The Thirty-Year Hiatus In The Somalia State – OpEd
And we are in the second day of the first month of the new year and it should have represented for Somalis, like all the people of the world, a day of joy and not one of shedding crocodile tears over the signing of a peaceful potential leasing of a port to its permanent neighbor, Ethiopia yesterday, the first day of the new year 2024.
How could they have easily forgotten that barely a month ago, the Federal Government of Somalia, signed away its sovereignty by joining the EAC, which is expected to convert itself into the new country to be called the East African Federation, on November 24th, 2024? The signing of the MOU between Ethiopia and Somaliland should have thrown the country and people into a sharp relief that at least they are alive and kicking and that they can sign other agreements with one of their natural Cushitic sister countries.
The inept Federal Government, which participated in a three partite discussion in Djibouti a day earlier in Djibouti involving Somalia, Djibouti and Somaliland could not deny that it could have been part of the development of this MOU with Ethiopia, yet it is throwing tantrums when those who have failed to create a symbol of governance in their country for over thirty years went into those tantrums and false wailings. They did not make such cries when the port of Berbera was signed away and leased for over sixty years to the UAE or when the port of Bossaso was again signed to the same UAE for a similar period, and when the port of Mogadishu was signed away to the Turks for, again, a similar period. What is wrong with our neighbor, Ethiopia, with whom we can live in peace together and prosper together?
Was it not barely about twelve years ago when one of the Presidents of Somalia signed away part of its sea to Kenya and it had taken years and a costly defense process in the International Court of Justice in the Haque to recover at least only part of the sea and not the total sea of the country? But they are also aware that the port of Kismayo is under the control of Kenya, and they do not even show that they care. But they also know that there is pressure and a lot of pressure on the Southwest State of Somalia to sign away the port of Barawe to the UAE again, that foxy country, which takes advantage of the weakness of the Somali State and under the leadership of one they own, the Current President of Somalia, and who literally cannot stay away from them and cannot refuse them anything for some reason or other.
This is a clear manifestation of the weaknesses and hypocrisy of the Somali and how they have lost their way, when they embarked on the clan competition for power and destroyed whatever semblance of state they had before. Was it not Somalia, the country whose help and assistance many other African countries and liberation fronts sought in their liberation struggles? Was it not Somalia who assisted many Arab countries before their new found wealth took roots? Was it not Somalia that changed the borders that colonial Europe left in the region and created its own as opposed to any other country in the continent of Africa?
That Somalia is no longer in place and the country suffers from the ravages of civil war, economic decay, threats of climatic changes, clan-based governance infrastructures and attempts from the country’s pseudo-leadership to install a dictatorship in its ongoing constitutional change processes. It also suffers from imported religious terrorism and interference in its affairs from mere ambassadors in the Halane enclave of Mogadishu, guarded by the African ATMIS, soon to be replaced by, probably, a UN peace mission, and no one raises a voice or a finger against all these.
There is little or no justification for reasonable people to applaud the ongoing false cry of the Federal Government of Somalia and its pundits who have helped shape the current clan-based political map and governance of the country and the moronic civil service it presently enjoys, with no skills or training or experience. All the efforts of the country in its recovery process, if there is, indeed, a recovery appear to be a fool’s errand.
All the ambitions to create and secure and pluralistic governance system have resulted over the past three decades in the rise of terrorism, attempts to re-invigorate autocracy, and economic decay and aggravation, thereof. This has only led to more miseries in the country, and instabilities and, indeed, violence within the larger state and within the clan states of the country. The Hirshabelle State, Puntland, and Jubaland are some of the regions where violence is a daily mishap.
Somalia has become a country where facts do not matter anymore and where appearances of those who have helped create them, inhabit their realities. It is a country that lost its way long ago and perhaps, Somalis should stand back from the abyss they are overlooking before their country falls over. Somalia is located in an important geostrategic location and is endowed with substantial wealth both above soil and sub-soil and it enjoys an immense blue economic future. It should be sharing this with its neighbors who also house millions more of Somalis like Ethiopia, Djibouti and Eritrea and not with the Swahili world further away from the region such as the DR Congo or Uganda or even Tanzania. These neighbors like Ethiopia would share with the country their wealth as well such as its vast agricultural base, its cheap energy and plenty of reasonably priced labor.
We agree that no single country can at present live comfortably in its laurels alone and countries are gathering in groups. Somalia is fully aware of this matter, but it has taken the wrong group to join. Perhaps this is what is bothering the current federal authorities of the country, for they have made commitments to the EAC which the Somaliland MOU with Ethiopia disturbs. We always argued that proper studies and research should be made before launching any such project. That was ignored and hence the departing of ways among the Somalis. The Somaliland MOU should not, therefore, be a surprise. It is perhaps a way of Somalia offering the independence of Somaliland from Somalia without declaring it, itself and to placate its critics in the country, it has to blame Ethiopia, for if it was genuine in its crocodile tears, it could probably have recognized Awdal State or for that matter SSC state within Somaliland. That did not happen and is unlikely to happen. But the separation of the two main partners in the union of Somalia, Somaliland and Somalia in 1960, is now properly about to close the more than thirty-year hiatus in the Somali State governance.
