By Abdulqadir Ahmed AwAli
President, SSC-Khatumo state of Somalia

I am the President of SSC-Khatumo, a federal member State of Somalia in northern Somalia (formerly British Somaliland Protectorate). This is the first time I have addressed the media since assuming office over a year and a half ago. What prompted me to do so is the need to draw the attention of the world to the conflict raging in our northern regions of Somalia (aka Somaliland) since 1991. It started when one clan declared the secession of the north from the rest of Somalia, taking advantage of the collapse of the Somali State in that year. What it did was treason. But having seized the arsenal of the disintegrated Somali national army based in their region, they forced the secession and their rule on all the other four defenseless unionist clans in northern Somalia. Their rationale is that they would be better off being the masters in their “Somaliland” than remain in Somalia and be equal to all others.

Needless to say, a resourceless one clan, only over a million in population, would not have been able on its own to maintain the secession for over 33 years. What helped them to do so was first the absence of government in Somalia, or an effective one to deal with them. But more than anything else, what has sustained their secession throughout this period is the material and moral support they have been getting from some western countries, above all former European colonial powers. Their reaction was different to previous secessions in Africa, as Biafra in Nigeria or Katanga in Congo. These countries officially profess to support Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity but in practice undermine it for their own ends.

Somalia’s unity has been the first casualty of this external support for secession. However, we, the unionist northern clans, have also suffered as secondary victims. The backing of the secessionist clan has enabled them to occupy our regions and commit continuous, widespread human rights violations and atrocities, including crimes against humanity. That is painful enough. But if any of these countries – or others -was to go beyond that threshold and recognize the secessionist clan – as one sovereign over all northern Somalia, and hence over us and other unionist clans – that would add fuel to the fire and therefore a red line for Somalia.

Let there be no doubt: any recognition of this clan would be entirely unacceptable on two fundamental grounds. First, because we would not accept to be forced to betray our oath of loyalty to our Union Act and to Somalia’s constitution to which we are party to it and sworn to it. Second, because of our deep-seated well-founded fear that once this clan becomes recognized as a country independent of Somalia, it would be accountable to no one and hence would have no qualms to treat us worse than they hitherto did. For all these reasons, we would not bow meekly to foreign hatched treachery against our country and people. We would respond to these challenges with the same resolve and tenacity as we did with British colonial occupation for 21 years in the early 20^th Century or resisted and finally defeated the secessionist clan’s occupation of our regions.

My plea, therefore, is for no country to support the one-clan secession, let alone recognize it. Instead, we call on those backing the secessionist clan to respect Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity in conformity with the Charters of the United Nations and the African Union.

It is imperative that the international community acts now to prevent further escalation of the conflict and to uphold Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity. Recognizing the secessionist clan would be a grave injustice—not only to the Somali people as a whole but especially to the people of SSC-Khatumo, who have endured years of oppression under their rule. We urge countries to cease all forms of support to the secessionist clan and instead support efforts to promote peace and stability in Somalia. Failure to address this issue will not only perpetuate human rights violations but also risk destabilizing the entire region.

As the President of SSC-Khatumo state of Somalia, I implore the international community to stand with us in our fight for justice and unity.

The Colonial Somaliland(s) and their features

It is important to bear in mind some of the key features about the European conquest of Somali lands:

• That their subjects in the colonies were the same people Somalis who happen to be the most homogenous in Africa, having the same language, religion, culture and ethnicity.
• That it was because of that common Somali identity everywhere that each colonizer called their part Somaliland.
• That while the Somalis share common Somali identity, they also trace their ancestral genealogy to different clans.
• That the arbitrary European partition of the Somali homeland separated clans against their will into their different colonial territorial conquests.  This was truer of British Somaliland whose heterogenous clans were closer to those outside the colony than to themselves.
• That no distinct polity existed anywhere in the Somaliland homeland in the Horn until independence.
• That, far from sharing political affiliation or aspirations, the clans in British Somaliland were perpetually at war and for that reason sought (with the exception of our people – the Dhulbahante) protection treaties from Britain against each other.
• That none of the European possessions of Somali lands constituted a political entity or nation based on the will of its people. They were simply temporary artificial colonial creations and possessions.
• And for British Somaliland, the binding colonial rule among the clans is gone – unless Britain was to reconquer northern Somaliland once again- which is, speaking crudely, over our dead bodies.

Read the full article: A One-Clan Enclave in Somalia Cannot Be A Nation: The Case Against Somaliland’s Recognition

Abdulqadir Ahmed AwAli
President, SSC-Khatumo state of Somalia.