Mogadishu (Editorial) — A Somalia-Frontline States Summit was successfully concluded in Mogadishu earlier today. The heads of states of Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti, three troop-contributing countries, and President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, participated in the summit. The summit reiterated “the importance of respecting the sovereignty, political independence, and unity of Somalia”.
In Northern Somalia, the secessionist administration of Somaliland threatens the people of Lasanod with a full-scale war based on the spurious claim that Somaliland is a republic that broke away from Somalia in 1991. A 1991 unilateral declaration of secession and a 2001 unilateral referendum are the justifications used by Hargeisa in an attempt to impose its secessionist outlook on a unionist constituency.
Yesterday, President of the Somaliland Administration Muse Bihi Abdi claimed that “Khawarij is in Lasanod”. He misappropriated an appellation used by the Federal Government of Somalia in its campaigns against the terrorist outfit, Al-Shabaab. The fact of the matter is that It is the Somaliland Administration that has common with Al-shabaab the repudiation of Somali sovereignty. Al-shabaab denounces that idea of sovereign Somalia and prefers it to the idea of caliphates where faith reflects national belonging more than citizenship does. The Somaliland Administration considers Somalia a defunct state whose citizens can be forcibly displaced in what was known as the ex-British Somaliland, despite the legal validity of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions on the Sovereignty of Somalia. If Somali sovereignty were non-existent, as President Bihi surmises, Northern Somalia would risk being invaded for security reasons.
It is not only Bihi who is making a mockery of the sovereignty of Somalia. President of the Federal Republic of Somalia Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has so far failed to remind the Somaliland Administration of its obligation not to wage a secession war in a politically united country. It is his duty to defend in principle the rights of Somali citizens not to be threatened with a secession war. During his first term of office (2012-2017), President Mohamud oversaw the signing of the Special Arrangement through which the Somaliland Administration receives development aid. This arrangement obliges Somaliland Administration to respect the rights of Somali citizens just as the Federal Government of Somalia respects Somaliland institutions in areas the secessionist administration conducted a unilateral referendum in 2001.
No entity in Africa wages a secessionist war in an African Union member state. If the Federal Government of Somalia shirks its duty to stand up for the rights of Somali citizens being threatened with a secession war, it will be aiding and abetting President Bihi whose misguided interpretation of colonial borders can jeopardise peace in the Horn of Africa. Somalia’s International Partners, particularly the African Union, have a moral obligation to help Somalis prevent a civil war in the ex-British Somaliland.
© Puntland Post, 2023
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