By Faisal A. Roble
Editor’s note: Peaking into the rich WDN archives full of ten years of rare collection of historical pieces, news, commentary, opinion as well as cultural and poetry analysis and writing from across the globe, we come upon a jewel, a rarity, a genius piece of writings, honest and true and free of bias. Indeed, it could be called the past calling with glaring disappointment. As we celebrate our tenth anniversary, we reflect and share with our readers, esteemed and staunch a series of articles from the past.
At the wake of the invasion of Lasa Canod by the forces of Somaliland in 2007, Faisal Roble wrote a critical essay analyzing Somaliland’s firm believe of putting all its “territory” under its domain by a brute force. Mr. Roble then argued Somaliland’s intention was to change “reality on the ground,” by employing a theory often advanced by Israeli Zionists against the Palestinians – take the land then negotiate later. Following that essay, which WardheerNews published, Mr. Roble developed his thesis to a well-researched paper and presented it at the Somali Studies Association in Columbus, Ohio, in 2007. At the conference, Mr. Roble debated on the territorial integrity of Somalia, with Iqbal Jhazbhay, a former Somaliland lobbyist and the current South African Ambassador to Eretria, who argued the inviolability of the secession case.
Following is the product of both that original essay and the presentation at the 2007 conference by Mr. Roble: Local and Global Norms: Challenges to “Somaliland’s” Unilateral Secession),Volume XXV 2007, The Horn of Africa Journal that Wardheernews, in collaboration with the Horn of Africa, published it in 2007.
In light of the new talks between Mogadishu and Hargaisa, we believe this article worth of reposting it from WardheerNews archives.
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Introduction
Beginning with the failed Somali republic, coupled with the unilateral declaration of secession by the Somali National Movement (SNM) on May 18, 1991, separatism in the north has taken new heights. In the last two decades, the Hargaysa administration made a concerted effort to establish a new “reality on the ground” to effectuate a separate state in what was Northern Somalia. After several inter-clan and intra-clan conflicts in the 1990s ended the second inter-Isaaq’s civil war “in part by awarding a greater share of parliamentary seats to members of “opposition” clans and in part through the development of an “interim constitution” which, after much negotiation and modification, served as the prototype for the current version,” “Somaliland” seems to have established a new “reality on the ground.” The surprising fall of Las Anod into Hargaysa with ease on October 15, 2007, a town that rejected secession in favor of unity, could be viewed as an effort to complete the reconstruction of a new “reality on the ground” by those seeking secession.
Nevertheless, the region still remains part of Somalia, albeit with a relatively better administration than the rest of the country. As the West re-engages the ailing Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG), headed by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, to secure the capital city, Mogadishu, the prospect for any forthcoming recognition for Somaliland becomes more challenging. There is a general understanding by both unionists and secessionists alike that stable Southern Somalia may greatly hinder, if not fatally kill, the hope for recognition. And this is a source for political frustration in “Somaliland,” often leading it to mount intermittent cross-border raids against the neighboring autonomous region of Puntland. With the emerging new debate in the US Pentagon to recognize “Somaliland,” the State Department standing in the way notwithstanding, a complete change of “Somaliland’s” status quo may lead to larger scale inter-clan conflict in the region.
Themes on Secession Ideology
In some quarters, secession is generally synonymous with the concept of self-determination. Self-determination is in turn a political program, led and organized by elites claiming to represent a group of people dissatisfied in a given political arrangement. There is no clear notion whether the group seeking secession is a minority group that is oppressed, or a majority group that does the oppressing. There are situations where a politically and economically powerful minority group oppresses a majority. Such are the historical cases of the Ethiopian Amhara, the Tutsi in Rwanda, and the Sunnis in Iraq. However, in most cases a powerful and entrenched majority ethnic group [mis]rules a minority group(s), and excludes or limits political participation of the latter. A case in point is Tsarist Russia where the powerful and numerous Russians colonized and ruled many nations and nationalities for many generations.
The debate about secession was well articulated by 20th Century leftist revolutionaries. In Lenin’s “Critical Remarks on National Question,” a highly influential book in the left circles until recently, one is struck by the intensity of the debate between Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg. The two communists, among others, passionately debated the issue of when a nationality is justified to secede from its host country. The most critical cases were those of Finland, Poland, and Armenia. After long spirited debates, both Lenin and Luxemburg, as well as their acolytes, came to one conclusion: that both Poland and Finland would be better off to leave the Russian Empire, while Armenia stays with the rest of the empire under a reorganized Soviet system. In addition to the geopolitics of the day, factors that helped justify, for example, the secession cases of Poland and Finland from the Russian Empire are cultural, linguistic and geographical dissimilarities with the administering power.
Then, there is the Wilsonian (Liberal) school of thought that, at the turn of the 20th Century, interjected more vigor and energy into the debate of secession and self-determination. American isolationist policy at the time notwithstanding, Woodrow Wilson8 quickly seized the concept of self- determination to make American foreign policy more relevant to international politics. In doing so, he drafted his 14 points position paper on international politics and self-determination in which he attempted to provide a framework for freedom to indigenous groups from colonial and feudal rules, while arguing for protecting sovereignty. In Article XIII of his 14 points, Wilson called for this: “An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.” Wilson’s second concept of self-determination is one that sought the protection and safeguarding of the territorial integrity of nation states, thereby suggesting that all nations have the right to self-determination, hence equating territorial integrity to the rights of nations to exist in a secure and natural boundary respected by all. In Article XIV, Wilson put it this way: “A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.” This latter article of Wilson’s concept of “self-determination” is now enshrined in the United Nation’s Charter, and it protects the territorial integrity and nation states.
In short, the concept of secession as a tool to gain self-determination, both in the left as well as in the Wilsonian view, is rarely applied, for it sets higher threshold prior to implementation. Most insurgent movements or breakaway regions rarely succeed in satisfying all the intellectual, legal and international requirements that regulate this concept in its strict sense. The International community at large and the United Nations in particular would like to deal with conflicts, political as well as cultural between communities in a given country, through other means of conflict resolution short of sanctioning secession. However, the United Nation’s concept of self-determination is often invoked to uphold the territorial integrity of member states which are protected by existing international instruments.
Read more: Local and Global Norms: Challenges to “Somaliland’s” Unilateral Secession
Faisal Roble
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