Ethiopia took a leaf out of the United Arab Emirates’ book to violate the territorial integrity of Somalia.
Mogadishu (PP Editorial) Abiy Ahmed, the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and the Prime Minister of Ethiopia will go down in history as the leader who breached the international norms to sign an agreement with a secessionist administration to have a naval base leased to his country. Abiy Ahmed bypassed the Federal Government of Somalia whose defence minister signed on 7/12/2023 a defence agreement with his Ethiopian counterpart. Maritime security is among the areas of cooperation although Ethiopia is a land-locked country. This very clause arguably predisposed Ethiopia to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Somaliland Administration in the full knowledge that the secessionist administration rejects the sovereignty of Somalia.
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected on the slogan “Somalis at peace with each other and with their neighbours’. In his first term in office (2012-2017) President Mohamud forged closer ties with Ethiopia under EPRDF. in 2017 his predecessor Hailemariam Desalegn reiterated a policy of not interfering in Somalia’s affairs. Remarkable policy changes introduced by President Mohamud during his first term in office includes the government signing with Ethiopia a bilateral defence agreement signed with Ethiopia for the deployment of Ethiopian troops as peacekeeping forces in Somalia without being mandated by AMISOM.
Yesterday, Ethiopia defended its decision to sign a MoU with Somaliland administration, and echoed the arguments in the statement published yesterday by the secessionist administration. Somaliland administration argued that the MoU reflected the letter and spirit of previous agreements signed with the Federal Government of Somalia in the sphere of economic development. No agreement contained a clause that gave the Somaliland administration the privilege to grant a naval base to a foreign country.
Ethiopia is not the first country to have violated the territorial integrity of Somalia for maritime reasons. In 2017 Somaliland parliament granted the United Arab Emirates the privilege to open a naval base in Berbera. TheFederal Government of Somalia urged the United Nations to intervene to stop the construction of the naval base. The United Arab Emirates had shown what an oil-rich country can do to violate the sovereignty of a fragile country. The Emirates-owned parastatal, DP World, runs Berbera Port and Bosaaso Port.
The responsibility to develop a robust policy on granting a naval or military base to a foreign country lies with the Federal Government of Somalia, but it is not an authority that the government can responsibly exercise without transparency and extensive consultations with the civil society and federal member states. If President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud keeps on micromanaging governance to delegate key decisions to a few people selected for narrow considerations, the tendency to sign agreements that will haunt Somalia will continue to be a feature of the Federal Government of Somalia. Developing a foreign policy on a whim is the Achilles’ heel of the Federal Government of Somalia.
© Puntland Post, 2024
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