Somaliland Dream ComeTrue

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About Somaliland Dream ComeTrue

The Land of Punt
the Somalis in general were known to the Ancient Egyptians as the Land of Punt. The earliest definite record of contact between Ancient Egypt and Punt comes from an entry on the Palermo stone during the reign of Sahura of the Fifth Dynasty around 2250 BCE. It says that, in one year, 80,000 units of myrrh and frankincense was brought to Egypt from Punt as well as other quantities of goods that were highly valued in Ancient Egypt. From the Thirteenth to the Seventeenth Dynasty, the contact between Egypt and Punt was broken. This was due to the fact that Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos. The fifth ruler in the Eighteen Dynasty of Egyptian Pharaohs was Queen Hatshepsut, daughter of Tutmose III. She became Queen in the year 1493 BCE and made a landmark expedition to the land of Punt which is recorded on the walls of the Deir ci-Bahari temple located in Alexandria. Her eight ships sailed to Puntland and came back with cargoes of fine woods, ebony, myrrh, cinnamon and incense trees to plant in the temple garden.
The roman emperor Augustus sent an expedition to conquer actual Yemen. During that military expedition the roman fleet of Gaius Gallus destroyed the port of Aden in order to open a safe sea route to India and to the Punt for the roman merchants.
Somaliland Sultanates
Early Islamic States in Western Somaliland
With the introduction of Islam in the 10th century in what are now the Afar-inhabited parts of Eritrea and Djibouti, the region began to assume a political character independent of Ethiopia. Three Islamic sultanates were founded in and around the area named Shewa (a Semitic-speaking sultanate in eastern Ethiopia, modern Shewa province and ruled by the Mahzumi dynasty, related to Muslim Amharas and Argobbas), Ifat (another Semitic-speaking[1] sultanate located in eastern Ethiopia in what is now eastern Shewa) and Adal and Mora (an Afar, Somali, and Harari vassal sultanate of Ifat by 1288, centered around Dakkar and later Harar, with Zeila as its main port and second city, in eastern Ethiopia and in Somaliland's Saaxil and Woqooyi Galbeed regions; Mora was located in what is now the southern Afar Region of Ethiopia and was subservient to Adal).

At least by the reign of Emperor Amda Seyon I (r. 1314-1344) (and possibly as early as during the reign of Yekuno Amlak or Yagbe'u Seyon), these regions came under Ethiopian suzerainty. During the two centuries that it was under Ethiopian control, intermittent warfare broke out between Ifat (which the other sultantes were under, excepting Shewa, which had been incorporated into Ethiopia) and Ethiopia. In 1403 or 1415[2] (under Emperor Dawit I or Emperor Yeshaq I, respectively), a revolt of Ifat was put down during which the Walashma ruler, Sa'ad ad-Din II, was captured and executed in Zeila, which was sacked. After the war, the reigning king had his minstrels compose a song praising his victory, which contains the first written record of the word "Somali". Upon the return of Sa'ad ad-Din II's sons a few years later, the dynasty took the new title of "king of Adal," instead of the formerly dominant region, Ifat.


Ahmed Gurey monument in Mogadishu.The area remained under Ethiopian control for another century or so. However, starting around 1527 under the charismatic leadership of Imam Ahmed Gragn (Gurey in Somali, Gragn in Amharic, both meaning "left-handed), Adal revolted and invaded Ethiopia. Regrouped Muslim armies with Ottoman support and arms marched into Ethiopia employing scorched earth tactics and slaughtered any Ethiopian that refused to convert from Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity to Islam.[3] Moreover, hundreds of churches were destroyed during the invasion, and an estimated 80% of the manuscripts in the country were destroyed in the process. Adal's use of firearms, still only rarely used in Ethiopia, allowed the conquest of well over half of Ethiopia, reaching as far north as Tigray. The complete conquest of Ethiopia was averted by the timely arrival of a Portuguese expedition led by Cristovão da Gama, son of the famed navigator Vasco da Gama. The Portuguese had been in the area earlier in early 16th centuries (in search of the legendary priest-king Prester John), and although a diplomatic mission from Portugal, led by Rodrigo de Lima, had failed to improve relations between the countries, they responded to the Ethiopian pleas for help and sent a military expedition to their fellow Christians. a Portuguese fleet under the command of Estêvão da Gama was sent from India and arrived at Massawa in February 1541. Here he received an ambassador from the Emperor beseeching him to send help against the Muslims, and in July following a force of 400 musketeers, under the command of Christovão da Gama, younger brother of the admiral, marched into the interior, and being joined by Ethiopian troops they were at first successful against the muslims but they were subsequently defeated at the Battle of Wofla (28 August 1542), and their commander captured and executed. On February 21, 1543, however,a joint Portuguese-Ethiopian force defeated the Muslim army at the Battle of Wayna Daga, in which Ahmed Gragn was killed and the war won.


Ahmed Gurey statue in Mogadishu.Ahmed Gragn's widow married Nur ibn Mujahid in return for his promise to avenge Ahmed's death, who succeeded Ahmed Gragn, and continued hostilities against his northern adversaries until he killed the Ethiopian Emperor in his second invasion of Ethiopia, Emir Nur died in 1567; the Ethiopians sacked Zeila in 1660.[citation needed] The Portuguese, meanwhile, tried to conquer Mogadishu but according to Duarta Barbosa never succeeded in taking it. The sultanate of Adal disintegrated into small independent states, many of which were ruled by Somali chiefs.


Eastern Somaliland under the Garad
In the east, a completely different political dynamic existed. The Warsangeli and Dhulbahante Sultanates under the Garad dynasty emerged a few centuries after the Three Sultanates of the west, and rose to prominence in Somaliland's Sool, Sanaag and Togdheer by the 13th century. Unlike Adel, which was a direct successor of Axumite civilization with a wildly diverse ethnic makeup and a political system entirely based on Islam, the Garad Sultanates were very much Somali clan-based states who happened to be Muslim. This is not to say the Warsangeli and Dhulbahante were not as pious as the Adel, as records show that their warriors formed a significant percentage of the army that invaded Ethiopia under Ahmed Gragn. After the Majerteen Sultanate formed and Adel collapsed in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Garad state became much more of an eastern-oriented state.

One interesting factor in the collapse of Adel is the flow of cultural influence reversed, flowing from the rest of Somalia into Adel, and the areas occupied by the Ottoman Empire became heavily Somali-ized, while the previous, strongly Afar and Axumite identity faded away. This created the current cultural makeup of the region.

Colonial period

Ottoman Somaliland
On 1548 CE,the port city of Zeila was annexed and became part of the vast Ottoman Empire. The reason for this was that Zeila is situated in a stragetic location on the Red Sea because it is near the Bab el Mandeb strait; a key area for trade with the East. For 300 years, Zeila enjoyed trade with other countries and was home to Arab, Persian and even Indian merchants. On 1884, when the empire was on the brink of collapse; Egypt occupied western parts of Somaliland, the other regions being controlled by Somali tribesmen. Then, During the Scramble for Africa era, the region now claimed by Somaliland was the British Somaliland Protectorate.


British Somaliland
See also: British Somaliland

The British Somaliland flagThe British Somaliland protectorate was initially ruled from British India (though later on by the Foreign Office and Colonial Office, and was to play the role of increasing the British Empire's control of the vital Bab-el-Mandeb strait which provided security to the Suez Canal and safety for the Empire's vital naval routes through the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

Resentment against the British authorities grew: Britain was seen as excessively profiting from the thriving coastal trading and farming occurring in the territory. A full-blown guerrilla war had begun by 1899 under the leadership of religious scholar Mohammed Abdullah Hassan. By 1920, with the help of aerial support from the British Royal Air Force, the situation in Somaliland had stabilised and the British had re-established their dominance over the territory. Sporadic uprisings were to occur for decades afterwards, however on a much reduced scale with improved British infrastructural spending and a more benign, less paternalistic set of public policy.


The Italian invasion of British Somaliland in august 1940During the East African Campaign of WWII, the protectorate was occupied by Italy in August 1940, but recaptured by the British in summer 1941. Some italian guerrilla fightings (Amedeo Guillett) lasted until summer 1942.

The conquest of the British Somaliland was the only victory of Italy - without german troops cooperation - in WWII against the Allies.


Independence and unification with Somalia
Shortly after gaining independence from Great Britain as the State of Somaliland on 26 June 1960, Somaliland merged with Italian Somaliland on July 1, 1960 to form the Somali Republic. The Prime Minister of the State of Somaliland, Ibrahim Egal, became a minister in the new Somalia. He became Prime Minister in 1967 but a coup deposed him in 1969. The coup elevated General Muhammed Siad Barre to power. Siad Barre instituted a Marxist regime, and became a close ally of the Soviet Union.

Although initially enthusiastic about forming a union with Italian Somaliland, the euphoria quickly changed to disenchantment as many in the north-west of Somalia felt increasingly marginalized in government and other sectors of society. While the authoritarian government of Siad Barre was becoming increasingly unpopular with Somalis, no where was the regime more resented than in the north-west.

Following an unsuccessful attempt by Somalia to capture the Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia in 1977, Somalis from the north-west (primarily the Issaq clan) living in the United Kingdom formed the Somali National Movement in 1981. The SNM was one of a growing number of groups which aimed to topple Siad Barre.

As the 1980s unfolded, the Siad Barre regime became increasingly unsteady, and the SNM expanded its control in the north-west region. Mogadishu responded by instituting draconian measures in the north-west to suppress the SNM. When these failed, the government indiscriminately used raids and bombing campaigns to assert control. Nonetheless, by the end of the 1980s, the SNM controlled virtually all of the north-west, including the major towns of Hargeisa and Burao. The Siad Barre regime was on the verge of collapse.

The region, like the rest of Somalia, was marred by political instability and differences in culture, both due to regional feuds and the markedly different societies created by the British and Italian colonial authorities.


Second Independence
In 1991, after the collapse of the central government in Somalia in the Somali Civil War, the territory asserted its independence as the Republic of Somaliland, although it has received no international diplomatic recognition.

The economic infrastructure left behind by British, Soviet Union, and American funding and military assistance programs has been largely destroyed by war. The people of Somaliland had rebelled against Siad Barre dictatorship in Mogadishu which prompted a massive reaction by the government. Tony Worthington wrote of his first visit to Hargeysa, in 1992, at the time of Somalia's great famine, saying that he had never seen such devastation, after bombing by the ousted Siad Barre dictatorship had left 50,000 dead in the city alone. However, the country was re-built during the years that followed.

Abdurahman Ahmed Ali Tur was sworn as the first president of Somaliland, although he died just a year later. Egal was elected president in 1993, re-elected in 1998 and remained in power until his death on May 3, 2002. The vice president Dahir Riyale Kahin was declared the new president shortly afterwards.
Siad Barre portraitSomaliland is trying to declare independence but without Sanaag and Sool it lacks the land needed to make the state economically viable.
Somaliland: Ten Years of Freedom
Somaliland Forum press release, 18 May 2001
Somalia—When the people of Somaliland returned to their homes in 1991, mostly from neighbouring Ethiopia, where they had fled en masse in 1988 from Barre of Somalia’s genocidal pogroms, they came back to a devastated land: their cities were in rubble and the country a wasteland riddled with more than 2,000,000 deliberately planted mines. A traveller reported back then about their capital city, Hargeisa:
Have you ever seen Pompeii? a UN official had said to me in Djibouti. That’s Hargeisa now. Only it wasn’t a volcano that destroyed the place—it was man.
Long Ago, in the 1980s, Hargeisa had more than 150,000 residents. A Mecca for traders, it was the second-largest city in Somalia, and the biggest in the northern region. That region ... declared independence in May [1991] under the name Republic of Somaliland. Hargeisa is its capital city. But it’s a capital with a difference: no electricity, no telephones, no offices and no running water. Little food, little medicine, little shelter. And not very many roofs. Mark Abley, Fighting for Survival, The Gazette (Montreal), December 14, 1991, p. e1.
Despite the great odds facing them from the devastation and the virtual destruction of their homes as well as all the infrastructures of their country by the Barre regime of Somalia, the people of Somaliland collectively decided to tally the results of their union with Somalia, which had lasted 30 years from the day when their newly independent state of Somaliland amalgamated with Somalia. They could not find a single positive development from that union: they had not received any development programs from Somalia for the twenty years between 1960 and 1980, that is even before the start of the popular revolt in Somaliland, although they had provided about 80% of the state revenues. Accordingly, whatever the future offered, they decided to reclaim their sovereignty and, took their destiny in their hands. Exactly, ten years ago, on May 18, they reinstated the Republic of Somaliland within its colonial frontiers.
From a Slow Progress to a Steady Progress
During those ten years, the people of Somaliland,without any significant help from the outside world, have quietly rebuilt their homeland, while the world has poured billions to sort out the problems of Somalia proper. The homes have been roofed; the schools have been rebuilt; even two new universities have sprung in a country which, under 30 years of Somalia rule, never had a university, and businesses have been restarted from the scratch.
Now Somaliland is the success story of the Horn of Africa that the world ignores. Its cities are booming; its airline companies link all the countries of the Horn of Africa; its telephone companies compete to provide cellular services to customers; its cities are so peaceful and stable that they put to shame the capital cities of many countries.
Paul Harris of the Scotsman’ wrote (The Scotsman June 21, 2000, Wednesday, P. 12):
In Hargeisa new buildings are springing up, many of them plush mansions being built by an emergent business elite capitalizing on a modest economic boom.
All cars sport Somaliland licence plates and many bear bumper stickers proudly proclaiming ‘I love Somaliland’.
But government officials are starting to worry that failure to get international recognition will stymie future development in the country. Without it Somaliland cannot establish international links with foreign airlines or postal services.
Worst of all, it cannot access development funds from the World Bank or International Monetary Fund.
Unique Democratic Institutions
Somaliland has also forged unique democratic institutions that African countries should well heed to copy; its bicameral parliament is a combination of both tradition and modernism; the senate consists of traditional elders, whereas the house of representatives consists of modern day representatives. The judiciary is independent and the press is free.
May 18 marks the 10th anniversary of Somaliland’s new independence from Somalia. During these 10 ten years, the people of Somaliland have patiently rebuilt their country and tried to heal from both the physical and mental destruction brought on them by the former Somalia government. During those ten years, the people of Somaliland had worked with all the neighbouring countries interested in maintaining friendly relationships with them, thus increasing the peace and the stability of the Horn of Africa. At the same time, during those ten years every attempt was made to thwart the independence and the freedom, and indeed the economic progress of the people of Somaliland who had to start their lives from ground zero in 1991.
We Are Somaliland, Not Somalia
Though this may sound strange, some of the most concerted efforts to derail Somaliland’s independence have come from the very world body that is supposed to safeguard the rights of the people of the world: the United Nations. The Secretariat of the United Nations and some of its agencies have worked hard to push Somaliland under the carpet in a quest to revive Somalia. For 10 years to this date, the Secretariat’s memos avoid to mention Somaliland by name, and try to project false and negative images about Somaliland by deliberately confusing it with Somalia.
The UN Secretary General’s recent report to the Security Council on the situation in Somalia illustrates this unjustifiable practice of lumping together the two distinct states of Somaliland and Somalia. This is all the more outrageous given the fact that the Secretariat’s files report under the names ’Kosovo’, ’East Timor,’ entities which have less historical existence, and less population than Somaliland.
UN officials often try to justify their trampling on the rights of Somaliland’s people for self-determination by invoking the OAU’s principle of the inviolability of colonial borders. However, Somaliland, just like Eritrea which separated recently from Ethiopia with the blessing of the UN, cannot serve as example for the application of this principle, since Somaliland had its own colonial frontiers inherited from Britain on June 1960, and was juridically a state on its own, before its merger with Somalia on July 1st, 1960.
The government of Italy has also tried to thwart Somaliland’s quest for international recognition by siding with efforts to resurrect Somalia, its former colony. More recently, Djibouti, the smallest state in the Horn of Africa, and the one that has actually benefited the most from Somaliland’s heroic reconstruction efforts, has been busy trying to destabilize Somaliland.
Appeal to the International Community
On this 10th anniversary of the rebirth of Somaliland, we extend friendly hands to all the nations of the world. We reiterate that we, as a people, have stood united in reconstructing our country and, in spreading the benefits of peace and economic growth in the Horn of Africa. As we have said many times before, we neither seek nor want revenge on Somalia. We wish Somalia well, and wish success to those engaged in pulling Somalia out of its chaos and lack of government. We have even expressed our willingness to help with the reconciliation of the Somalia factions. But we are not Somalia. We have a government, a parliament, a constitution, and a struggling but peaceful country. Today, on the 10th anniversary of the reinstatement of our independence, we again stand free, united, and fully committed to safeguarding our sovereignty and way of life.
Better Response Needed From the International Community
Somaliland deserves a better response and cooperation from the UN instead of the unfair and unjustified treatment that it has gotten so far. The machinations of some governments, and the undeclared war that some UN bureaucrats, particularly African ones, have exercised against Somaliland, must stop.
We say to the responsible leaders of the world: extend a hand of recognition to our patient, and hard-working people who are ready to further peace, goodwill and prosperity in their region and, indeed, throughout the world.
A prominent scholar has said: On a continent where success stories are rare, Somaliland’s modest progress deserves a better response than the international cold shoulder it has received so far. This is especially true because its brand of peacemaking is real, grounded in the cultural traditions of its people and not in the benevolent but ill-informed efforts of foreigners. (Gerard Prunier. Somaliland Goes it Alone. Current History, May 1998, P.225-28.)
While Somaliland has so far coped well with being outside of the major international organizations, it needs to be part of international institutions such as the international monetary systems, the International Postal Union, and other world organizations to continue the economic growth and attract international investors. Somaliland has earned its place in the community of nations at no cost to anyone. The world should not hold Somaliland hostage to the chaos in Somalia or the agenda of a particular country or the biases of some UN bureaucrats. The world should deal with Somaliland on its own merit.