Differential Clauses in Protection Agreements Between the British Empire and Somali Clans Contradict Secession Claims

[Deeq A.]

The differential clauses in protection agreements the British Empire signed with East Sanaag Clan and Isaaq clans render the latter’s secession-based sovereignty claim over East Sanaag Clan territories  in the Federal Republic of Somalia null and void

Sixty two years ago the late Sultan of Warsangali Sultan Mohamoud Ali Shire, MBE featured on the cover page of History Today magazine.

Baran (Legal Commentary) — The secession war in Northern Somalia revived the debate on protection agreements some African tribes or clans had signed with the British Empire. In the Federal Republic of Somalia there are Somali clans that invoke those agreements to justify unilateral secession.

After the 1884 Berlin Conference to colonise Africa, The British Empire signed Protection Agreements with Somali Northern clans.  Although the key wording in the agreements are almost the same, Warsangali secured a protection agreement based on jurisdiction. The agreement with East Sanaag Clan elders prevented the British Empire from ceding the territory of East Sanaag Clan to other political entities even though other East Sanaag Clan subclans live in what was Italian Somaliland. East Sanaag Clan could seek redress through the Common Law if such a violation had  happened. 

The protection agreements the British empire sisgned with Isaaq, Gadabursi and Issa clans lacked jurisdiction clause. Due to this legal deception on the part of the British Empire,  Ethiopia annexed Somali territories that Britain was supposed to protect. Clans who signed a protection agreement without jurisdiction were not able to challenge the decision by the British Empire to cede territories in the ex-British Somaliland to Ethiopia in 1954.

The Warsangali clan signed a jurisdiction-based protection agreement with the British Empire.

Why is the Isaaq clan’s politiucal leaders are invoking a protection agreement to claim sovereignty over East Sanaag Clan territory when their elders were not able to stand up to the British Empire when Somali territories were secretly ceded to Ethiopia under Emperor Haile Selassie?  If the British Empire honoured the protection agreements with Somali clans even in the absence of a jurisdiction clause, the claim by  secessionist administration of Somaliland would  have been debatable. 

Breach of the Protection Agreement with the Somali clans brought about wars between Somalia and Ethiopia. Wrong interpretation of these agreements is fuelling secession war in Northern Somalia. The legacy of British colonialism in Northern Somalia casts clouds of war over the Horn of Africa. Britain cannot proudly talk of historic links with Northern Somalia when it violated protection agreements to give an advantage to Ethiopia, a country that was a member of the League of Nations and is a founding member of the United Nations. Why is Somaliland invoking a lapsed protection agreement to reject the sovereignty of Somalia? Ethiopia benefited from the claim to sovereignty  to negotiate with the British Empire to have  Somali territories ceded to the Ethiopian Empire. On 25 February 1955, the late Labour MP James Johnson had this to say about the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement: “The history of the case is in no doubt whatever. These people came under the Queen’s protection in 1884 and 1886, willingly and with full knowledge, and in 1897 we signed the agreement with Abyssinia without their knowledge, and, obviously, without their consent.” Somalis stood outside the sovereignty realm when Britain violated Somali interests.  The consequences have been inter-state wars and, now, intra-state war being waged by a secessionist administration in a politically and territorially united Somalia. 

The secession war in Northern Somalia resulted in political impunity caused by a wrong and violent interpretation of a form of protection agreements some Somali clans signed with the British Empire more than one century ago.

Adan Y. M. Fatah is a historian based in Baran, Puntland State of Somalia

The post Differential Clauses in Protection Agreements Between the British Empire and Somali Clans Contradict <em>Secession</em> Claims appeared first on Puntland Post.