Yet, it’s a strange notion that because Somaliland has shortcomings, it should be forced to remain in a paper union with Somalia, a country so dysfunctional it was the most infamous failed state on the planet for two decades. must be clear-eyed about the problems and encourage Somaliland to tackle them. Somaliland does indeed have democratic (and other) flaws, as I noted in my report. (The Freedom House report cited above says that Somaliland ‘has seen a consistent erosion of political rights and civic space,’ with minority clans subject to ‘political and economic marginalization’ and a serious social problem of violence against women.) This bill relies on a combination of faulty and incomplete information. Their bill paints a rosy picture of Somaliland and calls for much closer U.S.

The bill he refers to here is the bipartisan Somaliland Partnership Act: Next up is Gaildon’s notion that Somaliland’s insufficiencies are disqualifying. I’m sure Gaildon didn’t begrudge the Eritreans and South Sudanese their countries, or decry the U.S.’ recognition of them as a “stealth, neocolonial assault.” It is Somalilanders, and no one else, who have split themselves from Somalia, just as the Eritreans did from Ethiopia in 1991, and the South Sudanese did from Sudan in 2019. Somaliland then declared independence again in May 1991 and has been functionally independent ever since.An armed rebellion against the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre erupted in Somaliland in the 1980s, eventually contributing to Barre’s fall.Later that year, Somaliland officers launched an unsuccessful coup designed in part to reestablish Somaliland’s independence.They rejected in a referendum the union and the associated constitution in 1961.Yet Somalilanders immediately expressed their regret: In 1960, Somaliland received independence from Great Britain, and then shortly after joined with Somalia, which had just received independence from Italy. The truth is that the growing international movement to recognize Somaliland’s independence exists only because of Somaliland’s decades old decision to separate itself from Somalia. The ubiquity of this argument doesn’t make it any less specious. For them, Somalia is fair game, a guinea pig, something to be altered with the stroke of a pen. hellbent on reordering Africa as they see fit. Today, men in Washington-and they are once again almost all men-are working to decide the fate of Somalis …. The first is the idea that foreigners-and, apparently even worse, American men-are trying to dismember Somalia: Gaildon’s piece is an opportunity to examine several common claims made by Somali irredentists opposed to Somaliland’s independence.

The author, Mohamoud Gaildon, included as evidence a report that I wrote back in October. and elsewhere to recognize Somaliland’s independence from Somalia.

ran a piece recently warning that the American right is “waging a stealth, neocolonial assault on Somalia.” The supposed “assault” is a growing campaign within the U.S.

Affinity photo update 2018