On December 12th 2024, a bill for the recognition of Somalia’s breakaway enclave of Somaliland was sent to the US House of Representatives.
On the same day it was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs by Republicans who see the idea of an independent sovereign Somaliland as an attractive proposition worth exploring to its logical conclusion in line with changing US interests in the Horn of Africa.
Somaliland which declared its independence in 1991 is generally not recognised by the rest of world which still regards it as part of Somalia, a country which has been riven and weakened by decades of civil war and an Islamist insurgency by al-Shabaab.
After a 33-year snub by much of the world, it appears that Somaliland is on the cusp of earning a big break with the international community. The prize for its patient waiting game with some of the world’s leading powers may pay off sooner than expected. The United States of all big power is on course for a diplomatic recognition of the territory as a sovereign state.
US politicians of the Republican stripes in the world’s most powerful and influential nation are already examining the bill which supports growing calls among Trump allies ”to recognise Somaliland of the Federal Republic of Somalia as a separate, independent country”. The bill correlates with a Trump election re-run blueprint entitled ”Mandate for Leadership, the conservative promise” outlining new ways of tackling various threats to US interests in the world including in Africa where Chinese and Russian influences have been growing steadily in recent decades. It espouses pursuing an aggressive expansionists policy to contain China’s growing influence in East Africa where it is fast replacing the United States as the most dominant foreign player to the alarm of Republicans who want a more head-on approach toward reversing the dwindling US hegemony in the Horn.
According to the blueprint, ”While the Biden Administration correctly identified China as America’s only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic,
military, and technological power to do it, it folded in the face of political correctness and sent the message that liberal sensitivities outweighed bringing justice to threats from China”.
Meanwhile its authors expect the incoming Trump administration to effect a foreign policy shift with respect to Somaliland which is seen by Republicans as a plausible alternative to former close ally Djibouti, a small maritime nation in the Horn of Africa with strong links to China. A recognised independent Somaliland would act as a buffer against Washington’s dwindling influence in Djibouti, they reason.
With a 740km coastline, Somaliland could seamlessly supplant Djibouti as a staging post to protect US trade from pirates from Yemen’s Houthi rebels and a bulwark for its greater geopolitical interests against Chinese expansionism in the region.
US recognition of Somaliland as a separate independent country from the rest of Somalia may happen just shy of five years since the territory pulled off a relatively modest and sparsely referenced diplomatic breakthrough with Taiwan with which it established official relations in 2020. Somaliland shares a lot in common with Taiwan, with both of them regarded by their ‘parent nations’, Somalia and China respectively as renegade provinces which should be brought back under their wings. Both Somaliland and Taiwan’s non-official statehood status had resulted from devastating civil wars when the central governments in Mogadishu and Beijing were weak to exert command and control. While the US foreign policy toward Taiwan has been ambivalent at best thanks to China’s growing status as a world power in recent times, Washington’s attitude towards Somaliland may be about to change with the incoming Donald Trump administration.
This territory, officially a unitary republic of over 6 million inhabitants and a land area of 176,120 square kilometres boasts of all the trappings of an independent country such as its own president elected every five years, a respectable currency, the Somaliland Shilling, and a total GDP of $3.782 billion according to a 2022 estimate.
It also has a reputation for stability and holds regular democratic election, which some pro-independent Republicans in the US senate say presents a compelling case for the territory’s recognition which would be of economic, security and strategic significance.
It occupies a strategic hub for international shipping on the Red Sea.
The strongest indication yet that Washington may veer towards recognising Somaliland independence is that Dr Peter Pham, a strong advocate of the territory’s sovereign claim is being floated as a possible official on African affairs in the incoming Trump administration.
Dr Pham is an avowed supporter of Somaliland as a sovereign nation and his writings stating the case for this have been very well documented, casting serious doubt on Somalia’s ability to leave its civil war ghost in the past and chart a new way forward.
In his opinion despite decades of US effort to normalise the situation, Somalia’s reputation is that of a failed state incapable of turning a corner while enumerating Somaliland’s achievements as a de facto independent nation.
Pam, a former special envoy for the Sahel and the Great Lakes Region during the Trump White House between 2016 and 2020 wrote on X (formerly Twitter) in November “The status quo of ‘faith-based’ support for Mogadishu is unsustainable.”
As the The Bill to recognise Somaliland as a sovereign nation may reflect a slow US policy shift in Somalia, the involvement with which recent US administrations saw as resource-guzzling and somewhat low on returns in tune with Washington’s strategic interests in a region replete with new players gaining a foothold. Washington’s “one-track” policy to further the normalisation of the security situation in Somalia will be under threat of folding up into oblivion once Washington’s tones down its involvement.
As Trump takes over the White House, some 500 US troops are in Somalia for specialised missions against al-Shabaab and their affiliates in al-Qaeda and building an elite brigade of the Somali military to protect the central government.
The US airbase in Baledogle, outside Mogadishu has been pivotal in the pursuit of the insurgents who still retain their capacity for ambushes and sporadic suicide attacks targeting the capital.
Both Somaliland and Somalia are keeping track of the Republican bill with keen interest as both entertain hope for different outcomes.
Somalilanders say if the US finally buck the international trend by recognising their statehood, this would be a long overdue and ‘well deserved’ recognition which comes with its own justifiable cost for what would become the world’s newest independent nation.
When opposition leader Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi won the Somaliland presidency with 60 percent of the vote in November last year, he pledged to push for international recognition of the territory as a country. Today this hopeful declaration is turning into genuine expectation with the vibes issuing out of Washington ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration.
For Somalia however, Somaliland’s future as a sovereign nation is a ”non-negotiable non-starter” because this would represent a violation of the indivisibility of the country which successive regimes in Mogadishu since the fall of Siad Barrie uncompromisingly hold to be inviolable.
Mogadishu’s sensitivity toward Somaliland and any suggestion of its independence came to the fore after landlocked Ethiopia sealed a controversial MoU with Somaliland to allow it trade access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognition.
Somalia saw this as an affront to its territorial sovereignty.
Reflecting this same position, Somalia’s foreign minister Mohamed Ali Omar issued a warning in the direction of the United States about the implications of recognition for Somaliland.
Recognising Somaliland’s independence while flying in the face of Somalia’s territorial integrity also runs the risk of leaving a dangerous precedent for other enclaves in Africa and around the world demanding their own statehood.
He also said it would lead to more instability in Somalia which would set off a dangerous domino effect on its neighbours in the region.
WN/as/APA