Somalia President Misinterpreted the Causes of the Secession War in Northern Somalia

[Deeq A.]

Mogadishu (PP Editorial) — The President of the Federal Republic of Somalia Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud granted an interview with Al Jazeera Television. President Mohamud talked, among other issues, about the war against Al-Shabaab. About the conflict around Laascaanood President Mohamud said that “some people in Laascaanood said ‘we don’t want secession; we are in favour of the Union’ whereas the Somaliland government says ‘we want to secede’. Hence the conflict.”

A clip of the interview with President Mohamud.

Although the Somaliland government is rejectionist— an entity that rejects the political and territorial unity of Somalia— it’s represented in the federal institutions. Last Friday in a Kismaayo mosque President Mohamud reminded his detractors that they “have representatives in the federal institutions”. By this he meant that decisions made by the Federal Government of Somalia have a popular consent.

The Federal Government of Somalia endorsed in principle the 6/2/2023 Laascaanood Declaration in which traditional leaders reiterated their political representation in the Mogadishu-based federal institutions. Why did Somaliland forces shell Laascaanood? Somaliland government is not seeking to secede from Somalia. It claims to be a republic that seceded from Somalia in 1991 and conducted a unilateral referendum in 2001.

In a Kismaayo mosque last week, President Mohamed claimed federal institutions “have popular consent.”

In 2021 Somaliland government forcibly displaced more than 1500 Somalis on the false argument that they are foreigners. Forced displacement preceded indiscriminate shelling of Laascaanood by Somaliland forces. The point President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud should have emphasised is that no Somali citizen should be killed or maimed for asserting his/her political identity based on a territorially and politically United Somalia.

President Mohamud’s claim that the Union is non-negotiable is not as legally robust as the right of the Somali citizen to be protected against the forces of a secessionist administration claiming to be enforcing colonial borders that ceased to exist on 1 July 1960, when the Republic of Somalia came into existence.

The Ethiopian government is working to bring the Laascaanood conflict to an end, an irony that, hopefully is not lost President Mohamud, the head of a state once blamed by Ethiopia for irredentist campaigns but is now grappling with a secession war about which the government he leads is incapable speaking frankly.

© Puntland Post, 2023

The post Somalia President Misinterpreted the Causes of the Secession War in Northern Somalia appeared first on Puntland Post.