Somaliland officials, led by former President Muse Bihi, pose with US military and diplomatic officials after meeting at the Egal International Airport in Hargeisa.
Somaliland aspires to be an “independent” US military enclave in the Horn of Africa.
Somaliland is sometimes called the "Taiwan of Africa" because both are self-governing democracies that control and administer territory but with little or no state recognition. Taiwan is the only government that recognizes Somaliland as an independent nation, and Taiwan itself is recognized by only 12 states, the largest of which is Paraguay. The other states that recognize Taiwan are Belize, Guatemala, Haiti, Marshall Islands, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Tuvalu, Eswatini, and the Holy See (Vatican City). The People’s Republic of China refuses to conduct diplomatic or other relations with any of these states because it insists on the “One China” policy adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1971.
A secessionist state within the internationally recognized borders of Somalia, Somaliland pins its hope of state recognition on collaboration with the US/EU/NATO in North Africa and the Middle East. Like its extreme right-wing advocates and lobbyists, including the Heritage Foundation, it constantly touts its military cooperation with the US. In a recent conversation with The Guardian, its president, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, stated that recognition is “on the horizon” and that US military officials, including the Horn of Africa’s most senior officer, recently visited Somaliland’s capital, Hargeisa. Another Washington delegation, he said, would soon be on their way to “evaluate the asset,” meaning Berbera Port. Berbera sits on the Gulf of Aden, at the mouth of the Red Sea, just across from Sana, the capital of Yemen, right around the corner from the Strait of Hormuz, in the neighborhood of Israel and Iran.
“We are a partner in security. We are a partner in counter-terrorism. We are a partner in safe marine routes for world trade,” the president also told The Guardian. In April, US fighter jets flew from aircraft carriers just off the Somaliland coast to bomb Yemen in response to Houthi rebels’ disruption of Red Sea shipping lanes.
The 2023 US National Defense Authorization Act repeatedly referred to Somaliland and the strategic significance of the Port of Berbera while at the same time reiterating its support for the territorial sovereignty and integrity of Somalia.
With Somaliland already boasting that it can’t do enough for US/EU/NATO military objectives in the Horn of Africa, why would the US bother recognizing it as a state? Doing so would risk fueling conflict by encouraging other secessionist movements on the African continent and elsewhere in the world.
There’s also little to gain because Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has also offered Berbera Port to the US, claiming that it’s Somali’s sovereign right to strike the deal.
Senator Ted Cruz’s dream world
Florida Senator Ted Cruz took up Somaliland’s banner in a recent Senate Foreign Relations hearing on “China’s Malign Influence in Africa” with Troy Fitrell, the new Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. Cruz complained that China has been undermining American diplomacy and that of its ally Taiwan, particularly in Somaliland.
“In April,” he said, “Somalia banned Taiwanese passport holders from entering the country in response to deepening ties between Somaliland and Taiwan.” He accused China of providing support to anti-Somaliland groups, “leveraging Somalia against the pro-US, pro-Israel, pro-West Somaliland, because of Somaliland's relationship with Taiwan.”
How, he asked, could the United States respond to this and China’s other efforts to undermine Taiwan's diplomatic status in Africa and the Horn specifically?
The Senator seems to be living in a dream world, because Taiwan has no diplomatic status in Africa outside the tiny nation of Eswatini, formerly Swaziland, the only nation on the continent that recognizes Taiwan. As noted, China refuses to conduct formal diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes Taiwan, and what African nation, besides Eswatini, can afford to cut off diplomatic ties with China?
In 2023, Radio France International reported that Taiwan was trying to hold on to Eswatini, a nation of roughly 1.6 million people and its last ally in Africa, with a string of development deals.
Other small nations which once recognized Taiwan have derecognized it thanks to China’s economic persuasion.
Someone needs to explain to Senator Cruz that it’s too late to stop China in Africa, billions of dollars worth of infrastructure too late. Taiwan certainly isn’t going to do it for us, and neither is Somaliland.
What makes a state a state?
Internationally recognized states have various privileges such as IMF and World Bank engagement and the right to participate in international sports. They also have the benefit of international law established by the UN Charter, which makes it an international crime for one state to violate another’s borders.
What makes a state a state? First and foremost, recognition by the United Nations. To become a UN member state, a country must first submit an application to the Secretary-General and formally declare acceptance of the UN Charter's obligations. If nine of the 15 members of the UN Security Council, with no vetoes from the five permanent members, and then a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly vote in the affirmative, a country becomes a UN member state.
Recognition by individual states has at times been a stepping stone to UN membership, but recognition by individual states, including even the US and the UK, will not lead to UN member status for Somaliland in the foreseeable future. Russia and China would veto not only because of a general policy of respecting the territorial integrity of existing states, but also because of Somalia’s relation to Taiwan and its unequivocal, subservient posture on the US/EU/NATO side of the New Cold War.
Somaliland might aspire to the status of Kosovo, which Serbia, the Balkan state most aligned with Russia, still considers part of its territory. Kosovo declared its independence in 2008 and is now recognized by 108 of 193 UN member states, including 27 African nations, but not by Russia, China, India, or Brazil. It is the home of Camp Bondsteel, a regional command of the US Army.
However, Somaliland declared its independence in 1991, 17 years before Kosovo, and it still waits to be recognized by a single government besides Taiwan. Right-wing think tanks and pundits predicted that recognition would come with Trump, but Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Fitrell told Senator Ted Cruz that Somalis would be better off fighting al-Shabaab than fighting amongst themselves.
Recognizing Somaliland would also be problematic because its government lost control of significant territory to SSC-Khaatumo, which the Somali government now recognizes as its Sixth Federal Member State.
Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at [email protected]. You can help support her work on Patreon.
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