Somaliland, Somalia, and the Ethics of Non‑Alignment
Recognition, Reality, and Responsibility in the Horn of Africa
The recognition of Somaliland would mark a historic moment—akin to Eritrea or South Sudan—not a geopolitical earthquake, but a shift whose ripple effects could extend far beyond its borders. Global politics has a way of humbling our certainties: the developments we dismiss as peripheral often become the ones that quietly reorder entire regions. And if there is any region that most needs such reordering, it is the Horn of Africa—a landscape where inherited borders, brittle sovereignties, and unresolved historical grievances have long constrained the possibilities of peace and dignity.
The early 1990s briefly suggested a different trajectory. Eritrea’s hard‑won independence was expected to redefine the region, to model a political ethic rooted in discipline, sacrifice, and institutional seriousness. Instead, it delivered a tragic continuity: authoritarianism, recurring conflicts, entrenched militarism, and an economy held in permanent arrest. A nation that once symbolized renewal became another tragic tale of how liberation movements can calcify into the very forces they once opposed.
Recognition is never merely symbolic. It reshapes incentives, alters political behavior, and signals what forms of governance the international system is prepared to reward. To overlook this is to misunderstand how legitimacy is constructed and how power operates—quietly at times, but decisively.
Somaliland has governed itself since 1991. It has maintained internal security, held competitive elections, and sustained broad popular consent for its sovereignty. By every empirical measure—Montevideo criteria, institutional performance, democratic legitimacy—it functions as a state. Its GDP per capita, roughly $1,500, exceeds that of Ethiopia (about $994), Somalia (around $763), and Eritrea (approximately $722), with Djibouti being a much smaller economy. These figures are not abstractions; they reflect three decades of disciplined institution‑building in a region where stability is the exception, not the norm.
Somaliland’s lack of recognition is therefore not a failure of statehood. If it were, most states in the Horn would have forfeited their legitimacy long ago. Somaliland remains unrecognized not because it falls short, but because the international system lacks political courage—fearful of precedent, fragmentation, and uncomfortable historical truths. The question is no longer whether Somaliland meets the standards of statehood; it does. The question is whether the world is prepared to acknowledge what is already true.
On internal security, rule of law, peaceful political transitions, and legitimacy in the eyes of its citizens, Somaliland stands out as one of the Horn’s most capable polities. It represents a rare case of bottom‑up state formation succeeding where top‑down models have repeatedly failed. If the region could emulate even a fraction of what Somaliland has achieved under severe constraints, it would be immeasurably better off. If governance were rewarded on merit, Somaliland would have been recognized long ago.
In this sense, Somaliland is a quiet beacon of possibility. It shows what communities can build when empowered to govern themselves, reconcile their own conflicts, and design institutions grounded in social reality. Its experience disrupts the fatalism that often surrounds the Horn of Africa. It proves that stability is not illusory, democracy not foreign, and legitimacy not imposed—but cultivated from the ground up.
For Eritreans—especially those of us who hold a deep affection for the Somali people—this issue is not abstract. Our histories are intertwined through struggle, sacrifice, shared adversaries, and regional entanglements. Taking sides is neither necessary nor moral. Fidelity to relationship demands a different posture: one rooted in problem‑solving rather than partisan alignment. The task is not to choose between Somalia and Somaliland, but to imagine a framework that preserves dignity, stability, and justice for both.
Slippery Slopes That Never Arrived
Opponents of Somaliland’s recognition routinely invoke familiar slippery‑slope warnings: borders will collapse, Africa will fragment, chaos will follow. These arguments are not new. They were deployed during Eritrea’s liberation struggle, resurfaced at its independence in 1993, and reappeared again with South Sudan’s emergence in 2011. In each case, the predicted continental unraveling never materialized. Pandora’s Box was opened—twice—and nothing happened.
What did happen is instructive. Eritrea and South Sudan became sovereign states. Both face serious internal challenges, but neither triggered regional collapse. Meanwhile, the crises engulfing Sudan and Ethiopia—their civil wars, fragmentation, and looming disintegration—have nothing to do with Eritrea’s or South Sudan’s independence. They stem instead from unresolved internal contradictions: elite domination, exclusionary politics, ethnic absolutism, theocracy, and the failure to construct legitimate social contracts.
Ironically, Eritrea and South Sudan today possess greater political agency and self‑determination than Sudan or Ethiopia, where the obsession with unity and territorial size has exacted an enormous human cost. The lesson is clear: neither sovereignty nor forced unity is a universal cure. Context matters. Political arrangements must be judged by their capacity to protect human life and dignity.
As Biblical wisdom reminds us, there is a time for every season—“a time to tear and a time to mend.” What was once united may need to separate; what was once separated may one day reunite. The moral constant is the protection of human life. As with families navigating divorce or reconciliation, process matters as much as outcome. It is process that allows people to adapt, heal, and choose their future. This is the ethic Eritrea should champion as a genuine expression of solidarity with the Somali people.
Unity, Size, and the Myth of Inherited Legitimacy
Across the Horn of Africa, unity and territorial size are treated as sacred. Yet even cursory historical scrutiny reveals their fragility. No one in the region chose to be Sudanese, Eritrean, Ethiopian, Djiboutian, or Somali. These identities were not born of democratic consent; they were imposed—drawn by colonial cartographers, enforced by imperial conquest, and later inherited by post‑colonial elites who mistook historical accidents for immutable truths.
Against this backdrop, Somaliland’s decision in 1960 stands out as one of the most remarkable political acts in modern African history. Just five days after independence, it voluntarily united with Italian Somalia to pursue the vision of a Greater Somalia—a project rooted not in colonial logic but in pan‑Somali aspiration. It was a revolutionary gesture: an attempt to build a nation on shared identity rather than imposed geography. But the union failed to deliver on its promise. Political marginalization, authoritarian centralization, and state violence hollowed it out. Thirty years later, Somaliland sought to dissolve the voluntary arrangement it had once embraced.
To insist today that inherited borders must remain frozen, regardless of lived reality, is to elevate symbols over people. Flags and anthems have offered little solace to communities subjected to marginalization and violence for decades. What people seek is not the preservation of political fictions, but peace, justice, and material dignity. By those standards, the region needs more of what Somaliland represents—locally grounded legitimacy and functional institutions—and far less of the dysfunction that has plagued so many post‑colonial states.
Recognition debates must therefore be evaluated not through abstract anxieties about precedent, but through their capacity to serve human needs. If pursuing peace and accountable governance results in more sovereign states—or fewer—so be it. Political arrangements should be measured by how they serve people, not by how faithfully they preserve the cartographic inheritance of long‑dead empires.
Somaliland’s Case in Context
Somaliland’s claim is distinct from most secessionist movements. It does not seek to redraw colonial borders, but to restore those of the former British Somaliland Protectorate, which briefly existed as an independent state in June 1960 before entering a voluntary union with Italian Somaliland. Legally and historically, this is best understood as the dissolution of a failed union, not unilateral secession.
For Eritreans, the analogy is unmistakable. Somaliland’s union was voluntary; Eritrea’s federation with Ethiopia was imposed through international maneuvering. Yet both were later flattened into simplistic narratives that obscured legal and historical realities. International law recognizes the right of voluntary unions to dissolve, as demonstrated by cases such as Senegal–Gambia, Serbia–Montenegro, and Czechoslovakia.
The African Union’s hesitation stems not from Somaliland’s lack of merit, but from fear of precedent. Somalia’s objection reinforces this caution. Fragile though it is, Somalia’s international recognition affords it decisive diplomatic weight. In global politics, legality often outweighs effectiveness.
For Eritreans who care deeply about Somalia, this reality matters. Somalia’s institutional fragility does not diminish its dignity or its standing as a sovereign interlocutor. Any durable solution must begin by honoring that fact. Eritrea itself has contributed significantly to strengthening Somalia’s security sector since 2018, following its rapprochement with both Ethiopia and Somalia. This stands in contrast to earlier periods, when Eritrea was sanctioned—most notably in 2009—over allegations of supporting armed groups in Somalia, actions largely driven by its proxy conflict with Ethiopia.
From Sides to Solutions
Somalia’s weakness is often cited as proof that negotiations are futile. In reality, it is precisely why the process must be internationalized or regionalized. Diplomacy operates on recognition, not capacity. Weak states negotiate all the time; what determines success is the integrity of the process and the credibility of the guarantors.
The path forward does not lie in brittle bilateral talks, but in a multilateral framework anchored by the African Union, the United Nations, or IGAD. Such a process does not require Somalia to recognize Somaliland’s independence in advance. What it requires is agreement on a legitimate decision‑making mechanism: legal arbitration, an AU‑led review of the 1960 Act of Union, or a supervised referendum. In both Quebec and Scotland, the right of determination was exercised through internal, legally grounded processes agreed upon by all parties. A similar model—or an adaptation of it—could be crafted for Somalia and Somaliland. For this to work, both sides must relinquish their preconditions: Somalia its insistence on permanent unity, Somaliland its demand for immediate recognition. The essential point is that Somalia should not feel its territorial unity is being ambushed, and Somaliland must acknowledge this sensitivity as part of a responsible process.
The international community must also temper its reflexive invocation of Somalia’s territorial integrity. If any state has failed to maintain territorial integrity in practice—politically, militarily, and administratively—it is Somalia. To pretend otherwise is to elevate diplomatic fiction over lived reality. Territorial integrity cannot function as a veto against legitimate political claims.
Agreeing on how to decide status is far less polarizing, and far more humane, than forcing premature agreement on outcomes. It reframes the question as a shared historical inheritance rather than a zero‑sum contest. A transparent, supervised, mutually endorsed process would allow both Somalia and Somaliland to emerge with dignity intact—whatever the final decision may be.
First Movers, Disruption, and Eritrea’s Restraint
Israel’s recognition of Somaliland demonstrated that recognition is possible—but it also highlighted the risks of unilateral first movers. Such actions can harden positions and transform legal questions into geopolitical bargaining chips. Yet Israel’s move also exposed decades of African and Arab neglect. For more than thirty years, regional institutions failed to meaningfully engage Somaliland’s case. In that sense, Israel’s action was less a provocation than a mirror.
Two wrongs do not make a right. Africa’s indifference and Israel’s unilateralism are both problematic. But to fixate solely on condemning Israel is to miss the deeper lesson: Somaliland can no longer be ignored.
Eritrea’s response—though marred by unnecessary rhetoric—was substantively correct. It rejected unilateral recognition and emphasized process, law, and restraint. This was not a betrayal of Eritrea’s history, but a lesson drawn from it. Recognition without process does not resolve conflict; it entrenches it. Process is not a guarantee against abuse, but history shows it is far better than its absence.
Eritrea’s restraint is not indifference. It reflects solidarity expressed through responsibility. Eritrea’s most constructive role is not to declare winners, but to preserve trust and advocate dialogue, dignity, and due process.
Conclusion: Recognition, Reality, and Moral Seriousness
Somaliland’s recognition is not a symbolic exercise. Recognition shapes incentives, rewards governance, and signals which political arrangements the international system legitimizes. The Horn of Africa has already paid too high a price for abstract unity and inherited myths.
History has shown that slippery‑slope arguments collapse under scrutiny. The region’s deepest crises arise not from self‑determination, but from coercive unity imposed without consent. The people of the Horn are not fighting for flags that have failed them. They are fighting for peace, justice, and the ability to live dignified lives.
From an Eritrean perspective grounded in affection for the Somali people, the task is not to choose sides. It is to insist on solutions that prioritize human dignity over inherited illusions.
If recognition is to come, it must come through process, consent, and moral seriousness—not fear.
To Contact the Author: weriz@yahoo.com
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