Our new generation need to know that our Country, “Somaliland”, is not an entity which was born after the disintegration of the Siad Barre dictatorship, they need to know that in recent History of Somaliland was part of the Uthman Empire under the Khalif of Egypt. It was then known as “ Arda Somal “—The Land of the Somalis or Somaliland.
In 1884, the British have taken over from the Turko-Egyption rule and established over this land the British Somaliland Protectorate. A country which on the 26th of June 1960 had taken its independence from Britain as the Republic of Somaliland…
These brief chapters are designed to prove beyond doubt, that the Republic of Somaliland was never an integral part of the former Italian colony, and subsequently the United Nations Trust Territory of Somalia. People who are not aware of these facts are invariably left with the mistaken impression that Somaliland is a renegade region of Somalia.
On the 1st of July 1960 this country “ Somaliland “, has voluntarily and against the wishes of the main body of the Political Leadership is Somaliland, had united with Somalia in pursuit of the ideal of creating a Great Somaliland, consisting of the five segments into which the scramble for Africa had divided homogenous nation. That ideal has atrophied under the Dictatorship of Siad Barre and because of the unrelenting opposition of all the International Community. There was a time when Great Britain under Tory Government have briefly accepted the idea and decided to relinquish the Somali inhabited districts of Kenya to Somalia. But at the request of Emperor Haile Selassie, President of America President Kennedy, have prevailed upon his friend Mr. Harold Macmillan, the then Prime Minster of Britain, to ditch the Somali cause. From the time all the international community stood together solidly against the unification of the Somali people.
Our Fathers and Grandfathers who have live through the magnificent years of the fifties will never forget that great wind of change which blew across the continent and that great continental levee-en-masse which for the first time in history produced a black, purposeful solidarity throughout the whole continent, and for a brief period gave to the people of all the African Countries a common initiative, a common purpose and a spirit of a nationhood. The independence which should have fostered that magnificent spirit and should have build nations on the Euphoria of the period and on the ashes of tribalism, have failed miserably. No attempt was made to pioneer a new form of governance. Instead a band of black men have merely taken over from the retiring former colonial Civil Servants.
The system of colonial rule whether legal or administrative was allowed to function as severely and obnoxiously as it did in the past with the only different that the enforcers of the rule were Now black men. In few short years the petty dictators who have taken over from the colonial governments have dissipated the euphoria and dismantled the levee—en—masse which should have carried the continent to new heights of human endeavor. The men that should have helped short of their eloquent rhetoric, the mediocre Harold Wilson who coined “ The diminished self pity. In France, de Gaulle was gone and the search for a successor is still going on. All these men in the pursuit of influence and allies for the cold war have abetted , encouraged and wooed an abrupt end with independence. The people of Africa were forced in silent rage to go back to the only social and political organization they knew—Tribalism.
The unification of the Somali people which was attempted in 1960 was part of that nation building and like the rest it died an untimely death.
Somaliland is now the only country In the Horn of Africa where an effective program of Nation building is being vigorously pursued. We have now conquered the anarchy bequeathed to us by the disintegration of the Dictator ship. Peaceful co-existence between all over clans have been painfully nurtured and is now fully established. We elected a new government and we will elect a new parliament that would lead this nation and this country to a renewed social and economic leap. We hope that within the next future we can redesign the pastoral nomadic existence of the nation on the basis of a scientific ecological engineering. We “ Somalilanders “. Intend to survey the whole country for underground and surface waters and then zone our pastoral land into seasonal zones.
There are men in Mogadishu and in other cities of former Somalia who having failed their people and ruined their country and in the process shed rivers of innocent blood, are now enviously trying to compromise and hamper our progress and our achievement. These men have no say in our affairs, just like they have had no say in our decision in 1960. In their utter poverty of political ideas and innovations the are clinging to one slogan which they repeat like a Parrot “ Babqaa “, unaware of its emptiness and insignificance. That slogan is ; “ SOMALI UNITY IS SACRED “ SOMALINIMADU WAA MUQADIS “ They have never stopped to ask themselves whether that sacred unity included the Republic of Djibouti, the 5th Region of Ethiopia , and the NFD of Kenya. There is nothing sacred about something that does to exit and we reject them and their childish slogan and their evil blood –stained leadership. We apply ourselves to address directly the whole international community and specially our brother in Africa to take notice of our existence, to recognize our sovereignty and to help the rest of Somalia to rid themselves of the painful burden of the war lords and to rebuild their county and their lives, as we did from grass roots of the Nation,” SOMALILAND “
ANIIS ABDILLAHI ESSA…..HEAD
SOMALILAND ADVOCACY GROUP
WASHINGTON DC USA