it must also take into account Somaliland’s interests. Otherwise, the US may soon have a problem in Somaliland in addition to its big headaches in Mogadishu.

Source: Somalilandtimes