Puntland, Its “Ego” “Injured” by Galmudug Recognition, Withdraws from Somalia; In Reply, Mogadishu Sends in Warlord

Recalled Puntland MPs returning to Galkayo after being recalled from Mogadishu

Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gas, president of the Puntland State of Somalia, which governs itself like an independent state but has steadfastly called itself a part of the to-all-practical-purposes-nonexistent country of Somalia, declared August 1st that his pirate-infested desert fief at the very tip of the Horn of Africa was withdrawing from the Federal Government of Somalia (F.G.S., also called S.F.G.)—such as it is—in Mogadishu.

Members of Puntland’s Council of Ministers
ratifying Pres. Gas’s withdrawal announcement earlier this month

A newspaper based in the neighboring unrecognized Republic of Somaliland, another fragment of the former Somalia, described the scene fairly dramatically: “This revelation was made by Gas during a post regional administration cabinet meeting press briefing in which he also ordered all legislators representing Puntland in the Mogadishu based parliament to decamp back to Garowe within 15 days.

The visibly incensed president Gas reported to have roughshod over his council of ministers during the hastily convened meeting on the night of 31st July at his Garowe residence.”

Somaliland is the area to the west of Puntland, though the border is in dispute.

Gas’s announcement of withdrawal was in reaction to a decision taken by the government in Mogadishu the day before to formally recognize as legitimately autonomous another de facto independent entity, the even-more-pirate-infested Galmudug State of Somalia, which lies just to the south of Puntland.  Galmudug, whose name is a portmanteau of two provinces of “Somalia”—Galgadud and Mudug—uses Galkayo, a city lying on the Puntland–Galmudug border, as its capital.  Puntland, which uses Garowe as its capital, governs only the northern half of Galkayo but claims all of Mudug, including all of Galkayo, its capital, as a constituent province.

It is not clear whether the Somaliland journalist or the Puntland administration itself is responsible for the awkward English version of Gas’s strident statement of protest, which states, “Puntland ego has been severely injured by the participation of the international community at the Mogadishu endorsement of the new regional administration.”

Somalian and Puntland flags flying side by side

But bruised Puntlandic egos may be the least of it.  Puntland’s withdrawal has led, among other things, to reports that a former president of Galmudug, the warlord Abdi Hassan Awale Qeybdiid (a.k.a. Abdi Qeybdiid), is launching plans to “invade” Puntland via the airport at Galkayo.  The same newspaper referred to above, the Somaliland Sun, stated that the office of the F.G.S.’s president, Hasan Sheikh Mahmud, admitted openly that it had hired Abdi Qeybdiid to “raise mayhem” and to “dislodge” Gas from power.

Abdi Qeybdiid (with microphone), pictured here in the days of his presidency,
is said to be gunning for Puntland’s current leadership—literally.

In what may or may not be a connected development, the chairman of Puntland’s military court, Abdirizak Haji Adan Ahmed, narrowly survived an assassination attempt on August 9th when gunmen said to be members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist terrorist network al-Shabaab riddled his car with bullets in Bosaso, the large harbor city on Puntland’s north coast.

Abdirizak Haji Adan Ahmed is the latest to be targeted.

This is not the first time Puntland has taken its ball and gone home.  Almost exactly a year ago (as reported at the time in this blog), Puntland’s president at the time, Abdirahman Farole, announced a similar withdrawal.  That time, Puntland’s grievances were over more general issues of sharing of resources and powers between itself and Mogadishu, as well as the status of another autonomous state within “Somalia,” Jubaland.  Mogadishu was at that point refusing to recognize Jubaland, which is in the al-Shabaab-infested far south of “Somalia,” while Puntland backed it.  That confrontation was quietly resolved in the weeks that followed.  (Jubaland is now run by an interim administration, while Mogadishu has taken over the running of its harbor, Kismayo.)  Through it all, Puntland never goes quite so far as to use the word independence, unlike its western neighbor, Somaliland, which announced a formal separation from Somalia in 1991 (discussed at length in an article from this blog).  That was the year that Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia’s Communist dictator, was deposed in one of the many global reverberations of the implosion of the Soviet Union.  The former Somalia has been in a state of constant civil war ever since.

Jubaland has also at times been called Azania and Greenland.

As of yesterday (August 11th), Gas said that he and the central government in Mogadishu were negotiating how to proceed, but progress had not yet been made.  He hinted that the objections might mainly be territorial, stating, “Mudug is partially divided.  Puntland controls the north and the south is under other people’s control.  We will never retreat from our rights to administer the north of Mudug region.” This may be a shift, since Gas refers here only to the northern part of Mudug.  But whether an agreement can be reached is another matter.

President Gas, waiting for Mogadishu to blink

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Puntland Now Backs Rival “South-Western State” in Somalia’s Jubaland Area

The government of the de facto independent but nominally unionist Puntland State of Somalia recently switched its support to a proposed South-Western State consisting of three regions in the mostly lawless far-south of the “Federal Republic of Somalia.”  Earlier, Puntland had supported the ambitions of another autonomous state, Jubaland, to win approval from the internationally recognized central government in Mogadishu for a legitimate autonomous territory—a status which Puntland enjoys.  (The proposed flag of South-Western State is pictured on the wall in the upper right of the above photograph.)

The March 31st statement read, “Puntland government conveys warm congratulations to Southwest State of Somalia’s people on their role in crowning an autonomous state,” and added that Puntland “fully supports the formation and the development of southwest state of Somalia.”  Jubaland has also been supported by the governments of Ethiopia and Kenya, two major foreign players in southern Somalia’s seemingly endless civil war against the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists of al-Shabaab.

Jubaland (which has at times also been called Azania and Greenland) claims Lower Juba, Middle Juba, and Gedo, three of Somalia’s 18 official regions.  South-Western State would include these as well as Bay, Bakool, and Lower Shebelle and would have a capital at the inland city of Baidoa, not the fiercely fought-over harbor city of Kismayo, which serves as Jubaland’s capital.  (The eight northernmost of the 18 regions are governed by two de facto independent “autonomous states”—Puntland and Galmudug—and by the fully independent but internationally unrecognized Republic of Somaliland.)  Somalia is currently in the beginning stages of a transition to a new system of federal states, but even their boundaries have not been agreed upon.

Madoobe Nunow Mohamed may one day take the reins
of power as president of South-West State of Somalia.

The administration of Jubaland bristles at South-Western’s aspirations, however.  A Jubaland government spokesman said last month that Jubaland officials “consider that administration illegal and its founders went beyond the constitution.” The spokesman accused Madoobe Nunow Mohamed, the recently elected “president” of South-West, of “fomenting violence since Jubaland enjoys wider recognition.”

Even true love doesn’t last forever.

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it some time in mid 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Jubaland and Puntland Deals May Help Reassemble Fragmented Somalia

 Farah Sheikh Abdukadir and Ahmed Madobe shake on it, and bring Jubaland back into “Somalia”

On August 28th, the Jubaland State of Somalia reached an agreement to cooperate with the Federal Republic of Somalia.  It was signed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, by the Somalian minister of state, Farah Sheikh Abdulkadir, and Sheikh Ahmed Mohamed Islam (better known as Ahmed Madobe), who only the most powerful and resilient of several warring self-proclaimed presidents of Jubaland, and not even the only one who claims to have been “elected.”  The deal allows Madobe to govern Jubaland during a two-year transition under a so-called Interim Jubba Administration (I.J.A.).  In exchange, the federal government will run the airport and harbor of Jubaland’s capital, Kismayo, and will absorb “all security elements” of what passes for government in Jubaland at the moment—i.e., Madobe’s powerful militia, the Ras Kamboni Brigades.  Though Jubaland is and will be to a great extent self-governing, this agreement makes nominally a part of a nominally federal “Somalia”—though true Somalian administration extends very little beyond the federal capital, Mogadishu.  The deal also represents a victory of sorts for Somalia’s prime minister, Abdi Farah Shirdon, who had been pushing Somalia’s skeptical president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud, to welcome the formation of Jubaland.

Jubaland consists, according to the new agreement, of the nominal Somalian gobols (regions, or provinces) of Gedo, Middle Jubba, and Lower Jubba.  Madobe’s Ras Kamboni fighters helped troops from Kenya and Ethiopia, under an African Union (A.U.) mandate, liberate the Jubaland area last year from an al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist militia called al-Shabaab, which has since been dispersed into the hinterlands.  Madobe then tried to set up a Puntland-style (see below) federal autonomous region in the south called Jubaland (also spelled Jubbaland, and sometimes also known as Azania or Greenland) but met with initial resistance from Mogadishu.  (Jubaland was listed in this blog at the beginning of this year as one of “10 Separatist Movements to Watch in 2013.”)

A Somali political cartoon addresses the controversy over recognition of Jubaland.
(This is only one of several proposed Jubaland flags in circulation.)

Two days after the Jubaland deal, President Mohamoud said the federal administration was open to talks that would repair relations with the Puntland State of Somali, a de facto independent parliamentary republic at the tip of the Horn of Africa which announced last month it was formally severing all ties with the Mogadishu government (as reported at the time in this blog).

These two developments indicate the possibility of the northern and southern ends of “Somalia” being brought into the nominal federal fold—or perhaps even more than nominally.  (Puntland is considered the northern end of Somalia only because Mogadishu has, despite official protests, in reality long resigned itself to the de facto secession of the internationally-unrecognized Republic of Somaliland, to Puntland’s west.)  The Jubaland agreement, in particular, is being praised by the United Nations (U.N.), by the mostly pro-Mogadishu international community generally, and by the government of Puntland.  But there may be associated tensions emerging in the nation’s middle section . . .

Jubaland delegates at an annual Somalia conference in London.  (This is another proposed Jubaland flag.)

In response to the Jubaland accord, hundreds of residents of Baidoa, Somalia’s third-largest city, took to the streets on August 31st to protest Jubaland’s reabsorption into Somalia.  Baidoa is culturally and geographically part of the larger Jubaland region and in fact used to be the capital of Upper Jubba province before internal borders were reorganized.  It is now the capital of Baay (also spelled Bay) province (see map above).

Protesters ralied in Baidoa, Baay province, on August 31st.

Like most parts of Somalia, Baay province is only nominally under Somalian administration, at best.  Local control is in the hands of clan elders.  An elder’s-council spokesman, Malaq Ali Mumin, who also represents elders from the province of Bakool, told media during the protest, “We have withdrawn our support from the Somali federal government in Mogadishu.  We call on parliamentarians and other federal government officials hailing from this region to come back.”  Elders said that federal government officials were now banned from Baay.  Mumin, of the elder’s council, told reporters that his organization was declaring war in order to “liberate the regions of ‘Lower Jubba, Middle Jubba, and Gedo.’”

Somali troops celebrating the taking of Kismayo from al-Shabaab in 2012

Jubaland and Puntland may be on the brink of being tamed and brought in from the cold.  But do we now have to contend with a Republic of Baay?

[Also, for those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with a forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  Look for it some time in 2013.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.]

Puntland’s Actual Declaration of Independence? Or Just Another Nail in Somalia’s Coffin?

On August 5th, the government of the “autonomous” region of Puntland within the Somali Federal Republic—a region which has been de facto independent in most respects since 1998—said it is now cutting off all relations with the internationally recognized but largely ineffective Somali Federal Government (S.F.G.) in Mogadishu.

The flags of Somalia (left) and Puntland

Puntland sits at the very tip of the Horn of Africa.  To its west is the de facto independent Republic of Somaliland, which since 1991 has considered itself both de facto and de jure independent of Somalia.  To Puntland’s south is the pirate-infested “autonomous” region of Galmudug, also nominally Somalian but de facto self-governing.  South of Galmudug is a vast patchwork of clan and militia territories which the rest of the world calls “Somalia” but of which only the capital, Mogadishu, and its environs are governed by the internationally recognized Somali government.

President Abdirahman Farole

At issue in the lastest dispute is the new federal system that the newly-christened Federal Republic is supposed to respect and implement.  Puntland’s president, Abdirahman Farole, claims that Mogadishu is reneging on promises of the “sharing of power, resources and foreign aid” in a way that is fair to the regions.  Mogadishu’s most concrete expression of disdain for federalism lately has been its refusal to recognize the self-declared Jubaland State of Somalia (a.k.a. Azania) founded by Kenya-backed warlords in the formerly Islamist-infested far south of “Somalia.”  Puntland supports the Jubaland administration—or at least the same one of the five bloodily competing ones that the Kenyan military also supports—but the Somali government in Mogadishu would rather pretend to the outside world that it administers the area itself, which it doesn’t.  Some of the al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabaab militants rooted out of Jubaland merely relocated to Puntland’s mountainous regions, a situation which Puntland also blames Mogadishu for not doing enough to fix.

Like any map of who controls Somalia, this one became out of date almost immediately.  Al-Shabaab now controls less territory than shown here, and what is shown here as “Khatumo” is now mostly under Somaliland’s control.

It is not yet clear what Farole’s announcement amounts to.   In his own words, “The fragmented country has been plunged back into a vicious cycle of violence, displacement, clan animosities, and a complete disregard for the country’s genuine Provisional Federal Constitution.  Puntland hereby suspends all co-operation and relations with Federal Government of Somalia.”  In one sense, this means a return to the situation that has mostly prevailed since 1998: foreign-aid agencies and foreign corporations and governments treat Puntland as sovereign but on paper call it a part of Somalia—almost the only politically and economically stable part of it, it sometimes seems.  So maybe this is just a return to the status quo ante that prevailed before the new constitution took effect last year, succeeding the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) that had presided over a bloody civil war since 2004.  On the other hand, maybe this is Puntland’s way of throwing out the suggestion that it couldn’t be any worse off if it took the Somaliland route: declaring independence and lobbying the world community for full statehood, without asking Mogadishu for anything.

Somaliland is not doing too badly, actually.  Just this week, the governor of the Mogadishu government’s central bank, Abdisalan Omar Hadliye, had to reassure the public that his office had not, as had been reported, pressured the United Kingdom government to shut down the Somaliland central bank’s contract with a British firm to mint the Somaliland shillin (i.e., “shilling”), the national currency. Hadliye reiterated that Somaliland absolutely has the right to mint its own currency.  Mogadishu makes a lot of noise about not recognizing Somaliland, but it knows better than to interfere in any concrete way with the sovereignty of the resource-rich quasi-state.  Puntland may be beginning to see the advantages of that approach.

After all, Puntland, with an area almost as big as that of the U.K. itself and perhaps 4 million people (“perhaps” because a national census is one trapping of statehood Puntland lacks), has elections and a parliament and government ministries, and an industrial sector, and it does a better job of policing its offshore waters to catch sea pirates than “Somalia” does.

A few days later, Farole clarified his position by framing his country’s new position in xenophobic terms, saying, “Puntland will hold presidential elections on 8 January 2014, thus the traditional elders are really required to select academics and talented Puntland MPs, not political spoilers or anti peace elements who are known for their violent activities.  Enemies of Puntland want to infiltrate troublemakers into Puntland Parliament but we are vigilant against them.”

Perhaps Jubaland will also try independence on for size.

If Puntland decides to opt for full independence, then Galmudug will have to decide whether to follow suit.  Galmudug is less stable, closer to the violence in the center of the country, and more corrupt than Puntland, but it also has potential.  Two other “autonomous states” of Somalia, Hiiran State and Ximan and Xeeb State, might find it a little tougher to go it completely alone—to say nothing of the war zone of Jubaland.  But even the loss of Puntland might push Mogadishu and its diplomatic partners to rethink the whole failed idea of a united Somalia.  Somaliland itself might be the first to benefit.

Oh, except for one thing: Puntland and Somaliland can’t agree on a border, and in fact have been fighting over a swath of desert in the Sool, Sanaag, and Cayn (a.k.a. Khaatumo) region (which has at times declared autonomy itself) for decades.  Somaliland only just last year managed to bury the hatchet with local warlords and pacify its eastern border.  That battle may reopen soon.  If, that is, President Farole is serious.  Which still remains to be seen.

Should Puntlanders be preparing to celebrate quite yet?

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]

Somalia the “Failed State”—So What Are Somaliland and Puntland, Chopped Liver?

On February 23rd, as I reported here a few days ago, the United Kingdom’s prime minister, David Cameron, hosted the 20th in a long series of international conferences on what to do about Somalia, the country that plunged into civil war—and stayed there—after its dictator was deposed in 1991.  The United Nations’ secretary-general Ban Ki-moon and the U.S. secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton were also in attendance, as was a global press corps.  The usual line in the press and in diplomatic circles is that the Republic of Somalia is a “failed state” and that this is why this strategic country on the Horn of Africa, poised between central Africa and the Arabian peninsula, is a haven for terrorists and pirates and a threat to global security.  So why did no one at the London Somalia Conference sing the praises of the Somaliland and the Puntland, two de facto sovereign republics in “Somalia’s” north which hold elections, carry out economic development, police their territories, and do more to keep piracy and terrorism in check than the ineffective, barely existent Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu?  In fact, why does every nation on earth recognize the failed T.F.G. instead of the success stories in Somaliland and Puntland (which sent delegations to a Somalia conference for the first time this year, as I noted here recently)?  The answers have to do with colonialism, oil, the war on terror, religion, and the usual impediments to any separatist struggle: diplomatic inertia and petty symbolic politics.  For the details, read on.

Somalia’s president, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed,

and prime minister, Abidweli Mohamed Ali, in London

In the 1880s and ’90s both the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Italy purchased land from different sultans along what is now the coast of Somalia, establishing a British Somaliland in the northern third of the country, on the Gulf of Aden, and a larger Italian Somaliland covering the rest of what is now the Republic of Somalia, including the east coast.  Interior areas were ruled by an independent entity called the Dervish State, which successfully kept the British at bay and crowded to the coast by allying themselves with the German and Ottoman empires during the First World War.  After those empires were dismantled at war’s end, the British quickly subdued the Dervish State with aerial attacks.  When the Fascist leader Benito Mussolini rose to power in Italy in the 1930s, he used Italian Somaliland as a base to expand his African territories, conquering Ethiopia and Eritrea from Emperor Haile Selassie.  This left French Somaliland (modern Djibouti) and British Somaliland surrounded, but still well positioned with strategic ports.  After the Italians lost the Second World War, Ethiopia’s independence was restored (with Eritrea as its possession) and Italian Somaliland became a United Nations trust territory.  With the benefit of an economically ascendant post-Fascist Italy investing in its administration and infrastructure, Somalia was fairly well positioned for the independence the U.N. eased it into in 1960.  It was combined with British Somaliland to become the sovereign Republic of Somalia.  For a while, Somalia was doing about as well as any other new African state, or a bit better.

Then, in 1969 the elected president was killed in a coup d’état led by Mohamed Siad Barre, who replaced its parliament and constitution with a Communist dictatorship as the Somali Democratic Republic.  When Selassie was deposed in a Marxist coup in 1974, the Soviet Union found Ethiopia’s new dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam a more ideological and congenial client and shifted its resources and support from Somalia to Ethiopia.  This led to Somalia’s unsuccessful war against Ethiopia in 1977 to try to annex the Ogaden, an ethnically Somali landlocked desert region which lies mostly on the Ethiopian side of the border.  The 1980s laid the Horn of Africa low with a devastating depression and famine, and the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 bled a lot of development money from the region.

Mohamed Siad Barre, hero of the people

In 1991, Barre was deposed by a largely non-ideological coalition of clan groups, backed by the post-Communist multi-ethnic Ethiopian government and by Libya’s dictator, Col. Moammar al-Qaddafi, seeking to extend his influence southeastward.  Soon after the coup, the clan leaders of what used to be British Somaliland declared independence as the Republic of Somaliland.  They have functioned as an independent state ever since, though without any international recognition whatsoever.  The rest of Somalia never had a functioning central government again.  Barre loyalists, supporters of the new government, and various clan and ethnic warlords wreaked havoc throughout the country, a situation which, combined with a new famine, led the United Nations to dispatch a peacekeeping operation called United Nations Operation in Somalia, or Unosom, simply to secure the delivery of international food aid.  The United States, under President George H. W. Bush (Sr.), also sent in a military contingent to try to stabilize the situation, meeting with a disastrous situation for the U.S. troops, which Bush’s successor, Bill Clinton, withdrew in 1993.

1992: the U.S. Marines, welcomed as liberators—or not 

In 2004, the Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) was formed in exile in Nairobi and established a foothold in Mogadishu, the capital.  Among its provisions was the granting of self-governing, but still, unionist states like the Puntland State of Somalia, which had been functioning as a large de facto independent state at the very tip of the Horn of Africa since 1998.  (For years, I assumed that the name Puntland derived from an Italian term for “Horn of Africa”—you know, punta, point, something like that.  Turns out it is named after the legendary Land of Pwenet, or Punt, referred to in ancient Egyptian texts but whose exact location is a mystery.)  Since 2004, the T.F.G. has never managed to extend its administration outside Mogadishu, but self-governing areas such as Puntland are nominally unionist: they don’t want independence, but they also don’t want to be all tangled up administratively with an embattled and dysfunctional “central” government.

The flags of the Republic of Somalia (left) and the Puntland State of Somalia

If anything, things in Somalia have become even more chaotic in the past five years or so.  Pirates who operate out of lawless bases on the mainland have been making the busy trade waters off the Somali coast a dangerous zone for ships of any flag.  The southern third of the country has become infested with a militant Islamist organization called al-Shabaab, which imposed shari’a law on the area it controls and has recently allied with al-Qaeda (which was driven out of its safe havens in Sudan first by Clinton’s bombing campaign and then by the hiving off of South Sudan under U.S. auspices in July 2011).  Even Somaliland’s control over its territory has now been compromised, with a pro-unionist (but not T.F.G.-allied) state called Awdal State or Awdalland consolidating its bulwark in far western Somaliland, along the Djibouti border, and a new clan coalition called the Sool, Sanaag, and Cyn State of Somalia (S.C.C.) (also called Khaatumo State) inserting itself along the Somaliland–Puntland border and taking over territory from each (including the former Maakhir State that Puntland had absorbed in 2009).

Approximate area controled by the Sool, Sanaag, and Cyn State of Somalia.

Rebels allied with separatists in Ethiopia still control parts of the Ogaden region in the interior.  Anti-Islamists in the far south, on the border with Kenya, in 2011 tried to establish a unionist state called, variously, Jubaland, Azania, and Greenland.  (This shows an unfortunate lack of research on the part of this fledgling state.  Juba is the capital of nearby South Sudan and was almost a name chosen for that country, as was Azania—a sort of all-purpose African country name which was once used for an envisioned post-apartheid South Africa—while Greenland ... um ... doesn’t somebody even Google these things?)

Map of Somalia today—or at least a few months ago.

The emergent Sool, Sanaag, and Cyn State is not shown here.

Jubaland/Azania/Greenland has had a hard time getting recognized as a self-governing state of Somalia in the way that Puntland and central Somalian clan fiefdoms like Ximan iyo Xeeb, Galmudug, and Hiiraan had been (see map).  But in late 2011 the Kenyan and Ethiopian militaries launched an invasion of southern Somalia in an attempt to uproot al-Shabaab.  For Kenya this felt especially necessary.  With the deadly al-Qaeda bombing of their U.S. embassy in 1998 still fresh in mind and escalating al-Shabaab incidents in their tourist-dependent north coast, Kenya has been suffering more from Islamist terrorist spillover than any other sub-Saharan African country.  The U.S. gave—and continues to give—its blessing and some covert assistance to the Kenyan operation, seeing it, pretty reasonably, as a front in the War on Terror and as part of a larger project—that included South Sudan’s independence and growing cooperation with Ethiopia—of encircling the Islamist areas in the Horn.  The Kenyan and Ethiopian armies’ progress has been slow—al-Shabaab, inconveniently, is popular among many locals—but they have also not lost much ground.

Kenyan tanks on their way to Somalia last year

Now, it seems a legitimate, even objectively laudable and noble, interest of foreign powers like the U.N., the U.S., the U.K., and France to clean Somalia up so it at least does not provide lawless zones that are a safe haven for pirates and al-Qaeda terrorists.  (See my recent blog post about how interethnic relations in Ethiopia fit into the U.S.’s larger Horn of Africa strategy.)  The question, then, is why have they not decided that the best way to do this is by recognizing Somaliland as sovereign, stabilizing unionist regimes in Puntland, S.S.C., Galmudug, Jubaland, etc.—maybe even Awdal—and forming a national government that way rather than by trying to expand the deeply mistrusted and irrelevant T.F.G.’s influence beyond the few blocks of Mogadishu it controls?  (Some of these suggestions are made in a trenchant Feb. 21st New York Times opinion piece by Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation.)

Map showing how one Canadian firm plans to carve up the region

The first and easiest answer is inertia.  The international community is always slow to recognize new regimes operating out of new capitals, and, as I have discussed before in this blog, horribly allergic to redrawing Africa’s boundaries—South Sudan being a significant new exception.  The Western powers have of course noticed the successes of Somaliland and Puntland, but why reward them with recognition?  Already, Somaliland is trying to position itself as an economic power, a plan that will benefit the U.K. more than anyone else.  The newly formed Somaliland Development Corporation has offices in London and was set up to smooth way for foreign corporations worried about investing in a war-torn region.  (Most foreign investors pulled out in the 1980s.)  Somaliland’s minister for energy and mining, Hussein Abdi Dualeh, has claimed his country has “hydrocarbon potential with a geology similar to basins containing 9 billion barrels across the Gulf of Aden,” according to Reuters, and sees Somaliland as a future major producer of oil and natural gas, as well as mining opportunities.  And Puntland—which is already cooperating with the U.S. and other nations in capturing pirates and policing the offshore waters better than any other organization can—has similar economic ambitions, and has no plans to send any profits to Mogadishu, not incidentally.  Puntland’s minister for international cooperation, Abdulkadir Abdi Hashi, said at the London conference, “We have spoken to a number of U.K. officials, some have offered to help us with the future management of oil revenues.  They will help us build our capacity to maximize future earnings from the oil industry.”  He mentioned BP in particular.  If all that is working, more or less, why mess with it?

Traditionally, I think, the West has feared that formalizing Somaliland’s status might embolden other, less well formed statelets elsewhere in Somalia to seek the same recognition—and some of them may be Islamist regimes that it would be harder to justify saying no to.  And attempting to fold Puntland into a more functional federation of self-governing states might bring those different pseudo-states to a state of war if they suddenly have to hammer out a shared government, with their different ethnic, clan, and sectarian values.  The West has simply long accepted the fact that Somaliland and Puntland are de facto stable and sovereign but need not be de jure independent, while the rest of Somalia is a basket case where the most one can do is keep al-Qaeda from gaining a foothold.  Compared to Somaliland and Puntland, the rest of Somalia has no significant resources anyway—just problems.

But now things have started to change.  The establishment of Awdalland has destabilized Somaliland, and now the president of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Gelle, a member of the Issa ethnic group, is retaliating in a water dispute with Somaliland by setting up a rival pseudo-state run by his clan coalition, called the Saylac and Lughaye State of Somalia, in the Awdal vicinity.   Military conflicts are erupting in Somaliland’s Buhoodle region, where Ogaden National Liberation Front fighters from Ethiopia are trying to establish a safe haven on the Somaliland side of the border.  The Puntland-based Golis Ranges Islamists militia has now allied itself with al-Shabaab—and, thus, with al-Qaeda—with the explicit goal of disrupting Puntland’s ascendant economy.  Instability is also growing in the areas controlled by the S.S.C. (some of it described recently in this blog).  If these crises grow, then the lucrative oil deals in Somaliland and Puntland, and their ability to keep their waters relatively pirate-free will be under threat.  The U.S., U.N., and U.K. have not yet begun to confront this reality.  But when the oil and other development firms start complaining that the area has become harder to operate in, believe me: the West will suddenly see stabilizing the north as a priority.  That will mean admitting the tack so far has been wrong.  I personally think they can manage that.

Informal militias operating in Somalia’s Buhoodle region

With al-Shabaab on the defensive in the south and stable modern democratic institutions entrenched in the north, it is time to try to expand stability inward towards Mogadishu and not—as has not worked for twenty years now—hallucinating that Mogadishu has a federal government and trying to expand it outward a few inches at a time.  Things are changing quickly in the Horn of Africa.  At this London conference, Prime Minister Cameron dodged all questions about Somaliland recognition.  The loyal B.B.C. threw the U.K. delegation questions about why al-Shabaab (!) was not included in the conference—a way of making talking to anyone other than the T.F.G. seem suddenly ridiculous.  Somaliland’s president, Ahmed Mahamoud Silanyo, had specifically announced that he wanted to make progress on recognition at his nation’s first visit to the London conference.  He returned home empty-handed this time.  But there is lots of money to be made in the region.  He may get his wish yet.  At the next Somalia conference, whenever that will be.

Edna Adan Ismail, Somaliland’s foreign minister, with her nation’s flag

[For those who are wondering, yes, this blog is tied in with my forthcoming book, a sort of encyclopedic atlas to be published by Auslander and Fox under the title Let’s Split! A Complete Guide to Separatist Movements, Independence Struggles, Breakaway Republics, Rebel Provinces, Pseudostates, Puppet States, Tribal Fiefdoms, Micronations, and Do-It-Yourself Countries, from Chiapas to Chechnya and Tibet to Texas.  The book, which contains dozens of maps and over 500 flags, is now in the layout phase and should be on shelves, and available on Amazon, by early fall 2014.  I will be keeping readers posted of further publication news.  Meanwhile, please “like” the book (even though you haven’t read it yet) on Facebook.]