REF: SLF/EC-02-02/03
DATE: Friday, October 11, 2002
Somaliland Forum position on the Somalia Peace Conference in Eldoret, Kenya
As the world knows, an IGAD sponsored peace conference is going to be held on the 15th of the October in Eldoret, Kenya, for the warring parties in Somalia, a country that has only known war and civil strife for the past decade. This is the 15th conference trying to establish peace and civil government in Somalia.
Somaliland Forum and its members from both inside Somaliland and the world over would like to say to the organizers, namely IGAD countries, that we very much wish to see peace established in Somalia. Having said that, we would like to remind the organizers that Somalia is not the same as Somaliland; it is Somalia that needs peace; it is Somalia that needs a government. Not Somaliland.
Somaliland gained its independence from Great Britain on 26 June, 1960, ahead of Somalia’s independence from Italy. Subsequently, there was a disastrous unratified, unconstitutional association with Somalia. What followed was domination and oppression by Somalia. From 1981 to 1991, the people of Somaliland braved the tyranny and massacres of the Barre regime of Somalia until they liberated themselves in 1991. It was then Somaliland and Somalia went their separate ways just as Eritrea and Ethiopia went their separate ways in the very same year.
Somaliland reestablished itself in its colonial borders and started rebuilding itself from the rubble to which it has been reduced by the Barre regime of Somalia. Today, Somaliland is a peaceful country, with a bicameral parliament, a constitution, and a free press. Furthermore, the people of Somaliland have voted in a referendum in May 2001 in which they overwhelmingly approved the restoration of their sovereignty.
We ask you not to repeat the past mistakes of the 14th previous conferences which invariably tried to confound the real issue, which is Somalia’s instability, by trying to coerce Somaliland into the discussions on the pacification of Somalia; this time there should be no place for unqualified representations through the now famous scheme of corralling half a dozen unmandated dubious personalities just to argue that the communities of Somaliland were, somehow, present in the proceedings.
Somalia’s problems are indeed deep, and it needs all the help it can get to extricate itself from its problems. But much clarity and sanity can be restored to the proceedings by not confounding the issues of Somalia with the issues of Somaliland. The issues of Somalia are those of a country without a central government and central institutions where many factions are facing each other and where fighting is a daily occurrence. The issues of Somaliland are about the strengthening of its young democracy, the upcoming local and legislative elections early next year, and the on-going reconstruction from the massive devastation and destruction it had suffered under Somalia.
The people of Somaliland very much welcome the efforts of IGAD countries to help Somalia; at the same time, we ask the organizers not to drag us into the problems of Somalia, and not to jeopardize our hard-won liberty, peace and democracy. We indeed would like to invite IGAD, as well as any other party, including the UN, the European Union, Egypt and other interested parties to help the people of Somaliland in strengthening their young democracy by providing assistance for the coming elections as well as for the reconstruction.
SOMALILAND FORUM