The country is a successful democracy that has reasserted its independence, and is pursuing peace and security, says Alun Michael
Give that Somaliland is such a beacon of democracy in Africa, your article seems to be unduly negative about the prospect of its recognition, saying that this will “infuriate” Somalia.
The former British Somaliland was given its independence in 1960 and chose to join with the former Italian Somaliland to form Somalia, while the former French Somaliland wisely chose to sit it out as Djibouti. Its reward, during the rule of the dictator Siad Barre, was death and destruction in the “hidden war”, a period when many were resettled to Britain (particularly Cardiff, where the first Somalis had arrived in the 1850s) from refugee camps, mainly in Ethiopia.
It is now 34 years since Somalilanders pushed back Barre’s army and reasserted its independence. Since then, we have seen several peaceful transitions from one president and party to another following elections.
In 2007, I led a UK parliamentary delegation, supported by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to Somaliland and we also visited the African Union in Addis Ababa to ask why it had not yet recognised Somaliland. The answer was that an internal report recommending recognition was gathering dust because some of its members feared that recognition might encourage breakaway provinces in other countries. But Somaliland is not a breakaway province – it’s a nation that reasserted its independence and has shown a capacity for building its own democratic institutions, pursuing peace and security, and fostering economic growth.
