How Union Saved the British Somaliland Protectorate from Annexation by Ethiopia

[Deeq A.]

Mogadishu (PP Report) — Under the headline ‘The Republic of Somalia: Africa’s Most Homogeneous State?‘ in July 1960, the now-defunct Africa, a magazine published by the Institute for Africa-America, dedicated a special issue to the formation of the Republic of Somalia following the Union of the Trust Territory of Somaliland and the British Somaliland Protectorate on July 1, 1960.

Political scientists at the time were pondering whether homogeneity provided a strong foundation for a nation-state whose citizens had experienced one of the most violent aspects of colonialism by European powers. The collapse of the state in Somalia in 1991, unilateral secession in parts of Northern Somalia, and the emergence of armed extremist transnational organisations prompted social scientists to revise their notions about post-colonial state formation in African countries.

Neither a homogeneous society nor a multiethnic society is a precondition for forming a successful post-colonial country. The Union saved British Somaliland Protectorate from annexation by Ethiopia. Unlike the South, which experimented with trusteeship and pre-independence self-rule, the British Somaliland Protectorate did not have political parties. The British Empire ruled the North through elders under an Indirect Rule. Sons of elders (Chief Aqils) were exclusively educated in Britain to perpetuate the system, but this goal ran counter to the pre-eminence of elders’ role in colonial administration. Educational opportunities provided by the British colonial system were far fewer than those provided by the Italian colonial system, and later, the Trusteeship administration.

According to Africa “[t]wo complicating factors noted by British planners were that the UK supplies nearly half of the protectorate’s revenue and that Somaliland’s current political leaders are new to the political scene, having come into office only in February…”

Britain did not know what to do with a Protectorate whose subjects were put at a disadvantage by the Indirect Rule and the violation of Protectorate Agreements by Britain, particularly after London allowed Ethiopia to annex Somali-inhabited territories that were supposed to have been protected from annexation. Emperor Haile Selassie, who benefited from the British violation of Protectorate Agreements with Somali “tribes”, suggested that the British Somali Protectorate join Ethiopia instead of uniting with Somalia in July 1960. He was attempting to take advantage of the vulnerability of the North to Ethiopian expansionism.

Recognising the annexation threat, leaders of the Somali Youth League (SYL) paved the way for union with the South to protect Northern Somalis from external aggression. By agreeing to union, the traditional leaders of the North secured a legal territorial status that was absent under Indirect Rule.

The political leaders of the Somaliland administration claim to have seceded from Somalia, a country whose territorial and political unity is inviolable under international law. When Muse Bihi Abdi, the President of the Somaliland Administration, signed an illegal maritime Memorandum of Understanding with Abiy Ahmed, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, in January 2024, he was following in the footsteps of Somali elders who signed Protectorate Agreements that the British Empire decided not to honour: an agreement between two unequal parties.

© Puntland Post, 2024

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