By Osman Hassan

Once again, the militia from the one-clan secessionist enclave calling itself Somaliland – occupying parts of the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC)- have gone on the warpath on 14 of January, overrunning and occupying several villages in the Cayn region, including Ballicad, until then Khatumo’s interim base. The immediate aim of their offensive was to forcefully end a consultative meeting taking place in the village of Bellicad among delegates from Khatumo and Makhir States with a view to establishing a single united State member of Federal Somalia. Almost all the villagers, most of them women and children, have been forced to flee their homes and are now displaced in the bush in desperate need for help. Humanitarian organisations, often more sensitive to Somaliland’s justifications to block humanitarian aid on gratuitous concocted security grounds, have yet to voice their concern or respond practically to the these displaced civilians.

As in the past, the crime of the people of Khatumo State, in the eyes of the secessionists, was to exercise their basic constitutional and democratic rights to manage their own affairs which is taken for granted in the rest of Somalia (former Italian Somaliland), and indeed is being encouraged and assisted by both the federal government and international community but eschew so when it comes to the SSC regions (in former British Somaliland). This double standard has emboldened the secessionists to conclude, rightly perhaps, that their secession has tacit support from the federal government in Mogadishu, and hence have free hand to foist their secession (and hegemony) on the unionist SSC in pursuit of their illusionary aspiration for a separate independent country. As such, operations aimed at undoing Khatumo and scuppering its meetings and conference shave became routine and the current onslaught on the Khatumo meeting in Ballicad follows in the footsteps of similar previous attacks on Khatumo conferences in Taleex and Saaxdheer in 2014.

The timing of this latest offensive in the Cayn region is significant and follows hard on the heels of a recent statement by the leader of the secessionist enclave, Mr Siilaanyo, that “Somaliland would shed blood (presumably those of the SSC people)” in order to defend what he preposterously called their sovereignty and territorial integrity – when the enclave has neither claims, and the unionist regions he is occupying are part and parcel of Somalia in the eyes of everyone else except theirs. Mr Siilaanyo, a former leader of SNM militia that used to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity against unionist civilians in the north in the 1980s and soon after the collapse of the Somali State in 1991, does not mince his words and make empty threats; and so, as we see with our eyes, has made good on his words.

It comes as no surprise that the Federal Government headed by Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud has uttered not a word of censure against this criminal warmongering by the secessionists against the very people he is supposed to defend as their president. Even a moral support would have been appreciated given his military impotence. This silence and inaction have been his stance since he came to office and this is for good reason: it is a quid pro quo for the support he gets from the MPs in the federal Parliament hailing from the secessionist enclave, a support which is indispensable for keeping him in office when threatened or in getting re-elected. When it comes to a trade-off, pursuing his personal political interests clearly is more important for him than defending the union or the rights of the SSC people.

A number of factors are pushing Somaliland on this belligerent course on which it is embarking at this particular time. For its leader, Siilaanyo, any military offensive to extend their occupation and control throughout the SSC regions, above all to Buhoodle, the capital of the Cayn region, would go down well with many of his followers and serve as a timely distraction away from the rampant corruption engulfing his administration and the dire economic and political turmoil prevailing in the enclave for which he is held responsible. Like a desperate politician in a difficult spot, he knows bashing the defenceless SSC people, or occupying their land as he is doing now, would serve as a good fodder to feed the chauvinism of his clan.

A second and a more important objective of the enclave is to eliminate Khatumo as a ” parallel” administration once and for all, taking advantage of its military superiority (having laid their hands in1991 on the arsenal of the disintegrated Somali national army based in the secessionist regions). Unfortunately for them, and despite their painful occupation, the unionist SSC people remain adamantly opposed to be part of the secession and their so-called Somaliland. The enclave has yet to come to terms with what our former colonialists have long realised – that their military might could not forever prevail over the will of a people determined to resist foreign hegemony. That is what is happening today in the SSC regions.

A third factor relates to the voter registration for the next “presidential” election in the enclave which was inaugurated on the 16 of January. Such voter registration (let alone elections) had failed in the past to take place in the areas of the SSC regions under the secessionist’s occupation in the face of widespread opposition and violence. There is no reason to expect anything different this time round. If anything more resistance can be expected with Khatumo around. That is not how the secessionists see things.

Never willing to learn from the past, they delude themselves that things could be different this time given total control of the SSC regions and Khatumo out of the way, in which case voter registration and polling in the SSC regions could take place – be it phoney and stage-managed ones but good enough to persuade the international community that both the voter registration and the election have been cross-regional, clan-wide and hence “national”, and not only confined to the secessionist heartland as it has been in the past. This is like pulling wool over the eyes of the international community and they are fooling no one but themselves.

A fourth factor uppermost in the calculations of the secessionists is the need to bring all the SSC regions under their heels before the election of the next President of Somalia sometime in 2016, who, unlike the current incumbent, might be more nationalist and unionist and who, they fear, would take a far more robust position against the secession than Hassan Sheikh. If that happens, they are aware that the international community would follow suit.

Running throughout these factors is the fact that the secession would not have been sustained all these years in the barren resource-less enclave, nor would it have been able to maintain its costly occupation and control of the SSC regions, were it not for the generous bilateral and multilateral aid they receive from the international community. That aid, partly meant for the SSC regions but rarely ever reaches them, has released considerable resources for the occupation of the SSC regions and used to inflict daily human rights crimes against its people, not least forcing thousands of persons to flee their homes. To that extent, aid donors are indirectly implicated in these crimes or in the break-up of Somalia even if that is not their intention.

One can only hope that the international community, which has staked so much resources and time to bring stability to Somalia, would treat the secessionist clan’s warlordism and warmongering in the SSC regions in the north as no different from their forerunners in southern Somalia that brought down the Somalia State and responsible for all the horrors it brought in its wake. For a start, they should take a clear stand against Somaliland’s latest flagrant terrorising of the SSC people and the trampling on their fundamental rights. And for a second, they should support the Khatumo State of Somalia as they do other State members of Federal Somalia.

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.