By Osman Hassan

18 May is once again upon us. It is the sad, shameful day in 1991 when one Somali clan had gone astray.  It is the day, following the collapse of the Somali State, that the one-clan based rebel Somali National Movement(nothing national about them), hailing from the relatively tiny triangular area bounded by the towns of Hargeisa, Burco and Berbera, declared their secession from Somalia. In doing so, they laid claim to the whole of the NW region as their clan dominion, calling it its former defunct colonial name of “Somaliland”. All unionist clans in the NW region (former British Somaliland) that stood in their way were to be occupied and forced to submit to their secession using the arsenal of the disintegrated Somali National army that they laid their hands on.

The unionist western region, Awdal, defenceless and the nearest to Hargeisa, was chosen as the easiest prey for the Somali National Movement (SNM) militia to flex their newly acquired military muscle and subject this region to indiscriminate atrocities at a time when there was little resistance to their aggression. The intention was partly to punish this region and avenge its loyalty to the ousted government of President Mohamed Siyad Barre; and partly as the first step to establish a clan regional hegemony in the NW region;  but above all it was meant to send a message to the strongly recalcitrant unionist clans in Somalia’s regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC) of what to expect if they did not fall into line and surrender to SNM and its secession declaration. That warning was not heeded for more than two decades, and in the end the SNM-led Somaliland militia launched their long-awaited offensive and, with Puntland’s connivance, captured Lascanod, the regional capital of the SSC regions, in October 2007.

Ever since then, on May 18th, the clan takes leave of all reason and restraint and goes on a collective self-deluding ritual, in the enclave and among its diaspora abroad, to commemorate it as their deliverance, as they see it, from their membership of Somalia where they were unhappy to be one among equals when they could be the top dog  and lord over others in their own separate self-declared “independent Somaliland”. To the surprise of outsiders, May 18th has come to be venerated as a quasi “sacred” day more important than 26 June, the day of Somaliland’s independence from Great Britain in 1960 – their rationale being that 26 June led not to happiness but to the “detested” union with Italian Somaliland, while 18 May ushered their breakaway from it and nirvana.

It is 25 years to this day since the secession was declared and the phantom “Republic of Somaliland” proclaimed. Taking stock of what they had achieved, one can right away point out to one obvious success: that they are still around after all this time in a hostile neighbourhood and not vanished as their detractors and opponents, including this writer, would have admittedly wished. But what else has been achieved by the clan? If an independent recognised Somaliland was the raison d’etre for the declaration of the secession – and that was indeed the position of the clan all along- then it has miserably failed to achieve it and the outlook looks bleak as ever.

What they can claim though with some justifiable pride is that they had been able to run their own secessionist shop in their clan heartland more successfully than southern Somalia (former Italian Somaliland) which, with the exception of Puntland, has known no government or one worth its name for most of the period since the collapse of the Somali State. Hassan Sheikh, the titular President of Somalia, can beam with his usual self-satisfaction as he gallivants around the globe and relish the red carpets, the pomp and ceremony due to a President, albeit one that has the title but runs no territory outside his Ville Somalia;  and Somaliland’s ego and self-deception, that they are an independent country from Somalia, when they are not, might have been given a bitter blow and a rude awakening when Siilaanyo was recently put in his place at a diplomatic function in Djibouti and rightly seated as a commoner among the assembled crowd (some would say he deserves to be in the dock to answer for his role as the secessionist leader partly responsible for the collapse of the Somali State and its break-up and crimes committed).

But at the end of the day, when thrilling foreign visits come to an end as they must, and reality check takes over, Hassan Sheikh, who bought his post through bribes, is bound to be back to Mogadishu where, love it or loath it, he would be holed in his den in Villa Somalia under AMISOM protection. For his part, Siilaanyo, after his humiliation in Djibouti would return to his fiefdom as the democratically and popularly elected head of his Clan Land (aka Isaaqland) and that is what counts. Neither of them is my hero (Siilaanyo used to be one when he was my head prefect and role model in Sheikh and Amoud- and how different he was then !!). But of the two, I (and no doubt others across the clan and regional-divide) would have grudging respect, even admiration, for the one who is incharge of his own backyard and  protected by his own people and security. Long live of what is left of Somali dignity!

Coming down to the fundamentals, the question is how did this barren impoverished and  sparsely populated one-clan enclave manage to remain a functioning entity separate from Somalia against so many odds? The short answer is that the secession is sustained by two lifelines. First is foreign aid. Somaliland might not have been recognized by any government but in all other ways it is pampered, getting in aid what it lacks in recognition and, no less important, treated on par with Somalia at aid and peacemaking conferences. It is friends say they are enticing it back to the union. Critics say they are merely entrenching the secession.

No country has done more than Great Britain to prop up the enclave economically, giving it the lion’s share of its aid to Somalia, whether direct or channelled through multilateral institutions, in a way disproportionate to its geographical and population size. Little of that aid, if any, gets to the SSC regions which are unfairly lumped with Somaliland for operational conveniences by British and other aid donors. Somaliland simply diverts that aid for its own use. This generous unconditional aid has given solace and sustenance to the secessionists and emboldened them to remain intransigent and assume they have the blessing of the donors to do what they want in the unionist regions- occupation and all.

This preferential British treatment of the enclave has rightly or wrongly given rise to suspicions among many in the SSC regions and beyond that the former colonial power has a secret agenda to detach its former colony from Somalia to became an independent separate country in the Commonwealth and in this regard supports the forceful occupation of the unionist SSC regions to remain part of a breakaway Somaliland. Britain denies accusations that its aid is being used to sustain the clan’s SSC occupation. Even if does not directly fund the occupation, it does so indirectly to the extent that its aid releases domestic resources for the occupation. And its silence on the occupation and human rights violations committed by its secessionist protégé speaks for itself.

The second lifeline nourishing the secession is the atavistic no let-up hatred for Somalia and other Somalis that the SNM has relentlessly fed generations of the clan. A brief period of fighting in Hargeisa in the 1980s between Mohamed Siyad Barre’s government forces and SNM militia, in which the credible number of civilian casualties has never been independently conducted and verified is, as happened, susceptible to be manipulated for propaganda purposes. The SNM militia invaded the city no so much to wrest it from the government forces for they stood no chance but to turn it into a battle ground in which the main victims would be the civilian population whose suffering,  they expected, would turn them for ever against the government and force them to support SNM’s armed insurgency.

That cold callous calculation had worked. The SNM exploited the destruction of Hargeisa (which they brought upon the city in the first place an d participated in the prolonged artillery duels) and the plight of the traumatised and shell-shocked residents of the town. This human tragedy, in which they were equal culprits, was presented after “liberation” as their own Holocaust. It continues to hold it to the present day as a collective indictment against the rest of Somalia – a population that had nothing to do with it and  over 70%  of them not even born then.

The fact that far greater numbers from other clans were killed in Mogadishu, Kismayo and other southern towns after the fall of Siyad Barre; or died of conflict-related causes wrought by clan warlords, with no particular clan held collectively responsible for it, and with most people more inclined to turn a new page and move on rather then being hung up on the past;  or the fact that the SNM itself is no angel but has killed thousands of innocent civilians from other clans in the north, notably in Awdal and the SSC regions, and that it commits daily crimes in the occupied SSC regions no less oppressive than what they experienced under Siyad Barre –  none of these counter arguments sink in their impenetrable siege mentality  and their logic of exceptionalism (it is the same Israeli logic of exceptionalism who would not admit to their crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories and when questioned would invoke the Holocaust and anti Semitism).

Drawing parallels  between themselves and the Zionist dream of the return of Jews to Israel as their only safe haven from European and world-wide persecution, so do the secessionists cynically and routinely use Siyad Barre’s excesses in Hargeisa to whip up hatred and fear among the clan that they can only be safe and better off in their own refuge –  ” Somaliland”. Demonising fellow Somalis in Somalia serves as the oxygen keeping the secession and 18 May alive. That is why individuals from the enclave who served the Somali government  or still do, and others who are unionists opposed to the secession, are systematically banished from the enclave unless they repent, lest they detoxify the minds of the people for years poisoned by SNM hatemongers.

No one better typifies the xenophobia manifestations pervading the clan than Faisal Ali Waraabe, a foul-mouthed fascist heading one of the clan’s three legalised political parties. His daily outbursts against anything to do with Somalia and other Somalis are countless but two in my mind will remain unforgettable and perhaps unforgivable. On one occasion, he claimed that an Amhara boy born in Addis Ababa is closer to him than a Somali one born in Mogadishu.

And recently, when 500 young Somali people, from both south and north, died when their boat to Europe sunk, the loony grieved not the tragic death of these young people  as Somalis lost to their families or to the Somali nation in general, but lamented that their “well-educated” nice youngsters from Hargeisa should die in the same spot with those baddies running from warn-torn southern Somalia. It is not the tragedy per se that upset him as the “undesirable” company their youngsters kept on their moment of death as if they had control of their destiny and chose to shame Somaliland.

The brainwashing has been greatest among the young and children to ensure they never relate to Somalia or other Somalis. Watching a video taken some days ago, some children from the enclave were shown three different flags: one that of the enclave, the other the Somali National Flag and the third that of Ethiopia. Their responses were shuttering.  All the children referred to the Somali flag as that of the “enemy” (Kii Cadowga) or “infidel” (Kii Gaalada) while the Ethiopian one was that of “our brothers” (Kii Walaaleheen). This was a random sample but it could represent the poisoned mindset of the wider children population of the enclave. May God help our brothers gone astray.

Osman Hassan
email: osman.hassan2 @gmail.com
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Osman Hassan is a seasoned journalist and a former UN staff member. Mr Hassan is also a regular contributor to WardheerNews.