National day in Somaliland means joy, pomp and machines of war. On May 18th the president and assembled dignitaries watched, from the grandstand, the annual parade in the capital, Hargeisa, as police held back jubilant crowds. Acrobats, fire-eaters, cyclists and footballers flowed past, while a bemused lion paced in its cage, the red, white and green national flag draped over its back. Then came the coastguard and soldiers, fire engines and police cars, and finally armoured trucks, each one mounted with more terrifying weapons than the last. All in all, an impressive inventory of a state.
Except that Somaliland is a state visible only from within. It has governed itself since 1991, when it separated from Somalia after a bloody civil war. If not perfectly democratic, nor uniformly secure, it has done far better by those measures than the splintered country it left. Much of the time, for many of its 6m people, it has provided a taste of nabad iyo caano (“peace and milk” in Somali). It has a government, elections, army, courts, currency and passports. But when its borders are shown on maps, if at all, it’s with a tentative broken line.
In London and Washington a smattering of lawmakers advocate for Somaliland’s sovereignty. But Western governments, who have poured money into the faltering project of state-building in Somalia, say they do not want to recognise Somaliland before African countries do; and African governments, many of whom face their own secessionist movements, are loth to change the status quo.
That is until now. In January the president of Somaliland, Muse Bihi Abdi, and the prime minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed, signed a memorandum of understanding, the first step towards what would be a historic deal. “Ethiopia needs sea access; Somaliland, recognition,” Bihi told me when I met him at his presidential palace. “And we bargained.” | | |
